Jonathan Jackson on Converting to Orthodox Christianity

We became instant friends because we had so much in common: we both love God and Jesus Christ, work in film and television, he's also an author, love music -- he performs and I listen, and we both recently converted to Christian Orthodoxy and love Church.
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Every year, I try to make a pilgrimage to Holy Mount Athos, in Greece. I love to visit monasteries and take time to practice silence, pray, study and consult with spiritual masters.

On a previous visit, Father Matthew, one of the monks at the Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi had mentioned that Jonathan Jackson, the musician and star of "Nashville" on ABC had thanked God and the monks of the Holy Mountain when he won a Daytime Emmy Award. The monks were very happy about that, and hoped that someday they would meet him. I wanted to as well.

This past spring, to my amazement, Jonathan Jackson was coincidentally due to arrive at Vatopaidi the next day after I had. The monk at the front gate mentioned that Jackson wanted to meet me, as he'd read "Mysteries of the Jesus Prayer" and seen my feature film! I was deeply honored, and couldn't wait to meet him as well.

We became instant friends because we had so much in common: we both love God and Jesus Christ, work in film and television, he's also an author, love music -- he performs and I listen, and we both recently converted to Christian Orthodoxy and love Church.

Jonathan and I decided it would be really cool to talk about how we love God, our work, and our conversion to Orthodox Christianity on film. We share that conversation with you, first in this one-minute clip, and in a half-hour version -- click here to watch it.

The monks are so happy that we shared our conversation with you - and especially for inviting Jonathan's eleven-year-old son, Caleb, to join in.

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