Entering the Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

"Nowadays, there is great interest in the worship and theology of the Orthodox Church, and the Church itself. This is because the Orthodox Church preserves the authentic elements of Patristic and Apostolic teaching. The Fathers of the Church are the successors of he Holy Apostles throughout the ages; they are the bridge between the Holy Apostles and us. They entrust us with revealed life and truth. As we know, the Holy Fathers are not highbrow intellectual teachers and intelligentsia but they are those people who have experienced Pentecost in their own personal life. Thus, the Orthodox Church is the Body of Christ and the communion of those being deified but it is at the same time the Church of the Apostles, of the Fathers, the Martyrs, the Saints and the Ascetics, the Church of the Ecumenical Synods. Overall, the Orthodox Church is the Church which preserves the richness of the Tradition in both Christ and the Holy Spirit, as this has been manifested through the ages. It is not easy for someone to enter this great ancestral treasury, the treasury of the Holy Spirit. This is why, from the very beginning, the Church laid down a special way by which to receive people who want to be baptized. This way is described briefly in this small ooh, that is, it lays out the preparation of the Catechumens from the point of view of spiritual life and worship in reference to the teaching of the Church. It also lays out the content of Catechism, the Baptism of those who have been already catechized as well as the life of the faithful within the holy and blessed body of Christ. Since there is a great quest for the Orthodox life in the West among English-speaking peoples, I hope that the translation of this book, which has been published repeatedly in Greek, will help in the appreciation of what a great gift this is to an Orthodox Christian. I thank Miss Marina Robb, and Anglo-Cypriot, a philologist and a theologian who has translated this book, as well as the Holy Monastery of the Birth of the Theotokos, which has undertaken this publication. I sincerely ask the readers of this book and all those who may benefit from the reading of it to pray for me also, so that I will live in the Orthodox Church till the end of my natural life and fall asleep within the Church - that when the time of my departure from this life comes, by the prayers of our spiritual fathers, to be worthy of meeting the forefathers whom I loved and who loved me in the heavenly Divine Liturgy."

Written in the Metropolis of Nafpaktos on the 24th of September 2003 Feast of Saint Silouan the Athonite, - The Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos