Any Orthodox Christians here?

[bajariitz37]

I have been very interested in Orthodox Christianity for a while now and I am thinking of becoming a catechumen. I was wondering if anyone here has any experience from Orthodoxy?

 

[tree]

catechumen | Christianity

catechumen, a person who receives instruction in the Christian religion in order to be baptized. According to the New Testament, the apostles instructed converts after baptism (Acts 2:41–42), and Christian instruction was evidently given to all converts (Luke 1:4, Acts 18:25, Galatians 6:6)...

www.britannica.com

 

[Gerontius]

The closest thing I've seen & experienced to the Orthodox Church was some of the Eastern rites of Catholicism, (Maronite, not Roman.) These people lived quite interesting spiritual lives but their cultural expression is far heavier on emotion than my Roman-aligned self is willing to deal with.
Now there is a division currently in the Orthodox Church between the Orthodox & the Russian Orthodox; I'm probably mangling the terminology along here somewhere but basically Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (2009-present) split with the patriarch in Istanbul in 2018. Very suspicious considering international relations in Russia right now.
What made you curious about the Orthodox?

 

[Stuttermabolur]

I have been very interested in Orthodox Christianity for a while now and I am thinking of becoming a catechumen. I was wondering if anyone here has any experience from Orthodoxy?

I'm not Orthodox myself, but I lived in Serbia which is mostly an orthodox country for a year, half of it with an orthodox family. I went to service on Orthodox Easter and Christmas during service, so I have some experience of what it's like outwardly. However, I am an atheist, and had been when I went on the exchange program so I can't really speak to the spiritual side of it.

 

[bajariitz37]

The closest thing I've seen & experienced to the Orthodox Church was some of the Eastern rites of Catholicism, (Maronite, not Roman.) These people lived quite interesting spiritual lives but their cultural expression is far heavier on emotion than my Roman-aligned self is willing to deal with.
Now there is a division currently in the Orthodox Church between the Orthodox & the Russian Orthodox; I'm probably mangling the terminology along here somewhere but basically Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (2009-present) split with the patriarch in Istanbul in 2018. Very suspicious considering international relations in Russia right now.
What made you curious about the Orthodox?

Thanks for the answer, the thing you said about the cultural expression sounds interesting, I am from Northern Europe myself so I am not too familiar with that cultural side, here most of the Christians are Lutheran and a small percentage Orthodox.

I am not too familiar either with the politics of the church itself, I read a little bit about the split you mentioned a few weeks ago. Most of the writings I have been reading have been from Greek Orthodox priests.

I was curious about it mostly because of the traditionality and during the pandemic I happened to watch a livestream from an Orthodox liturgy from YouTube and I was very fascinated by it.