The Seeker's Guide to the Orthodox Church
The Second Visit Is Harder Than The First
The first time, you're only looking. The second time, you're considering — and considering costs something. This is the book about what happens after that.
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The first visit is easy.
You're a visitor. Nobody expects anything of you. You can stand in the back, watch, absorb, and leave. If it overwhelms you, that's fine. You were only looking.
The second visit is different.
Because on the second visit you're no longer just looking. You're considering. And considering costs something.
I've watched this happen hundreds of times. Someone comes once, moved by the beauty of it. They come again. And then somewhere between the third and the tenth visit, a wall goes up.
It's never the incense. It's never the icons. Those questions get answered quickly, and people are usually satisfied.
The wall is made of different material.
- The moment you realize you don't know when to stand, and everyone around you does.
- The question you cannot bring yourself to ask out loud.
- The sinking feeling that this might mean telling your mother something she doesn't want to hear.
- Confession — the word alone stops people cold.
Nobody writes about that part.
There are excellent books explaining Orthodox theology. Beautiful books about the Fathers, the councils, the history. What there is very little of is a book that says: here is what actually happens next, here is how much it will cost you, and here is why people do it anyway.
That is the book I wrote.
Who this is for
Written For The Curious, The Inquirer, And The Catechumen
You haven't visited yet.
You've been reading, watching, wondering. This tells you exactly what will happen when you walk in — so the unknown stops being the thing that keeps you home.
You've been coming for months.
You know where to stand now. What you don't know is what to do about your marriage, your parents, your old pastor, and the questions you've been carrying silently.
You've already said yes.
Prayer rules you can actually keep. Fasting without wrecking yourself. Your first confession. And the seven traps converts fall into with the very best intentions.
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110 pages · 19 chapters · 3 appendices · Audiobook available
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A page from the book
Here Is What Actually Happens In Confession
Chapter 13 is the chapter most people turn to first. This is how it opens.
Chapter 13 — Confession: The Chapter You Skipped To
"I know a number of you turned here first. That is fine. It is the thing people are most afraid of, and fear deserves to be addressed directly rather than buried in the middle of a book.
So let me tell you what actually happens, in order, without any softening.
There is no box. There is no screen. There is no partition between you and the priest. That is a Western arrangement and Orthodoxy does not use it.
Instead, you will stand — usually near an icon of Christ, often at a stand holding a cross and a Gospel book, frequently off to one side of the church.
The priest does not stand opposite you. He stands beside you.
You are both facing the icon. You are not confessing to him across a desk, like a defendant. You are standing next to him, facing Christ, and he is there as a witness."
That's the register of the whole book. Not doctrine at a distance — the physical, practical, actual thing, described by someone who stands there every week.
What's inside
Nineteen Chapters, Four Parts, And Three Appendices You'll Actually Use
Built to be read slowly, a chapter at a time.
Part One
Finding Your Footing
What to Do With Your Body — The sign of the cross, when to stand, bows and prostrations, how to venerate an icon without freezing up.
Why Nobody Told You Where to Sit — Arriving late, leaving early, bringing children, and what coffee hour is really for.
What to Wear (and Why It's Not About Rules) — Including the honest answer on head coverings.
The Calendar You Didn't Know Existed — The shape of the year, why fasting is attached to feasting, Great Lent and Holy Week.
Part Two
The Questions You're Afraid to Ask
Praying to Saints — You are not praying to them the way you think, and here's what's actually happening.
Are Catholics and Protestants Going to Hell? — What this means for your grandmother, and where you heard the harsher version.
What About the Bible? — Where it came from, what Tradition actually means, and why your Orthodox Bible has extra books.
The Priest, the Bishop, and Why There's No Pope — Including "call no man father" and the honest cost of Orthodox structure.
What Orthodoxy Actually Says About Salvation — The hospital, not the courtroom. Theosis, synergy, and how to answer "are you saved?"
Part Three
The Inner Work
Fasting Isn't a Diet — Why I refuse to print the chart, who fasts less and why that's normal, and the real danger.
Building a Prayer Rule You'll Actually Keep — The three-minute morning and evening rule I'd give a catechumen in my own parish, the icon corner, the Jesus Prayer, and what to do when you miss.
Confession — The Chapter You Skipped To — What it physically looks like, what you actually say, your first confession, and the thing you do not want to say.
Finding a Spiritual Father — Obedience correctly understood, warning signs, and a word about elders on the internet.
Part Four
Counting the Cost
Becoming a Catechumen — The three stages, how it happens, what's asked of you, how long it takes.
When Your Spouse Isn't Coming With You — The one rule that prevents most of the damage, and what actually changes people.
Telling Your Pastor, Your Parents, Your Friends — On timing, and what it costs.
The Convert Traps — All seven, named plainly, with the practical antidote.
Baptism, Chrismation, and Your First Communion — What the service is like, and the letdown in the week after that nobody warns you about.
Plus
Three Appendices You'll Keep Coming Back To
Words You'll Hear — Every term you'll encounter in a parish, in plain language. From antidoron to theosis.
Your First Thirty Days — A week-by-week plan. Show up. Begin praying. Add one thing. Have the conversation.
Questions to Ask a Priest — Print it, bring it. Asking from a list isn't awkward; it tells him you're serious.
Or add the audiobook at checkout.
Chapter 18
The Seven Convert Traps
This chapter is written with affection, and it will still sting. Everything in it, I have watched happen to sincere people who were trying hard to be faithful. Several of them I could name. One of them, at a certain stage, was me.
These are not failures of belief. They are failures of proportion — and they are far easier to see in someone else than in yourself, which is exactly why they're worth naming in advance.
Zeal beyond measure
Turning on your old church
Online Orthodoxy
Explaining Orthodoxy to the Orthodox
Romanticizing the ethnic
Elder-shopping
Reading too fast
Each one named, explained, and disarmed — with the common root underneath all seven, and the practical antidote.
What this will do for you
Not Information To Be Consumed. A Life To Be Considered.
With someone walking next to you while you consider it.
The self-consciousness lifts
You'll understand what you're seeing so you can stop managing your hands and start actually praying. The awkwardness fades much faster when the mechanics make sense.
You'll finally have the words for the saints
Answers you can hold in your own conscience and repeat calmly to a skeptical friend, instead of a vague unease you keep pushing down.
You'll stop being afraid of confession
Where to stand, what to say, what happens with your first general confession, and what penance actually is. Most of the dread is unfamiliarity. This removes it.
You'll build a prayer life that survives month three
Three minutes, morning and evening. Not thirty-five minutes on day one and nothing by day four. A trellis, not a law — and no way to fail it.
You'll protect your marriage instead of straining it
An entire chapter on the spouse who isn't coming with you. What they're actually experiencing, the practical commitments to make, and the one rule that prevents most of the damage.
You'll have the hard conversations well
Your pastor. Your parents. Your friends. What to say, when to say it, and what it honestly costs — from a priest who has watched people do it.
You'll know it's normal when the fervor leaves
Somewhere in the second year the incense stops registering. Most converts read that as losing their faith. This book tells you the truth: it means you're becoming a normal Orthodox Christian, which is what you were always meant to become.
A word before you decide
I'm Not Going To Soften It For You
"This book is going to answer some questions you have been afraid to ask, and a few of the answers are going to be harder than you hoped. I am not going to soften Orthodoxy to make it easier to swallow. That would not be a kindness. You would find out eventually, and you would feel misled."
"But I am also not going to hand you a list of rules and dare you to keep them."
That balance — honest about the cost, gentle about the pace — is the whole reason this book exists.
Fr. Don Purdum
More than information
This Is Not Simply Another Theological Book
It is an invitation.
An invitation to recover a forgotten way of seeing Christianity — a Christianity filled with mystery, beauty, wonder, and Incarnation.
A faith that has been practiced without interruption for two thousand years, and that is still, right now, waiting on the other side of a door you have already been thinking about opening.
Read it slowly. There's no hurry. The Church has been here for two thousand years. She isn't going anywhere.
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Honest answers
Before You Buy Your Copy
I haven't even visited an Orthodox church yet. Is this too early?
No. It's arguably the best time. Part One tells you exactly what happens in the building: where to stand, what to do with your hands, what to wear, whether you can leave early. For a lot of people, the unknown is the obstacle. Removing it is what gets them through the door.
I'm Catholic / Protestant / not sure what I am. Will this be hostile to me?
No. There's a full chapter on exactly that question. It includes what Orthodoxy does and doesn't claim about other Christians, and what it means for the grandmother who raised you in another tradition. I also name "turning on your old church" as one of the seven convert traps, and warn you off it directly.
Which jurisdiction is this written for — Greek, Antiochian, OCA, ROCOR?
All of them, and none of them exclusively. The book opens by saying plainly that practices vary between jurisdictions, between parishes, and sometimes between one priest and the next. That's why the phrase "ask your priest" recurs throughout. This orients you; your priest gets you home.
Does it tell me what to do about my spouse?
There's a whole chapter on it: "When Your Spouse Isn't Coming With You." What they're actually experiencing, the practical commitments to make, what to do about the children, marriage in the Church, and the hard part nobody says out loud.
Is this a theology book?
Not primarily. There's plenty of theology in it — salvation, Tradition, the councils, theosis — but always answering a question a real person actually asked. There are already excellent books on Orthodox doctrine. This is the one about what happens next, at a more practical level.
How is it delivered?
Digitally, immediately after checkout as a PDF. You'll also receive an email. Read it on your phone, tablet, or computer, or print it. Appendix C is designed to be printed and carried into a conversation with a priest.
Do I have to read it in order?
No — and I say so on page one. If you skipped straight to the chapter on confession, I understand. Some people do. I ask only one thing: read it slowly. Take a chapter, sit with it, and let it work on you before moving to the next.
I've been Orthodox for years. Is there anything here for me?
Probably more than you'd expect — especially Parts Three and Four. But the people who get the most out of it are cradle Orthodox who hand it to someone they've been quietly praying for. It's written to be given away.
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