Do I cut off friends who are of a different religion? Please kindly read description

As my journey coming to Holy Orthodoxy continues, and I’ve been talking with a priest as much as I can, I stopped talking with my friends from my Protestant church as closely as I used to. Maybe it is for the better since some of them even though not all question my faith in a manner that I don’t like. And Orthodoxy still has a lot of differences from what I used to practice and what they still practice.

They were my only friends. Now I mainly spend time as friends with my roommates but recently I realized that maybe I need to cut them off. One of them is muslim; the other is agnostic. And me and the Muslim girl have had plenty of respectful conversation about God and faith and life where we agreed on a lot of things, and things we didn’t agree on we would just respectfully say “I don’t believe this” or “this is why I believe this”. But yesterday, during another discussion, she asked me what my view on a man having multiple wives was, then I kind of came to a conclusion that I shouldn’t be super close friends with her. It might seem like we both believe in God, but then stuff like this helped me see that her religion is still a completely different religion than Christianity.

And the agnostic girl doesn’t have strict moral values which is a dealbreaker for sure. And it’s her right of course. We do share a lot of laughs together but it makes it harder for me to stay pure in thought when we get together; and totally my fault if I ever slipped and sinned. It’s hard to always have to put a lot of effort mentally and spiritually to not slip and maybe having friends who you would have to do it but less with because you pursue the same goal would be better.

So do I just cut them off now? Should I?

I want to talk to the priest but I feel like I always have soooo many questions to him and should I burden him like that?

Pray for me to find Orthodox Christian girl friends!

Posted Mar 6, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

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