Convert zeal is that intense, sometimes overbearing enthusiasm new Orthodox Christians often display in the first year or two after entering the Church. You know it when you see it. The recent convert who corrects cradle Orthodox about fasting rules. The catechumen already growing a beard and buying a prayer rope collection. The newly chrismated who can’t stop posting about Orthodoxy on social media and arguing with their Baptist relatives.
It’s not all bad. Enthusiasm for the faith is good. But convert zeal becomes a problem when it’s rooted in pride rather than humility, when it’s more about being right than being transformed.
What It Looks Like
Convert zeal shows up in predictable ways. There’s the tendency to overdo everything, fasting stricter than your priest recommends, adding prayers to your rule without asking, standing through the entire Liturgy even when you’re exhausted because you heard that’s what “real” Orthodox do. There’s the judgmentalism. You’ve been Orthodox six months and you’re already critiquing how the parish does things or looking down on people who don’t fast as strictly as you think they should.
Some converts get scrupulous. They worry constantly about whether they’re doing everything correctly, whether they venerated the icons in the right order, whether they accidentally ate something with hidden dairy on a fasting day. Others go the opposite direction and become self-appointed theologians, ready to explain Orthodoxy to anyone who’ll listen (and plenty who won’t). Both extremes come from the same root.
The emotional swings are real too. You feel on fire for God one month, then crash into despair the next when the initial excitement fades. You thought you’d found the answer to everything, and now you’re exhausted and wondering why you don’t feel that spark anymore.
Why It Happens
Part of it’s just human psychology. You’ve made a big decision. Maybe you left a church you’d been part of for decades. Maybe your family thinks you’ve joined a cult. You need to prove to yourself (and maybe to them) that you made the right choice. So you go all in. You become more Orthodox than the Orthodox.
There’s also the novelty factor. Everything’s new and beautiful. The incense, the icons, the ancient prayers. It’s easy to confuse aesthetic attraction with spiritual maturity. You’re experiencing something powerful, but you haven’t yet learned to distinguish between an emotional high and actual growth in Christ.
Spiritually, the Church Fathers would say convert zeal comes from receiving a spark of grace without the humility and discipline to sustain it. God gives you a taste of something real, but you haven’t yet done the hard work of prayer, fasting, confession, and obedience that tempers that initial fire into something steady and life-giving. Pride sneaks in. You think you’ve figured it out faster than everyone else.
How the Church Addresses It
Good spiritual fathers see convert zeal coming a mile away. They’ve dealt with it before. Their approach is usually gentle but firm: slow down. They’ll give you a simple prayer rule when you want to pray the entire Psalter daily. They’ll tell you to follow the fasting guidelines in the bulletin, not the strictest possible interpretation you found online. They’ll suggest you spend a year just observing and serving before you try to teach anyone else about Orthodoxy.
The prescription is always the same: humility, obedience, patience. Go to confession regularly. Receive communion. Serve in small, hidden ways. Learn the parish’s customs instead of trying to import practices from Mount Athos or Russia. And for heaven’s sake, stop correcting people.
This isn’t about crushing your enthusiasm. It’s about channeling it into something sustainable. The Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. If you burn yourself out in the first year trying to be a super-Orthodox champion, you won’t make it.
The Difference That Matters
Healthy enthusiasm looks different from convert zeal. Healthy enthusiasm is joyful but humble. It’s eager to learn, not eager to teach. It’s patient with others and with yourself. It grows steadily over time instead of flaring hot and burning out.
Convert zeal, on the other hand, is impatient and judgmental. It’s more concerned with being right than with being loving. It exhausts you and alienates the people around you. It’s focused on external performance rather than interior transformation.
Here’s a test: if your newfound Orthodoxy makes you kinder, more patient, more willing to serve in hidden ways, that’s healthy. If it makes you critical, superior, and exhausting to be around, that’s convert zeal talking.
What to Do About It
If you recognize yourself in any of this, don’t panic. Almost every convert goes through some version of it. The fact that you’re aware of it already puts you ahead of the game.
Find a spiritual father or mother and actually listen to them. When they tell you to ease up on your fasting or simplify your prayer rule, they’re not being lax. They’re trying to save you from yourself. Submit to their guidance even when it feels too easy or too slow.
Stay close to the sacraments. Confession keeps you honest about your pride. Communion feeds you with something real, not just your own enthusiasm. A steady prayer rule (emphasis on steady, not elaborate) keeps you grounded.
Serve quietly. Volunteer to clean up after coffee hour. Offer to help set up for feast days. Do things nobody notices. This is how you learn humility, and humility is the only cure for convert zeal.
And give yourself time. You’re learning a whole new way of life. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to be overzealous sometimes and lazy other times. That’s normal. The Church has been doing this for two thousand years. She knows how to form converts into mature Christians, but it doesn’t happen overnight.
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware somewhere says that it takes about seven years to really become Orthodox. Not to be received into the Church, that happens at chrismation. But to have Orthodoxy sink down into your bones, to stop thinking like a convert and just live like an Orthodox Christian. Seven years sounds like a long time when you’re six months in and on fire. But it’s actually a gift. You don’t have to figure everything out right now. You just have to show up, pray, confess, commune, and let the Church do her work in you.
That’s enough.
