Why Orthodoxy? Why become an Orthodox Christian?  There seem to be so many options and so many opinions if one wants to be a Christian.  After all, there are Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, and non-denominational Evangelicals of many stripes.  And at a time when people want to be spiritual, but not religious, it seems strange that anybody would want to be religious at all. Even many Christians see religion as an obstacle to genuine spirituality.

At the heart of every sincere seekers search is a desire for authenticity.  In an age of copies of copies, of endless claims of "new and improved", many of us no longer believe the hype.  In a culture where we have been oversold on just about everything, including religion, we've become somewhat jaded. Somehow the authentic religious experience seems to be hidden from us.  We have an itch we cannot scratch, a desire for truth that seems to be thwarted at every turn.

Why do we want to be spiritual without being religious?  We want to cut through the layers of religious baggage and find the truth, to be re-united with our creator. But all too often in this endeavor we make a religion and a God of our own opinions, likes and wants. We make a religion of all the things we think it should be.  How silly. If we make our own tailor made religion, that makes us the God of it.  You see the problem is not religion at all, it is us.  Just like in the Garden of Eden, we want to replace God's will with our own.  It is not religion that we have to change, it is us. We are taken captive by our own desires, our own emotions, our own fears.  What we need is a therapy that keeps us in recovery.  The recovery we seek is not merely the recovery of our true selves, but of the Image of Christ in us.

Spirituality is more than a sentimental feeling.  One may be religious without being spiritual, but one cannot truly be spiritual without being religious.  Being spiritual requires actions that unite us with God and restore in us the divine image.  If this is so and these actions are a therapy for the cure of the soul then we need the most comprehensive treatment for the disease.  No one who had cancer would only take part of the treatment, but all of it.  Similarly, if sin is a disease that affects the whole human person then we need the most comprehensive religious treatment.  We need a religious treatment that treats the mind, the emotions, the body and the soul.  We need a battery of doctors, experts in the field of the human heart and mind.  We need spiritual disciplines that curb the body and rewire the brain, we need to reframe our spiritual lives with an encounter with the God who is radically above and beyond us and our human cultures - transcendent and Divine.

In the Orthodox Christian Faith we find the most comprehensive therapy for the human person.  A therapy not merely designed to keep sin in remission, or to alleviate guilt, or even to make us good people, but to recover in us the very image of the Christ - the source of joy and uncreated light.  We call this theosis.  We accomplish this through the practice of an unbroken tradition of spiritual practices:

• We go to church as a Holy obligation.  Not because God will punish us, but because true worship reorients our lives to the divine.  And we worship in a way that is not patterned after our own culture but after the culture of heaven, to draw us into eternity and remind us that neither government, money or desire is God.
• We fast, pray and give to the needy because in doing these simple things regularly we discover that our bodies are not our masters, God is.  In so doing we are made truly spiritual beings when united to sincere faith. Prayer opens us to the Holy Spirit, fastings weaken the “flesh” and strengthen the spirit, and giving generates thankfulness and meekness.
• We listen to the lives of the saints, holy men and women of history, because they proved their expertise in mastering the heart, mind and soul thereby recovering the image of Christ and serving as examples.
• We worship in spirit, mind, and body. With incense and icons we surround ourselves with another reality, the reality of heaven. 
  

There are other churches one can attend. Some of them are changing their faith and practice to accommodate our society, thereby making social positions of the day into God. Others want to strip faith of all the forms of “religion”, making God of their experience. Some want to practice a spirituality of conscience, making their own opinion God. But this is the Catholic and Apostolic Church as it existed originally, without indulgences or the late development of priestly celibacy.  It is the Faith unchanged, without the never-ending parade of Protestant re-interpretation. Yet, it is religion in its fragility, because here as anywhere the inner truth can be abused, lost and forgotten.

We invite you to join us in practicing Orthodox Christianity. Faith is something practiced, not merely assented to in the mind. We invite you to make God the Lord of your life. We invite you to find refuge from the world in the changeless faith. We invite you to discover the pearl of great prize.