First Steps into Orthodoxy

Teedub

Teedub

Orthodox
Heirloom
Philanthropist
I'm currently living in a country where the Orthodox churches have services only in other languages, and I imagine there wouldn't even be many English speakers in attendence.

I'm a protestant by birth and have redisovered my belief in God and how important it is for the West. However, I'm disillusioned in many of the denominations for their continual watering down and liberalisation. As someone potentially interested in the Orthodox faith, and I imagine I'm not alone here, what does one do in this situation? I'm thinking of attending the local Catholic Mass in English, as that's certainly better than nothing and Catholicism is less liberal than my native Anglicanism.

I thought this thread could serve as an overall one that sits in the Christianity (General) section where everybody can post.

Mods, please feel free to retitle the thread to something more appropriate if needs be.
 
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Hopefully there's a parish not too far away from you. The one closest, and extremely convenient, to me never returned my calls and I learned their services are in Russian. The next closest is about 40-45 minutes away depending on traffic but is a wonderful church that I attend when I can. I've spoken to others who drive roughly an hour or more one way so you may need to put the idea of convenience out of mind.

God bless you on your search and inquiry into the Orthodox Church 🙂
 
At some point, I just started going to liturgy at an Orthodox church close-ish to me. Everyone comes to the Lord in their own ways, but I think that's a perfectly fine way to start. No one will question you for attending a service, like asking you if you were or why you're there, so those those concerns are simply "in your own head". You can go, stand when the rest of the parishioners stand, sit when they sit, and it'll be fine.

FWIW, I also think there's something special about that quiet Sunday morning drive to and from Church.

Good luck and God bless.
 
Samseau said:
The lack of evangelizing is probably the biggest sin many churches within Orthodoxy face today.
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Interesting. For better or worse the internet has blown this apart. It's amazing the presence the Orthodox suddenly have in the US given the fact there isn't actually very many here.

GodGiveMeStrength said:
I've spoken to others who drive roughly an hour or more one way so you may need to put the idea of convenience out of mind.
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This is my struggle. I'm in a rural area where the nearest Orthodox church is in the city (~1hr). I guess I need to convince some of them to move out here so they can bring the Church, haha.
 
Alexander said:
At some point, I just started going to liturgy at an Orthodox church close-ish to me. Everyone comes to the Lord in their own ways, but I think that's a perfectly fine way to start. No one will question you for attending a service, like asking you if you were or why you're there, so those those concerns are simply "in your own head". You can go, stand when the rest of the parishioners stand, sit when they sit, and it'll be fine.

FWIW, I also think there's something special about that quiet Sunday morning drive to and from Church.

Good luck and God bless.
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There's an Orthodox church in my nearest city that has services in three languages... None English but I guess I could go and stand when others stand etc.

Failing that I could attend Catholic mass in English and consider Orthodox study at home. But that's likely not particularly wise nor acceptable.

The Protestant churches here are all very international/Americanized and liberal so want to avoid them. As you can see, I'm very early on in my journey with lots (understatement) to learn!

Thanks for all your responses so far.
 
Teedub said:
There's an Orthodox church in my nearest city that has services in three languages... None English but I guess I could go and stand when others stand etc.

Failing that I could attend Catholic mass in English and consider Orthodox study at home. But that's likely not particularly wise nor acceptable.

The Protestant churches here are all very international/Americanized and liberal so want to avoid them. As you can see, I'm very early on in my journey with lots (understatement) to learn!

Thanks for all your responses so far.
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At the risk of pointing out the obvious, if you've decided to take a first step into Orthodoxy, attending Catholic mass is not that step. Studying Orthodoxy from books is going to be very limiting in the absence of Orthodox services, an Orthodox community and an Orthodox priest to guide you.
 
Northumber said:
Interesting. For better or worse the internet has blown this apart. It's amazing the presence the Orthodox suddenly have in the US given the fact there isn't actually very many here.



This is my struggle. I'm in a rural area where the nearest Orthodox church is in the city (~1hr). I guess I need to convince some of them to move out here so they can bring the Church, haha.
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I've been driving an hour every day to Church for most of my life. I drop some money in the collection tray when I walk in.

Best money and gas I spend every week. Don't be afraid to travel if you can swing it.
 
Teedub said:
There's an Orthodox church in my nearest city that has services in three languages... None English but I guess I could go and stand when others stand etc.
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Honestly, this isn't your problem per se. Go to the church there and speak to the Priests and tell them your problem. They are obligated to try and figure something out. At bare minimum they have books that can translate the service as they go through it, and you can read along with.
 
Teedub said:
There's an Orthodox church in my nearest city that has services in three languages... None English but I guess I could go and stand when others stand etc.

Failing that I could attend Catholic mass in English and consider Orthodox study at home. But that's likely not particularly wise nor acceptable.

The Protestant churches here are all very international/Americanized and liberal so want to avoid them. As you can see, I'm very early on in my journey with lots (understatement) to learn!

Thanks for all your responses so far.
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Are you dead set on attending an Orthodox church? If not are there any Reformed churches in your area? They tend to be FAR more conservative than the vast majority of Protestant churches.
 
Teedub said:
There's an Orthodox church in my nearest city that has services in three languages... None English but I guess I could go and stand when others stand etc.

Failing that I could attend Catholic mass in English and consider Orthodox study at home. But that's likely not particularly wise nor acceptable.

The Protestant churches here are all very international/Americanized and liberal so want to avoid them. As you can see, I'm very early on in my journey with lots (understatement) to learn!

Thanks for all your responses so far.
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Try attending the Orthodox church. It is far more important to be in the presence of holiness and an environment where one experiences the presence of God than to understand every word being said. I say this as someone who attends an extremely multi-cultural/linguistic parish, where I only understand maybe 1/4 of the liturgy because multiple languages are used for different parts of the service. Feeling and experiencing holiness is, in my view and experience, more important than understanding every word of a service. Every church is different, but in my parish, the priest is extremely appreciative that people attend who may not understand the service. Also, because the liturgy is always the same, with a little of your own study, you will eventually know what is going on and what the "content" is simply through familiarity with the liturgy regardless of the language of the service.

Orthdoxy is not primarily about "conservatism". It is about holiness. Conservatism flows from that because what is considered conservative are obvious extensions from God's law and natural law, but that is not the deepest point about religion.

If someone wants "based" sermons, they can always listen to them online, and there are plenty of them, including Orthodox ones: Fr. Peter Heers, Fr. John Whiteford, etc. So finding a sermon to listen to is easy.

What cannot be substituted by Youtube or online resources is the experience of the Divine Liturgy conducted by a successor of the apostles, who has the grace of God, in the presence of icons of saints and angels, with other people seeking union with God, and oftentimes with absolutely otherworldly singing, which you do not need to "understand" in order for it to do its spiritual work on you.
 
Once you have experienced the Divine Liturgy, the worship of the ancient Christian church, driving an hour to it will seem like nothing.


You can go to the above link to find the Divine Liturgy in English and Slavonic in parallel, and learning to read Cyrillic is very simple, this can aid greatly in understanding the core of the liturgy. But yes, the language issue can understandably be difficult. But better to be in an Orthodox Church where you understand nothing, than a church teaching heresy.
 
When I said "conservative", I wasn't really referring to politics or whether something is 'based'. I should have perhaps used a different word for clarity. I meant 'unchanged'. I.E Not having female priests or accepting LGBT weddings/blessings.

Re: the distance. Driving further won't help with the language issue as I live close to perhaps the most international city in the country so I'm more likely to find English services (in all branches/denominations) there than in a smaller town an hour away. But I'll do a bit of research as I may be pleasantly surprised.

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions, I'll be going through all the options in the coming weeks/month. There are great benefits from living abroad but also some challenges - this is definitely one of them.
 
If it's any consolation, Orthodox in Slavic countries don't entirely understand their own liturgies because it's in Slavonic. In Greece, I believe it's in a difficult, archaic form of the language as well. Which goes to show understanding isn't entirely necessary to get the spiritual benefit.

Ethnophyletism has been condemned as a sin by the Orthodox Church. So in theory, for example, a Russian Orthodox church in Germany should at a minimum publish information and do the sermon in German, not only Russian. In practice, we have a long way to go as many of these churches are specifically catered to ethnic communities. This also makes Eastern European immigrant groups lazier and less likely to learn the native language. The more people like you join, the less ethnic the churches will become which is a good thing.
 
analyst_green said:
The more people like you join, the less ethnic the churches will become which is a good thing.
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And if the churches are not ethnic, in which language should they serve, in Latin? Should the language of the liturgy be changed because of 3 people whose first language is English, or is it better for those people to learn the language in which the service is held?

The solution is for the OCA to open its parishes in other countries to its parishioners, as well as for other churches (ROCOR) to introduce special services in English where there are enough people for such a thing, instead of insisting on services in the common language, be it Greek or Latin or Church Slavonic, which no one would understand.
 
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Катехон said:
And if the churches are not ethnic, in which language should they serve, in Latin? Should the language of the liturgy be changed because of 3 people whose mother tongue is English, or is it better for those people to learn the language in which the service is held?

The solution is for the OCA to open its parishes in other countries to its parishioners, as well as for other churches (ROCOR) to introduce special services in English where there are enough people for such a thing, instead of insisting on services in the common language, be it Greek or Latin or Church Slavonic, which no one would understand.
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I'm not going to comment on the liturgical language because that's a complicated question. But there's no reason priests can't give the sermon in the local language. Or publish the website in that language. Sometimes you have churches with the website only in a foreign language. Immigrants should learn the language of the country they're in, not the other way around which wouldn't even help much if you have a Slavonic or Koine Greek liturgy.

Having English services is an entirely different question. I may have misunderstood, if @Teedub is in a non English speaking country and does not speak the local language, then there is no easy solution.
 
Катехон said:
And if the churches are not ethnic, in which language should they serve, in Latin? Should the language of the liturgy be changed because of 3 people whose first language is English, or is it better for those people to learn the language in which the service is held?

The solution is for the OCA to open its parishes in other countries to its parishioners, as well as for other churches (ROCOR) to introduce special services in English where there are enough people for such a thing, instead of insisting on services in the common language, be it Greek or Latin or Church Slavonic, which no one would understand.
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Maybe more people will attend if they can understand...
 
I plucked up the courage to visit the Orthodox church in my closest city. I don't know why I was nervous before I went in, stepping into the unknown I suppose. Thankfully, there was a friendly Georgian man who worked there and could speak OK English and explained some things to me about what to expect if I come to a service/liturgy (which I'm going to do next week), especially considering it won't be in English. There is also a tiny shop inside the building that has icons and prayer beads etc.
 
I had the same issue as you, thankfully there are OCA parishes in my city, and that has been amazing to talk with the fathers there and attend divine liturgy on Sunday.

I have a question that stems from your concern: what if I am traveling in a country in which there are no orthodox parishes (South America comes to mind, where it's basically Catholic or nothing in many places). Do I attend divine liturgy in a Catholic church then?
 
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