On February 15, 1987, I was chrismated into the Orthodox Church at St. Nicholas Church in Los Angeles. It was a small intimate affair. Metropolitan Philip ordained 60 or so priests, then chrismated and served me my first eucharist, as he did to a couple hundred of my nearest and dearest friends and fellow travelers. In the space of a few weeks, almost 2,000 Americans across the country were brought into the Orthodox Church. It was the culmination of a 15+-year journey that started with a handful of zealous young men who began to think the work they were doing for Campus Crusade for Christ was somehow missing the mark.

That was the Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC) Movement that started when Peter Gillquist and others who had been explosively active in 60’s parachurch organizations like Campus Crusade began to question the ethos and methodology of that movement and look elsewhere for the “authentic” Church. “Becoming Orthodox: A Journey to the Ancient Christian Faith” is the story of their trek to Orthodoxy, which ended up carrying me and the other 2000 souls in its powerful current. It’s a quick read, engagingly honest and forthright about the joys and heartaches of finding out (in the words of Firesign Theatre) that everything you know is wrong.

I won’t give away much of the plot, but it has its share of twists and turns. Suffice it to say, it has a happy ending. For those in the EOC movement, it is definitely a contact high to remember the thrill of discovering the Orthodox Church — something I wish every cradle Orthodox got a chance to experience as I hope they would wish I could know the profound peace of having grown up with the Church.

It also may be a very good reference book for those who are trying to introduce the Church to Protestants. The middle portion of the book is given over to the topics that they found the most troubling and the understanding that changed their perspective.