Finally being honest with myself about questioning Orthodoxy
So for context, I was brought up in a very ecumenical and non-denominational (not in the low church evangelical sense) household as a child. I grew up going to orthodox services, Baptist services, Lutheran services, even the odd Roman Catholic service. As an older kid (11-12-ish) my family stopped going to Divine Liturgy (which is where we wound up most Sundays through my elementary age years), which was around the time a Baptist friend of mine invited to me his youth group and I was welcomed into that church community, which as a 23 year old I still find myself a part of.
Somehow I ended up in in the view I now consider heretical that one could be a Christian without stopping sinning. I ended up thinking Around 16 or so that this was not true. At around the same time, I decided to start exploring orthodoxy because I felt that the Orthodox Church provided more certainty in the permissibility of the belief in biological evolution which gave me grief at this time as a teenager.
And I basically ended up going full steam ahead into orthodoxy. But the more I learned, the more I felt the existential dread and despair. I discovered all these rules. No food or even water before the Eucharist. Confession before a priest. Strict fasting for 180+ plus days a year. No blood sausage. No praying with my Protestant friends or family. The rules went on and on. And on top of that, I couldn't even be sure of my own salvation. I would go in this back and forth of finding internet articles, posting on Reddit, finding more articles and thinking in my own about how to reconcile these rules with the character of Gods trying to find more lenient versions that were still "orthodox". In the midst of all this was the existential dread and despair that, despite my best efforts, I could still find myself damned.
I'd ask a question and be met with the inevitable "ask your priest". Ask my priest if I should hydrate before liturgy when I know I struggle with dehydration headaches? What if he says no? Ask my priest whether I should abstain from all meat, dairy, eggs, oil and even seasonings and cooking in my meals during fasting? What if I have a better idea of what would edify my, based on my knowledge of scripture, reason, and my own personal circumstance, than he does? And then I would spiral in anxiety, dread and despair.
And be told that Orthodoxy doesn't have the same legalistic attitude as other denominations, and I was just misunderstanding, applying a Protestant or Catholic mentality to orthodoxy. That somehow I just needed to get that the rules are more about the spirit of the law than the letter, but somehow the letter still matters, and on top of all that I can't know whether I'll be saved or even what I must do or believe to know.
I guess I just never acquired the "orthodox Phronema".
Fast forward a few years, I studied philosophy during my undergrad. It was fun and edifying. I learned about religious and irreligious philosophy of all types. And most importantly I had the opportunity to think philosophically about these questions. It deepened my faith, and I got over the scupulosity of my teenage years, but mostly because I just stopped worrying about all the rules. About the fact it was up to the church and my priest rather than my discernment, my reading of scripture, and reason.
Finally, and abruptly, I realized, I am questioning orthodoxy. I'm questioning my initial motives. I am questioning whether it is the right expression of Christianity. I'm questioning whether it is true. I am questioning whether it is edifying. Because somehow, the gospel just cannot come with the existential dread and despair that it comes to me with in the Orthodox Church.
I am very much still a Christian. I am not atheist. I am not finding myself in another religion. But I am being drawn away from Orthodoxy. and it is scary because the orthodox church would consider me an apostate if I became a Protestant, someone whom salvation is closed to. Because I still am firmly convinced of the truth that God exists, more convinced even. I am convinced of the truth beauty and goodness in the Christian tradition, but also across it. And there are beliefs of the Orthodox Church that I just cannot get behind anymore.