We were visiting a small, Episcopal church in our neighborhood one week, when the pastor announced that there was going to be a day of prayer for unity and a special ecumenical service held at a nearby Greek Orthodox church. Knowing very little about the Eastern Orthodox, I was intrigued.

“Why don’t we go and see what it’s like?” I suggested to Kerry. “We’ve already been everywhere else.”

Though we missed the ecumenical service, one Sunday morning a few weeks later, we decided to visit the Orthodox church.

The smell of incense filled the air as we entered St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church for the Divine Liturgy. It was the most majestic church that we had ever seen. The priest, clad in a lavish golden vestment, censed the altar as he prayed in the Sanctuary. Worshipers lit candles and kissed the icons, making the Sign of the Cross. Kerry and I sat down in silence. There was a sense of reverence here that we had never experienced before. But as the celebration of the Liturgy progressed, we felt terribly out of place as the people around us stood, knelt, prayed, sang, crossed themselves, and even kissed! As beautiful as it was, I didn’t know if we would ever go back again.

I began reading about the Eastern Orthodox and discovered that theirs was an ancient church with a living, historical connection to the Apostles and to Jesus Himself. As far as I had been concerned, Church history began in the sixteenth century. I knew nothing about the fifteen hundred years before the Protestant Reformation. I began to wonder about the early centuries of Christianity. What had the early Christians been like? How had they worshiped? Reading Church history, I discovered the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. The writings of the early Fathers opened up a whole new world to me that I never knew existed.

I discovered a Church that believed in Apostolic Succession, Sacred Tradition, baptismal regeneration, and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist – a visible, authoritative Church whose bishops had infallibly determined the canon of Scripture and had defined the great dogmas of the Christian Faith.

I learned that worship in the early Church was centered not on music and preaching but on the Eucharist. The early Church Fathers unanimously believed that the bread and the wine truly became the Body and Blood of Christ.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the Apostle John, called the Eucharist the “medicine of immortality” (A.D. 110, Letter to the Ephesians 20:2). Concerning “those who hold heretical opinions,” he wrote, “note how contrary they are to the mind of God. … They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, because they refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father by His goodness raised up” (A.D. 110, Letter to the Smyrneans 6:2-7:1).

St. Cyril of Jerusalem expressed the Eucharistic faith of the early Church in his catechetical lectures:
“Therefore, when He has spoken and says about the bread, ‘This is My Body,’ who will have the nerve to doubt any longer? And, when He affirms clearly, ‘This is My Blood,’ who will then doubt, saying that it is not His Blood? Once, by His own will, He changed water into wine at Cana in Galilee; is He not worthy of belief when He changes wine into blood? ... Do not judge the reality by taste but, having full assurance from faith, realize that you have been judged worthy of the Body and Blood of Christ. … Having learned these things, you have complete certitude that the visible bread is not bread, even if it is such to the taste, but the Body of Christ; and the visible wine is not wine, even if taste thinks it such, but the Blood of Christ” (A.D. 350, Mystagogic Catechesis 4:1,2,6,9).

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My Flesh is real food and My Blood is real drink. Whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood remains in Me, and I in him” (John 6:53-56).

The early Christians knew that the Lord was not speaking of a mere symbol. I discovered that for the first thousand years of Christianity, no one denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It was the universal belief of the entire Christian Church.

As if scales fell from my eyes, I began to see other passages in Scripture that, taken at face value, contradicted Protestant theology: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (John 3:5); “Stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thess. 2:15); “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24); “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23); “Take, eat; this is My Body … this is My Blood” (Matt. 26:26-28).

I was shaken. We had refused to believe the plain meaning of Scripture. We had “nullified the Word of God for the sake of our tradition” (cf. Matt. 15:6).

As I continued to study Church history, I learned that “Scripture alone,” “Faith alone,” an “invisible” church, and symbolic baptism and Eucharist were all late innovations – teachings of men who came along centuries after Christ established His Church. Not a single Church Father taught Sola Scriptura or Sola Fide. The two great pillars of the Protestant Reformation were “traditions of men” (Mark 7:8).

I had to make a choice. I could listen to the men who sat at the feet of the Apostles themselves – men who sacrificed their very lives for the faith that had been passed down to them – or continue to follow those who had separated themselves from the ancient Church, men who taught radically new doctrines that had never been held in the entire history of Christianity.

Jesus promised to be with His Church until the end of time (cf. Matt. 28:20) and to send the Holy Spirit to guide her into all truth (cf. John 16:13). I was forced to admit that either Christ had broken His promises and had allowed His Church to fall into error and remain in darkness for fifteen hundred years, or that Protestantism was not historical Christianity.

The testimony of the Fathers was irrefutable. The early Church was not Protestant. I had been taught that the Reformers restored “pure Christianity” to a corrupt Church, but I now knew that Protestantism was the corruption. The Reformers refashioned Christianity according to their own beliefs and lost the Faith of the Fathers, departing further and further from the Apostolic Faith with each successive generation of Protestant believers.

At long last, I discovered the Church that was founded not by Luther or Calvin or any other man but by the Lord Jesus Himself. That one, Mystical Body where there was truly “one Spirit … one hope … one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:4-5); where the many are made one Body, for “all partake of the one Bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). The Orthodox Church still possessed the faith that had been “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). The Orthodox had kept the Traditions of the Fathers.

Or so I thought.

* * * * *

We decided to go back to St. Paul’s for the Resurrection Service on Great and Holy Saturday, the eve of Pascha. (Pascha is the Greek word for Passover, what Eastern Christians call Easter.) The church was dark, symbolizing the darkness of the grave. At the altar, the priest lit the Paschal Candle representing the Resurrected Christ, the Light of the World. We lit our candles from the Paschal Candle, passing on the light to each other.

“Christos Anesti,” we sang. “Christ is Risen!”

After the Divine Liturgy, everyone went forward to receive a blessed Easter egg. Kerry and I went forward, too, and to our surprise the priest invited us to come back the following day as his personal guests for the annual Easter picnic. From that day forward, St. Paul’s became our church home.

Father Steve took us under his wing as we began to learn about Orthodoxy. He gave us books to read over the summer, and in September we began the Studies in Faith class, a twenty-four-week course covering the content, history, and practice of the Orthodox faith. We joined a weekly Bible study and OCF (Orthodox Christian Fellowship), another study group that also met for occasional social get-togethers, and we continued to read the writings of the Church Fathers.

The Orthodox Church seemed to be the answer to our prayers. We even began to accept the teachings about the Theotokos, the Blessed Virgin Mary. After all, we discovered, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli, the fathers of the Reformation, had all honored Mary and affirmed that she is the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin. How far the contemporary denominations have departed from the beliefs of their founders!

As the months passed, we continued our studies and were warmly welcomed into the life of the parish, making wonderful new friends. The fact that we were going to an Orthodox church didn’t even seem to bother anyone at CRI – Hank’s personal assistant even came to a conference at our parish. We looked forward with eager anticipation to the day when we would formally enter the Church and receive the Body and Blood of the Lord in Holy Communion. It was the happiest time of our lives.

As we were nearing the end of our Studies in Faith class, we came to the topic of moral issues. One young couple in the class, converts from Catholicism, spoke candidly about their marriage. They had not been allowed to marry in the Catholic Church because the woman had been divorced, but they found that this was not a problem in the Orthodox Church.

I had never thought about this before; in Protestantism, remarriage after divorce is a non-issue. Although Kerry had never been married before, I had been previously married and divorced. For the first time, I began to think about divorce and remarriage and how this affected Kerry and me.

I made an appointment to speak with Father Steve about my concerns. After discussing all of the circumstances, he assured me there wasn’t a problem; he would marry Kerry and me in the Church and that would be my first, true Sacramental marriage. He would bring us into the Church at Pascha and then marry us on the day of our next anniversary.

That night I couldn’t sleep. I was terribly worried about receiving Holy Communion before we were married in the Church. How could we go forward in good conscience to receive the Body and Blood of Christ if we were not going to be married in the Church until the following November? It just didn’t seem right. And then something else began to trouble me: Why did the Orthodox Church permit its members to marry three times and still receive Holy Communion?

Something was wrong.

I decided to talk to the instructor of our Studies in Faith class. He promised to send me some information that would help. But what he thought would bring me comfort actually brought me more distress.

I learned that at the time of the emperor Justinian, the Eastern Church was pressured into a “situation which she had to accept.” Although “unwillingly and in seeming deviation from the main position of considering marriage indissoluble, yet for the purpose of helping her faithful who were at the same time citizens of the state, the Church decided to follow in the main the legal decision of the state in matters of divorce.

“Some of the reasons which the Church accepts as valid for ecclesiastically dissolving a marriage include imprisonment for life, incurable mental or physical illness, proven and irremedial incompatibility, and others” (A Dictionary of Greek Orthodoxy, pg. 120).

When I read those words, my heart sank. I turned to the Lord’s teaching in Matthew 19 – a passage I had read many times before and yet, until now, had never truly seen. Jesus said, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery” (Matt. 19:8-9).

I knew that there was only one church that taught the indissolubility of marriage. Could the Catholic Church really be what she claimed to be? I didn’t want to believe it, so deep were my prejudices against Catholicism.

* * * * *

I had one Catholic friend. We had met on the Internet while I was still a staunch Calvinist. Mary had a deep love for the Lord and a steadfast belief that the Catholic Church was His true Church. The Lord used our friendship to soften my heart, just enough that I was able to buy my first Catholic books: Surprised by Truth, a collection of conversion stories edited by Patrick Madrid, and The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism by Father John Hardon, S.J.

About this time, Kerry began listening to Catholic radio when he was driving in the car. Protestant programming no longer interested him. We were so much closer to the Catholics now; Catholicism and Orthodoxy were virtually the same faith, sharing the same Sacraments but divided mainly over the issue of authority. Kerry told me about “Catholic Answers Live,” a call-in radio talk show similar to the “Bible Answer Man,” and I began to listen, too.

As I read about the Catholic faith and listened to “Catholic Answers Live,” I realized that I had serious misconceptions about Catholicism. The Catholic Church did not teach salvation by works, that Christ is “re-sacrificed” in the Mass, that Mary and the Saints are to be worshiped, or that purgatory is a second chance at Heaven. I realized that all of my perceptions of the Catholic faith had been gleaned from anti-Catholic Protestant sources that had misrepresented official Catholic teachings. I was ashamed to admit that I had never read a single book written by a Catholic author in defense of the Catholic faith. I had to know more, but I didn’t want Kerry to know what I was thinking until I was absolutely certain for myself.

I had been studying cults for years, collecting nearly every book that had been written about them. One day, I casually said to Kerry, “You know, there’s really nothing available by an Orthodox author on cults or apologetics. Do you mind if I order something from the Catholics to get their perspective?”

“Go ahead,” he replied.

And so I began ordering books and tapes by Catholic authors Patrick Madrid, Jimmy Akin, Karl Keating, Scott Hahn, Marcus Grodi, and others. I was intensely studying the Catholic faith – and Kerry didn’t suspect a thing.

* * * * *

One day, I discovered something that absolutely shocked me. Up until 1930, all Christian churches taught that contraception was intrinsically evil and gravely sinful. It was the Anglican Church, at its Lambeth Conference, that first approved the use of birth control. Since that time, every single Protestant denomination – and sadly even the Orthodox Church – has followed suit, departing from nineteen hundred years of universal Christian belief.

But there was something more. I learned that some contraceptives – the IUD, Norplant, Depo-Provera, and the Pill – were also potential abortifacients. The Pill, I discovered, does not always prevent conception, but sometimes causes an early chemical abortion after a new life has already been conceived. Although its primary function is to inhibit ovulation, the birth control pill sometimes allows breakthrough ovulation and conception to occur, meaning a woman can still become pregnant, even when she’s on the Pill. When this happens, the Pill works in another way: by causing changes in the lining of the uterus that prevent the implantation of the new human life.

I believed that human life is sacred and that we must respect all life – from the very moment of conception until natural death. It is as sinful to take the life of a tiny, seven-day-old human being by a chemical abortion as it is to take the life of a seven-week-old human being by a surgical abortion. I thought of all the sincere, pro-life Christians who use birth control because their pastors have told them that it is morally permissible. In allowing the use of contraception, Christian churches had unwittingly caused the deaths of innocent human beings created in the image of God.

With tremendous sorrow, I realized that I could not become Orthodox. There was only one Church that stood firm on all moral issues, only one Church that could be the one Scripture calls the “pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

* * * * *

St. John Chrysostom, the great fourth-century patriarch of the Eastern Church, wrote, “Why did He shed His blood? It was to purchase the sheep which He entrusted to Peter and his successors” (The Priesthood 2:1). Christ had given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter (cf. Matt. 16:19) and charged him to feed His sheep (cf. John 21:15-17) and to strengthen his brethren (cf. Luke 22:32). I now knew that the Lord was calling me into the Catholic Church. I had to be obedient to Christ. I had to “become like a little child” (cf. Matt. 18:3) and humbly submit to the authority of His one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.

I wasn’t sure what to do next, and there was still the matter of my marital situation. I decided to call Catholic Answers. I spoke with a staff apologist who suggested that I contact Edward Peters, a canon lawyer and frequent guest on “Catholic Answers Live.”

Dr. Peters explained that an annulment is not a “Catholic divorce” as some people think. The Catholic Church teaches that a valid marriage is indissoluble. An annulment is granted only when the Church determines that a valid marriage never existed from the beginning. The Catholic Church takes great care to protect her faithful because, in her wisdom, she knows that to attempt a second marriage when the first marriage is valid causes one to be in a state of adultery. Dr. Peters encouraged me to speak with a parish priest who could then help me to begin the annulment process.

It was nearing the day when Father Steve would pray for the Catechumens who would be coming into the Orthodox Church at Pascha. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I told Kerry that I could not become Orthodox – I had discovered the truth of the Catholic faith.

Kerry stared at me in disbelief. He was devastated. After all of the months of prayer and study, all of our plans now lay in ruins. Our life at St. Paul’s, our future at CRI, everything we had looked forward to – it was all over.

“I hate the Roman Catholic Church,” he said and turned and walked away.

There was now a tension between us that had never existed before. But while Kerry couldn’t accept that the Catholic Church could be Christ’s Church, he could not deny that there were serious problems with the Orthodox position on moral issues. We now realized that if I had been validly married in the past, Kerry and I were living in a state of adultery. Rather than risk offending God and eternally endangering each other’s soul, we agreed to live as brother and sister until we could determine our true marital state.

* * * * *

There was one Catholic whom Kerry respected very much: Jimmy Akin, the senior apologist at Catholic Answers. Jimmy had been a guest on the “Bible Answer Man” years earlier and, though I didn’t know it at the time, Kerry had listened to the tapes over and over again, astonished that there were good, solid Catholic answers to Protestant questions. If I could convince Kerry to meet with him, I knew that Jimmy could help. But when I raised the idea, he resisted.

“I can’t take a day off to go down there,” he said. “You know how busy I am at work.” Kerry was adamant that there was nothing I could say to change his mind.

“Please Lord,” I prayed that night, “find a way to get Kerry down to Catholic Answers.”

The Lord answers prayers in unexpected ways.

A few days later, we found out that Kerry needed to have minor surgery. On doctor’s orders, he would be off from work for two weeks.

“You know, we could go to see Jimmy before you have to go back to work again,” I said with a sly grin one night, as the day of surgery approached. “You know how bored you’ll be after you’ve been sitting at home for two weeks.”

“Oh, all right,” he reluctantly agreed. “Make the arrangements.”

Kerry recovered from surgery quickly and was feeling fine when the day arrived for our trip to Catholic Answers. The tension that had been between us for weeks seemed to lift as we drove down the coast to the San Diego-based apostolate.

Jimmy welcomed us and gave us a tour, introducing Kerry and me to everyone on staff. We then settled into a conference room where he spent the next two hours answering all of our questions about the Catholic faith. Karl Keating, the founder and president of Catholic Answers, spent some time with us, too, and gave us all of the back issues of This Rock magazine featuring articles on Eastern Orthodoxy. We met Johnny Hochgraefe, the host of “Catholic Answers Live” at the time, and stayed to watch a taping of the show.

On the way home, Kerry broke the silence. “I suppose it’s inevitable that I’m going to be Catholic, but I’m just not ready yet; I need more time. But if you’re ready now, I don’t want to stand in your way. I think you should enter the Church.”

* * * * *

St. Michael’s Abbey of the Norbertine Fathers was near our home, and we began going there for Sunday Mass. One of the priests at the Abbey, Father John Caronan, was on the Orange County Marriage Tribunal. I made an appointment to meet with him to discuss the annulment and the possibility of my coming into the Church.

The annulment process is lengthy, lasting at least a year. But because Kerry and I had been living as brother and sister, Father John said that it was possible that I could enter the Church in full Communion at Easter if we agreed to go on living continently. With the Easter Vigil just a few weeks away, I was hopeful that I would soon be received into the Church.

Father John sent us to Father Daniel Johnson at St. Mary’s by the Sea. Although Father Johnson’s RCIA class was almost over, he allowed us to come into the class. Because of our background, the instruction we had received at St. Paul’s, and our own study of the Catholic faith, he agreed that I was ready.