How I became Orthodox

I had a friend who was convinced that if you launch an Orthodox satellite and broadcast something Orthodox on all TVs, the country will very quickly return to faith, become a churchgoer in a matter of years.

I remember when I hear from priests again that most teenagers who grew up in Christian families completely lose interest in the Church at a certain age.

They confessed, took communion, and what did a space satellite have to do with the amount of information they had been absorbing almost since birth. It didn’t help. Then, one day, God willing, they will return.

It doesn’t occur to my friend that faith, unlike propaganda, requires something completely different. True, I myself don’t really understand how one can not believe.

Yes, I had an atheistic experience, but in fact, I was always a believer, I believed in communism at the very least — it gave meaning to my life. Besides, I rebelled against God, the Church, but rebellion is not indifference, it is something completely different.

How can one do without meaning, that is what is unclear. But if we talk about whether an Orthodox companion would have influenced me, then, of course, no, just as atheistic propaganda was practically indifferent to me due to its wretchedness and irrationality. There is less science there than in shamanic rituals.

My atheism was based on something completely different. I did not understand what exactly believers were trying to achieve. Salvation of the soul is somehow too vague, especially considering that absolutely nothing is known about the afterlife.

Meanwhile, communism offered a completely understandable, theoretically feasible program for the improvement of man and humanity. Work, develop, learn to love people, and you will change the world. All this was wonderful, but at some point an abyss began to open up inside me, instead of developing I was morally and spiritually degrading.

The same thing was happening with the country, it happened in 1986-87, and I experienced it quite painfully, but still it was, at least, secondary in my return to God. The question of why we are not succeeding with communism, of course, was asked.

But I have now also remembered the pre-revolutionary situation of 1917, even if formally everything was exactly the opposite. Man also degraded, despite his churchgoing, the country was moving towards the abyss, despite the fact that it was an Orthodox monarchy. Sobering up began closer to the summer of 1917, but it was too late.

For me it began around the end of 1989, when it became obvious that the USSR would be replaced by a system incomparably worse, that the abomination that is creeping out from everywhere will make us bitterly regret what we are losing. Did this personally bring me back to the Soviet, atheistic ranks? No, of course not, although I was ready to show solidarity with the communists, but already as an Orthodox person, ready for an alliance with them for the sake of my country.

No, it was not politics that brought me to the Church, not to mention the fashion for faith, at the time when I became a Christian, there was no fashion yet. You know, it’s like with love. When you look at her — your woman, you see yourself together with her in a year, twenty, a thousand years, you see the mother of your children, you see the one who is more important to you than you are. It was the same with Christ — insight, understanding, happiness.

As a person who has read many books and experienced something, I clearly realized, felt that His life, His sacrifice on the cross, His Resurrection are incomparably more significant than anything that humanity knew and could, the highest point of history, the search for the meaning of life, the answer and goal that will never be devalued. There was no choice, not to follow Him meant making the most terrible, irrevocable mistake in my life.

Of course, one day I fell behind. It seemed to me that He was further and further away, barely visible, and one day He completely disappeared, only the direction remained. In which you wander, stop, crawl, guessing that He has not gone anywhere, He is the direction, He is the love of life that saves you time after time, and He Himself went through this, exclaiming, dying: “Eli, Eli! Lama sabachthani?”, which means “God, God! Why have you forsaken Me?” The first word He said to His disciples three days later was: “Rejoice!” The last: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

The perished Artsakh, the terrible news from Ukraine, the many betrayals and disappointments experienced over the past years, one’s own mistakes, fear for one’s loved ones, all of this greatly diminishes the desire to live. However, many years ago, on the eve of meeting Him, I was inspired by the possibility of ending everything in one moment by committing suicide. It was a door and I was glad in my own way that it existed — death.

And then He entered it, this door, from the other side, and death was gone, which turned out to be much more fun. This is my story, everyone has their own.