ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

Exarchate of Parishes of Russian
Tradition in Western Europe

WHY AM I ORTHODOX?

 Myfanwy Moran [nee Gwyn-Williams]

Doctor Nicolas Zernov once asked me this question and was mystified by my reply, which smacked more of a sort of Russian Roulette than serious theological reasons. He flatteringly thought I was intelligent. But I make decisions with another part of my nature.

My background largely formed me as it does others.

My family were devout Anglicans. My grandparents pillars of Calcutta Cathedral. I was born in India and lived outside a Hindu village in the Central Provinces, extremely dry and hot. My father ran a manganese mine. My brother was two years my senior, and after he was dumped in Britain to be educated, I was alone with no playmates. I was happy and connected with my surroundings.

The basic lesson I learned, which remained deeply embedded in my soul, was that God created every wonderful thing – and all human beings on rising had a bath and prayed in their way.

Both mummy and granny used to read the Bible accompanied by a pamphlet called “Living Waters.” Daily readings from the New and Old Testaments. Followed correctly one year covered the whole Bible. Granny, who was very old, virtually knew it by heart. My mother had absolute trust in the goodness of God. Before the sun got hot I walked with Ayah [my nurse] up the hill to her shrine of “Ganesh” where she prostrated herself and prayed whilst I hung outside, being “unclean.” Ganesh was the God of plenty much loved by the hungry poor.

Back in the cook house our Muslim cook prostrated on his prayer mat facing Mecca. I did not see any discrepancy in any of this. We all worshipped God and the rest of life was interesting but incidental.

India intruded on this paradise by slaying my father with cholera. He died a horrible and lonely death, as mummy and I had gone to visit granny in Calcutta. Travel was slow in those days.

Mummy then took me to Switzerland where we attended the local tabernacle where a Calvinist preacher thundered. Off stage the parson was mild mannered.

Next port of call was the Channel Islands. Mummy married again and my retired step father took us there where taxation was affordable.  She enrolled me in a French Catholic convent just around the corner. My mother, a good Protestant, was mistrustful but I refused to go any farther from her. I took no pleasure in schools but found the convent the most civilised.

I found myself loving everything and something inside myself sought some all embracing theology in which my pious Anglican mother, my faithful Hindu ayah, and my devout Catholic nun, could abide without confusion. I told this to the Moscow Patriarch, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, when he repeated Dr Zernov’s question and asked me “why I became Orthodox”? He also looked slightly mystified. Perhaps something got lost in the translation.

I was always church going and religious. But to commit – to which – Protestant and Catholic seemed like two parts of a whole that had been broken apart, thereby diminishing each, and losing the whole. Bad things happened in my life and brought matters to a head. 

I thought as an act of faith I would go to the Eastern churches and take their yoke upon me, being nearer the source. In my ignorance I knew nothing about them so it was a shot in the dark and putting my trust in God.

First I found my way to the Greek Orthodox Cathedral. No one answered my knock on the presbytery door. Being intensely shy I went away. Next a friend at work pointed me to the Serbian Orthodox church. I eventually got there and met the priest. For the first time in my life, I felt at home with the church and the man. He suggested that I should see the Russian Bishop, Anthony [Bloom], and also that it would be easier for me to be among the Russians as many more of them spoke English. So eventually that is where I came to rest.

How does one describe in words the movements of the soul? How I felt when I saw the great “Pantocrator” in the dome of the churches sheltering the whole world – nothing outside his embrace. Something as deep as time and as vast as the universe. True to Biblical truth and yet free in the sayings of the saints.

We know where the Holy Spirit is – we do not know where he is not.

Myfanwy Moran, Mrs.

London, U.K.

6 Sept 2007

Note by Jamie Moran: Myfanwy joined the Russian Orthodox church in 1961, received by Bishop Anthony.  She had been singing in the choir at the Cathedral in Ennismore Gardens since 1958 [she was asked to ‘make herself useful’ by joining the choir, having been a professional violinist, of the Russian school]. Her sponsor was a Russian nun living at the parish house, who gave her lessons in Russian. Myfanwy says these things she has tried to describe in this statement are all internal, and cannot be put into words; thus after writing this she felt terrible – but I, her husband Jamie, am forwarding her chosen words anyway.