These pages were
not written to justify the author's conversion to Orthodoxy; rather, they
constitute the spontaneous overflow of a man's heartfelt gratitude and
appreciation and a man's wish to offer an apologetic testimony to the purity
of his newly discovered Orthodox faith and the boldness of her teaching.
What makes the present
work unique is not necessarily the topic, especially given the great number
of existing epistemological studies examining it from every possible
ecclesiological point of view. What makes this work original is the
freshness of its approach and the unique manner of its analysis.
His Grace Bishop Paul de
Ballester did not simply discuss the academic aspects of his theological
crisis. On the contrary, his theology, intertwined with his very life, was
the driving force propelling him toward the most painful spiritual journey
and inevitable sacrifice: abandoning his church and subsequently facing his
separation from his country of birth. Expressing such a profound theological
experience without sacrificing self-honesty could only come to fruition
through extraordinary inspiration and an adamant power of will. In each
chapter, the reader will have the opportunity to follow step by step the
awesome and agonizing journey of this former Franciscan monk from his
initial crisis of conscience until his final and decisive confession that
Orthodoxy is the true Church of Christ. Such conversions, whose number is
progressively increasing, serve as a serious warning to the Roman Catholic
Church that it has lost the privilege it had in the Middle Ages to reign as
a dictatorial center of a political-ecclesiastical empire. Equally, they
represent some of the most expressive guideposts for all those Christian
groups still wandering along murky trails in search of the Shepherd's true
sheepfold. Above all, however, they give us Orthodox one of the most
valuable lessons: an objective avowal on the purity of our religious
inheritance, emanating from the author's personal experience. This most
pious testimony further illustrates the honor due to our predecessors for
their resolve to keep the faith flawless through the harshest of historical
trials and most difficult of times.
People such as
Bishop de Ballester, who know what they believe and why they believe it,
offer an unshakable testimony and a powerful confession of the Orthodox
faith through their experience of what it means to come to the fullness of
the Truth. With their
steadfast and absolute conviction and with the characteristic enthusiasm of
one who searched and found the Truth, they are called to shine the light of
Orthodoxy onto the darkness of foreign Christian philosophies, and they do
so with great zeal and success. Through such people, the ecumenical desire
that the one flock be under one Shepherd -for which the Lord beseeched His
Heavenly Father with much insistence- will one day become possible.
Stanislas Jedrezewsky Massalia,
March 1954
