I’m an Anglican priest moving toward Orthodoxy. It’s time for me to leave Protestantism and take my first steps into the Orthodox Church. I invite you to watch as God lights one footstep at a time. If you’re on a similar path, or if you’re curious about why someone would drop everything for Orthodoxy, maybe something here will help. Here’s the nutshell version of my journey so far.

In 2016, I entered a Presbyterian seminary as an Anglican ordinand (ACNA). My Bishop wanted to carve out a Reformed wing of Anglicanism within the ACNA, and I was a guinea pig for that project. In the context of that seminary, an extreme form of Reformed theology emerged which culminated in the thought of a single 20th century Dutchman. The most present alternative to that system was Thomism or Reformed Scholasticism. As I researched these traditions, I found that neither the Reformed tradition nor Thomism satisfied my desire to know Christ in his fullness. 

About this time, I petitioned for an independent study. My proposal was to trace the thought of St. Dionysius in the Victorine school of 12th century Paris. This built on some previous art historical work I had done and I hoped it would boost my language skills. My advisor didn’t feel competent to supervise that paper. Instead, he suggested doing a paper entitled Early Greek Christian Mysticism. I felt ill equipped, but I took the challenge. I started by researching as much as I could about patristic spirituality and tried to nail down key concepts. Ultimately, I argued for a redefinition of ‘mysticism’ for the patristic era, over and against late medieval expressions. 

In the course of writing that paper, something much greater was happening inside of me. In my reading of early Christian texts, I was learning an entirely new vocabulary for salvation. I  grappled with the concept of theosis, and the role of theoria (usually translated ‘contemplation’) in the Christian life. I was seeing a Christian expression that was neither cerebral or rationalistic, but lived. Yet it was far from void of intellectual depth. Riches of insight came, often presented in simple, humble language. The Fathers presented Christ, whose incarnation made my salvation possible in very concrete ways, and who made wholeness tangible for me. The patristic approach to theology, that knowledge of God can only come through holiness and contemplation of the incarnation, made me rejoice. It would also pull a thread in the systematic categories I had come to take for granted. The more I tugged on that thread, the more Protestantism and western Christianity would come unraveled for me.

I was ordained a deacon in May of 2019. In 2020, my final semester at seminary, a prominent Reformed theologian came to teach the doctrine of salvation. He required students to present a term paper topic to him for review and guidance. I wanted to write on the soteriological impact of the incarnation upon mankind. My suggestion was met with confusion. The incarnation, he said, fit within the theological locus of Christology, or perhaps anthropology, but not salvation. That statement would summarize the crossroad I would find between patristic and Protestant thought. Still, he let me write the paper. Writing it allowed me to deepen my understanding of the new possibilities the incarnation created for mankind, while addressing a Reformed mindset. 

I graduated and was ordained to the priesthood in July, 2020. I was appointed to a small parish in upstate New York. I tried to teach and preach biblical small “o” orthodoxy while navigating pastoral waters: an ethos of mainline Protestantism that I had not anticipated, the ejection of my predecessor, boomer culture, and COVID. Though I successfully brought patristic insights into my pastoral care, I couldn’t shake the fact that what I had discovered in the Fathers of the Church was maintained only in Orthodoxy. And I found Orthodoxy decreasingly compatible with even the best smorgasbord of Protestantism. 

I began attending Vespers at a local Orthodox parish as often as I could. Gradually, my family joined me. We had meaningful conversations with the local priest and established contact with trusted Orthodox voices outside of our geographic region. Several times I had to set aside questions of becoming Orthodox in order to concentrate on the tasks at hand. Other times I tried to create an escape valve in order to seamlessly leave the ministry and become a catechumen. 

Eventually, Orthodoxy could no longer be ignored. A full break was necessary. For me to purchase the Pearl of Great Price whom I had found, I would need to leave everything behind. My wife and I plan to leave parish ministry and our place in Protestantism—as well as our home—at the end of this summer to become catechumens in the Orthodox Church. This blog is meant to retrace my steps, and share my joys of leaving this world behind to find Christ and to be found in Him.