The Beginning of the Story
It was the fall of 2000. I was taking a class called The History and Development of Christian Thought from the Apostolic Age to Thomas Aquinas, or something very close to that. For fun.
Over all, it was a great class. I learned a lot. Almost all of the material was new to me. I had heard of some of the people we studied; I had a very limited knowledge of some of the history and heresies of the early church. What I didn't have any idea on at all was how it was different from what I knew. Really, like most Protestants, my knowledge of "Church History" was pretty murky prior to Martin Luther.
About the time we came across the word deification, my brain tried to explode. I knew I was looking at very old ideas from the early days of the Church. I knew I was likely to come across thinking very foreign to everything I knew. But deification just sounded a little... Mormon maybe, or too reminiscent of Babel and Eden. Becoming god? Hmm. But there it was, right there in the early Church.
I really wanted to know what that was all about. I figured there was a reason it was part of the belief system. Maybe it wasn't as kooky as it looked? I figured if something I came across in that class sounded questionable, maybe I should take a second look and then a good hard look at my own beliefs. Here I am, two millennia removed from the apostles. Logically, it would be reasonable to expect the first three or four hundred years to be closer in ideology to the original. All I knew for sure was that I wasn't getting any help from the class in understanding this deification business.
The only thing I knew to do was to email George. He had been through the Comparative Religion program at that school, he is brilliant, and I knew that if anyone could explain this to me, it would be him. He didn't know, but he was able to redirect my question to another person from church who did know.
As it turned out, Patrick of the Mountain has studied the early Church extensively. According to Patrick, deification (Latin), also known as theosis (Greek), is similar in concept to the Western idea of sanctification. Similar, but deeper and richer, he said. I could be ok with that.
When Geo forwarded my question to Patrick, it started the conversation that I see now set me on the path that eventually led me to the Orthodox Church. If there is any moment that I can point to and say "Here it is," this is it.
More to come...
Over all, it was a great class. I learned a lot. Almost all of the material was new to me. I had heard of some of the people we studied; I had a very limited knowledge of some of the history and heresies of the early church. What I didn't have any idea on at all was how it was different from what I knew. Really, like most Protestants, my knowledge of "Church History" was pretty murky prior to Martin Luther.
About the time we came across the word deification, my brain tried to explode. I knew I was looking at very old ideas from the early days of the Church. I knew I was likely to come across thinking very foreign to everything I knew. But deification just sounded a little... Mormon maybe, or too reminiscent of Babel and Eden. Becoming god? Hmm. But there it was, right there in the early Church.
I really wanted to know what that was all about. I figured there was a reason it was part of the belief system. Maybe it wasn't as kooky as it looked? I figured if something I came across in that class sounded questionable, maybe I should take a second look and then a good hard look at my own beliefs. Here I am, two millennia removed from the apostles. Logically, it would be reasonable to expect the first three or four hundred years to be closer in ideology to the original. All I knew for sure was that I wasn't getting any help from the class in understanding this deification business.
The only thing I knew to do was to email George. He had been through the Comparative Religion program at that school, he is brilliant, and I knew that if anyone could explain this to me, it would be him. He didn't know, but he was able to redirect my question to another person from church who did know.
As it turned out, Patrick of the Mountain has studied the early Church extensively. According to Patrick, deification (Latin), also known as theosis (Greek), is similar in concept to the Western idea of sanctification. Similar, but deeper and richer, he said. I could be ok with that.
When Geo forwarded my question to Patrick, it started the conversation that I see now set me on the path that eventually led me to the Orthodox Church. If there is any moment that I can point to and say "Here it is," this is it.
More to come...
Labels: Becoming Orthodox
posted by Sam Gamgee at
11:20 AM
1 Comments:
I'm sorry, you raised the drawbridge up before I could walk across the "Why and How this instance led you to the Orthodox church" divide. Care to enlighten?
I know you said More to come... rather mysteriously, but I'm just making sure you know the bridge is up.
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