Coming back Home
My name is Luis Fernando, 31, married (Lidia -31-), 2 sons (José Luis -11- and Juan -almost 5-) and we all live in Madrid, the capital of Spain. I was born in a catholic family (98% in Spain are catholics) and I recieved a very good catholic education. I attended to a escolapios (catholic) school and even when I was 10-11 years old I decided I wanted to serve the Lord as a priest. Life is life and things changed. Being a only son my dad died on a airplane crash accident (148 died) when I was 16 and I got a big depression. When I was 17-18 I tried three times to commit suicide but the Lord said it was not my time to die. I became to get involved in the New Age and occultism stuff. I knew my wife and we got married after she got pregnant. We didnīt get married in the catholic church because my mother was in hospital and we really werenīt very catholics at all. Anyway, when Jose was born, he was batptized in the Rosary parish (dominicans). A friends of mine who were also living the New Age "experience" became evangelicals and they invited us to their home for a quiet and lovely weekend. They preached us their faith and I was "born again" in those days. My wife was "born again" 15 days later and we joined a pentecostal church in our city. It was, and is, not a hiper-super-hysteric-pentecostal church as most of pentecostal churches are today and we really had a very good time with our brethen there. I learned a lot from the Bible and my pastor was a very good man, not the typicall "super-pope-pastor". I began to read some anti-catholic books and I, myself, became a anti-catholic apollogetic man (sorry for my bad english). The "problem" was that I began also to study Church history. My best friend is the main biblical and historian scholar in Spain and every time he came to Madrid (weekly) I drove him everywhere with my van. His name is Cesar and, believe me, if you are with Cesar you donīt need to read many books of history to learn more history that you can learn in university, :-) He was, and is, protestant. In fact he was, and is, half-quaker and half-mennonite. I mean he loves the anabaptist movement (the peaceful one) and the quakers way of life and way of understanding christian faith. I became also a mennonite-quaker protestante. I separated the Church history between the Pre-Constantine era and the post-Constantine era. Even the Reformers (Luther, Calvin) were constantinian christians for me. I was really a radical protestant. Then I began to visit christian forums in Internet. Mostly english speaking forums because there were not many spanish christians forums. My life was peaceful and wonderful those months while I was wasting my time "destroying" catholics and some "soft-protestants" in the forums. Until I knew George. George is a orthodox christian with a very good level of knowledge in theology, church history, greek, etc. He was not like most of catholics and protestants I have met before. It was not only that he won me some debates. It was that God used him to show me the truth about who is the Church of Christ. I remeber I wasnīt able to reply to his arguments about the perpetual virginity of our blessed Mother. But, most of all, I remember I first realized my faith was not the biblical faith or the first centuries church faith. My faith was MY faith. I mean, the way I understood the christian faith. I was lucky I believed in trinity but I could have happened I didnīt belive it. With the same Bible, many people canīt see Jesus is God and so is the Holy Ghost. Then, I began to read history with "new eyes". By then, a new spanish evangelical forum came to be in Internet. And Luis, of course, was the main and more active member, :-) I was still a anti-catholic man but I tried not to use very offensive words when I was arguing with catholics. In fact, first months I argued more with fundamentalist protestants (mostly pentecostal) than with catholics. Then Friar Nelson Medina entered the forum. The battle began. We talked about the "pagan roots" of many catholic doctrines. More than 300 messages after we began, things were in the same was that when we began. He deffended his faith and his church and I tried to put it down by all means. After those messages, he was where he was in the beguining and I was not where I was (it was hard for me to kick against the pricks. Acts 9,5). Even if I was still riding my horse, the fact is that my horse was becoming a camel and I donīt know how to ride camels. Later, we began to discuss the Inmaculate Conception of Mary dogma. Not 300 messages but almost 500 were held. The "problem" was that while we were talking about that dogma I was also studying more and more the church history with my "new eyes". Then, "Apologia pro vita sua" came to my life. Cardinal Henry Newman, a former anglican, sent "Luis the protestant" to the trial. His book touched me in a very profound way. I realized evangelical was not enough. No Sola Scriptura, no Sola Fide and no all the protestants Solas. Yes to the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3,15), yes to the One who is the fulness of him that filleth all in all (Eph 1,23) and yes to the Bible in Eph 3,10. So, it was time for me to decide where to go. I realized I only had two options: The Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church. No half ways. Hot or cold. Quaker or orthodox and catholic. My answer was: Orthodox Church. Why? Go and read it Click here ). Well, I think in Spain there are ... ŋ2?... ŋ3?..... orthodox spaniards. The rest of orthodox people are inmigrants, mostly romanian, russian and greeks. No spanish byzntine liturgy. Anyway, I can say I really was blessed with the Orthodox liturgy. Even I didnīt understand a word I felt like I was living in heaven when I was in the sunday liturgy. I began to love the sacred liturgic tradition of my Church. And I must give thanks to the Lord I met Teofilo Moldovan a romanian priest who helped me very much. Anyway, my family didnīt follow me. Lidia, my wife, respected me very much but she wasnīt prepared to go to a orthodox church where nobody spoke spanish.
Friar Nelson was happy I left the protestante world but I know he was praying hard that I came back Home. We have become great friends and brothers in Christ by ICQ (a great software to talk to people by Internet). I donīt know if he was realizing but he was helping me very much to understand you can love the Orthodox Church, you can enjoy and rejoice in Her tremendous treasures and, at the same time, you can be roman-catholic. When I realized there was a very important part of the Orthodox Church that donīt want a ecumenical dialogue with Rome, I felt very sad. It was amazing for me to read in a orthodox news email service that some russian bishops prefer to talk to a muslim ayatollah more than to talk to the bishop of Rome. But that was real. And no authority in the Orthodox Church (not the Ecumenical Patriarch) did say anything. Then I understod a very importan thing. I loved the Orthodox Church because She has been able to keep safe her Tradition in last 1000 years. But so the Catholic Church. The problem with Orthodox Church is that christian dogma did not go to sleep after XI century. If we believe, and all orthodox believe that there was a developmet of the christian dogma in the first millenium, why not to believe ther has been a developmente of dogma in last 1000 years?. The wall of Jericho fell down flat. The wall of "non-catholic Luis Fernando" fell down flat. And here I am again. In my Church. In my Mother and in Home. Next december 11th december Lidia and I will be married in the Rosary parish and our son Juan will be baptized in the same ceremony. I know I canīt be a priest like I wanted to be when I was a boy, but I am sure the Lord listened to my prayer that day and now He has told me to come back to where I belong.
To Him be the glory.
In Christ and in the love of our blessed Mother, Mary.
Luis Fernando Pérez
1999, November
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