A Letter to an Inquirer about the Western Orthodox Faith

An Old Pilgrim and a Young Knight

Dear Friend,

I am glad to hear of your open mindedness and desire to focus on the fundamental points of the faith. I was where you are now not too long ago. I started to read about the canonization of the Holy Scriptures from a historical point of view, and found out many things that I had not been told, or that were discarded as unimportant, and began a long and agonizing journey into the unknown.

Over 15 years ago now I started reading extensively in Church History, Hermeneutics, Soeteriology, but from a historical perspective, rather than a denominational one. I was amazed by what I found, not to mention a bit challenged and disappointed that what I had been taught was not scholarly or even biblically accurate (according to the meaning of the Greek texts themselves, not our “contextualized meanings” which are meant to fit our predetermined theological points). I found that the statement of faith I made when I was ordained as a Baptist minister, and what I had written a dissertation and two books to defend, was a flawed way of seeing both the role of the Church in the Scripture and of History itself. I would venture to guess that we would agree on the basics; the Trinity, the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the Incarnation, the Inspiration and Preservation of the Scriptures, the Work of Redemption on the Cross, and Salvation from Sin by Christ’s Mercy, and the Gift of the Holy Spirit. But that is, unfortunately, probably about it.

It started by asking myself the question, “How did we get here, to this point, to these conclusions?” and as I studied and was drawn by the Holy Spirit, the question became, “How do we get back where we were, when we actually had the Apostles and their disciples to interpret the Bible and preserve it for us?” I began to read the founding canonizers of the Bible, who were not only respected because they had been elected by their peers and ordained in direct succession from Christ, but also because they were exegetes of the highest quality. I read Eusebius (“Church History”, written in the mid 300’s), Athanasius (“On the Incarnation”, “Athanasian Creed”, “Letter to Serapion”, “The Life of Anthony”, and his works on Scriptural Canon), Cyril, Gregory, Basil, Chrysostom and others, finding out along the way that they were both the ones who proposed the canon of the New Testament, and also gathered the source texts that were ratified by council. We believe the Bible that they handed to us, over the Marcionites, the Gnostics, the Arians, and the Apostates, so why do we not believe what they believed about the Bible?

I believe with all my heart that the Bible is the Inspired Word, and that it has been preserved for us through all time. I discovered that there was a story behind it, a philosophy of interpretation, and a tradition of both apostolic succession and council on which its authority was based. Many Bible classes overlook to tell the students that there were at least three other Bibles propagated by the various sects that could have been “Received” by the Early Church – a Gnostic Bible with Christ’s divinity denied (take a look at the Nag Hamadi at any local Barnes and Noble and you will see this text in its flying colors); the Gospel of Marcion, which accuses Jehovah of the Old Testament of being a Monster, an evil undergod that Christ conquers; and the Arian version of the Bible, which was the only Bible ever officially edited and propagated by Roman Emperors, Constantius II, Julian the Apostate, and Valens, which deletes all references to Christ’s Divinity (again). We believe our Bible is right, but our Bible was only the “Received Text” because of the weight of the Early Bishops and Church Fathers that certified these documents to be “correct in teaching and doctrine, and preserved by the Church from the hands of the Apostles.” (Council of Carthage, AD 397)

I tried to defeat the conclusions that I was being led to draw, first by asking my Protestant friends for input, and then asking for written correction on my understanding of the history that I was studying from pastors, teachers, and professors. All I got was, “early history is not important, is not connected to our context, and is a bunch of Catholic stuff.” I was afraid I was being drawn into Catholicism, with dead works and idolatry, but as I continued to read history, I was shocked to find that the Roman Catholics actually broke off from the other churches to assert the supremacy of the Pope and the Manichean-smudged doctrines of Augustine, and quickly fell into the error of Purgatory, Mary Worship (Not “respect”, which the First Council of Ephesus in AD 431, but an actual belief that Mary is the Church’s primary vehicle of salvation, the “Co-Redemptrix”), Idolatry, and Crusades. The “Great Schism” happened in AD 1054, and broke the Eastern Apostolic Churches from the Roman Church. A generation after the split, under the pretext of taking Jerusalem back from the Muslims, the Pope wiped out city after city of Mediterranean Christians who did not submit to his authority, thus creating an illusion of a “Catholic Conversion of the Ancient Christian East.” The decimation of the Eastern Church remained high on Rome’s list of “to do’s,” and ended with the collapse of the once impregnable Eastern Christian Empire to Islam and the enslavement of non-Western Christians for the last six hundred to one thousand years under Islam (look at the Copts in Egypt for further reference on how a land that was majority Christian even in the 1700's is now a struggling minority).

Five hundred years later, unable to bear the error of a system not check by the council of equal bishops, who had classically censured error through impeachment, the Roman church broke into factions and birthed the Reformation. Luther appealed to the Eastern Bishops for help against Rome, but was unwilling to submit to their authority or their recommendation that he take a less shrill and self-confident tone, and broke off further contact. Luther's disciples did not want a Church that was united under the authority of Christians from other nations, seeing them as “Turks," but desired a pure, holy, and fully German church (an attitude that later led to the false belief that the Germans were “special to God” and had a “White Mission,” which Hitler used to promote his pagan falsehoods). Read the records of the Synod of Jerusalem for the Orthodox response to the claims of Luther. Erasmus, the collator of the Greek New Testament in the West, learned Greek from fathers in the Eastern Church, desired for its doctrines to be accepted by the Roman Church, and was later suspected of heresy and “illegal union with the enemies of Rome” for his views… but it is only because of him that we have the rebirth of Biblical studies in the West. Erasmus and Luther are famous enemies because of their different ways of approaching Church History, Faith, and the Truth of the Scriptures. You can read their correspondence in full in downloads from Gutenberg.org!

I also discovered that the Eastern Churches did not break the fellowship of Orthodox practice, even though separated through space and cultures (as far afield as Jerusalem, Persia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabia, Greece, Russia, Finland, Morocco, Babylon, Romania, Poland, and the Tang and Jin Empires of China), and continued to preserve the Greek Bible (that we use today as the KJV and NKJV), never falling into the errors of Purgatory, Indulgences, Papal Infallibity of the Catholics, or to the reactionary bad attitudes and egotism of the Protestants (i.e. Luther or Calvin). Time, Nestorius, and Islam have done much to their union, ultimately, and many of the small Mid-Eastern and Asian enclaves have had problems over the last few hundred years getting along with one another. As I have researched, however, I have found the liturgy and beliefs of these ancient churches to be united over broad differences of culture and language, and the similarities between separate groups of “Orthodox” to be greater than those between teachings in churches of the same “Denomination” in the West! 

After two years of prayer and consideration after learning all of this, I finally decided to become Orthodox and leave Protestantism behind. We did not do so because we do not “like” Baptists or the people that we know, but because this is the only perspective of history and Biblical inspiration and preservation that I can now believe. I can now stop fighting with history, other denominations, and my own nagging "Baptist questions" (if we are so right, why are we so new, so small, and so completely unable to work with people that have the same denominational name?). It is as if I have joined a continuous flow, a spring of life that comes through all those who have loved Christ throughout time. It discounts no one, excludes no cultures, and even includes those I mentioned who diverted the stream into politics and culture wars in the West. It is a vision of the Church that does not leave out fifteen-hundred years of history, and that does not see the first, marvelous, astounding years of the Church as misdirected or theologically misplaced. Christ chose His Disciples, told them what was necessary, and they carried it with them, without corruption, preserved by the Holy Spirit, into this very day. The “Gates of Hell would not prevail” against the Church, just as Christ said.

So, you now understand why I am so cautious about being an offense to you. I do not desire to create a stumbling block for anyone, and there are many misperceptions and cultural difficulties Americans experience in coming to Orthodoxy. The greatest is that it is so “Non-Western.”  My first experience with Orthodoxy was in India, when I became friends with several young men from the Mar Thoma and Malankara Orthodox Churches, the tradition that was started in Kerala by the Apostle Thomas. I originally just thought them quaint and strange, until I finally realized that their worship, doctrine, and history connected them not only to the first missionary movement, but to all the other Orthodox Churches around the world! I went to India to teach the Indians, but ended up learning more from them than I could ever express. They taught me that Christ has the power to preserve His Church through two thousand years of persecution (the Mar Thoma Churches have never been politically or culturally ascendant). As I study China, I realize that the early Tang Dynasty Christians were also of the Eastern Church. I have collected copies of their documents, iconography, hymns and Scriptures for the last ten years, and it finally dawned on me that they are connected to this tradition, not just by accident, but by actual Early Church practice and authority (if they were “Nestorian” as claimed, their “Sutra on the Doctrine of Trinity and Incarnation” refutes the basic Nestorian tenant of “Two Persons of Christ”). However, within the Vicariate it is completely not the case that you must be "Eastern" in order to be "Orthodox," because we are fully Orthodox within our Western liturgical expression of the Faith. This is the beauty of Western Orthodoxy and of our Archdiocese. 

“Never, never, never let anyone tell you that, in order to be Orthodox you must be Eastern. The West was fully Orthodox for a thousand years, and her venerable liturgy is far older than any of her heresies.”- St. John [Maximovitch], Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco

I know that this will be quite a lot to wade through, and I am sorry for writing such a long email. I started and just couldn’t seem to find a place to stop. Now you know a brief outline of our story, and can probably even understand how it fits into our reason for being in East Asia. We have discovered so many wonderful and valuable things on this journey, not the least of which is how little we truly know. I desire to know God, to follow Christ as a disciple, and to form my doctrine upon a love for Him, and not upon a reaction or protest against something or someone else. Becoming Western Orthodox has done that for me, but I realize that this is a personal decision that everyone may not be drawn to make. We are all dependent on the Mercy of Our Lord.

May you have peace and success as you begin this process towards growth, abandoning culture for the PERSON of CHRIST!

Sincerely, 

Bp. Joseph

Ancient Church of the West