One thing that led me to Orthodoxy is its emphasis on Divine Mystery. Orthodoxy is not irrational, but it is not confined by the rigid logic of Western epistemology.
This.
I had admired Orthodoxy for a long time but as a table-pounding atheist I couldn't allow myself to fall into "error", no matter how much I liked it.
Believe it or not reading Derrida and the other postmodern deconstructionists finally convinced me. Once I finally got what he was saying I realized just how goofy pure reason is (if you want to hear about
those arguments let me know because I can talk about them forever.)
Suffice to say I deeply mistrust pure reason now and I'm repelled by churches that try to convince you they're right with a good knock-down argument. Orthodoxy never ever does that.
Other reasons-
- The Orthodox church is the one established by Christ himself and has not changed substantially in 2000 years. That's simply amazing. It's so amazing I doubt it can be done guided by men alone.
- Orthodoxy is more Christ-centered than I ever imagined a church could be. Other churches (especially the Protestants) spend most of their time talking about how the other churches are wrong which leaves very little time to talk about what's important.
- I used to be adamantly anti-ritual and I was confused by all the feasts and fasts (what, you mean there's
another one?) but now I absolutely love them. Love fasting, love bowing, love crossing myself. Religion that you keep only in your mind and whisper into your pillow every night is no kind of religion at all. It needs to be front and center so its an inseparable part of who you are. The rituals carry so much meaning with them too. If a picture is worth a thousand words an action you witness or perform yourself is worth millions. Rituals are civilization, don't let anyone tell you different.