[Kk21pwa9]

Hi,

I am a fresh-convert to Orthodoxy. I use to be a RC and now that I'm a EO they abandoned me. Black-listed so to speak. I would love to be able to meet new friends who can help me with my faith or just be there. Honestly, It is lonely.

Message me if you like.I have AIM,Y!IM,Skype,Windows Live.

M.Anthony

[d1Bc25UP]

[joking] "With friends like these..." [/joking]

I apologise if this is a silly question, but have you no friends among the parish where you were received?

Nonetheless, I understand and sympathise. I came to Orthodoxy from a Protestant Evangelical background, and similarly lost all my friends that way too. Many of them seem to feel I've "abandoned" Christianity! [facepalm!]

[lopushok]

Let me point out that while electronic acquaintances are nice and I have many e-friends that I have never met face to face, one must start with flesh and blood friends. If you are lonely - then get off the computer, go out and meet new people, do new things, make new friends. Then come back online and enrich your life with the extended friendships made possible through electronic correspondence.

Fr David Moser

[rengerts]

Fr David is spot on. Flesh and blood friends are the best... even if it takes some time to acquire them. My Jewish friends and family think I have joined the 'Christ Cult' so I'm low down everyone's Chanukah card list but it's survivable. Honest. Sometimes having friends in a parish starts by loving them before they realise it. I know that sounds daft but those people are your family now so start thinking of them that way - as affectionately, indulgently, fervently as you would all those you loved before.

On the other hand, I am very grateful for the Orthodox I know online. There doesn't have to be a great black line between the two states.

Regards,
Margaret in Edinburgh

[Qualarrizab]

Hey Mark,

Firstly, ditto to what's said above. Also, I'd be happy to be a digital friend :-), except I don't do IMs anymore...do you have a facebook? If you'll give me your email address associated with it, I'll find you. I'm 22, and ALL of my family and friends are heterodox, so I definitely feel you.

Peace,
Evan

[connandoilee]

Mark Anthony, whereabouts in USA are you from?

[NanoGordeno]

http://www.facebook.com/Mark731

Anyone who wants to be friends

BTW: Haha,Well,the Parish I attend everyone is quite a bit older :S haha but I met some nice people :P

[Jffxljtw]

BTW: It's a very small mission church

[Matajic]

I belong to a small mission Orthodox church. For whatever reason, I have made one friend there. I came from a rich traditional Orthodox church family in California and had many friends there. I moved to Minnesota, and have not been able to find friendships here within the Orthodox church I belong to. However, taking the sacaraments and my faith along with continued prayer at home I keep up hope I will find an Orthodox home which will feel more like "a place for me". I understand the loneliness and I find corresponding electronically has given me greater strength and rememberance of what is true and right, rather than trying to self destruct or give in to loneliness. ANother way to help is to find a way to help others. VOlunteer, even day to day good deeds helps a person's sense of being alone. Emily Olson

[Qnnoshxj]

The reason I asked you whereabouts you are in America is so that we can link you to neighbouring churches and functions. That is a healthy way for you to meet new people through social and religious activities. So, can you physically type this location of your mission church because I do not have access to Facebook right now.

Perhaps I can refer you to some men from your area who you can become friends with.

[alegsghed]

There is a difference between the feeling of loneliness, and being alone. You are not alone! You are in communion with all Orthodox Christians living and dead and yet to be born, including all of the saints, who are your friends. Talk to them. Christ is your friend. Talk to Him as friend to friend. Making friends among flesh and blood people becomes a lot easier when you have already lost this feeling of loneliness. Approaching someone to be your friend from a condition of loneliness is dangerous. It is self-serving. Try doing things for other people without expectation of reward, not as a way of getting friends. Just some things that have worked for me.

[choollaBard]

Also, who is your patron saint? Find out more about him. Talk to him and listen for him. Ask him for help in your loneliness.

[beepbeet]

hehe,I am yet recieved into the Orthodox faith.Though I personally hold St.Mark of Ephesus to a high place who I believe is truly saintly and a defender of Orthodoxy,and we share a name of the blessed St.Mark the Evangelist

I will try it.Thanks Owen

[juptVatoSoito]

There is a difference between the feeling of loneliness, and being alone. You are not alone! You are in communion with all Orthodox Christians living and dead and yet to be born, including all of the saints, who are your friends.

St. John of Krondstadt touches on this a little

If, being in an assemblage of men, you call a person known to you, and he comes to you; if you ask one or many men subservient to you to do anything for you within the limit of his or their capability, and they fulfill your request, satisfying it according to your desire, and even beyond your desire, then be assured that, likewise, in God's Church, in that great house of God divided into two halves -- the heavenly and the earthly -- any of the members of the Church in Heaven whom you call upon will come to your spiritual help conformably to his grace and the abundance of his love. Ask him to do anything for you that you please, especially anything relating to the Kingdom and righteousness of God, and he will do it through his close association with God, the Source of grace and power. God's saints also hear you -- as, for instance, the whole congregation hears you when you pray or speak the Word -- for they are in the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit is everywhere present, and fills all things.

This helps me, and it also is uplifting and reassuring to be connected to so many of our Orthodox Brothers and Sisters, Fathers and Mothers on Facebook. I enjoy seeing posts by others with videos of chants and services from around the world, photographs and quotes from the Saints, and posts by all the various Orthodox groups and pages when I login to Facebook.

Some of us may find ourselves in parishes where it is just difficult to form friendships that carry over outside of the Church services. I am a single middle aged man in a parish comprised largely of young married couples with small children so it is difficult to form bonds outside of the Church's Liturgical cycle, and I'm not keen on the hipster seen in the downtown area, so I tend to live a rather hermetic life these days. So I would be honored to have anyone here on monachos.net in my friends list on Facebook.

[NikkitaZ]

Hey Mark, my name is Theodora,. add me on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=513995160

[Gintovtosik]

True friendship in the Biblical sense is hard to come by. A true friend would be someone willing to sacrifice in some way for his friend, perhaps even including putting his life on the line. In our time of convenient religion, how many of us could say that we would put our lives on the line for another Christian? And yet this was really what made Christianity so powerful in the beginning. And of course this rule applies in our own day many times in situations of extreme persecution, which was greater in the 20th century than at any other time because of atheist regimes. But with comfortable, middle class religion it is, as I said, a rarity. My best friend is not Orthodox, but when I needed help badly he was there for me, and always has been. I could only dream of being as good a friend to him as he has been to me. So, just speculating here, if you want friends, be a friend.