It’s a Gordian Knot. Don’t try to “untie” it. Just cut it. Cut through to essentials. You are yourself getting tied up in knots over peripheral issues.

Is there a longstanding prejudice in the Church against Origen? Sure. Is there, in certain quarters, an anti-intellectualism that likes to pillory Plato and the other “pagans”? Sure. But it would be the height of foolishness to let these historical accidents draw you away from the living Mysteries that the Church is able to offer you.

Plus, you’re not exactly alone. There are saints and respected hierarchs whose views on salvation are consistent with Origen’s. I’m thinking, for example, of St Gregory of Nyssa, who taught a version of the apokatastasis, and of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, who allows for the possible salvation even of Satan.

Do others in the Church disagree? Of course, but that needn’t concern you, for it’s clear, by virtue of these two examples, that one can be a fully Orthodox Christian while at the same time acknowledging, as St Ambrose said, that “truth, by whomsoever spoken, is of the Holy Spirit”.