Originally posted by stormshadow:
Ah, another country away. I see.
I could almost assuredly state that if I traveled to the state of Arizona, that there would be more churches being built than those that are experiencing a mass exodus just because Arizona is the most rapidly expanding state in our nation. My area of the United States is very old, and I'm sorry, I am just failing to see any growth here of Eastern Catholicism.
Sorry, I have to disagree again. I'm talking Pittsburgh PA Stormshadow! Byzantine Catholic Central! Little Kiev! The Capitol city of the rustbelt! Hardly the center of migration! But look in the ROCOR directory, and you will now see 4 ROCOR Churches within 25 miles of the Steel Triangle! The growth out west is even more remarkable. Take a peek at the ROCOR Church being built in Cincinatti Ohio, Protestant central.
http://www.kypost.com/2001/may/03/bobhay050301.html Hay takes another path less taken
By Stephen Huba, Post staff reporter
No one could ever accuse Robert Hay of taking the easy way in either politics or life.
His positions on hot-button issues, from birth control to urban sprawl, have put him at the center of a succession of community controversies.
And despite his ''rising star'' status in Boone County politics, Hay is leaving office altogether when he steps down as a county commissioner in June.
But nothing can rival in difficulty his recent decision to join the Russian Orthodox Church.
He and his wife, Anita, home-school their six children and, until recently, attended a strict Baptist church in Cincinnati. His attraction to Orthodox Christianity has puzzled his peers, confused his family and baffled his Baptist friends, some of whom have been told to no longer associate with him.
Hay is accustomed to stormy waters in public life. As a member of the Northern Kentucky Independent District Health Department, he has fought to ban the distribution of contraceptives at public health clinics.
As a county commissioner, he once opposed tax breaks as a tool for encouraging economic development - a rare position for a Northern Kentucky politician. And he was an early and open supporter of the fundamentalist ministry, Answers in Genesis, when it sought county approval for a creationist museum in Boone County.
He also favored tighter control on urban sprawl during planning and zoning debates, even as other county officials sought compromise with developers pressing for less government regulation. Hay, however, made it clear he wasn't in government to compromise.
Now, Hay is withdrawing from public life. ''I just can't see myself in that realm,'' said Hay, 41, of Florence, a pharmacist by trade.
In February, Hay announced he wouldn't seek a second term as a Boone County commissioner, but then last month he accelerated his departure by saying he would resign effective June 30.
''The biggest reason is the upheaval that my conversion has had on my family,'' he said. ''They all love me still. But I need to bring them along in the faith now. I really need to give all my attention to their spiritual welfare.''
Hay was received into the church through the sacraments of baptism, chrismation (confirmation) and communion during the Easter vigil at St. George Russian Orthodox Church in Blue Ash, Ohio.
His family, though in attendance, did not become members with him. They are still trying to figure out what Orthodoxy is and why the man of the house decided to join.
''I've never really pushed anything with them,'' Hay said. ''Some of them are now making the sign of the cross during the services. The young ladies are now wearing head coverings in church. Little things are changing.''
People first noticed something was afoot last year when Hay started growing a beard. It is common in Russian Orthodoxy for men, both lay and clergy, to have beards.
But Hay's spiritual journey toward Orthodoxy goes back much further. Reared a nominal Baptist, he learned about the Orthodox Church through a pastor friend in the early 1990s. Hay was curious enough to research the topic on his own. He read writings from the early church fathers and studied church history. He began to see a disconnect between his experience as an independent Baptist and the 2,000-year history of institutional Christianity.
''The Orthodox - very humbly but very assuredly - believe themselves to have maintained that deposit (of faith) that St. Jude says was once delivered to the saints,'' he said. ''That's a fantastic claim. Think about it: two millennia of faithfulness.''
Hay was impressed, but he didn't know what to do with his newfound knowledge until he visited St. George's in November 1999, and something clicked. His intellectual journey became a journey of the heart.
The parish priest, the Rev. Paul Bassett, himself a convert, encouraged Hay to go slow.
''He couldn't answer all of my Protestant-inspired questions, but he tried awfully hard to,'' said Hay, who also makes regular pilgrimages to a Russian Orthodox monastery near Huntington, W.Va. He considers a monk there, the Rev. Alexey Young, his ''spiritual father.''
St. George's is part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, one of three branches of Russian Orthodoxy in the United States. Known by the acronym ROCOR, the church comprises Russian emigres, first-generation Russian Americans, and converts to Orthodoxy. Its worship services are celebrated mostly in Slavonic, a centuries-old liturgical language that many Russians no longer understand.
Hay is part of a small but significant wave of Protestants who have converted to Orthodoxy since the 1980s, seeking spiritual discipline, stability and a historic connection with early Christianity.
Hay said he was inspired by the stories of Russian Christians who persevered under 75 years of atheistic communism.
''I regard it as a bit of humor on the part of God, that he would have brought salvation to me via this group of people who I had grown up to distrust, to hate,'' he said. ''If it was Russian, it was Soviet, it was communist, it was bad.''
Hay's voice wavers with emotion when he talks about the millions of Russian Christians - Orthodox and non-Orthodox - who were exiled, persecuted and killed under Soviet communism.
Hay said he, too, has had to count the cost to become Orthodox.
Hay said his former church, Bethel Baptist Temple in northeast Cincinnati, shunned him when it learned of his decision to convert. He said the church's leadership called him a heretic from the pulpit and told members not to have anything to do with him.
''They gave inaccurate information about Orthodoxy, ridiculed icons and holy tradition, and gave out publicly information I had confided to them,'' he said.
The Rev. Larry Cornett, senior pastor of Bethel Baptist Temple, would not comment except to say, ''We love Robert and his family very much. We wish them the very best.''
''I realized that there would be some reaction,'' said Hay, ''but I never anticipated being called a heretic.''
Hay said church leaders also took him to Indianapolis to see a ''biblical counselor,'' who, at the end of their meeting, said Hay was the ''worst case of deception he had ever seen.''
But not everyone's reaction has been negative.
''Some people have said, 'You're more laid back,' Hay said. ''I feel that I'm more at peace now than I've ever been.''
Keep in mind, this is ROCOR. Heavy Russian. Heavy Slavonic. No pews. Cover your head. 3 hour Sunday Liturgy. All Night Vigil Saturday night. Yet so many Baptists are joining, that they are building an absolutely huge Church, one of the biggest in North America. Your argument is getting weaker...
Alexandr
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