Meanwhile, I came into direct contact with Orthodoxy for the first time
and quite independently from the previously mentioned circumstances.
It must be said here that my gravitation to this Church started forming
since the very beginning of my spiritual odyssey.
Earlier, while I was still at my monastery, I had had lengthy
discussions on ecclesiastical topics with a
group of Polish Orthodox university students who had passed through my
country.
Later, the information I received from the Ecumenical Council regarding
the existence and activities of the Orthodox of the West truly sparked
my interest. Furthermore, I received some fortuitous publications from
the Russian and the Greek Orthodox Churches of Berlin and London. The
powerful articles therein by Archimandrite Nicholas Katsanevakis in
Naples began to win over my heart.
Taken together, these three circumstances were conducive to expunging my
previous misconceptions and bias against Orthodoxy, entrenched in me by
formal Roman Catholic education.
Catholic students are taught in middle school that "the schism of the
East, so-called Orthodoxy, is nothing more than an assembly without
life, mummified and desiccated; Small local churches without any of the
genuine and distinctive characteristics of the true Church of Christ."1
In other words, "a deplorable schism fathered by the devil and mothered
by the pride of Patriarch Photios."2
During that time of personal crisis, compounded with my general (and
recent) knowledge, I initiated a correspondence with a highly respected
member of the Orthodox hierarchy of the West.
At last I was quite ready to comprehend everything this bishop would
communicate to me about Orthodox teaching.
In other words, I was in a position to examine objectively the relevant
facts about the constitution and theological status of the apostolic
churches.
Over the course of this communication, it became obvious that my
position against Papism matched the ecclesiological teaching of
Orthodoxy. Thus, while I combated that which ought not to be part of the
Christian dogma, Orthodoxy provided that which ought to be. When I
discussed my observations with that reverent hierarch, he agreed with
me, though cautiously, given my connection with the Protestants at that
time.
As a point of interest, it must be said that the representatives of
Eastern Orthodoxy in the West are not at all interested in
proselytizing.
This is due to their perception of the ecclesiastical status quo in
Europe.
Proselytizing goes against their conviction that
spiritual fathers must adhere to the demanding pastoral toil due
primarily to the Greek and Russian communities, with whose spiritual
care they have
been entrusted.
My correspondence with this hierarch soon reached an advanced state, at
which point I was put in touch with the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Only then was I advised to study the celebrated work of Sergius
Boulgakov, Orthodoxy,
3 and the
equally challenging work of the Metropolitan of Berlin, Seraphim,
bearing the same title.4 As soon
as I began reading these two works, I found myself in total agreement
with the spirit of the authors.
I did not come across a single
paragraph that I could not accept and adopt wholeheartedly and in good
conscience.
In the pages of these works and in many others that I began receiving
from Greece along with letters of encouragement, I found the teaching of
Orthodoxy expounded with surprising clarity. It gradually became clear
to me that the Orthodox faithful are the only Christians in the world
today who share the same faith with the Christians of the catacombs.
Unique and truly faithful, they alone are fully justified to boast in
the Lord while repeating the patristic phrase:
We believe in everything we received from the apostles, in everything
the apostles received from Christ, and in everything Christ received
from God the Father.
To them also apply the words of Tertullian:
Only we are in communion with the apostolic Churches because our
teaching is uniquely equivalent to their teaching. This is the testimony
of our truth.5
During this period, I completed my books The Meaning of the Church
According to the Fathers of the West and Our God, Your God, and God.6
Later on, I was compelled to discontinue the circulation of the second
book in South America, only to prevent its use by Protestant propaganda.
At that point, I was advised by my Orthodox colleagues to disengage
myself from my polemic efforts
against Papism that had become an obsession for me. I was counseled,
instead, to initiate a self-examination, in order to clearly define my
personal creed.
This would provide the basis for evaluating my precise theological
position and reveal the gaps caused by my association with Anglicanism.
This endeavor was neither painless nor short in duration as it forced
me to undertake a most extensive research in a faith in which I lacked
theological proficiency. It would not suffice simply to expunge the
dogmas of the Papist primacy and its privileges while upholding the
remainder of the Roman teachings.
So I proceeded with a deep and
thorough analysis of the basic truths of Christianity.
These basic truths helped me distinguish the Papist dogmatic boundaries
upon which the Vatican had founded its political-ecclesiastical
interests. Through the centuries, those boundaries had been determined
by papal decrees of every class and kind and served to promulgate an
imperialist agenda within the church.
My research was imperative because I did not want to repeat the mistake
of the [Old] Catholics, who, scandalized by the infallibility decree of
the Synod of Vatican, abandoned the pope but still adhered to Roman
theology. This theology has been interwoven with so many other false
doctrines, biases, and superstitions, that it is no longer orthodox.
Acknowledging the extreme difficulty of this task, I chose to express
my position in general but positive terms and issue the following
statement of faith:
I believe all the content of the canonical books of the Old and New
Testaments and all teaching that directly emanates from their content,
in accordance with the interpretation of the traditional ecclesiastical
teaching, namely, the Ecumenical Synods and the full consensus of the
Holy Fathers.
Almost immediately, I sensed that the amicable alliance with the
Protestants came abruptly to an end.
With the exception of a small group of Anglicans, whose understanding
and moral support followed me during this awkward period, only the
Orthodox, though still extremely cautious, were interested in my
struggle.
Only when the latter let go of their prejudice and mistrust toward me,
did they begin to consider me a "possible and interesting catechumen."
At the time, the fortuitous friendship of a Polish Orthodox scientist
strengthened my conviction that Orthodoxy adhered to the essential
truths of early Christianity.
This Polish Christian had resisted the desperate efforts of the
Uniates
7
to lure him to Papism due to his influence and wealth. His response was
simple but most inspiring:
You claim that I must deny my Orthodox faith in order to become a
perfect Christian. Great! My Orthodox faith consists of the following
elements: Jesus Christ, the Gospel, the Synods and the Holy Fathers.
Which one of these elements must I deny to become, as you suggest, 'a
perfect Christian'? Unperturbed, the
Uniates shifted their strategy and suggested that there is no need
to deny any of these basic elements. He only had to recognize the pope
as the infallible leader of the Church.
My friend countered with this profound response: "I must recognize the
pope?
This would be the equivalent of denying all of the above!" I realized at
that point that in order to purify his faith, any thinking Christian of
every other denomination faces the need to reject some element of the
teaching of his faith-group that conflicts with the overarching
teachings of Christianity. The only exception to this is the Orthodox
Christian-only his beliefs constitute the pure essence of Christianity,
the complete, eternal, and immutable Truth, as revealed by God Himself
in the Gospels.
A Roman Catholic, for example, can reject the pope as I did, recant the
teaching on purgatorial fire, or argue the terms of the Synod of Trent
without losing his Christian identity.
Similarly, a Protestant may
reject the teachings of the reformers regarding divine grace and
predestination and still be a Christian.
Only Orthodoxy has not incorporated any external elements, so that every
single item of its faith is an essential and unaltered truth, impossible
to reject or excise.
The Orthodox Church is the only Church that has never attempted to
suggest anything other to the faithful than that which always,
everywhere, and by all has been considered to be the God-revealed Truth.8
Thus, when one adopts Orthodoxy, one simply embraces the Gospel in its
primal purity. Conversely, if one denies and apostatizes from her, it
is akin to denying and apostatizing from Christianity itself.
Orthodoxy is the only Church that has faithfully guarded the truth of
the Gospel. She "never altered anything in it; neither added nor
subtracted";9 she "did not cut the essential, nor did she embody the
nonessential, nor did she lose something belonging to her, nor did she
grasp something foreign, always wise and faithful to everything she
inherited."10 She knows that it
is not permitted to make the slightest change to the faith that was
entrusted to her once and for all,11
not even if suggested by an angel from heaven12
and certainly not by an earthly man full of flaws and weaknesses.
Orthodoxy is the true bride of Christ "not having spot, or wrinkle, or
any such thing; but [...] holy and without blemish."13
She is the Holy Church of God, His only one,14
"the truly Catholic Church that fights against all heresies. She can
fight without ever being defeated. Even though all heresies and schisms
sprouted as wild branches and were cut from the vine, she remains
steadfast to her root, in her union with God."15
Anyone who follows her follows God; anyone who listens to her voice,
listens to the voice of God;16 and anyone who disobeys her, becomes a gentile.17
Convinced thoroughly by all I had read and learned, I no longer felt
deserted. I was no longer alone and dejected by the powerful Roman
Catholics or the increasingly indifferent Protestants. In fact, I was
united in faith and teaching with millions of my brother Christians in
the East and throughout the world. It was a comfort to be finally united
with all those who constitute the true Orthodox Church.
The Papist slander of the theological fossilization of Orthodoxy had
totally lost its validity as I finally comprehended the consistent
perseverance of Orthodoxy in its inherited truth. Orthodoxy is not a
motionless, rigid, and fossilized stance but an unceasing flow of
confession of the ancient faith.
It can be likened to the current of a waterfall, which appears to be
always the same, yet its waters move unceasingly and change constantly,
forever creating new sounds and harmonies.
When I reached this point of revelation in my faith, the Orthodox
finally began to view me as one of their own, and so an archimandrite
wrote in a letter the following:
Discussing the truth of Orthodoxy with this Spaniard does not imply
proselytism but a discussion about a doctrine and a religious spirit
that are as much ours as they are his; the only difference is that we
inherited it from our predecessors while he succeeded in excavating it
from beneath the debris of fifteen centuries of Western ecclesiastical
history. It was most obvious then that the journey of my "spiritual
unrest," as my father confessor had labelled it, had quite naturally and
without my awareness led me to the bosom of the Mother Church,
Orthodoxy.
In reality, during that final period of my journey, unbeknownst to me, I
was already Orthodox.
I was strolling next to the divine Truth, just like the disciples on the
road to Emmaus, without recognizing it until the final stretch of my
spiritual pilgrimage.
When I became unequivocally convinced about everything, I felt that I
needed to take one final step. I wrote a lengthy account of
my entire ordeal and its developments and mailed it both to the
Ecumenical Patriarchate and to His Beatitude, Archbishop of Athens, care
of the Apostolic Ministry of the Church of Greece.
I also sent immediate notice of my intent to become Orthodox to the
hierarchs and various members of the Churches with which I had developed
a special relationship.
Delighted by the sense that I was in possession of that precious pearl
worthy of all sacrifice,18 I left
my country and went to France where I fully connected with my Orthodox
brothers I had recently met there. Nevertheless, the critical step of
becoming a canonical member of the Orthodox Church would require a
little more time.
Upon reaching a fully mature decision, I officially requested entrance
to the true Church of Christ.
In full accord it was resolved that this event take place in Greece, an
Orthodox country par excellence, where I soon needed to move in order to
pursue my studies in Theology. Upon my arrival in Athens, I visited His
Beatitude the Archbishop, who received me with the most paternal
embrace. His unceasing sincere love, care, and interest have accompanied
every step of my new ecclesiastical life.
