The Dreaded Declaration of Principles

I always struggled with the Reformed Episcopal Church's founding document called the "Declaration of Principles". This document was put forth by the founders of the REC as a document that would protect the church from Anglo-catholic errors and it was not to be changed. However, all the things that this document denied, we taught and practiced. I never even mentioned these founding "Declaration of Principles" to Holy Cross parish in Alpine because I knew they were contrary to what we believed as Biblical and catholic truth. I always felt pulled between the true Apostolic faith and what the REC had as a founding document. This was another instance where the beliefs of the parish were not rooted in the church but instead were dependant on the priest. This is an awful position for a parish and a priest to be in. So I began to think, Holy Cross could stay in the REC and continue to be contrary to the REC's foundational beliefs or join the Orthodox church where we would share a common foundation.

The Plurality of Anglican Theology

One theologian that explains the theological history of Anglican theology really well is Aidan Nichols who has written, "The theology of the English Reformers was built on both Lutheran and Calvinist foundations, yet it was never systematically either Lutheran or Calvinist. Partly from conviction but mostly from political necessity their theology was poured into an institutional mould which retained large elements of a Catholic structure. As a result, when, in the reign of Elizabeth, a reflective Anglican consciousness emerges, it sees itself not as a straightforward continuation of the Continental Reformation, but as a 'via media.' The history of Anglican pluralism derives from the intrinsic difficulty of defining such a via media, and from the resultant need to leave wide open a wide latitude in the construing of doctrine. Thus the via media idea, intended as a unifiying force for Anglicanism, tended to be disintegrating in practice. It could be used in a classically Protestant direction or in a Catholic direction; or yet again in a Latitudinarian direction—on the grounds that where so much is unclear, little should be insisted on. Again, Anglicans may despair of via media and take refuge either in Anglo-Catholicism [giving it a much larger keel of Tradition for a heaving ship- PMB] or in the idea of Western [Eastern?] Orthodoxy, in each case accepting that the supreme norm for Anglican faith and practice should be provided from outside Anglicanism—either from Rome or Constantinople. Finally, Anglicans may choose to regard the incoherences (yet riches) of their own Church as simply a microcosm of those of Christianity world-wide. In this case they will argue that Anglicanism has no distinctive contribution to make to the coming Great Church [an Anglican ecumenical and eschatological idea of the Church—PMB]: its destiny is to disappear, its triumph will be its dissolution."- From The Panther and the Hind by Aidan Nichols p. xix-xx.

Considering Western Rite Orthodoxy

Our desire at Holy Cross Anglican Church (REC) was to build a church that would be around until the second coming of Jesus Christ. We were convinced theologically that ancient, Biblical Christianity was sacramental at her core and we wanted to pass on to our children and the town of Alpine, TX a sacramental worldview. As I began to think about the future of Holy Cross and what exactly I was doing there, it occurred to me that this sacramental worldview could be shattered by the next priest that came to Holy Cross after me since Anglicanism is not sacramental at her core. The Anglican church allows room for both sacramental and non-sacramental theologies to exist side by side within the same church. For example, there are priests or ministers that understand Holy Communion to be a mere symbol, like J.C. Ryle, and others who understand it to be the very body and blood of Christ like Edward Pusey. Ryle and Pusey hold two theologies that are totally the opposite of each other and yet they are both Anglican theologians. I began to see that within the Anglican world there was no way to guarantee a continuation of a sacramental worldview because of the plurality of theologies within Anglicanism which has always been part of the character of Anglican theology from the beginning. About this time I remembered hearing about the Orthodox Church allowing the use of the Western Rite. Western-rite Orthodox Churches use the liturgy of St. Tikhon which is basically the Anglican liturgy (BCP) without the filioque clause in the Nicene Creed and a stronger wording that expresses the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Since Orthodoxy is sacramental at her core and the Antiochian Orthodox church allows for the use of the same Anglican liturgy that we used every Sunday with good improvements, then I started thinking that this might be a more stable place for us to build a church that extends into the future for our children and their children. I also noticed that in our present Anglican situation that the sacramental worldview depended on the priest being sacramental and not the church. In other words, the foundation of each parish in Anglicanism seemed to be the priest and not the church. In Orthodoxy you have a sacramental worldview because the church at her core is sacramental. So I approached two leaders on our church council (Vestry) about looking into the possibilities of Holy Cross moving to the more consistent sacramental place of Orthodox Christianity. There are more reasons that I had for considering Orthodoxy that I will share in later posts.

Three Things to Remember

As we cross the sea of the world, repentance should be our ship, reverential awe its pilot, and love its harbour. —St Isaac of Syria

Orthodox Nuns Live for God

SATUS PASS -- On a pine-covered patch off U.S. Highway 97, the Pacific Northwest meets the Byzantine Empire. Evergreens shelter a collection of structures that look more like typical Northwest cabins than a Greek Orthodox monastery. In the wee hours, the woods are dark. So still, so quiet, so peaceful. Elsewhere, bars are closing, truckers are making the long haul, children have been asleep for hours. At the roadside monastery at the edge of a forest, Greek Orthodox sisters are praying for them all. From this remote sylvan setting 10 miles north of Goldendale, more than a dozen nuns pray for the world. Their prayers continue until the stars disappear from the sky, the sun rises and shines, and darkness sets in again. Click on title to read more about these Greek Orthodox nuns.

Against the Protestant Gnostics

Gnosticism was an early heresy that challenged Christianity by believing the spiritual to be good and the material world to be evil. The Gnostics believed that salvation involves an escape from the body and the material world to become a purely spiritual being. The way to accomplish this kind of salvation is through higher and higher degrees of knowledge (the Greek word for knowledge is gnosis). A good book on this subject is Against The Protestant Gnostics by Philip Lee. This book articulated for me the Gnostic tendency in some contemporary forms of Protestant Christianity. Many Protestant churches have come to treat the creation as something evil while quoting Genesis 1 which calls the creation good. Some Protestant groups teach that alcohol is evil so that anyone drinking a beer is living in sin. This is treating a created good thing, beer, as evil. Another way some Protestants have some Gnostic tendencies is the way that some talk about life after death. I have talked to many modern, conservative Protestants who believe that they will live in heaven for all eternity as a pure spirit but of course this is in direct contradiction to the Christian teaching of the resurrection of a physical body at the Lord's second coming. Many Protestant funerals do not even mention the resurrection of the body in their funeral services. A clear place that reveals the Gnostic tendency of Protestant Christianity is in the Protestant view of Holy Communion or the Lord's Supper. The Protestant view usually denies that Jesus Christ is present in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. One view is that Holy Communion is merely a remembering of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. According to this view, knowledge of Jesus is what is important and so what the believer receives in the Holy Communion is simply a remembering knowledge (gnosis) of Jesus. One wonders why we need bread and wine to remember Jesus... could not someone just read their Bible? Another Protestant view is that the believer partakes of the body of Jesus Christ but only in a spiritual manner. This view denies that the bread and the wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. These views in practice assert the spiritual over the material just like the early Gnostics. The Christian view is that the material elements of bread and wine are offered to God in Holy Communion and God changes the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. This is indeed a mystery of God but the point is that we partake of God through matter that God has called tov meod (very good). As an Anglican I thought that I was avoiding gnostic tendencies until one day I started thinking of Gnosticism in terms of the Anglican view of the church. I later discovered that every Protestant Church including Anglicanism has to define the one body of Christ, the Church, in a Gnostic way. The Protestant has to define the "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church" as is confessed in the Nicene Creed in a spiritual sense because she does not share any visible unity with the other churches. However, in order to interpret the Nicene Creed in its ancient context, the Church has to be visibly one as Christ is visibly one and united because the Church is the body of Christ. Christ was physically and visibly one, so to define the church as a spiritual unity is in a practical way denying the incarnation of the Word of God and to hold a view that is really Gnostic. There are only two churches that are visibly united and claim to be the "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church". They are the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. So there are only two options for those who want to avoid a Gnostic understanding of the church (ecclesiology) and maintain an incarnational view of Christ and His Church. It was when I discovered this that I really started to be concerned about my Anglican ecclesiology because I had been trying hard to avoid Gnosticism. This really leads to an interesting study in seeing how a church's ecclesiology does or does not fit orthodox Christology which is something I began to struggle with.

Orthodox Christian Cassettes

The mission of Orthodox Christian Cassettes is to record, archive and make available audio cassettes and CD’s on all aspects of the Christian faith in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Orthodox Christian Cassettes is a unique blend of a loan library and a sales library. All of the tapes & CDs are for loan or for purchase. Orders are shipped out as soon as possible, usually within 48 hours. We believe good service is what people want and we do our best to be prompt. OCC has 600+ messages by more than 50 Speakers on over 50 Subjects.

A Sacramental Worldview

Man was created by God to be a worshiping being, a priest, who offers the creation to the Holy Trinity as a means of love and communion. I discovered this view from Fr. Alexander Schmemann who says in his book For the Life of the World, “man must eat in order to live; he must take the world into his body and transform it into himself, into flesh and blood. He is indeed that which he eats, and the whole world is presented as one all-embracing banquet table for man. And this image of the banquet remains, throughout the whole Bible, the central image of life”. The fall, according to Fr. Alexander, consisted of Adam and Eve ceasing to offer the creation to God and offering it instead to themselves and thus cutting themselves off from communion with God. In this context the Word becomes flesh and takes the cosmos into Himself and offers it perfectly on the cross to God the Father not as a satisfaction for God’s wrath but as a restoration of man to love and communion with God. This restoration is primarily experienced in Holy Communion when the Church offers the creation, bread and wine, with thanksgiving to God and God transforms what is offered into the body and blood of God the Son. By partaking of the body and blood of Jesus Christ we are united in love to God through matter. This view of reality is called a sacramental worldview. This sacramental view of reality is what I tried to get across to my parishioners at Holy Cross in Alpine through my introductory course to Christianity titled Tov Meod (Very Good). As this view became more and more a part of my Christian worldview, I became aware of a sad fact that while there were some Anglicans who shared my sacramental worldview, there were far more Anglicans who did not. While Anglicanism allows for a sacramental worldview, it is not at the heart of Anglicanism, since a theologian can hold to a non-sacramental view of the world and still be Anglican. As I continued to read Orthodox theology, it became clear that a sacramental worldview is at the core or heart of the Orthodox Church. I began to ask myself, should I remain in communion with a church that does not hold the sacramental worldview as an essential part of Christianity?

Fr. Stephen Freeman's Blog

I highly recommend Orthodox (OCA) priest Fr. Stephen Freeman's new blog "Glory to God for all Things" for your spiritual nourishment and encouragement. Click title above to read it.

In Appreciation of High Church Anglicanism

I spent ten years in the Anglican tradition and I thank the triune God for the time I spent in her midst. Looking back, I see that God used my time in Anglicanism as a time of preparation for the Orthodox Church and I do not regret a single moment that I spent in the Anglican Church. God brings individuals along many different paths to Orthodoxy and Anglicanism was a necessary part of my journey. There are some very good things in the Anglican Tradition. The one that sticks out in my mind is Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer (BCP). The BCP is one of the most beautiful compositions ever written in the English language. One can not help but have a deeper appreciation for beauty and reverence when worshiping the triune God using the BCP. The Anglo-Catholic and High Church Anglican traditions have a great appreciation for the tradition of the Church and the holy fathers that are part of Apostolic tradition. The importance of the church and sacraments are taken seriously and taught in many parts of Anglicanism. It is through the Anglo-Catholic and High Church traditions that I learned the importance of trying to maintain the faith of the church fathers and Holy Scripture and for this I am grateful. (My favorite summary of the Anglican High Church tradition is Vernon Staley's The Catholic Religion.) What this High Church Anglican tradition gave me was a sacramental worldview which really becomes the very point that drives me to the Orthodox Church. When I left the Anglican Church, I brought the best of the Anglican tradition with me. Now within the Orthodox Way, my sacramental worldview is whole or complete.

St. Catherine's Monastery Icons to be in LA

My wife and Abby Catherine's Patron Saint is St. Catherine of Alexandria. We recently found out that some of the icons from St. Catherine's Monastery in Egypt are going to be at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Getty Center) in Los Angeles from Nov. 14, 2006 to March 4, 2007. There is a good video, on the Museum page on the right, about St. Catherine's Monastery that I recommend viewing. Click on title of post to go to the Museum page.

Fr. Patrick Reardon

My favorite contemporary Orthodox theologian is Fr. Patrick Reardon. I do not know of anybody who is more deeply rooted and knowledgeable of Holy Scripture than Fr. Patrick. If I was in a Bible quiz competition then he would be the one I would choose to be on my team. I first encountered Fr. Patrick through his writings in Touchstone Magazine. I met Fr. Patrick at a Touchstone Magazine conference in 1999 where he spoke on the Fatherhood of God. It was the first time I had ever heard an Orthodox theologian speak. Fr. Patrick later visited St. Francis on the Hill in the year 2000 and spoke on the four-fold interpretation of Holy Scripture as explained by St. John Cassian. In 2004 Fr. Patrick came to Alpine for a conference we hosted at Holy Cross. Fr. Patrick is one of the main reasons why I am Orthodox. His solid teaching on Holy Scripture has been very influential in my life, but most of all he has prayed for me and my family since the day he met us. Every time I see Fr. Patrick he asks how my wife and children are by name. I know that he still prays for us by name every single day. The main reason we are Orthodox today is because Fr. Patrick never stopped praying for us in our journey to the Orthodox Church. Fr. Patrick has written some very good books. He has written Christ in the Psalms, Christ in His Saints, The Trial of Job and his newest book is Chronicles of History and Worship. His books are published by Conciliar Press and they are written in a devotional style. Thank God for Fr. Patrick Reardon and may God grant him many, many years.

The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers

The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers: A Manual of Preaching, Spiritual Reading and Meditation and The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture by Intervarsity Press were my two primary resources for preparing sermons. Having to prepare sermons each week gave me the opportunity to go deeper into the Fathers (early church theologians) of the Church. When I started reading Orthodox theology, I discovered that Orthodox theologians were saying the same thing in the same spirit that I was getting from the sermons of the Fathers. So reading the Fathers prepared the ground for me in understanding Orthodox Christianity and now Orthodox Christianity has helped me to see the theology of the Fathers more clearly.

Reading Orthodox Books

After teaching the "Tov Meod" course I decided that it may be good to actually read some books on Orthodox theology. I had a book by Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware on my bookshelf titled The Orthodox Church that I decided to read for the first time. I was so impressed with the Bp. Kallistos Ware's introduction to the Orthodox Church that I decided to order another book by him titled The Orthodox Way which I liked even better. I found that both of these books are good places for Anglicans to begin reading Orthodox theology since Bp. Kallistos Ware is an Englishman and former Anglican. I also ordered a copy of the Orthodox Study Bible which has some very good introductory articles on Orthodox Christianity as well as some very beautiful icons. I later read a book recommended to me by Fr. Patrick Reardon titled The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by Vladimer Lossky. It was through Lossky that I first learned about apophatic (negative) theology. A friend let me borrow his copy of Anthony Coniaris' book titled Introducing The Orthodox Church: It's Faith and Life which is very basic but helpful. One of the most influential books that I read on Orthodoxy was Fr. Michael Pomazansky's book Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. A Reformed theologian by the name of Donald Fairbairn wrote a book titled Eastern Orthodoxy through Western Eyes that allowed me to see the major distinctions between Orthodoxy and Western Christianity. These are some of the books that started me on my path to Orthodoxy and after reading everyone of them I kept telling myself that Orthodox Christianity is what I believe. But at the time I thought that I could just make Othodox theology a part of my Anglican theology. Later I would come across some problems in trying to do this.

Rod Dreher converts to Orthodoxy

Dallas Morning News journalist Rod Dreher tells about his journey from Roman Catholicism to Orthodoxy on his blog. Rod has written a good book titled Crunchy Cons which I highly recommend. I pray that God grants Rod and his family many years! Click the title of this post to go to Rod's blog.

Holy Cross REC in Alpine, TX

Holy Cross Anglican Church in Alpine, TX had just joined the REC before I arrived. Holy Cross was a small parish of about 20 people but they were an encouraging and enthusiastic bunch. They did not have a Sunday School program of any kind when I arrived so I started teaching the adults about basic Anglican theology from Fr. Louis Tarsitano's book An Outline of an Anglican Life. The study was well attended and grew as time went on. We went from an average attendance of 15-20 on Sunday to an average of 50-60 during the five years I was there because the parish was excited about what we were doing. Since the parish was small I had a lot of time to read various books on theology which was a real blessing for me. After about 3 years at Holy Cross, I started looking into various programs that we could use to introduce someone who knew nothing about Christianity to Anglican Christianity. There were programs like "The ALPHA Course" or "Christianity Explored" but none of them did a very good job of teaching the importance of the church and sacraments. I decided to put together my own introductory course that would include the importance of the church and sacraments called "Tov Meod" which is Hebrew for "very good". It was during my time of preparing this introductory course to Christianity that I started to read Fr. Alexander Schmemann's book For The Life of The World for a second time. This time what Fr. Alexander Schmemann was saying made a lot more sense. I was so impressed with his biblical worldview that it became the primary text that I used in preparing for this course. I also borrowed a lot from C.S. Lewis and a student of his, Harry Blamires, who wrote a little known book titled The Offering of Man. This book was saying some of the same things that Fr. Alexander Schmemann was saying in his book. "Tov Meod" basically became an introductory course in Orthodox Christianity in an Anglican context. Fr. Alexander Schmemann's book For the Life of the World impacted me so much that I decided that I needed to start looking a little deeper into Orthodox Christianity.

Contemplate the Beautiful

"It must be borne in mind that no single existing thing is entirely deprived of participation in the Beautiful, for, as the true Word says, all things are very beautiful. Holy contemplation can therefore be derived from all things." -Dionysius the Areopagite, The Celestial Hierarchy

Raphael House

This past Sunday Fr. David Lowell (OCA) who is executive director of Raphael House in San Francisco visited Holy Trinity and spoke to us about this important Orthodox ministry. Raphael House is a ministry to homeless families. Fr. David and his family have lived and served at Raphael House for 20 years. If you are ever in the San Francisco area please plan to spend a day or two helping out at Raphael House. Fr. David's son is a freshman at St. John's College and he was in town for "Parents Weekend". Visit the Raphael House website and watch their video by clicking the title of this post.

"Raphael House is dedicated to helping at-risk children and their families achieve stable housing and financial independence, while strengthening family bonds and personal dignity. Established in 1971 as the first shelter in San Francisco for homeless families, today Raphael House has a dedicated staff and Board of Directors from the local community, along with a small core of live-in staff who are Orthodox Christian. No religious obligations are placed on the families we serve. Raphael House relies solely on private sources to meet its annual budget. Support is received from individuals, businesses and corporations, foundations, church groups, and civic organizations that are committed to promoting stability for at-risk families. We do not seek or accept federal, state, or municipal government funding. By enlisting the support of the community for our work, Raphael House sets in motion a cycle of renewal. During the past 35 years at our Sutter Street facilities we have sheltered more than 10,000 children and their parents; and more than 12,000 individuals have invested financial and volunteer support to assist Raphael House".

An Episcopal Priest in El Paso

While in seminary a conservative Episcopal priest, Fr. Hal, came to Cranmer House to recruit some curates (assistant priests) to help him serve at St. Francis on the Hill. He chose my best friend and me to go and help him in El Paso, Texas. So I was made a deacon and a few months later a priest in the Episcopal Church and my first assignment was St. Francis on the Hill. I gained a lot of practical experience at St. Francis and I got to see an Anglo-Catholic in action. Fr. Hal was planning to retire soon and he spoke often of converting to Orthodoxy once he retired. At the time I did not think much about converting to Orthodoxy, but I heard everything he said about it and it stayed with me. Fr. Hal and his wife converted to Orthodoxy shortly after his retirement. St. Francis on the Hill was a parish with many problems. The main problem that I saw was that there were many different theologies in the parish. We had Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics, and Liberals in one parish. What I discovered was that each group came in with a certain priest. When an Evangelical priest served the parish he attracted evangelicals. When an Anglo-Catholic served the parish the new members he attracted were Anglo-Catholics. And when a Liberal priest served the parish he attracted new liberal members. So when a new priest came to serve St. Francis he inherited all of these various and contradicting theologies that caused many problems in the parish. I would later discover that this was not just a St. Francis on the Hill problem but an Anglican problem. I spent a year in the Episcopal Church before I decided that the more conservative Reformed Episcopal Church was where I would rather serve. So I received and accepted a call in the year 2000 to serve at Holy Cross REC in Alpine, Texas.

Fr. Stephen Freeman's Journey

Fr. Stephen is the Orthodox representative on Pontifications and his journey from Anglicanism to Orthodoxy is told on AncientFaith Radio. Listen for an inspiring conversation with Fr. Stephen Freeman, priest at St. Anne Orthodox Church in Oak Ridge, TN. Fr. Stephen is one of many Anglican priests who made his way to Orthodoxy. This is an honest and fascinating glimpse into the journey of a priest and his family. http://www.ancientfaithradio.com/archives.html

Hints of Orthodoxy in Seminary

It was at an Anglican seminary, Cranmer Theological House, that I was first introduced to Orthodox Christianity. Fr. Alexander Schmemann's book For the Life of the World was recommended to me by some of my fellow seminary students. I read For the Life of the World and liked what Fr. Alexander Schmemann said about the Eucharist, which I passed off by saying it was similar to John Calvin's view of the Eucharist. The Orthodox distinctives did not really stick to me at the time, but an Orthodox seed was planted. One of my seminary professors was very sympathetic to Orthodox theology. There were two things I distinctly remember this professor teaching that I did not agree with at the time. First, that Holy Scripture was part of the Tradition of the church, rather than torn apart like it often is in the West as Scripture and Tradition. Second, that confirmation (chrismation) belongs with baptism rather than separating baptism and confirmation like is practiced in the West. The last thing that I learned from the dean of our seminary was the Orthodox practice of paedo-communion (infants and young children partaking of Holy Communion) which the Western church stopped practicing in the Middle Ages. These three issues, along with Fr. Alexander Schmemann's book, would play a big part in my consideration of Orthodox Christianity in the future.

A Gift from a Carmelite Monk

The best gift I have ever received was from a Carmelite monk in California. My wife and I were traveling beside the Pacific Ocean on highway 1 in California with some friends when we decided to stop at a Carmelite monastery. Our main reason for stopping at the monastery was to see what books they had in their bookstore. It was at this bookstore that I bought a copy of The Country Parson by George Herbert which is one of my favorite books in the Anglican tradition. I thought I was taking away the best thing in the bookstore but I was wrong. As we were leaving the bookstore a Carmelite monk stopped us and said that he wanted to give us a gift. He gave us a small icon of Rublev's Hospitality of Abraham which is an icon of the Holy Trinity which you see posted here. I had no idea what an icon was but I knew it was beautiful. Little did I know that it would be used in the future by God to change my life. I kept the icon in my desk drawer for ten years before I started wondering about it. I discovered that icons are a very important part of Orthodox spirituality because they affirm the fact of history that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us". Icons are also a way that those who could not read Holy Scripture could learn and remember the Orthodox Faith. Icons are simply Holy Scripture made visible just as the Word, Jesus Christ, is made visible through the incarnation. I later discovered that the icon of the Holy Trinity summarizes the Christian Faith better than any sermon could because in one picture the meaning of existence is expressed. The meaning of existence is communion with God in and through matter which is seen by what is in the middle of the three persons of the one God. The chalice in the middle of the Holy Trinity teaches us that life is sacramental and the sacrament of Holy Communion is central to our communion with God. If you want to know the meaning of life, then study this icon of the Holy Trinity. When I realized what this icon was expressing, I started to get a thirst for Orthodox Christianity because a sacramental view of reality is at the very heart of Orthodoxy. Ironically a Roman Catholic monk's gift began to stir in me a longing for things Orthodox.

Fr. Arseny

I am presently reading a book about Fr. Arseny who spent time in Stalin's Siberian prison camp because of his Orthodox Faith. This book is full of many humbling and inspiring stories of a man who loved his enemies and suffered many horrible things out of his love for others. I want to be the kind of Christian Fr. Arseny is though not in Siberia. Fr. Arseny reveals what Orthodox spirituality is all about. Frederica Mathewes-Green gives a good brief introduction to Fr. Arseny on her web site at http://www.frederica.com/writings/father-arseny.html .

The Protection of the Most-holy Theotokos

John Calvin Helped me Become Orthodox

Believe it or not, John Calvin was one of the stepping stones on my path to becoming Orthodox. Most people think of John Calvin in terms of predestination but really predestination was only a small part of his overall theology. It is important to distinguish John Calvin from modern reformed theology. Modern reformed theology tends to emphasize the doctrine of election or predestination above all else while John Calvin was more interested in how a person is united to Christ through the church and sacraments. John Calvin's view of predestination was worked out through the church and sacraments while much of contemporary reformed theology does not make this important connection. This is why many conservative Presbyterian churches are closer to the Baptist tradition than to John Calvin. So while I totally reject Calvin's view of predestination, I appreciate what I learned from him about the importance of the church and sacraments. I did not learn about John Calvin's theology from the Calvinists but from actually reading Calvin's famous Institutes of the Christian Religion. John Calvin's teaching on the church and sacraments became an important step up towards Orthodox Christianity.