My name is Johan Trisanjaya. I am of Javanese ethnicity in Indonesia. I was born in 1982 in the village of Prigi in Central Java. I was raised in a Buddhist family; my father is a government servant and my mother is a house wife. Most people in our village are Muslim, but many adhere to Buddhism. As a Buddhist, I was so active that I was appointed as the President of the Buddhist Youth Association. The essence of Buddhist teaching is “to love without limit”, where the law of deeds (“karma”) is emphasized, in which all our deeds in this life will bear fruit in our next reincarnation. The love is not limited to only humans either, but in … [Read more...]
The Mother of God Appears to Vietnamese Woman in Coma, who then Converts to Orthodoxy
September 4, 2017 By 4 Comments
Fr. George Maximov, a Moscow priest who often serves on missionary trips throughout Asia, has posted on his Facebook page the words of a Vietnamese woman who converted to Orthodoxy after the Mother of God appeared to her. The woman, Nguyen Thi Mai Anh, a former Buddhist living and working in V?ng Tàu, Vietnam, was baptized into Holy Orthodoxy on Holy Saturday this year. She writes of “something incredible” happening in her life about a year ago: “I was lying in a coma in the hospital. During this time I saw a radiance, a bright light, and directly in front of me appeared the Virgin Mary Theotokos. She handed me a bottle of water and gave me … [Read more...]
The Long Journey of a Swiss Catholic to Orthodoxy
July 13, 2017 By 1 Comment
Pierre Haab, a Swiss former Catholic who was disappointed with his religion and was carried away by Buddhism, Hinduism and other screamingly “fashionable” Eastern teachings and who is now a subdeacon of the Orthodox Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Cross in Geneva, speaks about his conversion to Orthodoxy. by Aviv Saliu-Diallo —Can you tell us a few words about your family, education and the story of your conversion to the Orthodox faith? I was born in an under-developed, impoverished, hungry country where the sky is permanently overcast with dark clouds—of course, in the spiritual sense. I am speaking of Switzerland, and especially of … [Read more...]
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) Celebrates the Rite of Return to the Church for 63 Souls
April 12, 2017 By 1 Comment
On this day, sixty-three people renounced paganism, sectarian errors, and false schismatic beliefs! On Lazarus Saturday, April 8, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, celebrated the rite of apostates returning to the holy Orthodox Church. On this day, sixty-three people renounced paganism, sectarian errors, and false schismatic beliefs, in Moscow’s Church of the “Joy of All Who Sorrow” Icon of the Mother of God, reports the press service of the Moscow Patriarchate. As Lazarus was resurrected from bodily death, so have they been resurrected from … [Read more...]