[alexosnasos2]

This morning I walked into the my university's coffee shop. While I was ordering my muffin the person behind the counter noticed my necklace, which is the St. Andrew Cross. She asked me "So, is that necklace Catholoc or Pentecostal?" (Where she got Pentecostal from IDK). So I respond saying that it is the "Orthodox Cross." She kind of looked at me funny so I further said Orthodox "Christianity" and she says in response, "Is this something new?" I was shocked that she had never heard of Orthodox Christianity. I went on to bait her with "Have you heard of Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox." Still nothing! She asked if it was a "branch of some denomination like the baptists, methodists..." And I told her no, that we don't consider ourselves to be another denomination but the Church founded by Christ and the Apostles. She responds back, "Oh so your 'orthdox' Catholics, like orthodox Jews." At this point I was just like how do I make her see the difference. So I tell her no we are Christians who follow the Orthodox way and told her what "orthodox" meant. She finally says that she was raised Catholic (perfect place to start to get her to understand). I told her that Orthodox Christians and Catholics used to be a unified Church body until they split up; she thought this was the Luther Reformation, and told her no that it goes back further than that but didn't go into detail about it. So I got to explain how we are the original Church that has kept the Faith and Traditions of the Apostles and Church Fathers to this day. I gave an example of our Liturgy and how it hasn't been changed in so many "years" She really responded to that and said, "i like that. how you say you keep to the original teachings. I find that fascinating." I tried to talk more to her but another customer walked up so I had move out of the way but before I did she said hold on and told me to tell her one more time what "it" was called again. I told her to search Orthodox Christianity and she wrote it down on a piece of paper and said that she's going to "look more into this." This made me smile. I got to briefly spread the Orthodox Church over a muffin counter. I plan on going back on Monday to see if she read up on anything. This was my first time to talk to a complete stranger about the Orthodox Church. It felt really good.