As was pointed out, since I attend a Serbian Orthodox church it makes more sense for Belgrade to beckon me, being the home of the Serbian Patriarch. Anyway, more on why I am becoming an Orthodox Christian. Again, none of these stands alone as the reason.
An important aspect of my decision is the connection of the Orthodox Church to the historical church. Whatever it was the earliest Christians believed it may be safely assumed to be the faith immediately passed on to them by the Apostles, and I believe the Orthodox Church is the church of the early Christians. The difficulty with maintaining that Protestantism is the true faith is that one is forced to maintain that the true faith essentially vanished shortly after Christ’s Ascension and then reappeared with Martin Luther. As early as 311 AD the Virgin Mary was described as “ever-virgin”, the organization of the church (bishops, priests, etc.) was in place by at least 67 AD, and, baptism for the remission of sins-not as a merely symbolic act- was in place by 381 AD, and so on. I should mention that these are merely documented mentions that I am aware of, and I believe that their acceptance by the church was in place much much earlier.
If the Protestant understanding of Christianity is true, then there were essentially no Christians from, at the very latest 400 AD (the Nicene Creed had been formed and the Three Holy Hierarchs had finished their writings, although I suppose John Chrysostom could have written something in his remaining seven years. Close enough. The beliefs espoused by the mentioned documents were, I believe, already widely accepted beforehand, but 400 AD makes for a convenient benchmark) all the way to about 1517 AD (the day Luther posted his 95 theses). And indeed some denominations have held that the church in fact did cease for a time. I find this, at best, extremely questionable.
Even if one wants to push my 400 AD date up you will still have to put it back far enough that the church will be nonexistent for a good length of time. The only way to get around this would be to postulate that Protestants were hanging out in secret churches for hundreds of years with nobody knowing about it, and I can’t think of anybody that maintains that view.
To be fair to all readers, I grant that the above is merely an argument for Orthodoxy over Protestantism, not for Orthodoxy above Roman Catholicism. That, I admit, would require a theological and historical knowledge base that I simply do not have. I should also mention that certain Protestant groups maintain a baptism for the remission of sins and have a church hierarchy at least vaguely like Orthodoxy, so the aforementioned topics wouldn’t concern them. However, the theological views of the Three Holy Hierarchs would concern them, and as those views were accepted church theology fairly early on, the issue stands. Interestingly though, Protestant believers with a high church theology and strong sacramental tendencies make up a pretty high percentage of Orthodox converts. There are tales of whole Anglican churches up and converting to Orthodoxy all at once, although I can’t back those up with documentation.
Way of the Beard 
I think we would be friends. I like your writing and though processes. I have often thought about many of these issues as well. I am a Baptist and I plan on remaining so, but still a lot of this stuff does bother me at times.
One argument I have heard for contemporary Protestantism goes like this . . . The early church was very Orthodox like, but the principles laid out in Scripture allow for contextualization to different environments and ages. This would be what we now have with modern evangelicism. What do you think of that?
Also, I’m not sure it is necessary to say the church ceased to exist from a thousand years, only that it was in an increasingly layered, structured form. I don’t however necessarily believe that. I think evangelicals have much to learn from our Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters.
Take care.
I would reply, cautiously of course, that while it may be the case that the church is open to contextualization to a certain degree (the very fact that there are Greek, Serbian, Russian, Antiochian, etc. Orthodox Churches indicates this), certain theological elements are non-negotiable and non-reconcilable with Protestant theology. The Orthodox approach to salvation comes to mind, for the Orthodox do not maintain the belief in Christ as savior is, by itself, sufficient for salvation (neither did the author of the book of James, for that matter). The Orthodox rather do not say they are saved, they say that they are being saved. Theosis, unification with God, is the salvific process that never ceases so long as we live.
Moreover, and I have not delved too deeply into this with my posts thus far, there is this whole….Orthodox…flavor to their approach to life that is difficult to capture in words, but is so drastically important. The best way to capture in my, admittedly meager, experience, is to read the lives and teachings of the saints.
I am not at all eager to engage is Protestant-bashing, being that I was one for, well, up until a few months ago. So I do not accuse any Protestant of ignorance or sinfulness, and I hope that I am clear on that point. Ultimately, and this is important, it was not rational argument that brought me to Orthodoxy, but a burning of the heart and sensation of that rightness of it all.
And I agree that we would likely make splendid friends.
Lord have mercy.
Thanks for your thoughts. I am intrigued with Orthodox theology, no doubt. I look forward to reading more.
Hmmm… If possible I should like to pick your brain a little more on this point. In my understanding, Luther was neither creating anew nor rediscovering true faith. Rather, he was reforming specific practices of the church to which the hierarchy did not take too kindly. In this reading, Luther attempted to recover true Catholicism (outside of Rome). Unless this restructuring of Church hierarchy necessitates a different faith, then I cannot see the basis for claiming there were no Christians for 1100 years.
Also, though I’m sure you have dealt with this objection in your decision, what about the claim that all three traditions share the same faith at their core? If we all faithfully follow the Nicene Creed (and all the rest), then can our different doctrines really constitute a different faith? While there have been times when I have thought that either the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church had the truest form of the faith, it has never stopped me from believing that all the rest did not have the same faith as my own.
So, just throwing these points out for some clarification.
Luther indeed intended to truly have a “reformation”, not a break away faith, so on that point I can agree. And, indeed, it must be said that a lot of what Luther said is foreign to much of what is called “Protestantism”. The very broadness of that term makes it a difficult one to use with any kind of precision. However, there are definitive theological, not just hierarchical, differences between Luther and the Catholic church, particularly with regard to the sacraments, so I feel justified in saying that the faith of Luther and the Faith of the Catholic Church is different, and the theology of Luther and theology of the Eastern Church is likewise substantially different. The differences in soteriology and hamartiology strike me as the most immediate issue.
So far and I understand, Luther maintained that sin was, essentially, a legal matter wherein a human breaks God’s law and God must then, because He is just, punish that human. Christ took that punishment for us instead, according the Protestant, and, I assume, Luther’s perspective. Contrary to that, Orthodoxy sees sin as primarily along the lines of a spiritual disease, so then salvation is not a legal matter but a recuperative one, wherein participation in the life of the Church (the sacraments, etc.), effectively acts to heal the soul and cure it of its spiritual darkness.
The differences mentioned leads me to conclude that the faith’s of the three traditions is dissimilar enough for me to convert. I am not, as mentioned, interested or motivated to spend time harassing Protestants, and I am more than willing to acknowledge that smarter individuals than I are Protestant. Be that as it may, ultimately what draws me to Orthodoxy is actually less “doxy” and more “praxis”. Simply put: I think Orthodox is the best of the three for taking broken humans and making them whole. This does not imply that Protestantism and Catholicism do not bring about real, positive moral transformation, that would be silly of me.
Hope this helps, and I will continue to think on what you have said. My thanks for the comments, they have made me think and that is always a blessing.