I was born in the Bronx on July 11, 1966. I was born one more time,
but this time of God, in July/Aug of 1995. The Lord told Nicodemus,
"Unless a man is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. That which is
born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
And so I was born of the flesh in 1966 but at the age of 29, I was born of
the Spirit. The process of being born again miraculously took place in my
once hard and stubborn heart in 1995. That was the year my whole life
changed for the better. I saw and felt a sweeping change in my lifestyle,
ideology, attitude, pattern of thinking and physical appearance but more
importantly the Gospel of Jesus Christ would become in me the starting point
and criterion of my every thought and action.
My 29 years of life before Christ began in Throggs Neck, a small area in the
Bronx, where I was born into a Greek Orthodox family. My mom,
originally from Kalymnos, Greece was a homemaker and my dad, originally from
Andros, Greece, was a well-known Greek nightclub singer frequently compared
to the likes of the renowned Stellio Kazantsidis. Unfortunately, all that
popularity and money did not help in keeping my parents together and so they
divorced when I was three and my older sister was six. We stayed with our
mom who shortly thereafter remarried. My dad, who I now talk to also
remarried and lives in Andros. My mom had three more children with my
stepfather who was a good and loving father
and by trade a furrier but was also a professor of Byzantine Music and held
the position of Chief Cantor of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. As you could
imagine, I grew up being instructed and taught in all the Greek Orthodox
religious traditions, and naturally, Byzantine music. From nine years old I
was by his side both in church and at certain night services he was called
to sing for throughout the metropolitan area, being the Archbishop's
personal cantor. One can only imagine the recognition, name and pride
he and I received alongside the Archbishop and other Greek dignitaries at
various religious functions, holidays and even televised Easter services on
CBS. In June of 1981 he died when I was 14 and left my mom a widow
with five children; ages ranging from 17 to 2. The fame, acclaim and
pride he had received did nothing to help the grave situation our family was
suddenly found in. The Lord alone be
praised who gave my mother and us the necessary relief, strength and resolve
to weather the forthcoming storm.
Difficult years passed, and so while attending High School in the Bronx I
worked part-time in the afternoons as a furrier in Manhattan in this way
assisting in our family's financial situation. However, in my last years of
High School I started to live a different life than the one I had led to
that point. It was time to get even for all the years of ridicule and
bullying I tolerated in school and for the unfair circumstances of my life.
Bullying is not easy to define and is often misunderstood. Sometimes it
involves hitting or kicking. But threats, teasing, and taunting are more
common and can be more damaging. In a nutshell, that was the story of
my school life. So the adversary of our soul finding opportunity took me on
full force and I became a bad-tempered, revengeful rebel doing things for
which I am now ashamed of and rather not mention. Smoking cigarettes and
marijuana a lot, sniffing cocaine, taking hallucinogenic drugs, splurging in
nightclubs, drinking till dawn, wearing leather pants, spiked
belts/bracelets, dyeing my hair and listening to rock music was only the
beginning. I had also become a good liar with a filthy mouth, an
explosive temper and a short fuse.
Alongside this sinful and unspeakable lifestyle, come Sunday morning I was
the apple of my mother's eye and the singing jewel of the church. Having my
late stepfather's expertise and my natural father's voice along with the
help of organized religion, I quickly moved up the ranks no longer as a
cantor's helper but now as First Cantor. The church paid me well
($1,000/month) for a couple hours of Byzantine singing. Now in Christ and my
eyes having been opened, I see how through fulfilling my religious duties
and serving the church I was justifying a well-disguised sinful and unhappy
life. However much of a hypocrite I was, the Lord, who is rich in mercy,
blessed me at 23 years of age (1989) with a beautiful prudent wife and now
loving mother to our four wonderful children. My sinful life, however,
continued and took on new forms. The drugs had stopped accept for the
several get-togethers I had with old friends. From a good liar I had
become a very crafty liar. I was unfaithful to my wife before and after
marriage and fell more and more into sin. My Sunday church singing, on the
other hand, progressed very, very nicely. The prior night, however, I was a
son of darkness, living up the nightlife frequenting the Greek nightclubs in
Astoria serving and fulfilling the desires of my flesh while my wife and two
children were home waiting for me to be a trusting husband and caring father
to them thinking I was at choir rehearsal.
This is how my empty life continued until July of 1995. It was that
prior year, by the grace of God, my younger sister, Theodosia, was born
again. When I found out, I was thunderstruck. She had finally gone mad;
they've brainwashed her, I thought. What could drive someone to deny
their religion I asked myself? My mother was also very shocked. Not
because she had left the Orthodox Church but because her daughter had
suddenly changed. The nightlife, smoking, cursing and immodest lifestyle all
just stopped and she started reading the Bible. However, I was not happy for
her, as I ought to have been seeing how and in what manner her life had
changed, but instead was enraged by it, to the point where I would ridicule
her, insult her and curse at her over the phone. My mother on the other hand
could not deny the startling facts and began inquiring of the Lord and
looking into the things of God for herself. When I got wind of that, I
called my mother and had her over the house that same day for several hours
with my younger sister who had also started reading the Bible. By the time I
was done with them they were crying and left convinced that Orthodoxy was
the true religion and to never go back to that church. But God had a
different plan. A few months went by, and we learned that my sister was now
going to get married to someone from that church. And so they married in
July of '95 and several days after the wedding, I had them over for dinner.
As it turned out, I opened the conversation about the things of God and
religion with my new brother-in-law. That night was the beginning of a
new life for my family and me. That was the unforgettable day the Word of
God, the Bible, was opened in my home for the FIRST time to be read and
accepted, and I emphasize the word "accepted", as it is in truth God's Word.
Indeed, God's saving grace reached even me in the wretched sinful state I
was in where my sin and hypocrisy abounded. However, the Word of God says,
"But where sin abounded, GRACE did much more abound." My wife and I started
reading the Bible every day absorbing it like a bone-dry sponge to water.
I remember clearly how the topic of the Rapture of the church had astonished
us. A spectacular event that the Lord will perform in these last days that
we had never heard of or read about yet it is written so clearly in the Bible; the Bible we had sitting on a shelf
collecting dust or shoved into some draw that was now beginning to enter our
heart - the place the Lord intended it to be.
We were experiencing the birth of Christ in the manger of our hearts. We
continued reading and reading, and day after day the Lord would reveal His
word to us. We asked many, many questions and to our surprise we found
every answer in the Bible. But most of all, I started to feel my sins
pressing on me like never before. Through the years, I had stitched
upon my back an unbearable sack of sins whose weight was bringing me lower
than the grave. And though I was in the Orthodox Church weekly, I didn't
know how I could be freed from that weight. I sought the help of
priests/bishops but nothing helped. I desperately needed a second chance. I
needed that guilt to go away. I had messed up my life real good.
That's when we read about Christ's command for every one who believes in
Him: to get baptized in water for the remission of sins. That is the one and
only purpose of baptism. We never knew that. How could we? No one ever told
us. In fact, it was never even mentioned since we had already been baptized
when we were just babies at a time we had absolutely no need of baptism.
My wife and I had long talks about how "we" have a need of baptism; for the
forgiveness of our sins, so that we may be able to enter the kingdom of
heaven. Now it all started to make sense. The reason why Jesus Christ
left His portals of glory and came into this world; why He was crucified;
why He resurrected; why He left us His Word
and why He baptizes in the Holy Spirit. It wasn't as we once thought
so that we could celebrate Christmas with Santa Claus and celebrate Easter
by roasting lambs and cracking red-dyed eggs according to Greek tradition,
or with the Easter bunny as in America. But He came into this world to seek
and save the lost and call sinners, like myself, to repentance and in place
of death give them eternal life. And so, obeying Christ's command, my wife
and I, first "repented". Baptism without repentance is like a railroad
coach without the locomotive: it cannot and does not take you anywhere. And
so, on our own, willingly, and testifying for ourselves, and most
importantly having first repented, were baptized in the water on August 19,
1995 not to receive a name, as Orthodox tradition holds, but for the
forgiveness of our many atrocious sins.
I finally felt that sack being lifted from upon me as I came up out of the
water. I came up out of the water a new creation, to live now a new life,
with new ideas, new horizons, new promises and no longer living in sin; I
came up forgiven. The Lord granted me that second chance I yearned for and
delivered me from eternal condemnation. Being dead in my trespasses
and sins He made me alive by clearing the debt I owed, wiping away my sins
and burying, through baptism, the old Ted with all his passions, lusts and
sins. I was born again.
And so, with Christ as our leader and His Word a "lamp unto my feet, and a
light unto my path," we now live a life seeing and enjoying the blessings of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. My life was never this blessed,
never this organized, never this clean, never this secure and never this
happy. I'm now praying for the baptism in the Holy Spirit as my wife and two
older sons have already received, and together with my third baby son and
baby daughter and all those who love Jesus, we are all earnestly awaiting
and preparing ourselves for the Rapture of the church for the Lord commands:
"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the
Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
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