The short version of my spiritual life up until now

jamesfromta:

For people following me a while you may have heard similar things, but I want to relate to you everything right now. I feel like I should as this is my last week as an Anglican, my last week as an Anglo-Catholic. The last week before my old life dies and I begin afresh, so I want to relay everything. 

As a child, I was never baptised. It was primarily due to issues with Godparents and then my parents decided that they would let me decide for myself when I was older. My brother was also left to make this decision. As a child I wasn’t brought up in the Church. My mum is a Methodist and even though she does pray everyday her faith is a very private matter and she doesn’t attend Church (unless for baptisms, funerals, weddings). Both my Auntie and my mum have the same views; my Grandparents who I loved and love dearly were also Methodists and my Nan taught the Sunday school. My dad’s side of the family also have Christian connections. My Auntie, Uncle and my Granddad (whom I also miss greatly) are Roman Catholic and my Nan (whom I also miss greatly) was Church of England. That said, my dad (like my brother and I) was never baptised and he is an atheist (who occasionally flirts with anti-Theism). Despite having the religious connections within my family I was not raised in the Church. I was raised (as my dad used to say) a “heathen”. Obviously there were Christian influences in my life and from an early age I believed in something, it wasn’t something that was forced on me. 

My primary school was run by the Church of England which is why I have to thank the Anglicans for gifting me my faith originally. They directed my belief in “something”. However, it wasn’t full Christianity. It was Christianity in the sense that we were taught the ten commandments, the Holy Trinity and to love everyone, however it was Christianity with a spoonful of sugar. The Old Testament was very much watered down and the Book of Revelation as never included in the Lion’s First Bible. Basically, we were taught the faith, had hymn practise every Wednesday (which I hated, though came to miss it when I went to a secular secondary school) and we went to Church for things like the Harvest festival, Leavers service, Christingle service (which we always got told off for eating the sweets off our oranges before Church) and various other points in the year. The Church was right next to the school and we would have the vicar come and give talks, sing to us and take assemblies on occasion. 

All that said, the faith was taught to us like a fairytale. God was taught to us like a Father Christmas sort of figure, like an old man in the sky who had a list of whether you were naughty or nice who knew everything you did and didn’t do. Needless to say, most people I know left either agnostic or atheist and it was also my undoing. We were taught about prayer, asking God for help etc. in the wrong way so when my Gramp was seriously ill in hospital (he was dying of cancer, I didn’t know this at the time because my parents wanted to spare me the worry as I was old enough to know what that meant but not be able to look past it) I prayed that he would get better. The day he died was weird. I was in Year 5 and had been going around one of the “big schools” for a visit (which would later be my secondary) with primary school and after went to my friends house for tea. He had died in the night; my mum and auntie had gone to see him and he knew what was going to happen so sent them home so they would be spared the pain of seeing him go, but so I was actually able to enjoy the day I wasn’t told until I came home that evening. Its a flashbulb memory for me and I remember screaming and praying, swearing at God for taking my Gramp away. I could not talk about God or anything religious for weeks and any time in “circle time” the topic came up I would ask to be excused. From that moment on my faith was on extremely shaky ground due to my inability not to understand the situation. When my Nan died around a year and a half later that was the final nail in the coffin and I rejected theism completely. 

For around two years I believed in absolutely nothing though there was still this part of me that wanted to believe. It was like this hole I needed to fill but couldn’t. I was at secondary school at this point and was being bullied every day; with the stress of that and the loss of my Grandparents I became depressed. I was ill all the time. That was the first time I started to skip meals as well. It was also the time I became very suicidal (I won’t go into it on here, its not a part of my life I am proud of in any way. ). I began to reach out again and I guess you could say that I thought there was something but didn’t know what it was…I didn’t think it was Christianity any way.

This led to experimenting with different faiths. At one point I was very taken with Buddhism however I was eventually led into the occult (Wicca/ Paganism) for around two years. I became very “spiritual” as it were within this. It was very naturalistic and it seemed like a pleasant thing but looking back on it now I was so lost, confused and in complete darkness. I do not wish to offend people with this statement but I need to be honest and state how I feel about this in my life. 

Eventually I rejected it. Things became weird the further I got into it and eventually I got rid of everything associated with it that I had. I needed to just to clear my head. During 6th form I started to come back to Christianity again and I spoke to a friend of mine who is Protestant and he said that God would forgive me if I was truly sorry for everything. So I was back to Christianity but I was just nothing. I didn’t go to a Church, I wasn’t part of anything. I also had a Protestant faith though it was more of a cafeteria Christianity (or as I like to call it, agnostic Christianity).

Before going to University my parents friends who I had known all my life (now my Godparents) gave me my rosary beads to take with me. In my room I had them on my notice board, however when things started to kick off in my room with the demonic they eventually never left my bedside table. During my first year of University I actually got back into Christianity in a big way and that was the time that I was first attacked by the demonic. Someone did not like that I was trying to come to Christ and the stuff that happened was horrible. I put up with it for months, refusing to go to sleep with the light off and I would not take off my cross. People laugh at me when I tell them this or they think I’m crazy. No. They did not experience what I went through and therefore they should hold their tongues before throwing judgements at me. I tried to explain everything away rationally, however there was no rational or scientific explanation that fitted with what was going on at all. In the end, after the disturbances had stopped I had a dream one evening. It was very odd and it happened twice. I was in a Mediterranean looking place and people were being captured and taken by this horrible horned creature and some of us were hiding from it in the shop. The shop owner then gave me a box and in the box was a sword and I used the sword to fight the creature and save the people it had captured. All of this basically led me fully back to Christianity. 

In my second year I relayed all of this to a friend who was going to be baptised as a Pentecostal. She asked me if I wanted to come with her to their group meetings on campus and I was all up for that. It was really scary at first as it was a totally new situation, however the people were all lovely and at the end one of them came over and said how God told him about me…about the bullying at school and that God had rested a passage on his heart for me. I was also given a copy of the New Testament. This amazed me a lot, however it seemed a bit of a smoke screen as two weeks later I found out that my friend had told them about me which is why they knew so much about my life, it wasn’t God at all. Of course this started alarm bells in my head but I ignored them because I had some sort of Christian connection here. Still though, reading the New Testament and from what I was taught by the C of E I began to pick holes in Pentecostal theology a lot. Some of their teachings were Scriptural but some of them were not at all. The prosperity heresy was being taught and what really did it for me was that when someone who came once to the group objected to what the preacher said he became very aggressive (and then later claimed to be a martyr, something that annoyed me then but now understanding the martyrs, something that angers me now). 

All my friends warned me not to go but I was silly and I went to some more of the group sessions. Eventually I went to one session where tongues was being done. At the time I was terrified. I was seeing all these people suddenly go into what resembled an epileptic fit, who would be praising God then suddenly would fall over and start mumbling, some unable to speak. I was absolutely terrified and when everyone was doing this I alone was in the room not doing in. Instead I was on my knees, clutching my little cross on my neck and praying for God to help me. In the end they offered to “help” me to speak in tongues and I decided to let them. The next thing I know is that I am on the floor screaming. Anyway, I got up and its hard to describe how I felt…it was like I was full of energy that I could barely stand. My head was in a bit of a state, I couldn’t really explain what had just happened (though looking back on it, it seems to have been emotionalism). Then I was asked if I wanted to be baptised into their Church. At that point things sort of clicked and I refused. After hearing all of that my parents sat with me whilst I wrote them an e-mail explaining I will no longer be attending their group (to which they were surprised at but had no hard feelings). 

So by this stage I was now trying to be baptised Anglican though my theology was now royally mucked up and confused. My Godmother began then to take me to the Roman Catholic Church to help me out a bit which I loved. Firstly I had been trying to go to the Anglican Church but now I was presented with Roman Christianity. I had to make a decision and eventually, due to my difficulties with the Pope’s claims to be infallible I rejected Roman Catholicism and was baptised and confirmed into the Anglican Communion. However, my views had become very Catholic in nature so I identified as Anglo-Catholic.

By this point in my life I was very happy. Theologically speaking I was seeing clearly and developing a spiritual life again. Even back when I was with the Pentecostal group, my prayer practises were fairly Anglo-Catholic. I was very happy but something was missing still. I didn’t feel like I quite fitted in. The Anglican Communion is very broad and encompasses different traditions as it bridges the gap between Catholicism and Protestantism (which is to its credit, however it also presents problems). Despite this, as an Anglo-Catholic with my “high Church” theology, I didn’t quite fit in still. 

Anyway, one night I was on YouTube watching videos and I came across one video by a lady named Judith Matta speaking to a lady who converted to Orthodox Christianity. Judith Matta is an Orthodox Christian who came from Roman Catholicism originally and her husband is an Orthodox priest. The video sparked some interest with me and I watched more of the videos. The Orthodox Church was making a very bold claim; that it is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. That it alone has not deviated from the Apostolic faith. I asked my Priest about this and he said that whilst he disagreed with that statement, no one could actually disprove them on this. From the videos from Judith Matta and Archbishop Lazar I wanted to experience an Orthodox service; I told myself it was for educational purposes however it became a constant need to want to go…almost like I was being slowly guided towards it. In the end I found out from my priest where the Orthodox Church in this city is and he asked me to tell him what I thought of the service. The first time I went it was at the start of Great Lent. To my surprise, the Church was just under 5 minutes (more like 3 minutes) from my house and it was really small. The service was dedicated to the Blessed Ever Virgin Mary. Originally I intended to just observe but the Deacon invited me to pray etc if I wanted to. 

That first service was only the Deacon, an elderly Russian lady who couldn’t speak much English and myself. I had no idea what to do but as the service began I felt close to tears. It was pure worship that was going on and for the first time in my life I could honestly say that I could feel the presence of God. I could feel His majesty which was overwhelming. I knew this place was holy, I felt unworthy to be standing in it and I wanted to try to worship, so I tried. It felt like heaven and earth had collided and that time was an irrelevant concept, that it wasn’t just the three of us worshipping there but we were praying with every single Christian who has ever lived. It was ancient but timeless and the most beautiful thing ever. I spoke to the Deacon afterwards and he explained to me how in 1054 the Church in Rome split from the Orthodox Church (the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church) as they added things to the faith (doctrines concerning the Pope and changes to the Nicene creed without authority to do so) and how later on the Protestants had responded to these changes but in getting rid of the Roman additions they threw the baby out with the bath water. I became deeply interested in Orthodoxy and I did a lot of research. I could find no source that honestly validated the Roman position that the Orthodox were the ones in schism, nor could I find a source that disproved the Orthodox claim to be the Church Christ founded. 

After attending services weekly before the summer I asked my Deacon how I would go about converting. He told me that it was like courting in a relationship, you need to take time getting to know the Church. He told me some books to read to help me to decide if that is what I wanted to do. I began to read the Church Fathers, the Saints, the Desert Fathers and Mothers. At the same time I was also reading Met. Kallistos Ware as well as Vladimir Lossky about Eastern Theology. 

Once I returned to University I approached my Deacon again about converting. He said that if I was still serious I should attend the Liturgy. I did and again it was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. I had more chats with him regarding conversion and continued to go to Church. In the end, as you all know, after one discussion he decided I was ready to be brought into the Church and I have a date for my Christmation. 

Orthodoxy isn’t simply a denomination. It is pre-denominational. I have been to different Christian groups and not felt truly at home anywhere before. If I had known about Orthodoxy a while ago my life would have been simpler, but I know about it now. Christ has called me here and the Holy Spirit has guided me here to this very point. Do I feel worthy to become Orthodox? No. I am an awful sinner and so to be counted into His Church, the Bride of Christ, is something I do not feel worthy of. However, I pray that Christ will save me. This is my last week as an Anglican. Its my last week of the period where I was searching, trying to find a purpose, trying to locate God. Yes, I fell off the road completely a few times. Yes, I didn’t always make good choices. But regardless of that, I am finally home. This post has taken 2 hours to write but I needed to do this. I felt the need to do this. 

My life hasn’t always been easy and through the searching I have always felt like an outsider, never feeling like I belonged any where and for a period of time I was willing to accept that…but in the Orthodox Church I truly feel accepted, I truly feel happy for the first time and the world seems a brighter place, a more beautiful place. 

My life is about to change forever and its one of the best things in the world.

Praises be to God on high, may His Name be exalted forever more!

<3

Taking time to rearrange…

Tonight I’m going to see what exactly I have to study for the Diploma exam.

And I’m pretty dsappointed, because on all fronts, where Romania was a favourite, it didn’t get the expected reward - Eurovision, Cannes, Froch/Bute and so on.

I’m starting to think that these are fake results, that somebody, somewhere simply makes the games…

(not joking at all)

Dear friends,

I am terribly sorry for my lack of activity lately on Tumblr. I just wanted you to know that I absolutely didn’t forget the Feast of Saints Constantine and Helena, the same as the Apostles, and certainly won’t forget the more important feast of the Ascension of Christ on Thursday - I celebrate them at the church.

It’s just that I’ve been studying like a maniac these days for the last exam in the exams’ session, tomorrow. I didn’t have the time, nor the energy to activate on Tumblr, and don’t think I shall have them after the exam. After the exam, I will take 3 full days a most complete break - no computer, no activities (as much as possible - except the church, of course), but a lot of sleeping and book reading. My eyes hurt: I’ve been reading up to 9 and 10 hours a day. I’ve been making notes on the computer. Right now, the time is 00:02, and I have to continue my study for the tomorrow exam.

After these 3 days, I will start all over again. I will read and study for the Diploma exam, which is in June; however, it will be a little better, because I have more time to study.

Do not get angry on me, because of the lack of activity. I will activate strongly after I’m done with all my exams, after I graduade from College / Faculty / School. I will take some time to rearrange my life (several stuff: files and folders on the computer, my bookmarks, my stuff in the house and so on), and, in the end, I will redesign and rearrange my blog(s). I will make them more serious.

Just not now. Now school is extremely important.

Thank you! May God bless you all!