What are some reasons in your opinion to convert religions?

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If anyone is interested, I explained my experience in an orthodox and Catholic Churches here:


The Catholic is at minute 6:27, the orthodox at minute 25
 
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When I was looking for a church to return too, I stared with the one I was baptized into… Catholic… then I went to a Lutheran, because I didn’t agree with many of the Catholic traditions. But now I go to both churches, every Sunday.

Priests from both churches know and neither seem to have a problem with it… I think deep down they hope I chose one over the other but I haven’t… its been almost 10 months now.

Maybe going too both churches will help you understand, through God’s will, one is more for you then the other, or you’ll just continue to go to both.
 
Thank you, sharing your experience really helped. I know that one day God will reveal the real answer to us.
 
I’m sorry to hear that you want to leave the Church. I’m not going to give you any advice on how to leave. The best thing to do would be to not leave. 😉
Anna4 said:
I find their theology more logical and pure, and the first time I attended a Divine Liturgy I literally felt that was the true church.
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What do you think the Eastern Orthodox Church has that the Catholic Church doesn’t?
 
I’m an adult convert to Roman Catholicism. Naturally, on my way in, I found myself at the final decision point of weighing between Catholicism/Orthodoxy. As you say, both have the same origin (and I pray that both will be reunited in full communion soon!), and both have valid sacraments. And like you, I am heavily attracted to aesthetic reverential features of many Orthodox liturgies.

One of the keys for me, in ultimately becoming Catholic (not Orthodox) was the gift of the Pope, given by God to His Church. I imagine you’re familiar with many of the Catholic historical and exegetical reasons for having the interpretation of the papal office that we do, so I won’t reiterate those here (though if you feel you haven’t heard enough, from the Catholic perspective, I’d recommend checking out some formal apologetics resources from Catholic.com). Personally, at a certain point this very simple (and completely non-intellectual) thought just came to me… the papacy just seems like the kind of gift God would give His Church. This visible source of unity, through whom we maintain communion with Jesus, through maintaining communion with the single person Jesus has authorized to have stewardship over His Church in any given generation. The person to whom Jesus gives the special command to “feed my sheep”.

There are so many sources of chaos and confusion afoot in the world today. The stability God gifts His Church with, through a visible, identifiable, individual human being (rather than a collection of multiple human beings who may disagree with each other and be unable to tie-break) just seems to me like part of the mechanism through which God would secure His Church on a ‘rock’. It’s my understanding, for example, that the Eastern Orthodox don’t really have authority to call a new ecumenical council. Which one of them would? What if they disagreed amongst themselves? Whereas the Pope is the Pope, no matter whether an individual catholic (or even individual priest, bishop, or cardinal) disagrees with the Pope’s interpretation of something. He’s sort of like an ultimate tie-breaker. In the name of a unified single Church that ultimately speaks with one voice. And that’s just so synchronous with previous revelation of who God is, that especially when looking at how Jesus spoke to Peter, and how history unfolded, I look at it and say… "Yeah, Catholic. The papacy seems consistent with ‘the type of thing God would do,’ the more I get to know Him. Now let’s get along with improving our liturgy to incorporate all these beautiful elements that the Orthodox use. 🙂 "
 
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Anna4 said:
Have you ever converted religions and what made you make the move?
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Oh yes, I’ve got more religious baggage than a group of nuns at an airport terminal. Long story short, I basically converted to other religions because I thought they were true. No other deeper reason than that.
 
I am a convert to Catholicism. I made the move because only the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth, including the role of Peter that Jesus established. While beauty in the liturgy certainly is a drawing force, we should use our reason along with our feelings, otherwise we will just continue to chase the next beautiful thing.

EDIT: Also, check out an Eastern liturgy that is still Catholic.
Watch this:
 
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Thank you for this — I too am considering converting to Orthodoxy because I believe it’s true. The problem is, I think Catholicism might be true too. If that is the case, I can be nothing except an Eastern Catholic:
  • I truly believe the church should be separated into 3 parts as the orthodox do:
    The nardex to light candles and purify yourself
    The nave to get illuminated by the word of god
    The place where the altar sits behind the gates as described in Exodus with the tabernacle — where the Eucharist and unity with God is experienced.
The Orthodox Church is structured as heaven is set up, as what happens when souls go to heaven

The orthodox priests face the altar and not us, as it should be.

I believe in full submersion baptism, but I suppose if it was done in the name of the Trinity in any way it should be fine. But I’d rather have full submersion as Jesus was. The symbolism is stronger…

Jesús is the head of the church, not the pope (although I understand the pope is the physical representation of a head and for Catholics Jesus is also the head.) I do also believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father and the son… because it says in the gospel of John that when Jesus leaves he will give us the Holy Spirit… although I do believe as the orthodox do that we cannot know God and we interact with his energies except when Jesus was on earth. I feel God’s energies whenever I’m in an Orthodox Church

So in a nutshell, I believe both Catholicism and Orthodoxy is true, so Im at a loss.
 
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John 15:26 Yes… upon reading it again however it seems the Holy Spirit comes from the Father, and that’s where Jesus gets it…

Why do Catholics believe the Holy Spirit comes from the father and son? It makes sense because God is one God, a trinity, but looking at the Bible now, it appears the Holy Spirit comes from the Father
 
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For what it is worth, I converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism. It was kind of an accident. Following years of traveling often long distances to primarily ethnic parishes in various parts of Canada and Korea, I found myself with a permanent job in my field in a small Canadian town 1.5 hours from an Orthodox mission parish. It was really hard to get to the Liturgy so I asked the priest if I could visit the local Catholic parish from time to time in order to nourish my faith. He told me it would be a good idea but that I couldn’t commune there.

So I started attending. What I began to notice immediately was that the Catholic Church seemed much more inclusive and universal. I was so used to worshipping with Greeks and Russians, usually in their languages, that I felt spoiled having services in English. There were a great variety of ethnicities represented at the parish. The other thing I noticed was that the people weren’t that much different. I mean in both Catholic and Orthodox parishes, you see lukewarm worshippers, people who are there for the culture or social aspects above all. You also see the mostly older parishioners who take their faith seriously and have for a long time. You see the devotional respect for the Eucharist in both. The Orthodox Church attracted me at first because of the beauty of both its theology and its liturgies. In practice, though, the differences weren’t that great in my experience. Both produce saints. Both house sinners.

Orthodoxy looks great on paper and in theory, but frankly, I find the Catholic Church to be much more truly universal and far less ethnically oriented. I also like that practices such as saying the Jesus Prayer can be continued in a Catholic context, but Orthodoxy is more unwilling to incorporate or recommend practices or acknowledge saints from western Christianity. I just wanted to share my experience with you, for what it is worth. Ultimately I have felt much more at home in the Catholic Church than I ever did in the Orthodox Church. The grass is always greener, as the saying goes. Either way, I wish you luck in your journey.
 
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Hello Stavros. I really appreciate this story. It connected with me as I too felt the Orthodox Churches were very ethnic centered and although there was diversity — old, young, kids, handicapped, sick— they were mostly Arabic and I wanted to see many different races ad cultures. My Divine Liturgy was in English and a bit of Arabic but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Although I tend to believe in their theology and practices more so than the Catholic Church, the thing that gets to me is their exclusion of our practices while we have no problem including theirs… even the Nicean Creed without the filioque clause.

While Catholics seem to be more rigid in what they consider sin, orthodox seem more exclusive with outsiders
 
stavros388 said:
Orthodoxy looks great on paper and in theory, but frankly, I find the Catholic Church to be much more truly universal and far less ethnically oriented.
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This is the main reason why my husband and I chose Catholicism over Orthodoxy. The Catholic Church is obviously following Jesus’ Great Commission–to go out into ALL the world and preach the Gospel, baptizing in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them.

Orthodoxy tends to be “National”–restricted to only a relatively few nations (e.g., Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc.).

Catholicism is world-wide, in every nation, and we don’t generally see names like “U.S.A. Catholic.” etc.
So as Evangelical Protestants, we found that the Catholic Church is the Universal Church of Jesus Christ, the Church for all nationalities.

BTW, this might give you pause–several prominent Evangelical Protestants have converted–to Orthodoxy. What this tells me is that they are still trying to be Evangelical Protestant and refuse to accept that Jesus appointed Peter as the Pope and His disciples as bishops–they don’t want to accept the teaching that a God-appointed human being is “in charge” of His Church here on earth. They like the “experience” of attending the beautiful and ancient Orthodox Church, but they don’t want to submit to a human being.

I think it would be very interesting to hear a debate/discussion between ex-Evangelical Protestants who have converted to Catholicism (e.g., Tim Staples) and those who have converted to Orthodoxy (e.g. Brent Gilbert). Perhaps someone in this thread has a link to such a debate. Thanks!
 
I say this with love and compassion, Anna, that you are in error.

The Orthodox Church IS NOT the Church of Jesus Christ. They separated themselves from His Church, and that is the meaning of schism.

Why can’t you find an Eastern Church that is Catholic? Why don’t you believe that the Immaculate Conception is a dogma when it clearly is?

I’m very disappointed in a lot of the replies here :cry:
 
From looking at history books, it seems that both churches simply broke apart due to different views from the same origin. Why can’t I find a l find an Eastern Catholic Church? I have, and I will investigate. Why can’t I accept dogma? Because there is not enough proof. And I say this with love and compassion as well John, but people need to find these things out for themselves and think for themselves rather than have people tell them how to think. I appreciate your guidance but I would look into the communication of it, with empathy, in order for it to reach the most people in the most loving way.
 
Diagnosis: Modernism.

What are we to base our views on if not the authority of Christ? He made the Church indefectable.
 
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Jimbo said:
The theology is harder. Filioque is a thing (The Holy Spirit is breathed from the Father and the Son. The Orthodox had a serious issue with this).
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To be clear, not all Orthodox have a theological issue with this when they understand what we mean by it. Their major issue is legal, they view it as an abuse of Papal authority.

The “legal issue” is that they believe Latin Church broke Canon VII when they started using the Filioque to the Latin translation.

https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.x.xvi.x.html

However, from the Latin point of view, the Filioque was necessary in Latin to properly translate it from the Greek meaning of the text.

https://www.catholicbridge.com/orthodox/catholic-orthodox-filioque-father-son.php
 
Thank you; I never understood that very clearly. That was a great explanation.
 
I like this response my Orthodox friend gave me:

“No pressure or rush. Approach it with peace and prayer. God grant you wisdom!”

I’m especially grateful for all the wonderful and loving responses I got, particularly the first one, and I’m already attending Latin Masses! And all the people who shared their experiences which helped me identify a little more with mine.

Thank you all ❤️🙏
 
Anna4 said:
Why do Catholics believe the Holy Spirit comes from the father and son? It makes sense because God is one God, a trinity, but looking at the Bible now, it appears the Holy Spirit comes from the Father
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We don’t necessarily believe it in this context. We believe Holy Spirit comes from the Father through the Son- something professed by the East before Patriarch Photius too. Ecumenical Patriarch once asserted “through the Son” in presence of Charlemagne. Charlemagne wanted Pope to declare him heretic, but Pope said that Latins “and the Son” really means “through the Son” and hence there is no heresy involved. Word “proceeds” in Greek version meant prime source, but in Latin (and Coptic, since Oriental Orthodoxy has no problem with Filioque and it actually comes from their, eastern, tradition) it declares any sort of origin, not just prime one. To remove “through the Son” theology is a heresy even according to Greek Fathers, as it would mean Father has two twin sons…
 
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