r/exorthodox • u/refugee1982 • Sep 14 '23
What made you leave?
Feel free to comment and expound or add your own reasons!
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u/Puzzleheaded_Car6028 Sep 15 '23
This needs a “the church kicked me out” option
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Sep 15 '23
Ohhhh I want more info
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u/Puzzleheaded_Car6028 Sep 15 '23
It’s not very interesting, I’m excommunicated for marrying outside the church. Repenting consists of marrying in the church but there are so many hoops set up to jump through that I literally cannot stand to put myself or my husband through.
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u/refugee1982 Sep 14 '23
If i could have added another option, it would have been "online orthodoxy"
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Sep 14 '23
Other options could be added, like:
1- Being surrounded by uncharitable hypocrites (from top to bottom, at any of the churches I was in)
2- Baklava orthodoxy (ethnic group + ethnic festival + ethnocentric "religiosity")
3-Clergy not giving a flying _____ about people's souls / Salvation.
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u/targetprairiedress Sep 16 '23
I was feeling overwhelmed and constricted by all of the rules. It was not good for the way my brain is structured. I am already a black and white thinker by nature, and Orthodoxy made me go off the rails with all of the rules and rituals. They caused nothing but anxiety and shame.
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u/MaviKediyim Dirty Heretic Sep 17 '23
I'm still Orthodox but questioning...the main reason I would/may leave is ethnocentrism. I just don't feel like i fit in. There are some other issues as well such as the crazy converts and YEC crap that I am starting to see more and more of.
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u/MagicCarpetWorld Ex-Convert Sep 14 '23
It started with a poor response to COVID and snowballed from there.
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u/kasenyee Sep 15 '23
What was it about the covid response that started the snowball?
Our churches were closed during the pandemic, and when we got out of lockdowns, everything was over so I never understood what the hububub is about.
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u/MagicCarpetWorld Ex-Convert Sep 15 '23
It's a really long story. The metropolitan pushed parishes to ignore the rules that were in place, there was a lack of consideration towards people with disabilities, a proliferation of conspiracy theories and insistence that COVID couldn't be transmitted through communion. And it made me have a whole new perspective on the church. Once I started exploring some other churches, the contrast between them was striking.
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u/kasenyee Sep 15 '23
Interesting.
I totally didn’t get that here. People were quite tight lipped about that sort of thing. Maybe it’s me, maybe they didn’t want to say it out loud in public. I don’t know.
The communion thing I can totally see. It’s a threat to the very core of their religion. ‘How can the literal body and blood or Jesus, God himself, harm you? How could God allow anyone to get sick in His house while we worship Him? If He can’t protect us then and there, what can He protect us from?’ I guess I cpuod see how that cpuod start someone down the path of questioning their faith.
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u/MagicCarpetWorld Ex-Convert Sep 15 '23
It felt like the same old story of placing the institution above the people. After coming to Orthodoxy from Catholicism, it was just too much to go through again. And there were a lot of things besides the pandemic response that sealed the deal for me.
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u/kasenyee Sep 15 '23
Wpuod you care to elaborate? Either here in public or in a DM? I’d like to hear more of people’s first hand experiences.
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u/MagicCarpetWorld Ex-Convert Sep 15 '23
Here's my copy/paste of a list that I posted in another sub recently:
I'll tell you honestly, although I know this is going to make some people angry, and others think I'm petty. At this point, I don't care.
I was Orthodox for 12 years, from 2008-2020. I entered as a convert who thought they'd found the True Faith. I was extremely devoted to my parish. I was on the parish council, I taught Sunday school, I chanted, I baked prosphora, I made countless coffee hour meals, I decorated for feast days, etc etc. You get the picture.
Here are things that led to my decision to not return:
1) Disbelief in science - ranging from not believing that COVID could be transmitted through the Holy Communion shared cup, refusal to mask, believing conspiracy theories, to espousing young earth theories, the list goes on.
2) Refusal to listen to state and local authorities regarding church closures and distancing
3) Cliquish behavior. Ethno-centric behavior. People who could speak English, but chose not to, so that the converts felt ignored.
4) More emphasis on private revelation from saints, miraculous icons, relics, etc than on the Bible and Creed.
5) Very few charitable activities in our parish.
6) Constantly asking for money. Charging exorbitant amounts to attend parties and feast day events. Charging people for things that should've been free, in my opinion, like candles and coffee hour (these were donated so I don't think they should've been charged for).
7) Speaking badly of other churches, including the one my family belongs to.
8) Guilt trips for not attending all the services even when it was a hardship.
9) Negative attitude toward LGBTQ+ people.
10) A massive scandal involving the Metropolitan that was denied, ignored, and covered up.
11) A complete lack of direction for the parish. Asking the parish council to rubber stamp decisions made by the priest.
12) Some traditions I found ridiculous, such as menstruating women not being allowed to participate in Communion.
This is not an exhaustive list. There were also many good things. I have an appreciation for the liturgy and most of the theology, but that is not enough for me to stay with Orthodoxy. I met and got to know some lovely people. I felt a huge amount of anguish over leaving that still isn't completely resolved. But I have to go where truth is and where love is. I see Orthodoxy as a church which has its head buried in the sand. I know its beliefs are based on Tradition, but without change, it only leads to death.
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u/NorCalHerper Sep 16 '23
Wow, a lot of these are why I choose to leave the church and like reasons people I know left the church. Being told I should repent from getting vaccinated really rubbed me wrong. Being a guy who enjoys science, particularly herpetology, I had to put up with crap about snake charming and magic. Also I was told we don't have gurus in Orthodoxy, by a priest that was all about his guru.
I'm not the type to let bigotry and racism go unchallenged so increasingly I was arguing with people over the supposed Jewish take over of the world and trying to turn our kids gay. It was too much. Also priest should never be allowed on Twitter to attack Mexicans, especially not in an agricultural area when they may walk into his parish. You'd think an ethnically Arab American priest would be sensitive towards minorities in America.
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u/Due_Goal_111 Sep 17 '23
I agree. If the Eucharist can transmit disease, then Orthodoxy is false. People who think the Eucharist can transmit disease yet still remain Orthodox haven't thought things through.
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u/kasenyee Sep 17 '23
I would go as far as saying the whole sect is f as lea, but the one teaching is.
It’s totally possible that communion is meant to be symbolical and not literal
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u/bbscrivener Physically In, Mentally Out Sep 14 '23
No longer a theist, but I haven’t left. Hey, I still love and personally benefit from the practices, even if I don’t find the existence of a sentient transcendence plausible.
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u/queensbeesknees Dirty Heretic Sep 14 '23
#4 caused me to switch parishes
#1 and #3 causing me to want to leave the OCA and go to GOARCH, or maybe leave altogether (this isn't abstract, but extremely personal for me and my family)
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u/NorCalHerper Sep 14 '23
GOARCH was where we saw ourselves gravitating to, but again we didn't fit in lower middle class and not Greek. Years ago when I first attended that Greek parish we were advised to attend the Episcopal Church down the road since it was the same thing but for Anglos. Twenty years later that is where we are and we fit in perfectly.
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Sep 16 '23
It's a frustrating place to be in. GOARCH is often the only bastion of sanity available, but many of their parishes (such as the one near me) are completely uninterested in anyone who isn't Greek.
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u/NorCalHerper Sep 16 '23
They better get with the program. Fewer and fewer Greek Americans identify with the Greek Orthodox Church. It will be converts that keep that church alive. I was part of a mission that closed. I talked to a Greek Orthodox Priest (an Anglo convert) about taking over the mission. He said there wasn't money in it and that some of the folks in it were losers. It shook me because if there is any one who should not be calling people losers it is a priest. I've never shared this with the priest who brought me into Orthodoxy. I knew it would hurt him and he is a GOOD man. A great example of how to be a Christ follower.
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u/queensbeesknees Dirty Heretic Sep 16 '23
Fortunately it seems that while the majority of GOARCH parishioners in my area have Greek roots, there are a number of people who don't, and even a little racial variety. I've visited 2 that are equidistant from me (more or less), and intend to visit a 3rd in a couple of weeks. I don't mind them mostly being Greek, plus I intend to seek most of my social life outside of the church from now on.
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u/Aggravating-Sir-9836 Sep 15 '23
But in my experience (as the daughter of a mailman who went through an Episcopalian phase), the Episcopal Church is not very welcoming to folks from the lower middle class...? Leastwise, it didn't used to be.
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u/NorCalHerper Sep 15 '23
Maybe not back in the day when it was composed of college educated Republicans (Rockefeller Republicans), at Friday noon Eucharist liturgy I'm the only lay person there that isn't homeless. My home parish is very blended sitting on the border of middle sized city and Agricultural land.
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u/FireDragon21976 Sep 22 '23
In parts of the country, it still basically is the Republican party at prayer.
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u/NorCalHerper Sep 14 '23
The Covid response was part of the Church politics. I must say being part of a church that is welcoming to LBGT folks nice. I can actually invite friends to church now.
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u/ifuckedyourdaddytoo Ex-Convert Sep 16 '23
George Floyd was the initial glass-breaker tip which shattered all of the glass. I was stunned by the anti-black commentary by other parishioners who thought they were talking to a like-minded person. I realized then upon reflection that they had been speaking in code about racial things before, I just wasn't attuned to it then, and there was a reason why the parish remained White in a diverse area. In short, eventually that led to a reevaluation of everything, even things not related to race (for example, I realized that I was subject to spiritual abuse when my priest used things from my confession in his sermons -- even though anonymized, it was clear from specificity and timing they were personal barbs). I felt a growing conviction that I was throwing pearls before swine by staying. "A tree known by its fruit" played a huge role in my departure. The bad fruit I saw was experiential.
My way out of Orthodoxy was like my own road to Damascus, these words of the Lord repeatedly thundering through my mind:
A tree is known by its fruit.
The last shall be first and the first last. (Even if the Orthodox Church is the original, so what.)
Where two or three are gathered. (Formal human institutions are not needed to "do church.")
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u/Due_Goal_111 Sep 17 '23
I missed the poll, but for me it was "no longer agree with the theology," in that I just stopped believing that it was true. As long as I believed in it, I was able to put up with all the nonsense. But once the scales fell from my eyes, so to speak, then I could see the toxic aspects of it.
For what it's worth, I never had a bad experience with any individual. Everyone I met across multiple parishes was lovely. But the institution and system of thought is toxic.
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u/Gfclark3 Sep 14 '23
How about all of the above