The crisis inside the Catholic Church has turned everything upside down. Tired of liturgical renovations, many Catholics are looking for more traditional expressions of worship. Others lament the “feminization” of some progressive services and seek out less emotional and more affirmative models of faith. Tragically, these searches sometimes lead outside the Church.
One wrong path to this religious ideal is Eastern “Orthodoxy.” According to a New York Post article, many young people, especially men, are joining these schismatic sects where they hope to find solace in their ancient liturgies, challenging austerity and penitential fasting. These sensorial and physical attributes of Eastern “Orthodoxy” are attractive to image-driven generations and those who crave religious experiences.
However, such individuals would do well to listen to another pensive and larger group of truth-seekers before taking the plunge into schism. This group is comprised of Eastern “Orthodox” Christians who are converting to the Catholic Church. These pilgrims say: Beware! Not all that glitters is gold. Not all smoke is incense. If you are seeking the Truth, look only to the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
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Search for Stability
On the surface, Eastern “Orthodoxy” appears as something solid and immovable amid the crisis. The ancient liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom (taken from the Catholic Church) is full of mystery and beauty that attracts the spiritually famished. In the face of such apparent solidity, the temptation is to embrace it wholeheartedly.
However, Eastern “Orthodox” Christians heading toward Catholicism see it differently. They say that one must look beyond these attractive externals. They list major problems with “Orthodoxy,” like impoverished doctrinal foundations and incredible disunity, as reasons to look toward Rome, its present apocalyptic crisis notwithstanding.
These new Catholic converts find comfort in the solidity of traditional perennial Catholic teaching and its magisterial structures, which have no equivalent in the doctrinally dormant Eastern sects.
A Clash of Doctrines
Indeed, the new truth-seekers find it hard to believe that well-known Catholic converts like Rod Dreher abandoned Rome to embrace Eastern schism.
One Russian truth-searcher, Max Grigorieff, writing recently in OnePeterFive, asks why a Catholic would “join one of those churches that allows contraception and literally dozens of official grounds for so-called ‘Christian divorce’ open to remarriage, having almost no trouble in giving Holy Communion to these people” or “allowing a widowed and abandoned priest to get a new wife?”
Mr. Grigorieff notes that all these aberrations (and more) exist inside Eastern “Orthodoxy.” Moreover, while its liturgy seems frozen in time, so-called Orthodoxy’s doctrinal development is frozen in the eighth century and largely unorthodox. The confession has no fixed body of doctrines or magisterium from which to draw inspiration to resolve modern problems that confront the faithful. It does not even have the mechanisms in place to allow it to develop doctrine or enforce unity on key belief issues.
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A second problem is that these Catholics are converting to something that does not exist. There is no universal “Orthodox” Church. Eastern “Orthodoxy” is a gaggle of fragmented churches engaged in an ongoing civil war. One federation of churches prohibits interaction with others. Some even go to the point of sacrilege by re-baptizing members of enemy “Orthodox” factions.
The fragmentation extends to doctrinal disagreements. Like the Protestants, “Orthodoxy” holds a multitude of opinions and beliefs since there is no unifying authority to pronounce upon and settle divisive issues. The different sects disagree on some matters vital for salvation, “like the efficacy of the Sacraments.” Many factions were influenced by Protestant heresies that departed from the deposit of the faith.
Lack of Social Teaching
Greg Cook, a young American truth-seeker, also chronicles his spiritual journey from “Orthodoxy” to Catholicism in another article in OnePeterFive. He started his conversion process by looking at the role of social teaching.
He notes a lack of well-developed social doctrine among “Orthodox” sects since they rely upon patristics—the teachings found in the early Church fathers. This patristic vision places much more emphasis on monasticism and asceticism, which were developing in the early Church. As a result, the schismatics never developed a body of teachings that concentrated on social doctrine and organization.
Mr. Cook also criticizes the lack of unity among the different sects, which makes any agreement on social teaching impossible. “Orthodox” leaders do not even take advantage of the positive developments of social teachings of the Catholic Church since they harbor a reflexive and visceral hostility toward anything Western, especially Roman.
In one of his university papers, Mr. Cook, still not a Catholic, asserted that due to ethnic and national separations and internal fights, the “Orthodox” do not “share a worldwide mission of philanthropy and charity.”
He later concluded in another paper: “The genius of Catholicism is that it is a Faith for all places, all people, and all times. The Church’s social teaching is the application of Christ’s message for the world. Justice and charity know no borders.”
The Allure of Liturgy Without Doctrinal Moorings
The testimonies of these recent pilgrims from “Orthodoxy” to Catholicism are just two of many such conversions of those who sense the shortcomings of the Eastern schismatic sects and now rejoice in their communion with the Catholic Church.
These voices should serve as warnings for those attracted by the allure and trappings of ancient liturgy without doctrinal moorings or visible unity.
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Indeed, there is an immense spiritual hunger for God, His Law and His worship, especially among the newer generations. This hunger must find its expression in a visible Church though which God manifests Himself to humanity and is found in the Catholic Church.
The terrible crisis inside the Church and society makes the search for the spiritual much more difficult. It creates the temptation to reduce the Faith to mere external practices.
However, the former “Orthodox” pilgrims show that conversion is possible for those who listen to the voice of God’s Grace. Those seeking the Truth must be attentive lest they stray from the right path.
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