How were you received into the Orthodox Church?

[The Caffeinator]

Serge, how were you received into the Church?

[The young fogey]

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Last post before submerging indefinitely.

GÇó Aged one month - I entered Holy Church through Baptism with water (probably by pouring) in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, in the Episcopal Church. The church where I later went to Sunday School wasn't 'high' but definitely was conservative, which is why to this day I don't buy the new trends in religion, so I am grateful. Two of my teachers were high-church, though, and I have been following that course ever since, thanks to them and to clues I picked up from history lessons and from the culture in general.
GÇó Aged 17 - received the oil of Confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church, 1984. Within the next nine months, began the habit on my own of going to Confession, learning how to examine my conscience from a confessor from the old school. A moral theology I use to this day.
(I won't debate here the issue of such sacraments having grace in themselves or not according to the Eastern Orthodox point of view.)
GÇó Aged 29 - received into the Eastern Orthodox communion simply through Confession and Communion, 1995. No formal catechesis but had read Timothy Ware and Seraphim (Rose) and had been worshipping at Eastern churches regularly for three years prior.
GÇó Been with current congregation since 1997.

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[The Caffeinator]

Knowing you and hearing your testimony is a more powerful argument for Orthodoxy than any I've heard here.

[amnesiac99]

Though I am still in the process of converting and catechesis, I've already spoken with Father about my reception into the church: I will be baptized. I was raised Baptist, but they did not practice infant or child baptism, only "believer's baptism." And when I became a believer, I also became a believer in Orthodoxy, so I've never been baptized. I'm looking quite forward to it!

[GretchenX]

I was Chrismated, having been baptised as an infant in the name of the Trinity in the Episcopal Church, and haveing had a second, regrettable, immersion baptism in the name of the Trinity by an independent fundamentalist church.  The Antiochian priest who Chrismated me was loath to consider both prior acts, having been done in the name of the Trinity, to be totally without grace.  I had to admit a fair sense of relief on my part - it was bad enough having a second baptism, a third would have even more confusing.

Gretchen

[Mexican]

I haven't searched so much about the OCA Exarchate here but as far as I know they receive people by simple confession and communion. I know this is not the case of the United States in which Catholics are received throught Chrismation.

The ROCOR in Argentina, for example, receives people by Chrismation. I was told by a Costa Rica priest that this is because the Latin American Catholic is much closer to the Orthodox Church than an Angloamerican Catholic. After all, Latin American Catholics' spirituality is close to that of Orthodoxy (proccessions, icons, reverence, etc) and its not so contaminated with modernism and Protestantism as in the United States or Britain. Maybe this is why Archbishop Dimitri, who is very traditional, supports simple communion for the reception of converts in the case of Mexican people.

It's also curious that the Serbian Church, which is the one that suffered the most under the Latins, the Croatians in particular, who used to re-baptize them in WWII, is very open to the reception of converts from Catholicism by simple confession and communion. A friend from Canada was received in a Serbian parish that way, without any obstacle.

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