GOD-centric :

A life centered on the pursuit of a good and fair God of love

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Ch. 5 The Quest (continued)

Eastern Orthodoxy

  I had very little personal experience with Eastern Orthodoxy. The mother of my Greek Orthodox friend whom I arm wrestled in high school would not allow me in their house or allow my friend to come to my house because I was Roman Catholic. Not being a stickler, I thought the Great Schism was a great ado about nothing much. Why can't we all just get along? Still, the Greek Orthodox Church in my town was beautiful and mysterious and I was curious to peek inside this exotic religion.

  The Eastern Orthodox in me embraced its strong emphasis on mysticism and the personal experience of God and its lack of emphasis on codifying everything as if God could be defined down to the last detail. I liked that the Eastern Orthodox Church valued but did not put as much weight on the Bible as most Protestant religions. I was taken with the concept of deification wherein humans join fully with God by repairing the unity of human and divine.

  I was not Eastern Orthodox because, despite the Filioque Controversy regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit, they largely adhered to the same Nicene Creedal beliefs that made me a Roman Catholic heretic.