A short history of my Greek Orthodox upbringing (sort of)...

I was born and christened in the Greek Orthodox sect of Christianity. The only time I attended church as a kid was for weddings, a few funerals, and occasionally a Palm Sunday or Easter service. When I say occasionally, I mean I faintly remember leaving church with a palm leaf in my hand once or twice.

The most frustrating thing about Greek church was that it was actually spoken in Greek. My rare church experiences meant me waking up early and putting on a tie and dress pants, and then driving 25 miles.

Once we got there, I wasn’t even able to follow the message behind the service, as I wasn’t up on my modern or ancient Greek. Greek church services are made up of mostly singing and chanting. The entire time, I could listen only to the indecipherable lull of scripture readings and the off-pitch songs the priest hummed without the help of a choir. Whenever the priest would sing, "Forever and ever, for the ages of ages", my brother would always turn to me and say, "Alriiiighty then" in his best Ace Ventura voice.

The church is very traditional, with a vaulted ceiling and portraits of Saints scattered across the high walls, next to pristine stained glass windows. It smells strongly of incense that the priest sprinkled during prayer to "represent the sweetness of the prayers of the saints rising up to God". The incense is sprinkled and it jingles when the priest sweeps it across the room, because of the 12 bells hung from it on chains representing the 12 apostles. As a kid, I knew none of this, I only knew that it made me cough when I sat in the front.

I never went to Sunday school, and always pleaded ignorance at the very mention of anything in the Bible. My mom has always worked weekends and my dad prefers car-washing to church-going. The majority of my life I have only had a vague understanding of anything about Christianity at all. I knew that Jesus was born on Christmas, died on Good Friday, and was resurrected on Easter. I admittedly knew very little beyond that, until pretty recently. And we celebrate Greek Easter, which is full of red egg-smashing and fumbling of the celebratory, "Christos anesti!" which is Greek for "Christ has risen!". Still, people like my dad always end up not being able to pronounce the saying at all and instead it sounds like they’re telling everybody something about "iced tea". I love the tradition behind Greek Easter, but I think my family takes it as an opportunity of togetherness, rather than anything related to faith.

My brother did not get married in a church, because him and his wife saw it as a celebration of love rather than recognizing it as a union under God.

Nanna, my mom's mom, is the only one who expresses any interest in going to church at all, but complains that no one will go with her. But when I asked her if she took the stories in the Bible as allegories or as historic evidence, she quickly dismissed most of it as metaphorical. She denied the literal possibility of Moses parting the red sea or Jesus turning water into wine. When I asked her why she believed in Jesus's Resurrection, but none of the other stories, when they came from the same source, she said she didn't know.

The only real information on religion that my mom has ever tried to give me was a twenty-page packet explaining the origins of Greek Orthodox, when I was about thirteen or fourteen. It’s not that my parents didn’t teach me good moral values and decency, but there was no foreseeable connection between these innate acts of goodness and the concept of faith. I tossed out the packet my mom gave me, because I preferred video-game playing to faith exploration. I’d like to have that packet back now, because finding information on Greek Orthodox (and not just Eastern Orthodox) is surprisingly taxing.

When asked if I believe in God, I always reply “yes” without any reluctance. Life is unmistakably meaningful. There’s an undeniable sense of purpose and morality that will always lead you to the concept of God. It’s intricately designed and aesthetically mesmerizing.

Since last summer, I’ve read a few books on the idea of faith and excerpts of the Bible. I still have what I’d consider a pretty simple and basic understanding of Christianity and faith, but my interest in the subject is infinite.

With that interest, inevitably comes a lot of skepticism and questioning. When you get into the details of Christianity, with so many supernatural explanations, the Bible presents a world unlike the world we know. Exploring these things has become a very necessary part of me understanding everything that's around me.

* The icon is of St. John of Damascus.