Disclaimer: These are my personal views and do not represent any organization or professional advice.
Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:01:07 +0200
What I Believe
Coming from a Greek migrant background and raised in a multi-generational household, Greek Orthodox Christianity was always present in my life. It's not that my family was religious or by any means spiritual, Orthodoxy was simply one facet that made up someone's "Greekness" (along with being baptized and named after a saint, having a Greek surname, speaking Greek and of course, hating the Turks).
The only time I heard about "God" at home was when grandfather would cuss or curse as the Greek language is rife with colorful sayings about what to do with God, Jesus, Mary and the saints.
If you are Greek you are Greek Orthodox and if you are Greek Orthodox you must follow many traditions and customs which are strange and inexplicable.
You go to church on Sunday, light a candle, kiss the icons of the saints while doing your cross, listen to the priest sing in an archaic Greek no one understands, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, take the bread and wine if able, say a few hellos and go home.
There is a seemingly endless list of arbitrary fasting rules no one understands and everyone does differently. Eat fish on this day, no olive oil on this day (but olives are fine), no meat or fish for forty days before Easter (but shellfish is OK) and so on. In some years these days overlap leading to even more confusion. The actual purpose of fasting is reduced to simple, periodic changes in menu.
What I'm trying to say is this: you can be Greek Orthodox, take part in all the rituals, go to church every Sunday and yet at the same time, have no idea what is going on and no concept of God, Jesus' teachings or anything spiritual or metaphysical. You just go through some motions.
This was my experience growing up. All of it was strange and I never felt comfortable taking part. Worse, no one could explain anything to me as they didn't understand it either. To be Greek you had to do this stuff, and so you did it. As soon as I was old enough to take a stand, I stopped participating.
Having not been taught and with all the ritual gone, there was nothing left and for the next fifteen years or so, I stayed ignorant about God, the teachings of Jesus and the wisdom of the Bible. My worldview and way of thinking remained purely materialistic in nature and when I look back, quite pessimistic.
In an earlier post, I recounted how during a dark period in my life I found God and saved myself by reading the King James Bible cover to cover. Of course, this wasn't the only thing I read at this time. I read philosophy, history, the classics, poetry, etc. I read hundreds of books over the span of three years. I mentioned the Bible specifically because it stands apart in its impact on my life.
Going back to the Greek Orthodox religion for a moment: I realized upon finishing the Bible that nothing I experienced growing up was anywhere in the text. The strange rituals, weird fasting rules, saints, icons, the virgin Mary, the church institution and its hierarchy, the list goes on, all were nowhere to be found.
I chose the King James Version simply because I loved the archaic and poetic English it was written in and it was the translation most quoted and referenced in classical English literature.
It has been five years since I read it for the first time. In addition to English, I studied it in Modern Greek and Koine Greek (the language the New Testament is said to be written in). The focus of my study was the four gospels with an emphasis on the words attributed to Jesus.
If you look a little below the surface, it is quite obvious that the Bible is the work of man and not the infallible and divine word of God. As a collection of books written over centuries, each book has different authors, messages, intended audience and reason for being.
There are interpolated verses (most notably the long ending of Mark and the woman caught in adultery in John) and intentional mistranslations and changes to reflect specific theology.
It's also impossible to reconcile the two very different gods that are in the Old Testament and the New. The genocide, bloodshed and violence of the Old Testament are simply incompatible with the message of love and forgiveness in the New Testament.
The four gospels when read in order (Matthew, Mark, Luke, then John) appear to all be in agreement with one another. Only when the gospels are compared simultaneously is it plain to see the contradictions and different narratives each book is trying to project.
The Bible is also not to be taken entirely literally. It is quite obvious that alongside historical detail, creative liberty has been taken to make the narratives more mythical and legendary (King Herod killing all the male children below two years of age after the birth of Jesus in Matthew, to give an example).
While I don't see the Bible as the word of God and I can't call myself a Christian, I do maintain that truth, wisdom and the right way to live can be found within it. The words which resonated with me were the words of Jesus, and it was in Jesus' words I found God.
I came to understand that God is within all of us and we are all therefore God. My life is in my hands and my hands alone. I determine whether it is lived in heaven or in hell.
—Dylan Araps