I'm John Mackie and this article is about how I came to the Orthodox faith and my experience with Christianity prior. As a child, I was raised Mennonite as my mother was raised Mennonite also. I participated with a few different Mennonite churches in youth groups and Sunday worship. However, around the age of ten or eleven, my parents stopped bringing me to any Sunday worship services and it was not a priority in my home. Although I still attended the youth group at a Mennonite church close by I gradually began to participate less and after a bad experience with another kid along with a poor response from the youth leaders I stopped attending shortly after. A lot of my understanding of Christ was very superficial and simple I was not really educated much on Christianity or Christian history at all and the youth groups were essentially just something to do in the evening with little focus on Christ. And although I did not attend church for years I would still pray but I did not really understand prayer nor was I taught much about prayer. As time went on I had essentially no relationship with God and I could not tell you of one instance where I was taught about repentance until recent years. I would still call myself Christian but even knowing little about Christian history it was clear to me the protestant churches I had attended were not two thousand years old as the church is and had intentionally distanced themselves from the more traditional churches. As a result, if people asked me what kind of Christian I was I would say Catholic leaning as I viewed them as more traditional and they were a much older church. And although I resonated with the Catholic church for a while I found it very bizarre that many "Catholics" would vote for and argue against Christian morality. I also found it difficult how many Catholic churches had different practices and beliefs so as a result I put the Catholic church aside for the time being and began searching elsewhere. My heritage has always been interesting to me and the history of some of the countries my ancestors were from. On my Mothers side, she is German, Ukrainiarn, and a bit Russian so I enjoyed learning about these nations/ethnic groups and their history. Obviously, the Orthodox church is a big influence in both Ukraine and Russia so I think that may have been my initial encounter with Orthodoxy just through learning about those nations. As time went on I would see online the beauty of Orthodox churches and their willingness to maintain the message of Christ and not reinterpret their beliefs to fit today's ideas about various topics. And so I began a slow process of about two years of learning about traditional churches like the Orthodox and Catholic churches. I began to identify as Orthodox leaning in belief as I was a traditional Christian in belief and few churches now can say they are traditional. In late 2021 I wanted to attend church again and was very interested in the Orthodox church but the opportunity came to attend a nearby Orthodox church in early 2022. So I went to that church but the church was Greek and so was most of the liturgy. The Priest was very welcoming but recommended I attend Saint George. As a result, I attended quite consistently and began to actually understand repentance Christian history, and much more. I had by the grace of God found a church that was very consistent with the bible which was what I wanted and needed in my life. On Lazarus Saturday of 2023 I was baptized into the Orthodox Christian faith and have been trying to walk the difficult path to Christ.
