34 :: An Orthodox Church Plant

I had a very interesting experience today. I attended an Orthodox service on a Saturday, in a Catholic Church... and virtually all of the people in the congregation were young evangelical families that were in the process of converting to Eastern Orthodoxy. This particular Orthodox Church is aligned with the Antiochian branch of Orthodoxy. Antioch is in modern day Turkey.

Yes, indeed - this was a very interesting thing to see. Extremely engaging and fascinating to me.

This church does not yet have a name, thus the cryptic title above.

My friend Scott, himself a former Presbyterian who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy twenty-five years ago, learned of an Orthodox congregation that was starting up in Concord, North Carolina. The congregation is almost entirely made up of young families that are converting to Orthodoxy. These are former Protestants and evangelicals that are making a change that reverts their religious context back to the first century church.

I arrived at Guadalupe Hall in Concord, a small Catholic Church that serves the burgeoning Hispanic community in Charlotte. They let the Orthodox use their building on Saturday. I joined a class where a Priest was teaching the young congregants about Orthodox theology. 

Here are some pictures of that:

The Priest did an excellent job summarizing the highest level of detail on Orthodox theology. The thing that jumped out of this lesson was that all of reality is about becoming God-like. There is either God's way or Satan's way of doing it.

In God's way, you start to adopt the character of Christ, who lives in you through the Holy Spirit... partaking in the fruit of The Tree of Life. In Satan's way, you are the god of your own life, asserting autonomy and ownership over your destiny... to eat forever of the fruit from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The Priest also got into the "essences" and "energies" that are a big part of Orthodox theology. During that, he said that Orthodox do not believe that a soul always exists. The teaching was that at the beginning of an existence, a soul is created. And, yes, after that... it is eternal.

I pointed out that in Psalm 139 that there is a reference to God knows us before we were "...knit together in our mother's womb." We had a nice exchange (perhaps theologically inconclusive) on the idea of when a soul starts.

After the class, we joined a larger group in the hall where the service was to take place. It was at that time that I started talking to people. One young father was a data engineer at Bank of America. He was raised Southern Baptist and went to Liberty University in Virginia. He was just joining Orthodoxy in recent months. Another of the young fathers was Mark, from Southern California. He had a friends who converted to Orthodoxy years ago our in California. He was deeply concerned for his friend and started talking to him about the decision he had made. It was during those conversations that this was the true church. In his words, "This is the church Christ founded. When I was an evangelical, I had most of it. But this is the full truth."

Simply fascinating.

Mark was also one of the chanters, which is a role similar to a cantor in a synagogue. These are thing people who sing during the Orthodox liturgy. It is of note that the Orthodox liturgy is based on the worship of a synagogue in most ways. More on the chanters below.

Here's a picture of Scott talking to Mark:

I explored the front of the church while people were milling around and I took some pictures. 

Then the congregation started to line up to venerate the icons and get the liturgy underway. Children lined up and marched forward. People made the sign of the cross on their bodies and bowed down. It was fascinating to watch. Here are pictures of that (notice Scott bowing and doing the sign of the cross in the video):

The chanters were a real highlight. These young fathers were refining their skills in this ancient form of chanting/singing. This was among my favorite parts of what I saw at this place. The chanting will take some time to refine, I saw it at my prior three Orthodox liturgies and witnessed it in its refined form. This is a work in progress at this budding church.

As the liturgy continued, they got to the point where they were venerating a Saint, in this case Saint Herman. He was in Alaska in the mid-nineteenth century and helped bring The Way to the Aleuts. 

Before long, the liturgy was over.

So many things to think about...

First, do we have an America version of Orthodoxy?

Why, yes.

Alaska used to be part of Russia. When Russia joined the United States, we inherited the Orthodox communities that lived there. This was the root of the Orthodox Church in America. Since the OCA does not have a patriarch, it is called autocephalous, a term describing the independent nature of the OCA. 

Pretty cool to know.

An additional reflection is on the fluidity of our broader communion in Yeshua. At one time, the Eastern Church and the Western Church were one. Through the Donation of Constantine (now widely understood to have been a forgery), the two churches split, leaving the world with Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Then there was a protest movement against Catholicism in the West, leading to Protestantism. It is now often said that evangelicalism is the protest to Protestantism. 

Schisms, reformation and offshoots... everywhere.

Yet all people in all branches are organized around the same thing - the understanding that The Manger, The Cross and The Empty Grave are the grounding of our cosmic salvation and eternal redemption. 

New Life via the λόγος.

People can certainly shift around within this broader communion. Protestants often become evangelicals, or they leave belief altogether and embrace other things. Catholics can become "lapsed." Evangelicals can become Orthodox or Catholic and vice versa in every direction. Huge numbers of Catholics in Latin America are becoming Pentecostal, as an example of this kind of shifting. We can give so many examples that acknowledge people moving in and out of belief, as well as across internal belief traditions within the Body of Christ.

Do I see a group of young evangelicals moving into Eastern Orthodox with any level of alarm or concern or confusion? Not in the least. On the contrary, I found it fascinating and hopeful.

People are looking for meaning in the world right now. And people are craving authenticity in a world increasingly defined by marketing and inauthentic and invasive relationships that are more and more digital. Because of these trends, that some people are returning to the first century church isn't the least bit surprising.

I'll finish this post by saying that I did not worship at this church. I observed. That made quite a difference, as I gained more insight into this small-but-growing branch of the Body without needing to be attentive to my spiritual experience. 

But these people did worship in this form that is both exotic and engaging to me. I loved seeing it.

I look forward to seeing an expansion of Eastern Orthodoxy in this most Western of countries, the United States of America. It can only bring more richness and depth to the spiritual fabric of our society.

Sincere thanks to this budding congregation, may they grow and flourish.

Amen.