My Testimony

How do I feel about my conversion to Holy Orthodoxy and what can I say when asked about it?

My Testimony

I was thinking recently about what I would say if I were to be asked to attend an LDS high council disciplinary court for my baptism in the Orthodox Church. As a Mormon, if you get baptized in another church, LDS church policy is to excommunicate you.¹

If I were speaking to an LDS Church High Council, what would I say when they asked me what I believe? My first thought was that I should memorize and recite the Nicene Creed.

Right now, I am still totally in love with the Orthodox Church—so much so that I desire to become more involved, maybe as a deacon, maybe even a priest. I feel like I’ve been giving my life over to Christ and the Church, to the degree that during a recent medical emergency that landed me in the Hospital, I had no fear of dying because I recognize that I’m alive in Christ and that Death has been defeated. My only request to my wife and spiritual father when he visited was that if anything were to happen to me, I’d want all the services to be Orthodox. I don’t want to die and be buried as LDS, a faith that I fully believe is man-made. Whenever I hear someone say, “the only true and living Church on the face of the earth,” or think about the Orthodox Church, they are the same to me. Having been spiritually dead for decades, the Orthodox Church has given me a new life filled with a richness and depth that I never expected and never knew could exist. You could say that I’m a new creation in Christ, or that I’ve been “born again.”

I fully believe that the Orthodox Church is the only true and living Church on the face of the earth. I pray every night that my family, including my mother, can come to soften their hearts so that they can be open to seeing the beauty of Christ’s true church. LDS people are raised believing that the LDS church is the only true and living Church on the face of the earth. Unfortunately, it’s a false claim, but one that millions of faithful LDS invest much of their lives in, and it’s a belief that is near and dear to their hearts. I have a desire to let all know that there is a Church on the Earth today that fits this description—one worthy of your love, attention, devotion, and sacrifice, as it will bring you closer to God and Christ than anything else, in my experience.

So perhaps I would need to preface the Creed with a couple of additional statements that would strike home for LDS people. I’m not trying to add or remove from the Creed, nor change it. To add some statements of faith that would be very recognizable and impactful for LDS people.