Conversion to Christ in the Orthodox Church

Are you a convert to the Orthodox Church?

There is a common way of discussing members of the Orthodox Church, a way which places them in two categories: cradle and convert.

The first group are said to be Orthodox “from the cradle,” which is to say from their earliest years, from the time they were still in diapers, still in a baby’s cradle.

The second group includes those who come to Orthodoxy later in life. They weren’t necessarily raised Orthodox, but come to the Church through what is called a process of conversion.

Are these categories helpful? Are they legitimate? In order to understand, it will be helpful to have a look at what Scripture says about conversion.

There is at least one instance where the term convert appears in English translations of the Bible: “Greet Epaenetus, my beloved, who is the first convert (ἀπαρχή) to Christ from Asia” (Romans 16:5).

This particular translation comes from the NASB, famous for being a literal translation. This choice of translation can also be found in the ESV, NET, RSV, NIV, and CSB, which is to say a lot of scholarship has gone into the choosing of this term as an appropriate interpretation of the Greek ἀπαρχή, which more literally translates as firstfruits.

Biblically, firstfruits means: “to take away the firstfruits of the productions of the earth which was offered to God. The first portion of the dough, from which sacred loaves were to be prepared. Hence the term is used of persons consecrated to God for all time.”

From the Latin convertere, meaning turn around or transform, the dictionary definition of convert includes: 1. To change the character, appearance, or operation of something. 2. Someone who is converted to something; is persuaded to accept new preferences or beliefs; someone who accepts a new religion or belief.

Taking all of this together, to convert refers especially to turning to Christ. It means turning from evil to Good, from self to God, from death to Life, from error to Truth, and not in a general or superficial way, but in a fundamental way. It is a firstfruits, not a refinement, a repair, or a retrofitting. Nor is it a transition. It is an offering, a consecration of self to God.

There is another relevant Biblical term, one which gets translated as conversion: “Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion (ἐπιστροφή) of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren” (Acts 15:3).

This translation choice is shared by all the major English translations of the Bible. The Greek ἐπιστροφή refers to the conversion of the Gentiles, and comes from the root word ἐπιστρέφω, which means to turn, in this case, to the worship of the true God, or to cause to return or bring back, say, to the love and obedience of God, and shares an interconceptual corralary with Biblical repentance, which is to say metanoia or the changing and transformation of one’s mind, as when Peter declares in Acts: “Therefore repent (μετανοέω) and return (ἐπιστρέφω), so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). Both concepts go naturally together.

A dictionary definition of conversion includes: 1. change from one religion, political belief, viewpoint, etc., to another. 2. a change of attitude, emotion, or viewpoint from one of indifference, disbelief, or antagonism to one of acceptance, faith, or enthusiastic support, especially such a change in a person's religion.

Taking these together, conversion, like convert, refers to a fundamental shift, a turning away from evil to Good, from self to God, from death to Life, and from error to Truth.

Now, Good, Life, and Truth are a Person, not a thing, and so conversion refers essentially to the root movement towards God. The notion of conversion is essentially and substantially to Christ, as it says in Romans 16:5 quoted above. Other Biblical examples include:

“Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning (ἐπιστρέφω) to God from among the Gentiles” (Acts 15:19).

“Whenever a person turns (ἐπιστρέφω) to the Lord, the veil is taken away” (2 Corinthians 3:16).

“Let him know that he who turns (ἐπιστρέφω) a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).

“For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned (ἐπιστρέφω) to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25).

Nowhere is there a Scriptural notion of conversion “to” the Church per se. Conversion is always to Christ. Although that may seem like a pedantic distinction, it is, however, a truism that no one is born Christian, because Christianity is not a hereditary trait. People convert to Christ. A Christian is not Christian through birth, but rebirth (John 3:3). It is therefore possible to be cradle Orthodox, to be born into the community of the faithful, receive baptism as an infant, identify with the Church, and yet not be converted to Christ, to have spent all of one's life in an Orthodox parish and yet never to have lived according to Christ, nor to have offered oneself as a firstfruits to God or transformed one’s thought or action so as to conform oneself to one’s baptism.

Problems arise, for the dual categories of cradle and convert are misleading and unhelpful. There can even be witnessed a disdain towards converts, the idea that one is never quite as Orthodox as the cradle Orthodox are. What is more, the category of cradle, which in no wise indicates whether or not one is actually converted, can give the impression that Orthodoxy is not essentially about conversion to Christ and His Gospel, but that conversion “to the Church” is instead conversion to a set of beliefs related to but distinct from Christ and the Gospel.

For example, many “converts” to Orthodoxy have been converted to Christ for decades, and then found the fullness of faith in the Orthodox Church. They came to the Church therefore not as a conversion to Christ, but as an entering into the fullness of the faith. To then equate their joining of the Church with conversion can trivialize sometimes decades of true conversion to Christ.

It is also entirely possible for a cradle Orthodox to be knowledgeable of Orthodoxy, well-versed in the Church's practices and customs, and yet still be unconverted to Christ.

What is worse, the cradle/convert dichotomy can promote a sense of having a two-tiered congregation comprised of, on the one hand, the cradle Orthodox, who may in fact be totally unconverted, and “converts,” on the other hand, whose late-coming to Orthodoxy may be predicated upon decades of conversion to Christ. Converts can sometimes even be treated by cradle Orthodox as if decades of conversion to, and training and education in, Christ are somehow neither legitimate nor significant, even suspect.

In light of the foregoing, “conversion” to the Orthodox Church is a dubious category. The dual categories of cradle and convert can thus be abandoned as neither helpful nor legitimate categories of Orthodox Christians. There are not different "types" of Orthodox Christian. One enters and joins the Orthodox Church, is grafted into the Body of Christ, but one converts to Christ. In reality, everyone who is truly a Christian is so by conversion.

That being said, within the Orthodox Church are both wheat and tares, and without conversion to Christ one can be in the building but not truly in the Church, which is to say one can be Orthodox in name only. One can be called, but not chosen.

To close with a warning from St. Gregory Palamas’ homily on Matthew 22:1-15, “On the Gospel of the Fourteenth Sunday of Matthew, On the Parable That Invites Us to the Son’s Wedding”:

“Why, therefore, did the Lord say, that many were called, but not all? [Matthew 22:14] Because at this point He was speaking about those who had come to Christ, which is why He put this statement later, after the parable. If, when someone was invited, he were to obey the summons, and, having been baptized, were to be called by Christ’s name, but were not to behave in a way worthy of his calling, nor fulfill the promises made at his baptism to live according to Christ, then, although he was called, he was not chosen” (St. Gregory Palamas, Homily Forty-One, pg 326).

Those of us who are baptized and yet do not “live according to Christ” he states are “evil people” that “are like who, having been called, drawn near and been baptized, have not undergone any change for the better, nor laid aside through repentance the filth that comes from wicked pleasures and passions” (ibid, 332).