I married into a Greek Orthodox family as a non believer and developed more of an interest in Christianity over the last few years. I wanted to do my research on denominations so started with Anglicanism being an Englishman and all, but all you have to do is look at the CoE to see how well that is going. Protestantism didn't make any sense as they seem to think you only need the Bible, not the church, but it was the church that constructed the Bible, so for me it came down to Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Long story short is whether you agree with the infallibility of the papacy and I don't think the evidence in favour holds up. Orthodoxy follows the ways of the church pre schism, even most Catholics agree on that but think the papacy has authority to change things. Thats why I leant into Orthodoxy and haven't regretted it one bit. As for the service in Greek, my church does Saturday service in English as there are other English converts and other non Greek attendees and the other services in Greek are still lovely, the same way a traditional Latin mass would be for Catholics. I would definitely encourage you to check out your local Orthodox Church 🙏🏻☦️
Discussion
I will have to investigate about possible English services, I'd be curious to see their service either way. I think there are some practices which I'd be unfamiliar with, and I suspect going to a greek community -dominant church could feel a bit intimidating alone, not being a meme er of that community or having any ties with it, unlike in your case. Not a major problem really. Annoyingly work patterns mean I can rarely attend services anyway.
I never really think about the pope, and never experienced any talk of the pope from my time in catholic churches (I could just not remember, it was a long time ago). I wonder how much investment Catholics have in the pope, what the pope says anyway. A bit like a changing CEO at your workplace who you never meet.
Yeah I totally understand that, I'm lucky to have family ties in the community and the priests always introduceme to other converts. Even if you manage to attend just to check it out I'd highly recommend.
And yes you are correct about the Pope, most Catholics really don't like the current Pope and say the church has always had bad popes, but the individual popes are not the infallible part, it's the the papacy and what it teaches. My point goes more to the church history and whether the infallibility of the papacy has any justification and I don't believe it does.
Sadly you are correct about protestants nostr:nprofile1qythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwdaehgu3wvfskuep0qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcprdmhxue69uhkummnw3e8qatz9euk2emgwfhjuumfw3jj7qg4waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxgctdw4eju6t09uq3wamnwvaz7tmzd96xxmmfdejhytnnda3kjctv9uq36amnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3wvf5hgcm0d9hx2u3wwdhkx6tpdshsqgyejh6yf4x6gnnfsj6vlgahlmpu7k74p44c8drrpn9qf7nrnfyqvquh45d6 , I’m a pentacostal minister and far too many no longer believe the church is relevant and have crossed into mysticism.
I believe this has a lot to do with the mega churches and televangelists and their watered down gospel.
The Good News though is God is still sitting on His throne.
I'm not sure what it's like in the US, but I feel like the UK protestant churches have an unseriousness about them. Like they've consulted a social media manager for an illinformed rebranding and been told that Pinterest live laugh love aesthetics and liberalism will draw in the crowds. I may just be basing this on a few churches I walk past, in quite affluent liberal areas lol).
(Not sure in what sense you are using mysticism here(?) but there is a level of seriousness in the Christian mystics which I find more appealing than the Protestant approach.)
I’m in Australia, so it’s probably similar here, the “christian” mystics here are certainly not Christian if measured against the Bible.
Something I have seen all over the world is if the car park is full, chances are the gospel isn’t being preached and people are being entertained.
Our church is focussed on Community, Faith, and Simplicity
I'd probably go as far as saying some UK protestant churches are actually for atheist's to continue some sort of tradition of church going without belief.
Hey Gary, I appreciate your response and think you have a good point there. My issue with seperating the Bible from church history is that it leaves everything up to interpretation and gets muddled up with mistranslation. My priest recommended an Orthodox study Bible for English speakers which is essentially a king James translation but with notes adding context to the passages, highly recommend.
Ultimately I think it's great more people are turning to, or back to, Christianity. #orthodoxy #orthodoxstr
I reverted in a Pentecostal church that was very charismatic and later switched to one that was more academically rigorous.
They weren't preaching different things, necessarily, but different focus/style.
Switched to Catholicism, later, to be with my husband. Feel very at home, there, but I'm probably unusually open to discussion with non-Catholics because of that experience.