Thank you so much everyone! :happy:
Welcome Aaron (wonderful name BTW),
I look forward to your involvement here. Please do take the time to let us know some essential details about yourself, primarily what is your favourite beer?
Thanks for the compliment John. I've always taken a shine to it myself. :cheeky: I used to think it was kinda unique because I didn't run into many other Aarons, but I've been hearing it a lot more lately, so I guess it's more common than I thought!
Number one pet peeve about my name is people not knowing how to spell it! :smiley6: I am always running into people who spell it with an "E" (using the Irish spelling "Erin"), or Aron, Arron, Aeren, etc.
I am usually pretty quick to say that it's spelled the
biblical way - the exact same as Moses' brother, who was the high-priest for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Now, as far as the beer goes, I am going to have to think long and hard on that one, because I don't know if I can make an educated decision, because I haven't tasted them
ALL :smiley1:
I will be sure to pick one or
several and post on the appropriate thread.
I hope you find our forum a place where you can learn. Always supplement what you read here with discussion with a real Orthodox (not necessarily just a priest), with prayer, and with reading of scholarly sources, though!
Anastasios,
Good words of advice for any newcomer! I certainly have sponged up plenty of info from this forum already just by going through all the posts! I've been doing a lot of reading up on Orthodoxy and have a growing collection of books, which I do not believe will never stop growing.
btw- In case you hadn't noticed, I am a quite a fan of all these smileys! I've never encountered such a wide selection on any other board. I don't believe that I will ever tire of them.
I'm an Orthodox wannabe myself, though I and my family are moving incrementally closer to Orthodoxy each day it seems.
I actually live in Chicago, and attend All Saints Orthodox Church, which I highly recommend.
Clifton,
What wonderful news! I am happy to hear that your family is journeying with you towards Holy Orthodoxy, I can't imagine how much joy that must bring to you!
I also appreciate your church recommendation. I live in a suburb about 25-30 minutes (dependant upon traffic) west of Chicago and I have visited at least one church out of most all of the Orthodox jurisdictions near me.
I recently celebrated Pascha with my local OCA church, as well as with a Byzantine Catholic church which is about half an hour from me. Matter of fact, it's the same church that Dan Lauffer goes to!
I am most interested in church architecture, music, liturgies and iconography - basically everything about a church, from the exterior to the interior and how they worship. I've visited many a church just because of this and I after I saw the gorgeous iconography at Dan's church, I had to see it in person!
Besides that fact, I had also never visited an Eastern Rite Catholic church before and I thought now was as good a time as any to see how much it differed from my previous experiences with Orthodoxy. I really don't know much of anything about Byzantine Catholicism, other than they're under the Pope of Rome but I am slowly learning more via the web.
One day I hope to go overseas and see some of the beautiful and historic churches that are there.
Another aspiration to go along with my champagne taste and beer pocket!
Well, I am off to go scour through some more of the posts on the forum. Again, if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.
God bless,
Aaron
