Orthodox testimony

         

I wish to explain here why I am an Orthodox Christian and no any other kind of Christian which exists in our days. The Sunday of Orthodoxy is near and the subject is natural.  First of all, I must confess that I loved and admired Jesus Christ long before I understood that it is essential for me, as a human being, to believe. I began to read the Gospel in 1989, as I can remember, or even earlier, before or after seeing the amazing movie of Zefirelli, “Jesus of Nazareth”. I was so touched by Christ that I decided to read the Scripture and see for myself  the facts that founded the Christian Religion. And I began to want to believe because I was conquered by the beauty of Christ, by the wisdom of His teachings, by the greatness of His love and sacrifice for mankind.

            I think that was the work of the grace of  the Holy Ghost which had persisted in the depths of my heart from the moment of my Baptism. I was baptized as an Orthodox Christian in my early childhood, very soon after my birth. But no one in my family was a true  believer. Maybe my Godmother, yes, I think she believed in God, but she didn’t attend the Sunday  service or frequent the Church. My mother and my father had just respected a tradition when they decided to marry at the church and baptize me.  And my faith died before its birth!

            Thirty five years passed. My father died and I was destroyed. Death presented before me and I couldn’t ignore it. The afterlife subject seriously preoccupied me. I started to meet some persons which where Orthodox Christians and I began to admire them almost just as I admired Christ when I met Him through the Gospel words and I felt that He was the only person which deserved to be loved. I was then very disappointed by people and by the experiences of my life, by my errors and inability to be happy. My supreme value was then happiness.  Looking at those Christians I thought: “These people are happy, peaceful, serene. Why can’t I be like them? What makes them so different? Could it be their faith?” And I concluded that was faith that gave them those virtues I longed for.  They spoke me about the Church and I began to accompany them to the service sometimes.

            Then the mercy of God touched my soul and I felt the burden of my sins and a strong desire to confess them and to be forgiven. I felt the need for a Spiritual Father and a guide which could take me near Christ, my bliss and my hope. After my first confession (at the age of 37!) I received a penitence kanon and I felt the power of these two remedies that Christ has left for our spiritual cure. My first Communion(the Holy Eucharist) happened as a miracle of God’ mercy and love for me.  It was the year 2000. I was full of hope. God will cure my sick soul and will fill my heart with joy if I will stay in the Church where I have found the Truth, the Life and the Salvation.

            Secondly, I am a traditionalist, I love  and treasure the values our forefathers left us, and the Orthodox Christian faith is my heritage as a Romanian. I can’t and I won’t be anything else but Orthodox Christian. I treasure the work and life of our brothers and sisters which chose the monastic life, knowing now what sacrifices and what dedication, what love, hope and faith implies. My guiding lights are the monks, all those avva and amma which were chosen to show us the way in the darkness of   this world. I know that they are Theophores and Christophores, that they love the truth and they will never deceive us, for they have a high conscience.

            Thirdly, Orthodoxy kept intact the teachings of Christ and of the Holy Fathers of the Christian Church, approved by God Himself  and inspired by the Holy Ghost, teachings and dogmas which where established and sanctioned at the first Seven Councils of the Church. I respect their words and convictions for which many payed a hard price and gave their lives. I won’t ever call them otherwise that “the holy vassels of the Holy Ghost”through which flow the divine grace. I know this is hard for many Christian which were not Orthodox! I respect priesthood and the work of the Holy Ghost through our priests. In time, man has corrupted the word of God from the Scriptures and the human understanding of it has split  the Church and hurt the believers. Dogmatic innovations perverted the unique truth left by Christ in the Gospel. I think that the innovations are wrong and distort the truth and I can’t agree with them. I stay with the Orthodox Church and the Holy Fathers, for they led holy lives and bled for the faith.

            Finally, we, the Romanians, kept our identity in the historical dramatic context of the Eastern Europe through our Orthodox beliefs. All the conqurors tried to impose their faith and their language on us, tried to transforme us in something we were not. Tragicly, sometimes they succeded by force and lies. A river of tears and blood flew over Transilvania for almost a thousand years and still the Romanians from Transilvania are Orthodox, even if many other of them were desnationalised in the past centuries. And Bassarabia is another example to meditate on.  I wish to reinforce my conviction that a true Romanian can’t be anything else but Orthodox, it is in our nature to believe in Christ and in the teachings that, by traditions, Saint Apostle Andrew preached to the Greaks and the Dacians from Dobrogea some two thousands years ago. These teachings and dogmas are kept alive by the Orthodox Church of Romania. The Seven Holy Sacraments instituted by Christ Himself are administrated by the Orthodox Church of Romania. And they are alive and working miracles for the believers.

            This Sunday we celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy in the hearts of its believers, as Metropolithan Anthony of Suroj said in one of his sermons, and if we want that Orthodoxy really triumphs in our hearts he advise us to lead a true Christian life, to let anyone see through us the greatness, beauty and truth of the Orthodox Christian beliefs. For those who know me personally, please forgive me for not leading the life I should live. For the non-Christian who know me, please forgive me that I don’t give you a living proof of the truth of Orthodox Christianity for I am full of sins and passions and very far away of what God wants for us to be! And for the other readers of my testimony, please forgive me for saying and not doing, talking and not acting, and disgracing the beauty of the Orthodox Christianity by my bad example.  Full of pride and lacking in any good deeds, still I hope that Christ will forgive me, save me, and help me to be a better Christian in the end.

P.S. I wish to explain why I write in English and not in Romanian. I love my native tongue, but English is wide world known and it is a better way of communication on the net. And I know for sure that the Romanians know English language well enough to understand and won’t be offended by my  choice; I simply try to gain as many readers as I can.  It is my only why of doing something in the given conditions  of my life. God bless us all!