Popular American Abbot Addresses All Protestants: "Come Home to Orthodoxy!"

I want to address the subject of the Orthodox Church. Having grown up Protestant I can remember being taught that if you are a Christian, you belong to the church and by definition the church was this invisible body. So anyone who was a Christian, regardless of denomination, was a member of the Body of Christ. The idea that there could be a church that was the true church and was the inheritor of the early church that was handed down to us by the Church Fathers seemed ridiculous. In fact, growing up the only church that ever made claims like that was the Roman Catholic Church and as a Protestant I didn’t believe it. I have to tell you that when I first discovered Orthodoxy I was totally shocked by what I saw. It was like I had encountered the Church, the ancient Church for the very first time. Although at the time I held to atheistic views I knew that deep down inside I was needing something spiritual that would fill the gap that was in my life. My first encounter with Orthodox Divine Liturgy changed all that almost instantly. I now knew where I belonged and I knew the truth that I had to come home. During this difficult time of closures of so many churches, the pandemic, watching our country disintegrate with political fighting, and the threat that has been happening against Christianity in general, and, frankly, Orthodoxy in particular, I have to address this. It’s not enough to just claim to be a Christian…

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