{"id":622,"date":"2004-12-22T14:05:07","date_gmt":"2004-12-22T18:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=622"},"modified":"2004-12-22T14:05:07","modified_gmt":"2004-12-22T18:05:07","slug":"long-spiritual-journey-leads-to-orthodoxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2004\/12\/long-spiritual-journey-leads-to-orthodoxy\/","title":{"rendered":"Long spiritual journey leads to Orthodoxy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orlando Sentinal<\/a> (free registration required)<\/em>
\nDebbie Barr, December 9, 2004<\/p>\n

MAITLAND — Some might consider becoming a priest of the Greek Orthodox Church somewhat unorthodox if you are neither Greek nor born into Orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

For the Rev. James Berends [Fr. Jim, as most call him], who was ordained in July as a priest in the Greek Orthodox Church, it was a natural, if not typical, progression.<\/p>\n

Berends, 47, serves at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Maitland, where he assists Senior Rev. Dean Gigicos in overseeing a congregation of about 500 families, predominantly from Orange and Seminole counties.<\/p>\n

Berends said his journey to Orthodoxy and the priesthood was not a lightning bolt of revelation, but more of a gravitation.<\/p>\n

“It always felt like just a nudge for me; it never felt like a huge jump,” he said.<\/p>\n

Berends, who lives in Lake Mary, was born the son of a Baptist minister in Grand Rapids, Mich. He knew early on that he didn’t consider himself a Baptist, but he still felt drawn to Christianity.<\/p>\n

“I knew it [my religion] was going to be Christian, I just didn’t know where it was all going to lead,” he said.<\/p>\n

Read the entire article on the Orlando Sentinel<\/a> website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Orlando Sentinal (free registration required) Debbie Barr, December 9, 2004 MAITLAND — Some might consider becoming a priest of the Greek Orthodox Church somewhat unorthodox if you are neither Greek nor born into Orthodoxy. For the Rev. James Berends [Fr. Jim, as most call him], who was ordained in July as a priest in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orthodox-christianity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}