For Inquirers
Letter from Father Theodore
Dear Inquirer,
We welcome you to our Church and to the ancient and apostolic Orthodox Christian faith with brotherly love and a Christian embrace!
Our community serves approximately 100 families living in Central and Southwestern Georgia. Holy Cross is the Church in which so many Orthodox Christians have been baptized, married, nurtured, and buried since the parish was established in the middle of this past century. Since 2005, we have been blessed to call our Church on First Street our home.
Holy Cross offers dynamic programs for people of all ages. In addition to our regular Sunday worship, we offer many opportunities for worship during the week. There are routinely worship services on both Wednesday and Saturday evenings.
We have active youth programs for both our younger children and our older youth with activities both at the Church and activities away from the Church. We also have engaging programs for our Young Adults and Not-So-Young Adults group. Assisting in the deepening of our life in Christ, we also have weekly Adult/Bible Study meetings, Book Studies, Byzantine Chant classes, and more.
We welcome you once again to our parish and hope that you will visit us in the near future! Please reach out to Fr. Theodore at frtheodore@holycrossga.org or at the Church Office (478-621-0744).
God bless you and be with you!
Fr. Theodore and the faithful of Holy Cross
Procedures for Becoming a Member of the Orthodox Christian Church
The life of the Orthodox Church perpetuates and fulfills the ministry of Jesus Christ. The close association between Christ and His Church is reflected in the images from the Scriptures which declare that Christ is the Head and the Church is His Body, and that Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is His bride. These images express the reality that the Church does not exist independently from Christ.
The Lord and Savior, who was known, loved, and followed by the first disciples in Galilee nearly two thousand years ago, is the same Lord and Savior who is known, loved, and followed through His Church. As Christ revealed the Holy Trinity, His Church continues to reveal the Holy Trinity and to praise God in her worship. As Christ reconciled humanity to the Father, His Church continues to be the medium of reconciliation by word and action throughout the world. As Christ manifested the vocation of authentic human life, His Church continues to be the realm through which the image and likeness of God in each of us is brought to perfection.
The Orthodox Christian becomes united with Christ at Baptism and is nurtured by Christ at every Eucharist. We believe that the Holy Spirit acts in and through the Church to make Christ our Lord and to bring His work to fulfillment.
Orthodoxy has avoided any temptation to reduce its vision of the Church. The biblical descriptions of the Church as the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit indicate that she truly must be recognized as much more than one institution among many, or a social service agency, or as an ethnic or fraternal organization. Certainly the Church does have her institutional aspects, and she is always subject to the sins and limitations of her human members. Yet, Orthodoxy believes that in addition to her obvious human side, the Church also has a Divine dimension. The Greek word for Church, ecclesia, implies a community called and gathered by God for a special purpose. This means that the Church can be described as the unique meeting place between God and His people.
Personal Experience
The Orthodox Faith cannot be appreciated fully, or appropriated personally, by the individual who is outside the Orthodox Church. Viewed from this vantage point, Orthodoxy can falsely appear as one world-view among many, as a cultural appendage, or merely as a ceremonial church. It is only from within the Church that one has the necessary perspective of experiencing Orthodoxy as the revelation of Divine Life.
Becoming an Orthodox Christian
The Orthodox Church has a universal appeal and vocation. She does not restrict membership to people of any particular culture, race, class, or section of the world. Indeed, Orthodoxy values the diversity of cultures, peoples, and languages which are part of her life. She also affirms a unity of faith and love in Christ which transcends all artificial barriers. Membership in the Orthodox Church is open to all persons.
The Orthodox Church in the United States is no longer considered to be an immigrant Church. She has been recognized as one of the four major faiths in America. The membership of the Orthodox Church in this country includes persons from a wide variety of ethnic and cultural family backgrounds. The overwhelming majority have been born in the United States. Among these five million Orthodox, there are a large number of persons who were raised in other religious traditions and who have chosen to become members of the Orthodox Church.
This reality was clearly recognized by His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos, former archbishop of North and South America, when he told the Twentieth Biennial Clergy/Laity Congress of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese that:
“Orthodoxy is not exclusively the religion of the Hellenes, but the religion of all those who, as a result of mixed marriages, or contract or study of Orthodoxy, have come to know and relate to it; and, therefore, Orthodoxy has already found its place and mission in the Western Hemisphere.”
If you are seriously interested in becoming a member of the Orthodox Church, you should meet with your local Orthodox priest and become acquainted with his parish. He will be happy to offer you advice and guidance, as well as to introduce you to members of the parish. This is truly an exciting period in the development of Orthodox parishes in the United States. While most are associated with a particular cultural heritage, many are coming to fully recognize the responsibility of Orthodoxy to the wider society. When you embrace the Orthodox Church, you also join a particular local parish. It is meant to be a spiritual family. Therefore, you should thoughtfully examine the concerns and priorities of the parish. Try to discover whether you will feel comfortable, whether the parish can provide you with the opportunity to grow closer to God and to be of responsible service to others.
In many parishes, the priest offers classes or individual conferences on the Orthodox Faith for those who wish to become members of the Orthodox Church. The length and scope of these instructions will be determined by your previous knowledge of the Christian Faith, as well as by your particular needs and concerns.
After the period of instruction, there is a Service of Reception into the Church. If you are converting from a non-Christian religion, you will make a profession of Faith and be baptized and chrismated. If you are being received from a Church which has a similarity of beliefs with Orthodoxy and you have been properly baptized and confirmed, you will participate in a brief Service of Anointing (Chrismation) which signifies reconciliation with the Orthodox Church. The reception of Holy Communion is always seen as the consummation of union with the Church.
Commitment to Christ
The ultimate commitment of the Orthodox Christian is a commitment to Christ our Lord, Who is known in and through the Church. This is expressed by the litanies of the Church which call upon us to “commit ourselves, one another, and our whole life unto Christ our God.” And, prior to receiving Holy Communion, we pray: “O Master Who loves mankind, unto you we commit our whole life and our hope.”
Each of us is unique and blessed by the Holy Spirit with different gifts and vocations in life; therefore, our personal commitments to Christ will be expressed differently. Yet, Orthodoxy firmly believes that this commitment will always be built upon a worship of God and a loving concern for others. As worship is central to the Church as a whole, worship, personal prayer, and especially participation in the Holy Eucharist are central to the life of the individual Orthodox Christian. Through these actions, we grow closer to God and we are blessed with the fruits of the Spirit, which enable us to be of loving and responsible service to others in Christ’s Name. Orthodoxy avoids any tendency which seeks to separate love of God from love of neighbor. The two are inseparable. This conviction is expressed during the Divine Liturgy in the dialogue between the priest and the people which says, “Let us love one another that with one mind we may confess…The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; The Trinity, consubstantial and undivided.”
Although Orthodoxy highly extols the value of worship, this does not imply that it in any way minimizes the importance of a life lived according to the Gospel. Therefore, as the Liturgy reminds us, only those with faith and love may draw near to receive Holy Communion. Our participation in the Body and Blood of the Lord also provides each with the opportunity to be Christ-bearers in the world in which we live.
Why "Greek"?
HWhen people see the word “Korean” or “Greek” describing a church community, they may assume that such churches are mainly (or even only) for those particular ethnic groups. This is not true of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church. All people are welcome here, regardless of ethnic background.
You may then be wondering: Why do you keep the word “Greek” in your name and on your sign?
The reasons are historical.
The most recent history pertains to the way the Orthodox Church came to America. While missionaries from Russia came to North America through Alaska, immigrants from various traditionally Orthodox countries—such as Greece, in the case of this community—came to America in search of a better life. One of the first things they often did was to establish a parish in their new home. During the early years, the parish was a center of life that combined their native languages, cultures, and Orthodox faith. As they became more integrated into American society, learned English, and married spouses outside the Greek Orthodox culture, the feeling and function of parish communities changed.
But the historical reasons go much deeper, much further back in time.
First, the New Testament was originally written in Greek. To understand these central texts of the Christian faith, unmediated by interpretive biases in translations, it’s helpful to read them in their original form and with the guidance of the Church Fathers, who interpreted them according to the canon of faith. This leads to the next historical fact.
Greek was likewise the language in which the early Church Fathers wrote. It was the language in which they composed the liturgical texts for worship and their commentaries on Scripture. It was the language of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, which defined the teachings of the Christian faith. It is a linguistic tradition that has communicated the substance of the faith for nearly 2000 years. Because our purpose is to keep, practice, and proclaim the Orthodox Christian faith pure and undefiled, the preservation and cultivation of the Greek language is a core priority of the Greek Orthodox Church in America.
But following the example of the great Greek missionaries to the Slavs, Saints Cyril and Methodios, we offer our main services primarily in English. If a verse of a hymn or a response is repeated, we will generally alternate singing or chanting it in English and Greek, but we remember the Great Commission of Jesus Christ, to go forth and make disciples of all nations, who must understand the faith if they are to become followers of Jesus Christ in the Orthodox way.
Today, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church is a multi-ethic, international parish community in which any and all people who are seeking the deepest roots of the Christian faith can find them and be nourished by them. We hope you will visit us in person soon!
Interested in Orthodoxy and Holy Cross?
Reach out to Fr. Theodore at frtheodore@holycrossga.org.
See the Service Schedule for opportunities to experience Orthodox Christian worship.
View the various articles on our website “About Orthodox Christianity.”
View some external resources and links about Orthodox Christianity.
View the resources from our “Introduction to the Orthodox Church” Class
Sign-up for our e-mail list to learn more about what is happening at Holy Cross!