If you’re Catholic and want to become Orthodox, you’ll most likely be received by chrismation, not baptism. The Church recognizes your baptism as valid.
This is standard practice in the Antiochian Archdiocese. We don’t rebaptize Catholics who were baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Instead, you’ll go through a period of instruction, make confession, renounce certain Catholic teachings that contradict Orthodoxy, and then be chrismated, anointed with holy oil on your forehead, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, chest, hands, and feet. After that, you receive communion for the first time as an Orthodox Christian.
The Catechism Period
How long this takes depends on you and your priest. There’s no fixed timeline like RCIA. Some people need six months. Others need a year or more.
Your priest will work through Orthodox beliefs and practices with you, focusing especially on where Catholicism and Orthodoxy diverge. You’ll need to understand why we reject papal authority and infallibility. Why we don’t accept the Filioque clause in the Creed. Why we don’t hold the Immaculate Conception as dogma, even though we honor the Theotokos deeply. Why purgatory as Catholics understand it isn’t part of our theology.
This isn’t about bashing Catholicism. It’s about clarity. You can’t be halfway between Rome and Orthodoxy. The priest needs to know you understand what you’re embracing and what you’re leaving behind.
You’ll also learn the rhythms of Orthodox life, fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, the cycle of feasts, how to pray with icons, what happens in the Divine Liturgy and why. If you’ve been to a Catholic Latin Mass, the Liturgy will feel somewhat familiar. But the theology underneath is different in important ways.
The Day of Reception
When you’re ready, your reception happens during the Divine Liturgy or in a separate service, depending on your parish’s practice. You’ll make a formal confession of faith. This includes renouncing errors and professing the Orthodox faith as expressed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, without the Filioque.
Then the priest anoints you with holy chrism, saying “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit” at each anointing. Chrismation completes what baptism began. It’s our equivalent of confirmation, but it’s also the sacramental act that receives you into the Orthodox Church.
After chrismation, you’re Orthodox. You can receive communion immediately.
What About Your Sacraments?
Your Catholic baptism is recognized. Your first communion and confirmation aren’t rejected so much as completed and corrected through Orthodox chrismation and communion. If you were married in the Catholic Church, that marriage is recognized, you don’t need to remarry. If you were ordained as a Catholic priest, that’s a more complex canonical question that your bishop would need to address directly.
Practical Considerations for Southeast Texas
Many Catholics coming to St. Michael have family at St. Anne’s or Sacred Heart or another local parish. This can be hard. Your grandmother might not understand why you left. Be patient with your family. You’re not rejecting them. But you are making a choice that they may see as a betrayal or at least deeply confusing.
Some former Catholics feel immediate relief when they become Orthodox. Others go through a grieving process. You might miss certain devotions or the church building you grew up in. That’s normal. Give yourself time to grow into Orthodox life. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, himself a convert, wrote extensively about this adjustment in “The Orthodox Way”, worth reading if you’re in this position.
Why Not Just Stay Catholic?
That’s between you and God, honestly. But if you’re asking the question and exploring Orthodoxy seriously, something has brought you here. Maybe it’s the theology. Maybe it’s the sense that Orthodoxy has preserved something ancient that the West lost. Maybe you’ve been reading the Church Fathers and realized they sound Orthodox, not Roman.
Whatever your reasons, take this seriously. Don’t convert on a whim or because you’re mad at your Catholic parish. Convert because you believe the Orthodox Church is the Church Christ founded, and you want to be part of it.
Talk to Fr. Michael at St. Michael. He’ll walk you through the specifics and answer questions I haven’t covered here. Come to a few services first if you haven’t already. Stand in the back and watch. Orthodoxy isn’t just a different set of doctrines, it’s a whole way of life.
