A reader of Pravoslavie.ru sent us a story from Germany that is worth publishing. Here is her accompanying note:
“Christ is risen! I am sending you a story that may be useful for your website. A friend from Hamburg told me about it. Several young Germans, not even twenty years old, were baptized in their parish on Bright Week. They were seeking for Christ and the Truth. Here is the story of one of them.”
An amazing thing—one of our recently baptized young men posted a video on the internet, albeit in German. Ephraim speaks about how he converted to Orthodoxy: Freier Christ wird Orthodox!!
I will translate his story in brief: Ephraim says that seven years ago he began to search for God and ended up in a Christian sect that followed the Old Testament commandments. There he began to study the Holy Scriptures, and then joined the Evangelicals. He was a zealous preacher of Christianity, attended a Bible study group, argued, and blogged. One day, one of the Evangelicals he knew suddenly converted to Catholicism, and for Ephraim it was a shock: “How can it be? The Catholics are almost pagans—they pray to the Virgin Mary, they have priests, etc.! And the Orthodox are very similar—they also have priests, only theirs have cool beards...”
He began to have debates with Catholics and noticed that it was not so easy to defeat them in arguments on theological subjects. It was from them that he first heard about Church history and the Holy Fathers, then began to search for more information, and realized that he really didn’t know anything about Christianity! Christ’s words about the Church: And upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Mt. 16:18), gave him no rest. “What Church was Christ talking about? Where is this Church? After all, the Word of God is unshakable, which means that somewhere there must be the Church that Christ Himself created, and everything should be there precisely as He founded it...” Thus he discovered Orthodoxy in his quest and came to realize that tradition has never been interrupted here.
When he first came to our service, everything seemed bizarre to him. People kissed “pictures”, women wore headscarves, and the congregation prayed for the dead. “What does it all mean?” But then he read a lot, spoke with people, studied, and gradually came to understand that this is the right spirit, this is how everything should be in the Church of Christ.
He would pray to the Lord with the words: “O Lord, reveal to me where You are, and where Your Church is, that you spoke about! But may Your will, not mine, be done...”
Personally, I was struck by Ephraim’s words about his decision to convert to Orthodoxy. He said:
“It was the most difficult decision in my life. In some sense, I didn’t even want this, because it’s impossible to be Orthodox—it’s something superhuman. It is only possible to become and remain Orthodox with the Lord’s help.”
In the video his wife stands in the background with a candle in her hand—they were baptized together.
May God grant that Ephraim remain a zealous, sincere Orthodox Christian!
