www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Perhaps some testimonies are in order

Friends,

Many who have been here a while have shared in part their testimonies. We have a certain comfort level with each other. Most of us realize that a healthy Church is a mixture of young and old and cradle and convert. Most of us here are faithful to God and His Church and all love our spiritual patrimony.

Some of our newer posters may not have that insight. I invite all who wish to share their testimony either for the first time or once again for the benefit of those who are newer.

My first experiences with any church was going by myself to a local Protestant Church and then traveling with some relatives to various holiness protestant churches, revivals, and campmeetings. When a preacher invited us to allow Christ to show us the way to live I jumped at the opportunity and surrendered my life to Christ at the age of 13.

At the age of 18 I travelled to Kankakee, Ill. to college with a cardboard suitcase, a cardboard box, $47.00 and a promise of a job. That was all I had in the world. After college I went to Northwestern Universiy in Evanston, Illinois for graduate work in Patristical studies. I studied at Glasgow, Oxford, and Birmingham during my graduate studies.

During a visit to a Serbian Orthodox Church I fell in love with the Divine Liturgy but thought wrongly that since I was married I could never pursue that. I taught on the college level briefly then became a United Methodist minister. I was a UM pastor for 27 years but was always disappointed that most of my efforts to introduce the people to the Church of the Fathers fell on deaf ears. I was able to institute every week Communion in most of my parishes but it didn't seem as authentic as I had hoped somehow.

When my last United Methodist Bishop started spouting nonsense about the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ being only metaphor and how homosexual ought to be allowed to be married and even be ordained in the UM Church I had had enough. While the issues about homosexual practice were disciplinary questions constituting schismatic behavior the first two are clearly heresy. I filed formal heresy charges against him and retired.

No source of income. No place to actually fulfill my vocation. We had nothing in this world except for the hope in Jesus Christ that if we were obedient to Him He would take care of us. I formed a house Church for a few months and invited an Orthodox priest out to introduce us to Orthodoxy. The group disbanned after 8 months. Some members became RCs others went to Protestant Churches. We moved to Joliet, Ill.

We visited an Orthodox Church and though we loved the liturgy we were troubled by their off handed dismissal of the call to unity. We tried RC Churches but the most of the ones we visited and all of them in our area just seemed like our old Methodist Churches. Finally, we heard about the BC Church. Within seconds of entering the sanctuary we knew we were home. This was the closest we had seen to the many Churches of Israel and as we imagined the closest thing to heaven we were likely to find on earth.

Father gladly received us. My wife and I teach ECF. I teach an adult Bible class which I team taught with Father for the first year then he handed it over to me. I sang in the choir fo a couple of years. We love our Church.

Dan Lauffer

One more thing. During my Methodist years I was twice honored for my efforts in Evangelism and Church growth with National awards. I guess God has given me some gifts in Evangelization. So, I intend to faithful to Him and use them.

Dan L

My story is not so dramatic or long as Dan's.

In '94, my parents visited the UGCC monastery in California, Holy Transfiguration, for a few days. They were taken with it-though my father's favourite part was the precommunion prayer of St John Chrysostom. They already knew the pastor of the local Byzantine Catholic parish in Kansas City (from Knights of Columbus and Fatima league things), and we started going to St Luke's once a month. At the end of my junior year in HS, my parents moved to another region of the state, but i stayed to finish HS, and at that time, i made St Luke my permanent home. When i was a freshman in college, i drove back every other week for Liturgy (i lved 2 hours away at the time).

Pentacost of that year (2000) i invited my finacee and my best friend to the Divine Liturgy. They came into the Church the following year (my wife was Nazarene, and my best friend, now my Godson, was of one of the Mormon sects). After i was married in 2001, we came every week, and thereafter, we had our first child, and i transfered Rites on the feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos. Eventually we had a daughter, and then i graduated in Dec. 2003 (BA-Music). We spent a short time in Ohio, in the Steubenville area, but because of circumstances, we came back in November of last year-still at St Luke's.

Not very dramatic, but there it is.

In Christ,
Adam

Would others care to share?

CDL

hummm....

I was raised Soutern Baptist and Jesus was always there for me, however, in my teen years I became very angry at the people in my church for the way they treated the pastor(not my dad) and some others, so I walked away. I entered the Air Force and met my future husband.

He was Polish National Catholic, but had not been in Church since third grade, mostly because of conflict between the Roman Catholics and his parents when he was growing up and going to a Parochial School. He disliked the Southen Baptists about as much as I disliked Roman Catholics.

So we were married in a Methoidist Church (God has such a sence of humor). It would be ten years before we began searching for a Church home. We looked everywhere - Methodist, Baptist, Church of Christ, Nazarene, so on. Then one Pascha we went to Church with his grandmother, All Saints PNC in Carnegie PA. He said that is it, I want to be in a Church like that. The worship and the small 't' traditions, were very important to him.

I thought well that is ok, they make sure you get plenty of exercise while you are at church; up, down, kneel, sit - it must all have some benefit, plus it was beautiful inside the church. All we ever had in our churches was a Baptismal pool and a podeum. So I could see a lot of benefits of being there. However, we lived in Steubenville and it was too far to drive every Sunday (telling our age - that was when you had to travel old route 22). And it would not really allow us to be as involved with the Church family as was needed. So we prayed.

I was president of the Women Jaycees in Wintersville. I had become close friends with the woman who was president of the Tronto Women Jaycess, Angie, who was a very committed Roman Catholic. In our converstaion she told me of a Catholic Church in Toronto OH, that didn't use English or Latin in their mass, she didn't know what it was but would find out. She called several days later and told me it was St. Josephs Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church. I had never heard of such a thing, not that it mattered, really. So I called Fr. Mike - now retired Archpriest Michael Moran - and fell madly in love with him. Oh my, I had never experienced the compassion that man had and I had only talked with him maybe 15 minutes.

Wow, well getting my husband there was another story. We tried to just find the Church, to no avail(I mean you can see the crosses from the highway). ALL SUMMER LONG I TRIED TO GET HIM THERE! Then he finally said he would not go until he met him and talked with him. Oh WOW, we walked out and both knew, that we had known Fr. Mike all our lives. My husband was sold.

Fr. Mike told us to come and visit, but we would need to come at least three times to get the hang of it. Boy was he ever wrong. It was only TEN MINUTES! We knew we were home. For me, the Bible lept off the pages. We told him we wanted to be totally involved not just Sunday Christians. And we were very involved. I received conditional Baptism, Stan got a Change of Rites (because he had been in a Roman Catholic School) and our oldest son was Baptised. Then, about two years later, people started saying to my husband don't you want to be a deacon. Of course in the early eighties there were no deacons and no plans for deacons, but God was planting seeds.

We suddenly found ourselves in 1986, out of work and out of money, loosing our home, our youngest in the hospital with pneumonia. (we have three children, our oldest son and his wife are expecting our first grand baby ) Do you know you could stock the cabinets of three families with what they gave you for food stamps back then, and we did - it was a blessing I guess. I was a part time sub for the Post Office and Stan was looking for work everywhere, his business had taken a total nose dive. Well God's sence of humor poped up again as ususal. Thursday of Holy Week 1986, we got a call telling him they could not hire him at the job that had been promised. On Good Friday I got a call from the PO in Birmingham Al asking me if I would transfer and go full time. We had heard for a year then everywhere we turned, "if you hear my voice today harden not your hearts." So what do you do? You go.

Well here we are in B'ham AL, actually Irondale, from the back yard of the Franciscan University of Steubenivlle to the back yard of EWTN. God sure is funny! We are in a Melkite Church and dearly love the Church and the people, but had never felt called to leave our roots. We still miss St. Josephs. Then one day, Stan gets a call that the Ruthenians were opening a Diaconate program. CAN YOU IMAGAINE HE WAS ACCEPTED! Of course he had written a number of letters asking from 1989 on, so they already had a file. He is now Deacon Stan ordained in the first class in 2003.

The one thing I have learned about God for sure is he takes us down a straight path with a lot of right and left turns. YOU GO GOD, I JUST LOVE YOUR WAYS! Thank you Jesus for never giving up on us when we gave up on you. Here we are 25 years later, writing on the internet about what God did on a Byzantine Forum. Wow, who would have imagined that.

Pani Rose

One more story...

I just remembered when we told my parents about Church. They said well go anywhere you want but don't go to a Catholic Church. I said well that is where we are going. They weren't too happy.

However, when our daughter was Baptised, they came up for it. After being at the Church a few times the people just made all over them. They reached out to them, especailly Fr. Andrew Chura. My dad, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, said he had never been so loved and welcomed in a Church before. They have been ok with us being there ever since.

Pani Rose

Here is my story.

I was raised in a very Latinized environment. My parents knew there was a great difference between the Latin and Eastern Churches, but I could never get a systematic answer out of them!

They would look at my room with its Western pictures and say, "Those aren't our tradition . . ."

The Julian Calendar was strictly enforced, however!

And my father was afraid of sending me to a Latin Catholic school too early for fear I would be Latinized and de-Ukie-ized.

My mother, as it turns out, was baptized a Roman Catholic and she taught my brother and myself to cross in the Latin manner (you all know how they do it! ).

When my father came by our room as we said our evening prayers (I still have the icon that we prayed before then), he rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

He then came into the room with my mother standing behind us and asked us to make the Sign of the Cross again . . .

Knowing that we could only have learned that from mom, he turned to her and said, "Are you trying to raise them as Poles or something? Let's learn to do the Sign of the Cross properly, shall we?"

My desire to strengthen my knowledge of the Eastern Catholic Churches began when, one fine day at Holy Rosary Church, the Principal-Nun ordered me to genuflect like everyone else. I refused, but was then sent back to do a proper genuflection. I told her that wasn't how it was done in my Church - she said, "Well, this is how it is done in our Church."

My insistence on crossing myself thrice was ridiculed in school, as was our adherence to the Old Calendar.

My "Rite" was referred to as the "Odd Rite."

(I always keep checking the year in which the Vatican II document on the Eastern Catholic Churches was issued . . .)

To make matters worse, we attended a VERY Latinized UGCC parish with statues et al.

(However, to be fair, there NEVER was a public recitation of the Rosary, as in the parishes that Charles is familiar with . . . ).

I then met my grandparents from Ukraine and found out that my grandfather was a priest.

He would often try to temper my "Latin zeal." The crunch came with the patriarchal movement involving His Beatitude (some of us called him, "His Holiness") Joseph Slipyj.

I was an altar-server in a Basilian parish at that time and the Basilian Fathers told me that Patriarch Slipyj was, in effect, betraying Rome by his disobedience etc. And, they said, he wasn't infallible. Only the Pope was that.

When I came home one day and told my grandparents about this, in effect repeating the denigrating comments about Patriarch Joseph I had heard from the Basilian Fathers, my grandparents flew into a fit!

I said, "But I am a Catholic!"

"No," my grandmother intoned, "You are a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic - there is a difference!"

There was more to follow from my grandparents . . .

It was at this moment that a kind of crisis gripped me - I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what the root of it all was.

Over time, I began to read, study and ask about what had always been obvious to me - how Greek-Catholics are different from Roman Catholics.

This produced a revolution within me and put me on an immensely rewarding path of knowledge, experience and practice.

I'm still on it!

Alex

Would a non-Catholic testimony be inappropriate?

Orthodox? Seems fine with me.

Dan L

I grew up in a small town in Eastern WA. State after W.W.II. We moved there so that my father, who died when I was nine years old -- within a few months of our arrival, could take a job with the AEC. Anyway, Dad's relatives were all Irish Catholics(He was born in Indiana) and Mom's were all German Catholics.(She was born in Germany) In this little town of around 4000 it didn't matter at all because there was only one small Catholic church named ,St. Patrick's, whose pastor was Pennsyvania Dutch and spoke German. Mom liked that because she could still go to confession in German.

Of course, not only Catholics were outnumbered but Catholic kids even more so. We did not know of or even hear of the existence of any other rites other than Latin in the Catholic Church. And keep in mind this was much before Vatican II, so the mass was still in Latin. We didn't have a Catholic school like I went to in the mid-west, but we did have Saturday morning catechism classes, choir practice, eventually Jr. Newman meetings, fund raising projects, and summer school catechism classes and for the old folks there was church bingo.

The majority of my friends were either nothing or Protestant. Protestants out numbered Catholics by far. So...once in a while one of my friends would invite me to one of their youth group picnics or parties.

One picnic in particular which a friend took me to stands out in memory. I was 14. We were at a state park picnic area where two rivers meet. After games, food, and fun we had a short prayer time in which we all joined hands and recited the "Our Father" together. I was really surprised because their ending went on longer than I was used to. "For Thine is the Kingdom...etc." and they didn't make the sign of the cross. Then the youth group leader gave us each a small candle we lit and put on a heavy paper plate. He said to put it in the water and the thought was to watch to see what happened. They said that if a plate went downstream instead of turning over or going into the bank that one could be a missionary some day. Nobody's plate went downstream but mine! Well, it did seem kind of silly...and I was the only Catholic in the crowd. I didn't think much of it until many years later.

I continued to go to mass although since my father's death my mother remarried out of the church and stopped going except at Christmas and Easter. She sent me alone. So I began to lose interest although I kept going.

My first two years in high school I went out for the tennis team and was partnered with a girl who was a strong Southern Baptist. She kept a bible in her locker (I was shocked!) and talked about "Jesus" all of the time. (which felt like just too religious for me.) I used to say, "What a nice person Janie is, too bad she is so religious! Sure can play tennis though!"

But I liked Janie a lot and her Baptist family. One time they took me to a meeting sponsered by Youth for Christ and not a particular church. The speaker was Billy Graham's then partner in YFC...Tory Johnson. He preached so loud it scared me. This was NOT what I was used to in my Latin parish. And they were all shouting Amen and Amen...

He walked around the audience speaking to various kids and sure enough he came up to me and said, "Things aren't right with you and the Lord, are they?" I said, "That might be true but I am not going up there." He wanted us to come up for the altar call. I left the auditorium and waited for my friends. However, what all was said in the sermon did sort of reach me. He talked about, "Going an extra mile for Christ." So in a few days I decided to committ myself to Jesus Christ and follow Him. I did this privately and prayed. Then I started going to Jr. Newman in my Catholic parish and getting more involved in that. I also started reading the bible we were studying there. I especially got into the Gospels. It seemed to come alive to me in a new and interesting way. After my experience at the picnic I was becoming a better Catholic. I sent for Maryknoll magazines and became interested in their lay missionary program.

I had always prayed as long as I can remember. I had received the sacraments, but I do think the times mentioned above were significant turning points in my journey. I think God can meet us in places we might not necessarily expect. Glory to Him!

Eventually after attending a Catholic university and becoming a high school teacher I volunteered as a lay missionary in a Catholic mission school in Alaska going up there when I was only 22. So I really did become a missionary and in Alaska of all places!! (Not a Maryknoll, however) I spent 34 more years in that State but only three years in that mission school before marrying and beginning a new life up North!

In time I grew to love studying the bible more and more and eventually got an M.A. in Religious Studies at a Catholic University in the lower 48 mostly summer school classes, with thesis work on the Hebrew Scriptures. That was twenty years ago. My older daughter and I earned degrees that same year from the same university. This made the local papers.

But MOST of all a long time ago Jesus became and does remain the Lord and focus of my Life. I trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit on my journey. I know that when my father died my heavenly Father and His angels looked out for me and still do...

I married a Catholic Christian from the mid-west who was also a mission worker in Alaska and now have three grown children and two grand kids. We celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary this Friday. We moved back to WA. State ten years ago, but do not live in that same little town. My brother does yet and it is always nice to visit there. Sometimes I go out to that picnic area and see the place where the rivers meet. The Protestant girlfriend who brought me along to that picnic so long ago is now gone. And so well remembered...as are her parents who were always so kind to me and showed me much love while always respecting my choice to be Catholic .

I trust in continuing this journey, but as the Sisters of St. Anne, who were my co-workers and mentors in the missions, used to say, "Let us continue to pray for holy perserverance." I need to do that a lot.

Mary Jo...gratefully.

WOW these are all awesome.

Looking forward to Rilian's, and hopefully some more takers. This is an excellent way to learn to 'testify' for the Lord. Once we profess our faith openly, and building upon the faith of others, we are able to climb mountains. Whoever said a Christians life is boring has no idea of what they are talking about

Oh so exciting is our Lord!

Pani Rose,

How right you are. It does focus our witness to be able to give words to our testimony. "Confessing with our lips that Jesus is Lord" has always been beneficial. What is so wondrous is the paths the Lord takes us all on. From yours, to Alex's, to Mary Jo's. I too eagerly await Rilian's. I hope others will feel encouraged to share.

Dan L

Dan, perhaps this is a big key to effect evangelization...sharing our testimonies and our stories with others.

Forgot to mention in mine...that when I took those classes in all of those summer schools I took a course in Byzantine Spirituality from the pastor of a local Byzantine Ruthenian Parish. He was teaching the course in their summer school sessions. I also visited his church, eventually attended a Byzantine parish when living there, and, well, that step eventually led me to this forum... So the Spirit did lead...\o/

Mary Jo..who appreciates the thread and all the testimonies so far.

AMEN Porter!

You are still a missionary.

To all,

I wonder if some of our wonderful clergy would be willing to share their stories. Some are converts, some cradle - Catholic or Orthodox - each one received the call upon their hearts and intellect. If they have the time or desire, I think it would be such a testimony for us to learn from. Also, the opportunity to encourage other young men or older, who are felling a call on their lives and decerning if there is a vocation to the priesthood for them. Also, in hearing their stories, it enables us to use their wisdom when we notice a young person with deep faith who seem to be searching.

Pani Rose

This is a link to my testimony of how I returned to the Church. It is kind of long: my story [caelumetterra.typepad.com]
-Daniel