Seventh-day Adventist to Roman Catholic

During my senior year in high school, I engaged my friends Rheem and Samia in many religious conversations. Both were Eastern Orthodox; I, on the other hand was a zealous, conservative, vegan, Seventh-day Adventist. On occasion, they would suggest that I come visit their church, and I agreed, hoping that it would lead them to visit my church as well.

My final Sunday morning in Yonkers, my mother dropped me off at Virgin Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church. I quietly entered during the Matins service, and observed the proceedings with keen interest. The icons, scattered all across the Church, were as mysterious as they were beautiful, depicting scenes in the life of Christ. The flicker of the candles and pleasant aroma of incense also intrigued me. Although I could not understand the liturgy itself (sung entirely in Arabic), I decided I would try to worship God with these, my brothers and sisters in Christ, as far as I thought reasonable. I avoided bowing my head in the direction of any icon, but could see no reason not to sign the cross to express my Christian faith.

After Sunday School had ended, my friends and their families entered the nave, and the divine liturgy began. Samia’s family did their best to help me find my place in the liturgy book from time to time, but I had trouble keeping up. In the end, I preferred simply to observe and take in the entire spectacle. I was particularly impressed with the Byzantine chants sung by the choir; I wondered how many millions of Christians through the centuries worshipped God through the same words. It was amazing; I was encountering God in a new way, and found the experience spiritually refreshing. Honestly, I had never experienced such a Theocentric worship in all my life. God was “all in all”: pictured in every corner of the Church, glorified by the lips of every member of the congregation. I could touch God, and sense His presence; He was as transcendent in those moments as He was tangible. He was risen anew that Sunday morning.

As I left the church that day, I was invited to eat lunch at a restaurant with the Sayegh family. They were incredibly kind, and all the while teased me about becoming Orthodox. Before that morning, I looked upon Rheem and Samia’s Orthodox faith with a kind of loving pity; now, I envied them. I had seen Christ in her faith in a way I had never seen in my own, and I longed to see Him again. I took a walk that sunny afternoon, and felt an inexpressible peace and joy when my mind dwelt on my experiences that morning.

A month later (after arriving on the campus of Southern Adventist University as a freshman), I found myself obtaining and listening to Byzantine chants at a point of spiritual confusion. I needed even more of God in my life, and allowed these ancient Christian songs to guide my prayers. I made sure that the songs were addressed to God alone, and were in harmony with what I considered Biblical theology.  Soon after, I hung an icon on my wall to remind me of Christ (never to venerate). As far as I could, I wanted to express my Adventism in its purity, albeit through the Eastern forms that had so powerful an impact on me.

Nevertheless, the tide was shifting. First, I stumbled on theological defenses of several Orthodox practices (including the use of the term "father" to address pastors and the veneration of icons). Although I was not completely convinced by their arguments, I was impressed at how well-reasoned they were, and realized that certain issues were far more complex than I had realized. My experience listening to the hymns of the Orthodox faith also allowed me to appreciate the (very foreign) theological nuances of Eastern Christianity. Concepts as diverse as theosis, the sacramentality of the material world, and images of Christ as a mythic hero despoiling death itself, expanded my previous conceptions of God.

Perhaps most importantly, I watched a three-part video documentary on the “History of Orthodox Christianity.” The film traced the Christian story from apostolic times to the present day (all in a brief hour and a half). Within the first five minutes, the film presented its central thesis: Christ founded a single Church that continues to faithfully proclaim His message today.

As an Adventist, I believed (similarly) that Christ would protect the Seventh-day Adventist Church from apostasy. Ellen White claimed that God’s church would appear to fall, but would not (7BC 911); no new organization would be needed (Ms 129, 1905). This claim was especially important to me, because years earlier I had rejected the misguided counsel of those who recommended I should abandon the denomination, given its (perceived) laxity and doctrinal dilution. I could not reconcile this viewpoint with God’s promises in the Spirit of Prophecy.  However, the film challenged me with a more radical (and eminently simple) idea. If God could protect “a church” from apostasy, why one established nineteen centuries after the coming of Christ?  I know Christ founded a church (a visible, tangible society) in the first century; could He not have protected it in the same manner? In fact, did He not promise as much?

These scattered questions finally crystallized one sunny Friday afternoon began to read the writings of the earliest church fathers. I had only recently become aware that a large body of literature existed from Christians in the first, second, and third centuries CE; I decided to explore it. Of course, I expected to come across some ideas I deemed “heretical,” but reasoned that the documents probably also contained traces of the “authentic” (Adventist) theology I believed the apostles shared.

What I found stunned me. Around the year 95 CE, the church in Rome wrote to the church in Corinth hoping to settle a dispute within the latter community. In one chapter, the Roman Christians remind the Corinthian Christians that Peter and Paul, for their fidelity, “entered into glory” after their deaths (1 Clement 5). I was dumbstruck. The epistle was written within the lifetime of the apostle John; Paul had ministered in both churches for several years only a few decades earlier. I began to read more documents, all of which reflected some belief contrary to my Adventist theology. Most troubling, none reflected Adventist positions on such subjects as the Sabbath or state of the dead (for instance).

I began to get angry—very angry. I walked out of my dorm room in disgust, and began to pace around the campus, all the while brooding over the documents I had just read. I was fiercely upset at the Christians whom I believed betrayed the apostle’s teachings. I was overwhelmed. But as my pacing slowed, my heart began to fearfully accept the implications of what I had just read. These men sat at the feet of Peter, Paul, and John; they were appointed by the apostles as “trustworthy men” (2 Tim 2:2). Could I truly say that I, twenty centuries removed from the apostles, understood the apostolic message more clearly than the men who received it orally?  Perhaps.  On the other hand, I could fathom the existence of a few untrustworthy men among those the apostles ordained, but could I account for what seemed a universal apostasy during the lifetime of the apostles?

For that matter, if there was an apostasy in the first century, I expect scripture should have addressed it. After all, the epistles issue clear condemnations of Judaic-legalism, Docetism, pagan superstition, and false teachings on the resurrection. Where then did the apostles condemn the false conceptions of the state of the dead that had become universal during their lifetime? Something did not make sense, and the more I considered the question, the more I realized it was my own artificial reading of Christian history in the first century. Orthodoxy (with its emphasis on continuity) provided a more cogent explanation for the data I was observing. Adventism forced me to claim that the there was a radical discontinuity in Christian theology virtually from the beginning.

What of this “great apostasy? When did the Church “fall” from truth? Oddly, I struck a comparison between this question, and the abortion question. When can we think of a child as a human being (which state inherently bestows upon it the right to life)? Surely not at birth; the child is no less human inside or outside of the womb. For that matter, he is no less human at 6 months, or 3 months, or a week. As far back as one can trace back, he is human, up to the moment his unique, permanent, and human genetic code is brought into being. With regards to the Church then: when did the Church apostatize? As far back as I could trace, without actually touching the Biblical material, the Church was scarcely compatible with Adventism. Could it be that the Church was never Adventist? Was I misreading the New Testament material? It was a fair question—one I had to answer. At that time, I did not feel that my beliefs were in error, but I always welcomed the opportunity to test them, believing they would stand.

They didn’t.

Adventists can suggest at least fifty differences between their theology and that of the Orthodox Church. I immersed myself in scripture over the next three years to judge who had the stronger case in each point. Again and again the answer became clear: the Orthodox Church did. (In time, I would realize the Catholic Church provided the clearest explanation of all—a conclusion I desperately tried to avoid as long as possible, given my Adventist background.). My journey cost me my dreams of becoming an Adventist pastor, a few friendships, and several wonderful relationships. Nevertheless, the conclusion became inescapable; Adventism was wrong—wrong about history, wrong about Scripture. I had never realized the inherent flaws in arguments Adventists championed to defend their theology. The cozy edifice of my cherished theology collapsed all around me.

I hope you explore the intellectual substance of those three years (even if only to prove me wrong). Drafts of my personal essays from that period (and beyond) are posted at http://www.diesdomini.com. My personal experiences through those three years are better saved for another day. Suffice to thank God that the Catholic Church embraced me into her fellowship on April 15, 2005—the date of my confirmation and first communion, and precisely 1,000 days from the visit to St. Mary’s. On that day, God opened the floodgates of grace to me; and to that grace, how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.

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Dies Domini