Sometimes a person, in the course of their life makes a decision that the Spiritual Path currently being persued is no longer right for them.

Jonathan was a devout practicing Roman Catholic for his adult life and candidate for the Roman Diaconate when he found that some of the latest proclamations from the Church of Rome were unchristian and without the love of Christ. So he began looking for a traditional Church that matched his values. One of his friends told him about Sts. T&T and he attended Liturgy a while back. He came back a second time and we discussed the way one becomes Orthodox, and after a bit of discussion he decided to become a Catechumen.

There is no set time limit for a catechumenate. I have had some that went for 2 years and others that were a few months. How Jon’s will develop is yet to be seen. There is a lot to study and a whole lot to discard.

The Biggest problem with most converts is understanding that Orthodoxy is not just another set of rules and regulations with an astoundingly beautiful Liturgy, but rather a different way of thinking about one’s salvation. Things are not as “fixed” as they are in most western denomination and ideas have a very different slant. For example: The word for sin in Greek is amartia. Rather than having a meaning of failure to do the right thing, it means “missing the mark”. Thus there aren’t different ranks or categories of sin… sin is just sin. There is no concept of the Augustinian notion of Original Sin. Every Child is born into the world pure and without the stain of Adam. Thus infant baptism isn’t necessary, just as it was practiced in the early Church. Because we have no concept of original sin, there is no need for limbo, etc. Orthodoxy requires that we re- examine what we believe in a very different light, and it’s a hard thing to do.

So the time of one’s catechumenate includes not just studying, but re-learning and re-understanding our relationship to God. It is also a time when the Catechumen gets to know the Community and the Community gets to know him. He is going to be adopted into the Family within the Orthodox Church.

The Pics were taken at Sts. Theodore Tiro & Theodore Stratilates Eastern Orthodox Parish in San Francisco. I hope you enjoy them.