concerning my progress as a catechumen.

This is a letter I wrote to Father Michael, my priest at St. Luke's Orthodox Church, and in it I explain some of the things I am struggling with on my journey to Orthodoxy.
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Father Michael,

I hope you got my email about why I wasn’t there for my Chrismation on Lazarus Saturday. I mentioned that I wasn’t able to make it because I planned a vacation with Noelle and my family last week because it was Noelle’s spring break and I didn’t think I would miss Pascha since it’s usually a week after the Latin Church’s Easter. I found out that I was wrong after I had already bought my plane tickets and paid for the hotels and so on. But despite all this I realized, somewhat to my own disappointment, that this wasn’t the whole story. For if it was, I would never miss my chrismation for the sake of a vacation, or nearly anything else for that matter. If I really was looking forward to my chrismation in the Orthodox Church like I ought to be I simply wouldn’t miss it for the world. So back when I realized I wasn’t going to make it I thought it somewhat odd that I was willing to miss it, and the truth is that I was, and this is not because it doesn’t mean to me what it should, but quite the contrary. I was willing to miss it because my heart isn’t completely settled on it, and that’s because I’m not completely ready, and I think you would agree that I ought to be nothing short of completely ready for the Rite of chrismation to be all that God has designed it to be. So because it means to me what it ought to, I mustn’t go through with it until I have my heart in the right place. I hope you don’t take offense to any of this, and please forgive me if my words betray my intent. I suppose I could make things clearer by explaining why I think I might not be ready.
The most immediate and less theological reason why my heart is not where it should is that going through with my chrismation will bind me either explicitly or implicitly to rejecting some of my past. For instance, in the chrismation confession, I am to pronounce that I renounce “all heretical associations, traditions, rules, and all teachers and their doctrines contrary to the Holy Eastern Orthodox Church, and cast them off.” (63) And further, that I “renounce all ancient modern apostasies, heresies, and founders of heresies, and cast them off because they are contrary to God.” (64) And again, that I “believe and confess that power has been given by Christ the Savoir to the Orthodox-Catholic Church, to bind and to loose. And that whatever, through that power, is bound or loosed on earth will be bound and loosed in Heaven.” (66) The difficulty here is that I became a Christian, and I am confident that I am in communion with invisible Church in part by the preaching of the Baptists (who are the theological decedents of the Anabaptists), and the teachings of the Anabaptists are officially condemned by the Eastern Churches. Now this isn’t to say that I am an Anabaptist, for as I have told you I have independently (and by the grace of God) come to the same theological positions that the Eastern Church espouses, so clearly I am no Baptist or Anabaptist. The problem is that my conversion into the Invisible Church was brought about by the presentation of the Gospel by the preaching of Baptists, and the things they preached, the doctrines that gave the doctrinal basis and context of my legitimate conversion and baptism, I am now called to renounce to a substantial degree, and I find myself vexed and disconcerted by this. Since the Eastern Church in fact recognizes the legitimacy of my conversion and baptism by the work of Baptists (this must be the case because I am to be chrismed only, and not re-baptized) I cannot with good conscience renounce their traditional as heretical, or even mostly heretical, for clearly they have been an instrument of Grace in my life, and in the lives of many others.
But maybe I have misinterpreted what I have read. I’m thinking that even though I am to affirm and confess “…that power has been given by Christ the Savoir to the Orthodox-Catholic Church, to bind and to loose. And that whatever, through that power, is bound or loosed on earth will be bound and loosed in Heaven,” it maybe doesn’t mean that no other visible Church, such as the Evangelical Baptists, have not received a portion of such power? For surely if my conversion and baptism, which was performed by Evangelical Baptists, is legitimate (again, as the Eastern Church seems to implicitly recognize this by not requiring me to be baptized again), then it must be the case that such Evangelical Baptists had the power, at the time of my conversion and baptism, to “bind and to loose.” Until God grants me peace with this issue, affirming these statements I am slated to confess without being sure that my statements, namely the Baptists too may have the power to “bind and to loose,” I cannot help thinking and feeling that I would in effect be denying the authenticity of my conversion and baptism, as well as the good work of many co-laborers of the Kingdom, and maybe even that my Christian brothers and sisters who are dear to me might not in fact be my brothers and sisters because they are not “in communion with the Eastern Church.” I am seeking communion with the Eastern Church in part because I know that I have become part of Christ’s Eternal Kingdom, and I did so outside of the visible communion with the Eastern Church, and unless I can combine this process into a cohesive story, my major reason for wanting to Commune with Eastern Church is strongly undercut.
The second, more theological worry is the issue of doctrinal authority and the Canon of Scripture. I am well aware that the Canon of the New Testament didn’t pop into existence ex nihilo but was pieced together by the combined efforts of God directing the hearts of both the Eastern and Latin Church Fathers. The Bible, as the collection of divinely inspired texts, was put together and sealed with Divine Authority. The fact that the Eastern (and Western) Church were the vessels to which God ordained the Cannon, it’s a natural move for someone like myself who trusts the Bible as the most reliable source for sound teaching to seek to commune with the tradition who bequeathed it. It’s no wonder then that by studying the Bible I’ve come to have the hold the same theological positions as the Church Fathers.
My criteria for what I believe about God has always been the Bible, and I come to understand the things I have by using the reason God has given me and by reading the Bible with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I think a good case could be made that Early Church thought the Bible to be sufficiently authoritative on its own behalf. For instance when speaking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Apostle’s Creed states that Jesus Christ “for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit, and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into Heaven…” Notice that it doesn’t say anything like “because this is the teachings of the Church,”or that “the Fourth Ecumenical Council has decided” that Jesus did these things, but that it simply takes the Scriptures as the authority on the matter, as if it were sufficient. I think this is correct, but this isn’t the end of the story. The same Church that has been the vessel for the Holy Scriptures is also a tradition that has passed down doctrines that the Bible doesn’t directly address. For instance, the Church states that Mary never had sexual intercourse throughout her life, that she was the Ever Virgin Mary. Now I don’t have Biblical objections to such a doctrine, because the Bible nowhere contradicts it. The Bible emphasizes the fact that she was a Virgin when Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit in her womb, and has no comment about whether she remained a Virgin throughout the rest of her life. But being Eastern Orthodox means that you affirm that she did in fact remain a Virgin for the rest of her life. And I’m perplexed about how I am supposed to affirm it when I don’t know if it’s true or not. I don’t have any reason to think it’s false, but not having a reason to think that something is false doesn’t imply that it’s true either. The Church, I think, says that I should believe it because the Church is directed by the hand of God, and therefore ought to be trusted in its proclamations of faith. But that is a difficult thing for me to swallow whole heartedly, for the historical Church wasn’t without it’s own schisms and divisions through the first thousand years of Ecumenical activity. For instance, St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. Basil the Great both thought that St. Gregory of Nyssa was wrong about the latter’s teaching on universal salvation (that all mankind will eventually be saved). I suppose this instance of Church Father disagreement is beyond the scope of the Ecumenical Councils, and so it doesn’t represent division among the essentials of Orthodox Doctrine. Fair enough, but who’s to say that something like the doctrine of the Ever Virginity of Mary is something that is debatable in the same way St. Gregory of Nyssa’s universalism is, in which case it might be viewed as an open question? I think the response to this suggestion of the Eastern Church is that the Church teaches that the Virgin Mary was ever so, and so it’s not an open question. And then my next question becomes, well, how do I know that? How do I know that the Eastern Church and what it teaches is always correct? And I think the only response that could be given to me is something like, “The voice of God will be heard through the Church,” or “If you seek the voice of God, and you are one of His children, then you will naturally trust His Church.” What else could the response be? I actually think this a decent response, the problem for myself is that I haven’t heard such a confirmation from God yet, and maybe I need to be more patient and maybe need to open my heart, and keep seeking. And that’s exactly what I plan to do, but for now I’m not there yet.
I’m sorry Father Michael if I might be guilty of pride for demanding to know all these things. The thirst for knowledge often ends in pride and arrogance, and I’m open to the possibility that I’m seeking with my mind more than my heart, I really am. I know that I’m supposed to love God with all my heart, all my mind, and all my soul; it’s just difficult to guide my heart when I don’t see where I’m going, and I’ll be more than willing when my heart tells me to trust more than I can figure out on my own. I’m just not there yet.