Preface

A little bit about us:

I am a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy (Dormition of 1998) from, well, not much. My parents were vehement ex-Catholics, and though I've discovered a dormant anti-Catholic sentiment hidden in my being I don't have any concrete recollections of having talked about it much growing up. In fact, I used to go to church with my best friend in seventh grade sometimes, and even took communion because no one told me not to. I was baptized Catholic but have no memory of attending church until those later visits. I started going to Protestant churches with friends in high school and I even attended and then became a counselor at a summer Bible camp, but it didn't stick. I was a horrible Protestant. I just could never understand why I needed to join a church, and when I went to college and my friends weren't there I fould that it didn't offer much to hold me. I discovered Orthodoxy a year or so out of college when a friend found it and shared, and I converted not too long later. I love it.

My boyfriend, Chris, is a cradle Catholic. He identifies strongly with the Polish Catholicism of his grandmother and father. He and his siblings were raised in the church, though his mother didn't convert until the late 1990s. He is a very pius and faithful Catholic and seems to like everything about Orthodoxy except the Easternness of it and the fact that it's not in communion with Rome. Sometimes we seem to agree more about matters of faith and doctrine than I think we should given what I know about Catholicism, but he never sees his beliefs as being at odds with the church.

At times we are a perfect pair, and at others there exists a gulf so large that it feels as though the touch of our hands is the only thing holding us together. I may be the only one who feels that way.