Howdy! I'm the Orthodox Christian campus missionary at Texas A&M.

If you're interested in learning more about the Orthodox Church, I encourage you to visit our local parish for a service (stsilouanbcs.com). Over 75% of the members are converts, and so is our priest. We often have visitors, so people are used to connecting with inquirers and sharing their story (without pressuring you to convert).

I'm also happy to get together sometime and talk in person about any questions you might have. If you're interested, feel free to send me an email at apandazis@ocf.net.

+Alexandros

One of my close friends since grade school is Orthodox, and another close friend from college is as well. There was a kind of overlap of discussions with them, disillusionment with the church I was in, and dissatisfaction with my own spiritual life.

I think I encountered Orthodoxy in a real way the first time reading a book called "Themes in Orthodox Patristic Psychology." From there I read Met. Kallistos Ware's "The Orthodox Church" and I started, as best I could, to live the life of the church, through prayer and fasting. I found a church, and after a couple of years I was baptized there. It started as a purely intellectual exercise - what was the faith and practice of the apostles? - but I encountered Christ, and that is why I am where I am today. Conviction of truth, yes - but the real and immediate experience of the reality of the love of God, of Him as the Lover of Mankind, is something I have.

I worship at an Antiochian church (Arabic / Syrian). It doesn't matter theologically, but it does practically. You don't join THE Orthodox Church.. you join AN Orthodox Church, a parish. Some parishes are more open than others... some parishes are more focused on 'the old country' than others. And, to be honest, some parishes have a kind of ethnic emphasis to a fault.

Coming to Orthodoxy from a southern Baptist background was challenging enough...we didn't want to also have to struggle with language barriers. So, we found a church that did their services completely in English. That's why we're at the parish we're at.