With the One who led him to the Orthodox Faith—the Most Holy Theotokos.
My name is Savva. It is the name I received at baptism, to honor Saint Sabbas the Sanctified from Palestine. He was a monk who lived quietly, like a deep stream in the desert. But in him, I saw something shining the glory of the Kingdom of God.
I was born into a family where my father is Roman Catholic and my mother is a Calvinist Protestant. They had different traditions, but they shared one thing: a deep love for the Bible and for God. I grew up with wise books around me, memorized Bible verses from a young age, and people in church called me a “religious child” not just because I knew the words of God, but because I truly believed them.
But when I grew older, the words were no longer enough.
As a teenager, the first thing I lost was not faith… it was certainty. The idea of the Trinity confused me, and the many divisions among Christians made me feel lost. Protestantism felt too dry. Roman Catholicism had too many things I couldn’t understand. I started looking, visiting many churches. I even entered strange groups that I later realized were cults, from modern Protestant movements to Mormonism and groups that misused God’s name to attract desperate people.
I found nothing but exhaustion.
At some point, I turned to a completely different religion: Islam. I lived as a Muslim for two years. I followed the rituals, learned Arabic, and tried to believe. But deep down, I was not at peace. I knew I was playing a role that was not truly mine. I still went to church to make my parents happy, but inside I was cold. My friends started to avoid me. I was no longer myself.
And then came a summer church camp. There was no miracle. Just a quiet touch, maybe from someone’s eyes, or an old song. Or maybe it was just Jesus waiting for me where I had finally fallen. I came back to Christ, but I couldn’t return to the Protestantism of my childhood. I had gone too far. I couldn’t pretend nothing happened.
In twelfth grade, during the hard days of preparing for university exams and saying goodbye to childhood, I began to feel something, a quiet sense of the presence of the Virgin Mary. I bought a small picture of the Virgin of the Passion from a nearby Roman Catholic church to pray with. But sometimes I was afraid, thinking maybe I was being tempted by evil. Once I even broke the picture out of fear. But even with shaking hands, I couldn’t destroy the growing desire in me... I needed a Mother.
Around that time, I found an article about the Orthodox Church on Wikipedia. I didn’t understand its theology, didn’t know where the church was, and had no one to guide me. But the name “Orthodox” stayed with me—like a seed planted in dry soil. Quiet, but alive.
I passed the entrance exam to Vietnam’s top university in social sciences. For two years I studied philosophy, then moved into religious studies. I learned about world religions, faith systems, and religious history. But what I gained was not just knowledge, it was freedom from illusions.
I no longer believed in any system that claimed to be “perfect.” I simply longed for a tradition that was not broken, and a holiness not shaped by human will. And I discovered the Church Fathers… Not through Protestant books but in the original writings. I learned how to read ancient sermons, understand symbolic theology, and feel the beauty of liturgy across the centuries.
I didn’t convert. I simply realized I was being called home.
After graduating top of my class in philosophy—something I know was only possible through God’s grace—I prayed deeply: “Lord, if it is Your will, please lead me home.”
In 2021, I found the name of Fr. Evgeny Tsukalo, an Orthodox priest living in Vung Tau. The day after my graduation in 2022, I went to see him—with a close friend, who was a Buddhist monk. We entered the Church of the Mother of God of Kazan.
First visit to the Church of Our Lady of Kazan in Vung Tau in 2022.
It was the first time I saw her icon. I didn’t understand anything. But in her eyes, I saw a kind of love that needed no explanation—a kind of knowing that needed no words. I stood in front of the icon and whispered: “If you can pray for me, please show me the way.”
And She did.
In April 2023, I was baptized and officially joined the Orthodox Church. There was no thunder, no flashing light. Only a quiet river flowing backward from Heaven into my heart... the holy water of the Spirit.
At baptism There is something people don’t say often: Converting to a new faith is not about smart arguments or perfect teachings. I used to believe that if I learned enough about history, philosophy, theology then faith would come. But after studying religions for years and exploring everything from Protestantism to Catholicism to Islam, I learned that real faith begins where logic ends and the heart learns how to kneel.
I once looked at religions as systems. I analyzed, compared, judged. I thought I could simply choose the “best one,” like picking the best school, and be at peace. But everything I had learned couldn’t hold me. It gave me knowledge, but not a home. It gave me ideas of God, but not His face.
And then, I met the Mother of God in the truest sense.
In the Orthodox Church, Mary is not treated as a blind idol, nor ignored as an old story. She is present the place where God and humans meet. A woman full of silence and grace, holding the pain and hope of the world. I have never seen any theology of womanhood, obedience, and motherhood as beautiful, as gentle, and as deep as in her icon.
I had never before found a church community that tried to “convince” me with slogans. The Orthodox believers just lived and it was their way of life that made me believe. The Orthodox Church came to me not as an idea, but as something older than words: a living tradition, a beauty that doesn’t need to be explained, and a holy presence I couldn’t ignore.
And what made me surrender completely… was Her.
With university friends meeting the priest for the first time in Ho Chi Minh City during Christmas When I converted, I didn’t “leave” one religion to “join” another. I simply came back to the place I truly belonged. And it was the Mother of God of Kazan who brought me home.
I have walked through many religions, like a traveler stopping at different houses, hoping to find a roof that could truly shelter my soul. I read, I studied, I prayed in different traditions. I even tried living as a Muslim, as a Protestant, and at times, just someone searching in the dark. But the further I went, the more I realized that not every religion can lead us home. Because not every place that calls on “God” truly brings you to Him.
I don’t deny that other religions have planted good things in people’s hearts—morality, order, hope. But when it comes to salvation, not everything good is enough. Salvation is not just a philosophy or a strong spiritual feeling. Salvation means meeting the One who stepped into human history with blood and tears—Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God.
And among the many forms of Christianity, only Orthodoxy has kept that faith whole, like a flame that has never gone out for two thousand years—nothing added, nothing taken away, no changes to please the world. Orthodoxy doesn’t just teach about salvation, it lives in it. It breathes the breath of the saints. It celebrates the Liturgy as if Christ is truly risen and present among us every day. And only here did I stop searching. Because salvation does not live in what is most logical, but in what is most true.
And I found that truth not just in doctrine, but in prayer, in the Holy Eucharist, in the quiet eyes of the Mother of God Kazan, and in the invisible arms of a Church that never abandons her children.
Who am I? I’m nothing but a child who hasn’t yet learned the full alphabet of life. Even if God answered me, I probably wouldn’t understand because my eyes are too small to see the vast Ocean of His Will. My task is not to demand understanding, but to bow my head and give thanks for every grace. Thanks for how He quietly receives those small streams of prayer and the loving sighs that flow from others’ hearts when they remember me and keep praying for me.
Thank You, Lord, for every nameless miracle!
Thank You, Lord, for every person whose face I haven’t yet seen!
Thank You, Lord, for everything!
Thank You, Lord, for everyone!
Visiting the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi (Georgia), 2025
