Entering the Orthodox Church · Lesson 2 of 20
Where Does the Journey Begin?
A person who wishes to be baptized and become an Orthodox Christian does not begin with a class or a book. He begins with the Church herself — by meeting the bishop or his representative, for the bishop is the head of the local Church, standing in the place and image of her true Head, Christ. In that first conversation, gently and without interrogation, the reason for the desire comes to light. This first meeting matters, Metropolitan Hierotheos writes, because it shows whether the desire is true.
Then a catechist is appointed — ideally an experienced parish priest — and a prayer is read over the seeker: the same beautiful prayer the Church reads over an infant on the eighth day after birth, asking God to lift up the light of His countenance upon His servant, to plant the Cross of His Only-begotten Son in his heart, and to unite him to the holy Church in due time. From that moment the person is enrolled as a catechumen — and is already called a Christian, for he has accepted that Christ is the true God and desires not merely to admire Him but to become His disciple.
Why Must Catechism Happen in a Parish?
Because the faith cannot be learned as private, individual study. The parish, Metropolitan Hierotheos insists, is the active cell of church life — a place of healing, a spiritual hospital, and a spiritual family. The catechumen is therefore attached to a parish community and follows its rhythm of worship, so that from the very beginning he learns the faith not as ideas but as life lived with others before God.
The catechumen shares in nearly all the Church’s worship: Vespers, Orthros, the supplicatory canons, the Akathist to the Theotokos — and the first half of the Divine Liturgy, through the Scripture readings and the prayers that follow. In the ancient Church, the deacon would then announce: “All catechumens, depart… let none of the catechumens remain” — and the faithful alone remained for the Eucharist. The catechumen thus belongs to a real order in the Church, with its own place in her worship: not yet at the Chalice, but already inside the household.
What Is the Inner Work of the Catechumenate?
Purification. The Tradition is unanimous that purification precedes Baptism, and that Baptism and Chrismation bring illumination — which is why Baptism itself is called “Illumination” in the service books. But this purification is not accomplished by prayers read over a passive subject. Salvation is synergy — the cooperation of God who acts and man who responds.
So the catechumen is taught the Church’s practical science of the inner life: what tempting thoughts (logismoi) are, how a thought grows into a desire and a desire into an act, and how the heart is freed from the tyranny of the passions — by his own honest effort and, above all, by the action of divine grace, under the discreet, fatherly guidance of his priest. The exorcism prayers read over him and his own ascetic struggle belong together; without the struggle, the prayers do not reach their goal. The aim is that when the priest asks him at the font, “Do you renounce Satan?”, his answer — “I have renounced him” — will be the truth.
Metropolitan Hierotheos also encourages catechumens to visit an Orthodox monastery, where the truth that the Church is a spiritual hospital becomes visible in people actually being healed — living schools, he calls them, of the way of therapy.
How Long Does It Take?
As long as it needs to. In the ancient Church the catechumenate could last up to three years; today its length depends on the eagerness and readiness of the catechumen. The time is not an obstacle but a mercy: it allows the desire to be tested, the habits of prayer to form, and the person to discover — before the day of Baptism — that he is not joining an organization but entering a family and a hospital at once. He will not learn everything before Baptism; the important thing is that he begins. The greater experience comes afterward, in the life of the parish community.
At Saint George, anyone drawn toward the Orthodox faith is welcome to begin exactly this way: come to the services, speak with Father, and let the ancient, unhurried path do its work.
This article is drawn from Entering the Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos, a guide to the catechism and baptism of adults, and is part of a series presenting its teaching.
