Correspondent photo / Kathryn T. Adams
The Rev. Kathryn Adams of Canfield, right, poses with her daughter, Sarah Emerick-Craig, outside Christ the Savior Holy Spirit Orthodox Church in Norwood, where Sarah attends.

After serving as an active Methodist pastor for more than 40 years, I am now retired.

My husband is also a retired Methodist pastor, and growing up, our two daughters attended worship in the Methodist Church with one of us. My eldest daughter, Sarah Emerick-Craig, recently revealed to me that she was communicating with an Orthodox priest to prepare for membership in the Orthodox Church. In one way it was a surprise; yet in another it wasn’t.

I was introduced to the Orthodox Church when I began leading volunteer-in-mission teams to orphanages in the former Soviet Union — mostly in Russia, but also in Belarus and Ukraine. The first time I entered a Russian Orthodox service, I felt transported from an earthly home to a heavenly one. All the elements of the Divine Liturgy spoke to me as I experienced a connection to God that I had never felt before.

The Eastern Orthodox Church claims that it is the oldest denomination in the Christian world. Emperor Constantine the Great’s conversion to Christianity in 312 AD led to his Christianization of the Roman Empire and the beginning of what we call Christendom. Constantine transformed Christianity’s status from a persecuted religion to one supported by imperial power.

Over time, there were arguments over belief and practice, so church leaders decided to get together and hash out the essentials of the Christian faith. That meeting took place in 325 AD in the city of Nicaea, and the resulting statement of faith is called the Nicene Creed.

Even after the creation of the creed, there continued to be differences between the Christians of the East (whose capital was Constantinople – today, known as Istanbul) and Christians of the West (whose capital was in Rome), which resulted in Pope Leo X and Patriarch Michael I excommunicating each other and their followers from the church, creating a separation of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in 1054.

Orthodox Christians believe they are the direct, continuous successors of the apostles and that the Roman Catholic Church, by giving too much authority to the Pope and changing the liturgy, departed from the right path. These Eastern Christians claimed the title “Orthodox,” a word that means “right worship,” and believe they are the one true church. Today, Eastern Orthodox Christianity makes up the second-largest body of Christians after Roman Catholics, and the single largest number of Orthodox Christians are found in Russia.

It is through this experience of Orthodox worship that I felt ushered into a heavenly realm. I later learned that Divine Liturgy is meant to replicate on earth the kind of worship that is taking place in heaven. All of one’s senses are engaged. It is filled with prayers of praise and thanksgiving, readings of scripture, chanting, acapella singing of the choir, a message by the priest, Eucharist (holy communion) and the smell of incense, which reminds worshipers of the glory of the Lord and is a reminder of the prayers of God’s people ascending to God.

One central part of Orthodox worship is the icons that grace the sanctuary walls. Icons are painted figures depicting Jesus and his life: the Holy Family, angels, apostles and saints who have gone before us into heaven. They are considered windows to heaven and are not worshipped, but rather honored (or venerated) witnesses of the Christian faith, inspiring worshipers to look to them as divine examples to follow.

My daughter participated in many volunteer-in-mission trips with me to the former Soviet Union and said that she fondly remembered all her Russian Orthodox experiences, “but what first interested me in the Orthodox Church was my seeking a more traditional and ritualistic worship experience. I truly feel it was the Holy Spirit that spoke to my heart to seek out and attend an Orthodox Divine Liturgy. One day I felt a real curiosity, a calling, and the courage to reach out to a local Orthodox Church vis-a-vis a priest.”

In 28 volunteer-in-mission trips to the former Soviet Union, I began to look forward to attending Orthodox worship. Worshippers are surrounded in holy mystery while worship is directed toward God and his son, Jesus Christ. One surrenders the desire to be a part of an earthly existence and follows the call to participate in a spiritual existence.

“The utter reverence for the liturgy, for the icons, for the priest by all those in attendance was one of the main components that drew me into wanting to join the congregation. It was taken very seriously by each person, and all were welcome. It was a juxtaposition of rituals that are millennia old being done by contemporary human beings,” Sarah told me.

While most Orthodox churches reflect a particular ethnicity (Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian) the church my daughter attends does not have an ethnic designation.

I am pleased that my daughter has decided to become Orthodox. Her decision is supported by her husband Jeff, and daughter Pippa, who live in Cincinnati. When I visited her recently, we attended Divine Liturgy together. I was taken back to all those times when I had worshipped in the Russian Orthodox Churches. The artistry of the surroundings, the beautiful music provided by the choir, the meaningful movements of the priest, all worked together to put me in touch with our heavenly creator and the life of his only begotten son, Jesus Christ.

Those who have never experienced an Orthodox service should be warned that services last nearly two hours, and some congregants stand the entire time. No one complains that the service went too long or that the priest’s sermon should have been shorter. Everyone is wrapped up in the mystery of a life devoted to God.

I am proud of my daughter’s choice and look forward to attending worship with her as together we offer ourselves to the one who created us, loves us and calls us to worship Him in spirit and in truth.