Most people don’t know what Orthodox Christianity is. I’ve been asked many times if I’m Jewish. No, I explain, our rituals are the same Christian rituals that were created 2000 years ago. We sing, chant, and recite prayers in Ancient Greek. Our churches are ornately filled with stunning icons and stained glass portrayals of Jesus, Mother Mary, the apostles, and saints.
There aren’t many of us. We aren’t as large as the Catholics, and Orthodox churches tend to be in places like Russia, Greece, Romania, Egypt, Ethiopia, etc. We don’t proselytize, so you won’t be getting a flyer on your door telling you to come to our church so Jesus can save you. That’s not even how we talk. We do our thing, and if you’re interested, you’re welcome to join. (And the post-Sunday service coffee and treats are fabulous, by the way.)
I experience our services as doorways to the mysteries of God – deep and serene, peaceful and celebratory. I can’t explain to you why, exactly, but even as a small child, I connected to God, Christ, Mary, and the angels. I knew they were real. I remember lying in my bed at age 5, terrified of ghosts in the dark. I kissed my icons and prayed. I knew Christ, Mary, and the angels would help me. I was absolutely sure of it.
When we moved to Iowa from Boston when I was six, we couldn’t always attend Sunday church, which was an hour away. However, I continued to pray and maintain my faith. And I suspect it was our inconsistent attendance at church services that, ironically, strengthened the depth of my faith. I learned that I could enjoy and benefit from church, but I didn’t always need it to love and believe in God.
By the time I went away to college, my relationship with God, Christ, Mary, and the angels was cemented. It was a powerful, vibrating presence in me that wasn’t going anywhere. And with that as the backdrop, I found a professor, also an Orthodox Christian, who taught the feminine side of Christianity and the Goddess-worshipping pagan traditions that preceded Christianity.
If you don’t know the history of Christians conquering pagans, let me sum it up in one word: ugly. Ugly in every way. Ugly in its betrayal of Christ’s teachings. Ugly in the human rights violations. Ugly in its arrogance and disregard for the sanctity of life. Ugly in its misogyny. We are still dealing with the long-term consequences from it… and it’s still happening.
And just like that, with this education of religious and cultural history, my faith in the church itself was now standing on rickety bamboo sticks. But it never shook my faith in God, Mary, Christ, or the angels. It just shook my faith in the institutions that men created. This is when I started to understand the difference between religion and spirituality. I am spiritual. I am not religious. I cannot have faith in any organization that violently betrays its own teachings and values.
In one particular class, we did a deep dive into Wicca and other indigenous traditions. Contrary to the dark and horrible things that Christians say about pagans, the amazing thing is that I found their teachings to make more sense than some of the church’s teachings. For example, Wiccans teach that what you do to others will come back to you three times. Mistreat others, and you will suffer three times over. Treat others with love, and you will receive love three times over. Isn’t that what Christ was trying to teach us, too? I found the essence of what I loved about Christianity in the teachings and values of Native American and Wiccan traditions.
One evening, our professor organized a Wiccan holiday ritual by the lake. It was magical. We called in the four directions. We danced on and with the earth in front of a fire, chanting to the forces of nature and the Goddess that represented them, with the powerful waves of Lake Michigan singing with us. It activated and opened up a whole other side of me, a side I hadn’t known was lying dormant. I have always loved nature, and these rituals showed me that nature is the true and original church. It is the Divine. It is part of God everywhere. Tapping into the power of the Divine Feminine after almost two decades of focus on the Divine Masculine allowed me to embrace the other movement of the universe and nourish a whole other side of myself.
In losing my faith in religions, I gained my awareness and connection with the Divine Feminine and nature as an expression of and gateway to the Divine. I connected to local Wiccan and Lakota Sioux communities and began exploring those traditions and teachings in earnest. I learned new chants to add to my Christian prayers. I learned to bless and smudge my apartment with sage and sweetgrass alongside the holy water. My final paper for that class discussed how I honor my Christian roots, and now I am cultivating my Divine Feminine Goddess branches. The embrace of the Divine Feminine became a new, powerful, and vibrating presence in me.
