Why Should an Episcopalian Become Orthodox?

I appreciate the Pontificator’s invitation to write on this topic. Please forgive its autobiographical character, but it’s the best way I know to approach the subject.

In February, 1998, after 18 years of ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church, my family and I were received into the Orthodox Church. That decision was not primarily based on a “need to leave” the Episcopal Church so much as a “need to be Orthodox,” for want of a better expression.

My first introduction to Orthodox theology came in the mid-70s, before I entered seminary. A Christian friend gave me a copy of Vladimir Lossky’s Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, one of the seminal works of 20th century Orthodox theology. I was active in a charismatic house-church at the time, but was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the experience (subject for a different article sometime). Reading Lossky was part of a series of things that made me understand that Christianity without a grounding in Holy Tradition was deeply lacking. That realization sent me back to the Episcopal Church. The year was 1975, and nothing noticeable had changed in the parish I had wandered out of to explore the charismatic experience. The prayerbooks were the same. The hymnals were the same. The sermons were the same - not always exciting, but solid and sound. The sense that Tradition was alive and well permeated things, and I enjoyed being back home.

In 1977 I entered seminary - and, of course, things were changing. My interest in Orthodox theology was not changing, however. One of my professors, Fr. Winston Crum, was on the Anglican-Orthodox Dialog group. He had done his doctorate at Harvard under Fr. Georges Florovsky, one of the great figures in 20th century Orthodox theology. Fr. Crum took me to a meeting where I heard Fr. Alexander Schmemann lecture. Fr. Timothy Ware (now Bishop Kallistos) came to our seminary as a guest lecturer. I met Anatoly Krasnov-Levitin, a close associate of Alexander Solzhenitsyn during this same time period. And all of these meetings confirmed what I found in books of Orthodox theology. Holy Tradition was alive and well, believed, practiced, and normative in the lives of these spiritual giants (or so I see them now).

None of that made me consider the idea of becoming Orthodox. I was an Anglican. I thought a great deal about Orthodox theology, and its kinship with much of Anglicanism and gradually became aware that the kinship was more than cursory. Reading Orthodox theology and mining it for its understanding of the faith seemed perfectly natural to me - in a way that reading almost any Anglican writer did not. I never felt the need to be on my guard or to second guess Orthodox authors. I rarely read an Anglican in that manner (with the later exception of things written by such men as Al Kimel).

My relationship to Orthodox thought changed somewhere in the course of the late 80s when I began work on a degree in Systematic Theology at Duke. The chairman of my committee was Geoffrey Wainwright, a British Methodist who had himself done doctoral work under Nikos Nissiotis (an outstanding Greek theologian who died far too young). Studying under Wainwright was similar to my experience with Winston Crum. I read Orthodox theology under his guidance and wound up writing my thesis on the theology of icons. I think that it was during that time that my inner attitude towards Orthodoxy began to change. I started running across articles about people who had converted to Orthodoxy. Their stories were as varied as their backgrounds and situations - but all had something in common - and I sensed a kinship with that common experience.

I had begun with an attitude towards Orthodox theology that said, “This is reliable,” and was coming to a deeper realization that said, “This is the truth.”

As strange as it may sound, I had been reading Orthodox works for 15 years - and had yet to step inside an Orthodox Church. I remember being in Washington, D.C. for a conference around that time, along with my wife. We made the obligatory visit to the Episcopal National Cathedral, for our first time. It was impressive, but mostly as an edifice. The Cathedral was gothic and grand, but empty. I was aware that the architecture said one thing, and that the services there and the clergy would say something completely different. Driving away from the Cathedral, we saw a sign for St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral (it’s just down the street a bit). I remember circling the block slowly. Our windows were down - it was afternoon - and we could here the music of a service inside. (I know now that it was Vespers). My wife enthusiastically suggested, “Let’s go inside!” But I said no. “I’m afraid that if I go in, I won’t be able to come out.”

That was one experience among many of that time, revealing to both myself and my wife a hunger for less division in our lives between the Church we lived in and the Church we believed in. Within a couple of years we were attending Orthodox services when we were on vacation. I met Archbishop Dmitri of the Orthodox Church in America (my bishop today). I met priests, visited monasteries, and came to know that reading theology was a sad substitute for the life of living theology. Much happened over the next number of years. At the end of ‘97, a job offer came my way, providing employment apart from the parish I’d been serving. We had already made a commitment to each other, to Archbishop Dmitri, and more importantly, a commitment to God, that we wanted to enter the Orthodox Church. I took the job, renounced my orders in the Episcopal Church, and entered a period of training and preparation. In November of ‘98 I was ordained deacon, and in March of ‘99 I was ordained priest. By July of ‘99 I had given up secular employment in order to serve the growing mission we had helped start in the Knoxville, Tennessee area.

This short account illustrates the only answer I can give to an Episcopalian (or anyone else for that matter). The primary reason that someone should become Orthodox is that they have come to believe that it is True. I think believing anything less than that is less than becoming Orthodox. I cannot say to someone, “You must be Orthodox.” Not because I don’t believe it’s true, or that I believe it’s only true for some: I believe that God has to tell you that it’s true or it won’t really matter. And only God can do that.

It is a simple fact of history that the Orthodox Church is continuous with the original Church. Indeed, no one really questions the claims that the Orthodox Church is what it claims to be, “the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” Others will speak of it as one of the “two lungs” of the Church (that’s one of Rome’s suggestions). Anglicans have said that Orthodoxy is one of the “three branches” of the Church. Orthodoxy, without seeking to unchurch anyone else, simply says that it is the “fullness” of the Church. On at least one level this is true in a way that can only be theoretical elsewhere. Orthodoxy is a Church without Reformation, Renaissance, Counter-Reformation, liturgical renewal, modernization, or much else that has made the Churches across the contemporary scene unrecognizable in their apostolic origins (if they even claim them). Not that Orthodoxy is unchanging. It is alive and has changed, though in that change, the Orthodox would say they have remained the same, and I believe this to be true. When I read St. Athanasius or other fathers of the Church, their works and the Church services I am in, week in and week out, are of a piece.

I was an Anglican because I was taught that it was part of the Holy Catholic Church - that Scripture, Reason and Tradition were its sources of authority. For some time Anglicanism nurtured a hunger for the reality that is Christ’s Church. I am Orthodox because it is the Holy Catholic Church, the Pillar and Ground of Truth. It is a hunger satisfied.

An Episcopalian should become Orthodox if he believes Orthodoxy to be the Truth. Knowing that, or coming to know that, is a reality that has to come from God.

I think I can say very positively, that Anglicanism, at its best and in its finest historical moments, has always tended towards something like Orthodoxy, or even longed for union with Orthodoxy itself. It was and is a right instinct.

The battles raging in Churches today are not confined to Anglicanism. I have heard numerous theories as to why different groups are subject to these troubles. Some offer critiques of the Reformation or blame the rise of modernism on the intellectual history of the West. Apostasy and faithlessness are possible anywhere at any time. Orthodoxy is the 2,000-year-old communion of the faithful who have wrestled with heresies and persecutions and triumphed.

I expected Orthodoxy to be ethnically foreign and closed to the outside. I have found something quite different. Though Orthodoxy has its ethnicity (as does Anglicanism), it is by no means a closed group. Probably more than half the student body in the two seminaries of the Orthodox Church in America are converts - as are a majority of the Bishops in the Holy Synod. Converts are not second-class citizens.

Again, my thanks to the Pontificator for his kind invitation to write on this topic. I pray for you and encourage you to be faithful to Christ in all things.

Now I am thoroughly confused. One of the prime links on that page is to "Lancelot Andrewes Press." I know Jeff, the "Meam Commemorationem", is studying Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (for his doctorate?), and had tied him to the earlier Anglican church -- not the Orthodox. Is he responsible for that "spark of Orthodoxy" some say they see in Anglicanism? There is material here I do not know.

Hmmm... reading... "The English Church commemorates Andrewes on the 25th September."

"This year, 2005, on the 3rd November, will be the 400th anniversary of Lancelot Andrewes' consecration as a bishop in the Church of God. It would be wonderful if the English Church and its Communion could celebrate this."

(P.S. I am about to go offliine in advance of a busy week away; I don't know when I will be able to return to this thread.)

Lancelot Andrewes always looked East towards Orthodoxy. One of the Lossky's has written the definitive biography and analysis of Andrewes' life and theology. Andrewes is without a doubt the most Eastern leaning of all Anglican divines - I think that is fair to say. So the Lancelot Andrewes Press tries to publish things that are of use to Western Rite Orthodox and others interested in the Orthodox heart within Anglicanism.

There has been a study of Lancelet Andrewes orders that would lead one to a positive judgment as to their apostolic validity both from an Eastern Orthodox and a Roman Catholic point of view.

I love his Preces Privitae, and have used them for some time. They help temper my profoundly wretched temper and turn me to the Holy Trinity and the most glorious all holy and most pure Blessed Virgin Mary.

The festival on 10/2 will run beginning after liturgy, about noon, until 5 or 6 pm. So come on over and look us up. :-)
If you need directions, look here.

Everyone working will know me, for the most part, though the parish has grown tremendously in the last few years. I don't know yet if/where I will work. The sign up sheets were supposed to be up last Sunday but were not. I know my oldest daughter Tania is serving meals in the hall. I will send you a freepmail with more about this, now that I think about it.

The piroshki and pastries are usually very well-priced, and quite yummy.

"Why should an Episcopalian become 'Orthodox'..."....I don't have the slightest idea nor am I interested. Although I certainly can understand why someone might want to leave the Apostate Episcopal Church.

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