I am currently Roman Catholic and sort of in a spiritual down phase right now. I just have a lot of bad habits that get in the way of being holy. I started attending an adult catechism with the Greek Orthodox Church, but a couple of things have become stumbling blocks for me, namely,
1) The fasting rules in the Orthodox Church are incredibly severe from my perspective as a lapsed Catholic.
2) I'm unsure about whether I should be received into the Orthodox Church through Baptism or just Chrismation. The Mt Athos tradition is to baptise every convert. But that implies that my Catholic baptism was insufficient. Although I don't believe my Catholic baptism was not a real baptism, I am worried that I will not be accepted by all in the Orthodox communion if I do not become rebaptised, given that the authority of the monks of Mt Athos supports the more rigorist stance.
3) Orthodox confession is face to face, which makes it a bit more difficult to confess very private sins like masturbation, unlike the Catholic confessional tradition of maintaining anonymity using stalls. Do people in Orthodox Christianity confess masturbation? Or should I only confess watching pornography?
Would appreciate some encouragement and advice. Thanks user!