An atheist reborn in the Orthodox Church (7) [Un ateu renăscut în Biserica Ortodoxă]

One of the most amazing gifts that the Lord offered me throughout my stay in the UK was – on my ninth day on British soil – meeting a man having such a fascinating story of spiritual rebirth as Dionysios from Peacehaven has.

By God’s grace, my friend’s story helped my faith grow even stronger, as he brought St. Dionysios into my life, and he told me a lot of things that I used in my series dedicated to the Orthodox church in East Sussex (which started here).

Moreover, he gave me an altogether different perspective on Zakynthos (a destination sought by many Brits), and he took me to this lovely place… To put it as shortly as possible: he enriched my life.

That was just the beginning, as I was due to meet many more other special people in the UK. As a matter of fact, in Christ, all people are special, and everywhere I came across a true believer, I can’t help being amazed.

They they have found the only true meaning of life, they have a genuine personality, and they are not mere carbon copies of shallow characters, taken from a pathetic gallery of human destinies that the contemporary consumerist society displays.***

Clearly, the fifth episode of the current series stirred up what was probably the most enflamed little debate on my blog. Whatever people think of conversions like the one Dionysios went through, these stories simply can’t leave anyone indifferent.

At least for a short while – unfortunately, most contemporary people are too busy with meaningless things of their everyday lives, and their interest in questions of live and death quickly evaporates :-( – some of my readers stopped to ask themselves some questions.

“Why do some believe and others don’t?” …this is one of the questions people ask themselves when facing a story about an atheist converted to Orthodoxy. Ever since St. Paul, who first persecuted Christ’s disciples, and then became a devout servant of His, conversions could always shake people’s cosy trivial daily universe at least a bit.

Most people won’t dig deeper into their soul, so that they would go beyond a little discussion on a blog. I noticed this happening to many of those who were my daily readers at the beginning of 2008 – they would often comment on every little aspect of British daily life, yet remain completely uninterested in the ‘religious bullshit’ a weirdo like me was posting.

Every now and then, some people (fewer and fewer these days, I’m afraid) will go all the way to changing their lives just like Dionysios did. It’s sad that all people rejecting Christ would surely find when it’s too late (after their death) that, if they had really wanted, they could have really found out Who their Maker is.

May the Lord have mercy on all of us (believers and unbelievers), and may He bless my friend Dionysios, for whom I posted this episode, hoping that these words would make this ordinary summer day a little special for him!

If – and only God can know this – the present episode were the last of this series (although I’d still have to write some things), I’d very much like to end it with the above picture of a smiling Dionysios.

His life was surely far from being a perpetual pleasure cruise – and no honest Christian life could ever be as fun as today’s hedonist world considers worth living –, but I wish he’d carry this smile forever.

*** NOTE: These articles about atheism and consumerism in the USA, and in Australia would certainly apply also to the UK. Additionally, here’s a great article about how dull, and self-pitying most militant atheists (note that I didn’t say all atheists!) from all over the world are.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]