My Story
Why Jonah?
On 11 April 2026, I was baptised Jonah in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The name was not chosen simply because I liked the story. Jonah spoke to something deeply personal in me.
I
Chapter I
The Chaplain
For thirteen years I served as a Protestant School Chaplain. I studied Theology at Theological College. I spent my working life helping pupils, families and communities.
I could speak about theology. I could talk about faith. I had the intellectual answers, and I was good at giving them.
II
Chapter II
The Pressure to Be Strong
I was expected to be strong. Strong for pupils. Strong for families. Strong for colleagues. Strong for everyone else.
Strength became a performance. And a performance is very difficult to stop once everyone has learned to depend on it.
III
Chapter III
The Divide
The pressure to appear perfect created a divide between the person others saw and the person I actually was.
Anger and lust plagued me. Destructive thoughts became patterns. Patterns became addictions. I was trying to manage the outside while losing control of what was happening inside.
I was trying to be the person who had the answers while privately struggling with the questions.
IV
Chapter IV
The Depths
Eventually, I lost my job. I lost my home.
Jonah went down into the depths. He found himself in darkness. He could not rescue himself. Eventually, he had to surrender.
V
Chapter V
The Dark Belly of the Beast
The depths became a place of confrontation. I had to face anger, lust, addictions, pride, self-seeking and greed.
I had to face the need to appear perfect, the desire to be needed, and the desire to control everything.
I had to confront the fact that I was not my own saviour.
VI
Chapter VI
Truth
In a modern secular environment there is constant pressure to soften difficult truths, to sugar-coat Christianity, to fragment the faith and to adapt Truth to modern expectations.
But Christianity did not begin with us. We did not invent it. We received it.
The question is not: how can I make Christianity fit comfortably into my life? The question becomes: how must I change my life to conform to the Truth?
Truth is not invented. It is discovered, received and handed on.
VII
Chapter VII
From Belief to Relationship
I began to realise there is a difference between believing in God and learning to live with God.
Christianity can become primarily an intellectual endeavour. You can study theology, read Scripture, understand doctrine and believe that God exists — and still struggle to know how to actually live with Him.
Orthodoxy revealed Christianity as a lived Way. Faith became relationship. Belief became practice. Knowledge became communion.
VIII
Chapter VIII
The Way
The practical life includes prayer, repentance, fasting, watchfulness, the struggle against the passions, the Holy Mysteries, humility, obedience and community.
It is not always comfortable. Sometimes the medicine that heals us is bitter. But it is a Way, and it can be walked — slowly, honestly, one day at a time.
The belly of the beast was not the end. It was the place where I began to turn back towards God.
There is a way out. There is a Way home.
Discover the Way