lutheraninquirer said:
Wow, WELS to Orthodoxy! That's a story I'd like to hear sometime.
Thanks to you and ialmisry for the help!
It is really not that hard to understand if you look at things from a historical perspective. I was studying Lutheran Dogmatics in the hope of becoming a lay minister at the time of my conversion. Martin Luther and Philip Melancthon were not trying to start a new Church, but were revolting against the excesses and heresies of the Latin Church. In reading Luther’s writings, it could be seen that he had a very high regard for what he called the “Eastern Catholics”, and even went so far as to admit that they had kept the teachings of the Church far more faithfully than the Roman Church. I was told in my studies that Melancthon even had an Orthodox Priest from Serbia with him when he translated the Augsburg Confession into Greek for Patriarch Jeremiah. My wife was told in the Antiochian Church that Lutherans make some of the best converts to Orthodoxy because they are so close in their beliefs already.
As to giving up your Lutheran traditions, it is really not necessary. I was told by a Priest in the ROCOR (himself a convert from the LCMS and the son of a Lutheran Theologian) that there is no Typicon in the home. After the Nativity Liturgy at that ROCOR Church, we went into the fellowship hall and sang the old Lutheran Christmas hymns, some of them even in German. I still worship God at home using the hymns that I learned as a Lutheran, and I even use the old German chant melodies from the 1600’s when I read the Epistle in the Serbian Church.
One of my favorite of the Lutheran hymns was “Let the Earth Now Praise the Lord”. The second verse is this:
What the fathers most desired,
What the prophet’s heart inspired,
What they longed for many a year,
Stands fulfilled in glory here.
This is how I felt when I entered the Orthodox Church. What I had most desired as a Lutheran was to more fully understand God. My heart longed for Him and my soul cried out for Him. And it was all fulfilled the first time that I heard the words “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages” at the beginning of the Liturgy. By the time the Epistle was being read, I had converted. What I most desired, and what my heart most wanted, was fulfilled in glory during that first Liturgy. The last 16 years has just been polishing the details. While I am no longer a Lutheran, and while I with my heart reject all heresies rejected by the Orthodox Church, I am forever grateful for the education that I received in Lutheran Parochial Schools, and the lessons that I learned in Lutheran Sunday School. I also thank God for the sermons that I heard on Sunday by the conservative Pastors of the LCMS and WELS. These instilled into my heart love for God, and for the Savior Jesus Christ. I pray to God that one day it will be His will that my Lutheran brothers and sisters (and my parents) start to see what I have been shown, and that they and all of the Lutherans join themselves to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that they confess belief in during their Liturgies. May God one day grant this.