Should We Compete For Converts?

This StartingOnTheRoyalPath blog was started because after the ROCOR-MP union I was asked by a brother, "What do we tell newcomers?"

The ROCOR was in a "shipwreck."  Many of us were totally unprepared because we never believed our Holy Synod would ever go through with such an atrocity as to join the unrepentant Moscow Patriarchate. Everything was exploded up into the air, — we waited to see where the pieces would land.  

The next question came from the same brother:

How can the Royal Path compete for converts?  We have so little and the OCA has so much!

And truly, at that time we had even less than the so little we already had had.  We had serious stumbling blocks because of the language and because of the immigrants' fear of their children becoming like Americans.  American converts were not welcomed by the ROCOR parishes.  And worse.  Even chased away — flat out told to leave and go to an English-speaking church.  But the OCA parishes rolled out the red carpet for converts.  Pampered them.  In the beginning, like in a nursery, the newborns need special care.  ROCOR parishes in America were off-putting, to say the least.  So already we had a problem long before the ROCOR-MP union happened.  Archbishop John Maximovitch (St. John of Shanghai & San Francisco, 1964†) spoke about this problem, and predicted that ROCOR would fade away and disappear if we did not overcome it.

Still, we have some examples of American converts who made it into the Church even before there was an OCA, and two of them I know who are still alive in the Church today (2023).  Both of these men I'm thinking of are named Daniel, and they were best friends back in 1960s.  But this is another story, a wonderful story...  Hopefully someday it can be put on record.

ANYWAY.  In the meantime, here is how I answered the brother's question about us competing with the OCA for converts:

A person is brought to the Orthodox Church by God.  Not by us.  It is by the person's will, their determination and with God's help that any one enters the Church.  There is nothing we can do to cause a person to become Orthodox.  If a person is being guided by heaven, and possesses the necessary determination, there is nothing we can do or fail to do that would change their course..

Such a person is brought into the fold only through his love for God and Truth.  However, somebody who is also seeking "churchy" benefits and/or protestant ideals, will naturally be drawn to the OCA.  And then there is nothing we can do.  Let them go.

This NEWCOMER'S PAGE on this STARTING ON THE ROYAL PATH BLOG is for us.  So that we have something to give someone who might ask direction of us.   Something we can give them with a clear conscience.  We can't send them to the nearest OCA church with a clear conscience.