Orthodox to Catholic Conversion?

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PilgrimMichelangelo

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Any personal stories of Orthodox Christians converting to Catholicism?

I have read a few online, but mostly it seems the trend has been vice versa with many Catholics converting to Orthodoxy.

Not trying to open Pandora’s box and let loose a new thread on why we are not in communion or should be one or the other, just wondering if there are any personal stories of Orthodox converting to Catholicism.
 
My youngest daughter & I personally converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism.

There’s been lots of people who have and even entire churches over the centuries, like the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.

There are some who’ve written books after converting.
 
I personally knew a priest (May his memory be eternal) that was ordained as an Orthodox priest, but died as Melkite Greek Catholic priest. He had quite the religious background. I really wish I knew more about his conversion, because what I do know is fascinating.
 
For sure !! Here’s a fascinating interview with a guy who was raised Lutheran, then became Baptist in college, then Orthodox, then finally Catholic. He makes some really good points about what’s happening in eastern Orthodoxy:

 
Two of my closest friends were baptized Orthodox, but they worship in the Catholic Church. One of them never converted, and he does not partake in their Sacraments, but he goes to Church there all the time. He started after discovering an image of his favorite saint in the local Catholic Church, and going back to visit this saint eventually became a habit. He loves the Orthodox Church though…

My other friend converted as a teenager, together with his family. I have asked about it, and it seems as if the main reasons had to do with them not trusting the Orthodox clergy, and also from discovering a more open and well educated attitude among the parishioners, as well as the clergy. I should probably mention that this was during the Soviet era…

I also know quite a number of people who took the opposite route, for all kinds of reasons. Intellectuals have a funny way of telling conversion stories though, often focusing on having discovered some argument or historical narrative that they think makes conversion inescapable, as if our personal narratives, temperaments and desires is of zero importance. 😃
 
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Thanks for your prayers 😊

I guess it comes down to where one believes home to be.

ZP
 
ziapueblo said:
I guess it comes down to where one believes home to be.
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Yes… while Truth is certainly one and unchanging, common for all people… pursuit of that truth is seldom clear 😃 May we all end up where God wants us 🙂 (and yeah that kinda means Heaven right?)
 
Christ is Risen!

I was baptized as an adult into the Byzantine Catholic Church. It’s a long, messy, complicated story, but the very short edition of it looks somewhat like this: ByzCath-> Orthodox → ByzCath at Latin parish → Orthodox → ByzCath at Latin Parish → ByzCath at no parish. All over the course of about 20 years or so.

The actual “conversion” process from Orthodox to Catholic consisted of receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

After a number of years of being away from the Church altogether, I am now looking to come back–just waiting for the Corona virus lockdown to ease up so churches can re-open and I can go to confession and receive the Eucharist.
 
I was Catholic who converted to Orthodoxy. I feel that I am called to the Church however. There is an Eastern Catholic parish near me as well as a FSSP parish near me.
 
When this crisis ends 🙏, you can visit both parishes.

Not to derail the thread, but your avatar and nom de plume were my late mother’s favorite entree when we’d go out to dinner (except on Friday).
 
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ChickenFingers said:
I was Catholic who converted to Orthodoxy. I feel that I am called to the Church however. There is an Eastern Catholic parish near me as well as a FSSP parish near me.
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Could you elaborate on why you feel called back to the Catholic Church out of the Orthodox Church?

Chicken fingers sound good! It’s Holy Thursday so no chicken yet…so close.
 
Sure! I suppose that the reason I feel called back is similar to the reason as to why I left. Not to be too flippant, I left because I thought the grass was greener. There didn’t seem to be as many liturgical, theological, or ecclesial issues from the outside of Orthodoxy. After the Synods on the Family I was very much disillusioned with Catholicism. It seemed that everything I came to love about the Faith was wrong. I was never really anti-Vatican II or a “trad” but I felt that something really wrong had taken place.

That led me to a local Orthodox parish. Orthodoxy is beautiful, and the liturgy in my experience seldom gets abused like it can be in Catholicism. But I found that there were still modernizing and progressive voices within Orthodoxy promoting female deacons, allowing non-Orthodox to receive communion, and basically anything else Catholics might find troubling about their own clergy/bishops.

To me it seems that the only way to fix the issues facing Orthodoxy would be a single head leading the church. It is a problem, right now the Slavic and Greek spheres of influence are struggling for influence and no one can really break the stalemate. It is either miraculously solve their differences or schism. That is what led me back. The role of the Papacy (even if those holding the office are not perfect) seems central to our life as Christians.
 
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ChickenFingers said:
Are you a convert to Orthodoxy?
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I am Orthodox now, after being raised Roman Catholic. Made a pit stop for 7-8 years in the Byzantine Catholic Church. I wouldn’t call myself a “convert” to Orthodoxy though. As far as I am concerned, Orthodox and Catholic are the Church of the first millennium which was in communion with one another, we just have an unfortunate separation between us which is mainly cultural, linguistic and geographic (speaking of the early Church when I mention geographic). I’ve said this on the forum many times, I feel that I just switched upper management. I have my reasons for “switching upper management” of course.
ChickenFingers said:
But I found that there were still modernizing and progressive voices within Orthodoxy promoting female deacons, allowing non-Orthodox to receive communion, and basically anything else Catholics might find troubling about their own clergy/bishops.
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Same issues that trouble us Orthodox trouble Catholics as well, thats for sure!

ZP
 
ChickenFingers said:
Are you a convert to Orthodoxy? If so why did you convert?
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Yes. I am a convert to Orthodoxy from the ACNA (Anglican Church in North America).

I converted for a variety of reasons but the highest of these is that I believe(d) I have found the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, which preserves perfectly the Apostolic Spirit and Life. Recently I have been struggling as Great Schism 2.0 continues to divide the faithful and sow confusion among the Orthodox. Slowly I have begun investigating Catholicism and have found that I do not disagree with her doctrines, but her Spirit seems to be changed and reduced since Vatican II.

If Vatican II had not happened I would have become Catholic by now.
 
I don’t know about you and @ziapueblo, but I was surprised by just how similar Orthodoxy and Catholicism were. And I get what @ziapueblo means by switching upper management.

@PilgrimMichelangelo I agree that the Spirit of the Church has changed after Vatican II. I’m not wholly opposed to some of the changes post Vatican II to be honest, such as the Mass being in the vernacular. But most of what has come of it does not seem sustainable. I think with time it will work itself out. Much of the “Spirit” seems to be a generational thing.

My other problem I found with Orthodoxy was with the other converts from low-church Protestantism. They seemed to carry with them a specific flavor of calvinist/baptist disdain for Catholicism.
 
ChickenFingers said:
I don’t know about you and @ziapueblo, but I was surprised by just how similar Orthodoxy and Catholicism were. And I get what @ziapueblo means by switching upper management.
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Yes. The more I learn the nuances of the Great Schism between East and West, the more I have come to believe that this is a “schism within the Church” to borrow @ziapueblo’s phrase.
ChickenFingers said:
@PilgrimMichelangelo I agree that the Spirit of the Church has changed after Vatican II. I’m not wholly opposed to some of the changes post Vatican II to be honest, such as the Mass being in the vernacular. But most of what has come of it does not seem sustainable. I think with time it will work itself out. Much of the “Spirit” seems to be a generational thing.
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Yes I agree, Vatican II was not totally wrong, it just seems that the interpretation has been wrong in most cases. Some of the changes seem proper, especially communion in both kinds, and the option for Liturgy in the Vernacular.
ChickenFingers said:
My other problem I found with Orthodoxy was with the other converts from low-church Protestantism. They seemed to carry with them a specific flavor of calvinist/baptist disdain for Catholicism.
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Yes. This is what I have noticed more and more, especially since pre-Anglican I was low-church Baptist/Non-Denom. The antipathy towards Catholicism seems totally unwarranted and frankly points more towards the truth of Rome. Living by negation (defining all doctrines against those of Rome, or finding new ways to phrase Orthodox doctrines so that it seems to completely contradict Rome) is not really living a Christian life upon anything positive.
 
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