The Rev. Ted Toppses says

Julia Ayres is one of three former ministers who now belong

to the Eastern Orthodox Church in Lewiston.
By Daniel Hartill
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – From the singing, preaching and “Praise the Lord” pleas of the Baptists to the pageantry of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Julia Ayres’ spiritual journey meandered through Christianity.

In 1999, the Texas-raised organist’s daughter became a full-fledged Baptist minister. She kept looking, though.

“I needed to know,” Ayres said. “What is truth? Where is truth? There was a part of me, spiritually, that was not being fed in the Baptist Church.”

So, she went about as far as one could go.

“I’m ordained as a Baptist, but I’m not a Baptist anymore,” she said.

On Saturday, Ayres became a member of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity in Lewiston. This week, she is celebrating her new church’s Holy Week, attending liturgies and other nightly observances.

“I feel like I came home,” the 38-year-old mother said, her voice drawling with a touch of Texas. “It’s been a long way.”

Ayres is one of three former ministers who now belong to the Lewiston church, said the Rev. Ted Toppses.

They seem drawn to the history and certainty that the Orthodox church offers, Toppses said.

Its policies tend to change little. Members trace the church’s creation and many of its traditions in an unbroken line for nearly 2,000 years.

Observances are known for chanting and Bible reading. There are no sermons, hymns or choirs. Icons hang on the walls and from the ceiling. Incense is burned.

“This is so rich,” Ayres told herself when she first attended an Orthodox service. “This is so deep. There was a peace that seemed to come to me.”

And it was so different.

As a girl in Texas, her mother played the organ in the Baptist Church. Ayres attended Sunday school.

“I really loved the Lord as I understood him,” she said.

As a teenager, she learned to approach people on the street in an effort to convert them. And as a young woman, she spent two years in the Israeli Gaza Strip, teaching first aid and biology to Palestinians as part of a Baptist-sponsored program.

Her work in Israel led her to want to become a chaplain. She hoped to be working with firefighters and paramedics. In Israel, she found her talent was not in converting people, but comforting them.

After her ordination, she tried becoming a chaplain. It didn’t work though. The jobs were too few and the money was too small.

Meanwhile, she kept her spiritual journey going. She kept her search going. She decided that the Baptist Church was too strict for her. There was too little room for mystery.

“There is no such thing as the perfect church,” Ayres said.

She searched for a better fit. She had questions. Other people can shrug and say they don’t know.

“What’s the meaning of all this?” she said. Unanswered questions dig “a dark, dark, bottomless chasm.”

She attended services at an Anglican church. She moved to Maine and began work as an education technician at Lewiston’s Longley Elementary School.

She discovered the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in the Yellow Pages. She met Toppses and peppered him with questions.

“I don’t understand a lot of stuff. I still have a lot of questions,” she said.

She hasn’t entirely forsaken her old ways. As a girl, her home was filled with religious music. Her mother has a doctorate in organ performance and a master’s degree from Julliard. Some hymns will remain close.

“I can’t give up ‘Amazing Grace,'” she said.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

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