Spirituality | Orthodoxy

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ONE GOD. AMEN.
Our theme for this convention is about the Bread of Life that’s our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself to us through the Eucharist and when we attend the liturgy we participate in taking this bread of life. Then we are going to enter into union with Christ.

These are the three topics:

1st - The Eucharist

2nd - The Liturgy

3rd - The Communion

Concerning the Eucharist, actually the
Eucharist gives me four gifts and puts on my shoulder three responsibilities.
How many gifts? – four.

1 - Through Eucharist I will be abiding in the Lord.

2 - Through Eucharist I can take the intercessions of the saints.

3 - Through the Eucharist I’ll become a member in the body of the
Lord – that’s the church.

4 - And through the Eucharist I am going to be
saved – salvation.

These four gifts are the gifts of the
Eucharist.

Unified with the Lord.

Communion with the Saints - asking their intercessions.

A member in the body of Christ united to the believers around me.

Saved by the blood of the
Lord by the sacrifice of the Lord.

But these gifts are not without responsibilities.
These responsibilities can be:

1 - Spiritual strife. As mentioned in the Bible, examine yourself. One must
examine himself before taking from the Eucharist.

2 - Service inside the church.

3 - Witnessing outside the church.

These are the gifts and the responsibilities
of the Eucharist.

And we need to contemplate upon these seven
points.

(1) Abiding in Christ:

The Eucharist gives me the top of knowledge of
knowing Christ. Why? Because we start by knowing Christ by intellect first and
then after knowing something about Christ we start to have an affectionate
relation through our hearts our prayers our communication with God Jesus
Christ. But this is not sufficient. We go deeper in our knowledge of Christ in
having experiences in our every day life different situations of life. I
experience the Lord in my everyday life. Difficult situations and this is the
knowledge out of experience not intellect and not emotions but experience.

But the talk is coming when in the Eucharist I
am uniting myself with the Lord and this is the top of knowledge - maximum
because I am going to know Jesus Christ from his inside and he will know me
from my inside. We are going to be one. Because he said “Whoever eats my
body and drinks my blood will abide in me and I in
him”. This is the top of knowledge this knowledge out of union. First
it’s just intellect - data. Yeh, there is one
God, this God trion and the trion
God is having Father Son and the Holy Spirit and the Son is the infinite wisdom
and he is the law. He is the second person in Gods head and then he was
incarnated and became man and was crucified on my behalf in order to class=SpellE>fulfil the penalty of death instead of me and to shed His
blood in order to cleanse me by His blood. There is in the Old Testament a
saying without shedding blood no remission of sins and then He died and then He
was resurrected, He ascended to heaven, sent the Holy Spirit and founded the
church. Data. Just information, this is the
informative Christianity. Its good, sure, because
without this data I’m not going to have the proper faith in Christ.
Therefore it’s the intellectual level of knowledge.

Then I move deeper to have the affectionate
knowledge. I start to speak with Jesus Christ my Lord. I start to love Him, to
feel His love, to be in touch with Him day and night, to speak with Him, to
listen to His voice in the gospel. And to listen to His voice
inside myself speaking in my heart. I’m going to love Him.
I’m going to sing hymns for Him. Because there is now
affectionate knowledge not only intellectual.

Not yet there is a third level,
that is the experiential knowledge. It is different because I had many
difficult situations in my life. I asked the Lord to be with me and He was with
me and He got me out of this difficult situation and He transformed the curse
to be a blessing, the darkness to be light, the
enslavement to be liberty. He gave me a lot of spiritual gifts. Now I
experience the Lord in my everyday life, in different situations of life. He is
not God in the highest. He is not God in my heart. He is God in my conduct and
my behaviour and situations of life experiences. I
was entering an exam and I felt his presence. I was attacked by certain sin and
I felt that he could get me out of it. I was enslaved by smoking, by anything
else, by sensual types of lust and love and so on but now he liberated me. I
was sad in a certain situation when I prayed He gave me condolences and peace.
This experience is not yet finished now in Eucharist I have the Lord Himself
inside me. I am no more just a human being. I am a divine human being because I
have the Lord inside of me. God is residing inside of me. The unlimited came to
the limited the infinite came to the finite and therefore I feel that I am
enjoying something super-transcendent something I cannot imagine
–unbelievable. This word that you always say when you
are surprised – something unbelievable. Yes, this unbelievable is
now believable. And not only to be just belief but to be
practiced and to be felt. To have the Lord inside of
us Jesus Christ inside us. He will change my life. He will give me, so
to speak a super power. To be supernatural, why can you say no to sin. class=GramE>Because you are supernatural through Jesus Christ residing inside
of you not through yourself. And this is Eucharist. Eucharist simply
makes the limited person having unlimited capacities through Jesus Christ
residing inside of me. Therefore this is the first gift that I can take through
Eucharist and through our beloved Lord Jesus Christ. He was not incarnated just
to live inside St Mary for nine months and He leaves us - No. He was not
incarnated unifying Himself to a human nature and then He leaves the human
nature before ascending to heaven – No. He didn’t ascend to heaven
by His divinity without His humanity, He took His
humanity with Him. Now it’s a union once and forever between humanity and
divinity. Yes, in Jesus Christ its another type of
union but we are enjoying a spark, a power, an energy out of this union. And
you know that Jesus when he resurrected from the dead he said to Mary Magdalene
I am going to my Father who is your Father. My God who is your class=GramE>God. He is trying to say that I am one with the Father. The
divinity and humanity in Jesus Christ – the union differs because He is
through His body the fullness of divinity is dwelling. But we are not gods, we
are still human beings. He is the Son of God by nature. I am the son of God by
adoption. Much more different isn’t it? Not the same blood is it? Even in
everyday life when someone is adopted it’s different to someone who is
from the same nature or same body of the dad and the mum. And therefore, yes,
we are unified to the God, but, a big but, we are still human beings and
it’s much different to being the Son of God capital ‘S’ and
the son of God small ‘s’. Capital ‘S’ that is Jesus
Christ being one with the Father one of the Holy Trinity. United humanity and
divinity, fullness of divinity and to be the son small
‘s’ a type of adoption. He adopted us, He got us from the
garbage and He put us on the chairs. Therefore, this is the first gift that we
have in our Lord Jesus Christ – abiding in the Lord. Imagine class=GramE>, I can’t leave this point so I will leave it for you
to contemplate upon. You are going to have divinity inside of you. You
can’t say I am weak. Weak why when God is inside of you? I am enslaved.
Enslaved why when God is inside of you and He is the liberator and He can set
you free. You can’t say I am sad when you have all the peace inside of
you – the Prince of Peace. I am puzzled, why? You have the light of the
world inside of you. Yes we are in different situations having these feelings
but quickly we go to the Lord, we take the Holy Communion, we enjoy the
presence of the Lord inside us. Then all these problems are going to vanish and
disappear even if more and more are coming on the road I am sure, through Jesus
Christ, I can defeat that world, the world at large.

Abiding in the Lord.

(2) Intercessions of the Saints:

This is something that also gives you class=SpellE>honour privilege and power. You are not one you are many
because all the saints are with you. Watching your struggle.
Exactly like what was ok near the gymnasium in the days of persecution when
they started to throw the Christians and then they opened the dens of the lions
and the lions come out and start to eat the Christians something class=SpellE>agonising and the pagans in the stadium are clapping. Happy
because the Christians are killed and sacrificed by the lions. Lions here are a
symbol of Satan. And the Christians are struggling with Satan. And Satan is
trying to overcome us. But don’t be afraid because thousands of saints
are in the stadium and heaven itself is looking upon you caring for you.
It’s the cloud of witnesses as mentioned in the Bible. They are witnesses
watching us. Not watching us passively, encouraging us, praying for us,
interceding on our behalf in order to defeat the lion that is Satan. Satan lost
his power through Jesus Christ don’t forget that you are not only under
the supervision and watching and support of the saints but you have Jesus
inside of you. Therefore, St Ignatius the Theophorus
said when the lions are hesitant to eat me I will tease it in order to let it
eat me. He was ready and he said I want to be a bread
for the Lord. They were ready to die simply because they know that after this
there is eternity and in Jesus Christ we have not only this life with God but
eternity. And he said “whoever eats my body and drinks my blood will have
eternal life and I will resurrect him from the dead”. Therefore, you have
a lot of witnesses watching and supporting and interceding and praying. Take
care the clouds are high but near. The clouds are really outside the globe but
very close. That’s why with the aeroplane we go
above the clouds. And even The World Trade Centre and Empire
State Building
has something metal that plays with the clouds. The clouds are separated but
near. The saints also went above to heaven but they are very close to us. The
clouds are always white and the saints are holy and white. The clouds are
always giving rains and the saints are giving blessings to us and therefore we
are living in this cloud of saints. Even church makes the heavens above and the
stars are a blue colour and Jesus Christ is embracing
the whole universe therefore evangelists and you find the Saints are all over
all around the church. Come in touch with the saints ask for their
intercessions. I remember once I had a serious problem in my life something
related to my future life. Why didn’t I ask St Mary to take care of it?
St Mary is so calm, it took one month and two and three and nothing was solved,
the problem was more complicated. So I came before her icon and said to her how
come you have left me and you must interfere and so on. Now while I was coming
outside the church I found the icon of St George. When I saw St George I went
to speak to him but then I got embarrassed from St Mary. I said how class=GramE>can you let me speak to someone else, I will not speak to
him. The next day she made like a miracle in my life, really. The Saints are
very close and very near and they love us from the bottom of their hearts. And
that is why in the liturgy you find the deacon telling us that there are saints
with us and angels and look to the east and you will find the Cherubim and
Seraphim. And Abouna when he is finished he lets the
angel go the angel of sacrifice remember us in front of the Lord. Actually
heavens came to earth and there is some sort of unity between heaven and earth
through the Eucharist.

(3) Members in the Body of the Lord:

You feel that you have become a member in the
body of Christ. As mentioned in Corinthians 1:10
that we drink from one cup and eat from one bread. And
when we pray only on one bread. I prayed with another
Orthodox churches and I found them putting three or four breads and prayed on
it because they say there are a lot of people and you find there bread is very
small. We would never do this. We say it has to be one bread
so that we can all be one in Christ. Now this oneness in Christ gives you the
support all the believers around you are praying for you and supporting you and
serving you and loving you, caring for you sharing everything with you. class=GramE>This feeling of oneness in the church. Yes we are different
but we are homogenous. Each member or organ in the human body has a different
function, different structure. But this difference is not division. It’s
just different tasks for the benefit of the body at large. And therefore we
live this oneness in the Lord. Yes I am different from you, we have different
gifts, different personalities and despite that we are one in Christ. And this
difference gives some sort of richness, variety. If we are all one organ
repeated we can not form a body as St Paul
said. If we are all hands, hands, hands, we can not form a body. If we are all
eyes, eyes, eyes this does not make a body. There must be eyes, ears, nose and
so on. And therefore we differ but we are homogenous. We have the same goal and
always this oneness comes through something that the fathers taught us. They
say if this is A and this is B and this is C as long
as we are on the circumference we are separated from each other. To get these
three balls for example closer let A come towards the
centre B move towards the centre, C move towards the centre. As long as we are
moving towards the centre we are going to be close, close, close
and in the centre only we are going to be unified in Christ. This can be the
husband this can be the wife this can be the kids. Really, they can be the
churches they can be the members of any congregation or any committee. When we
have one goal that is our Lord Jesus Christ then we are going to be unified and
we are going to become one in Christ.

(4) Salvation:

Now, the last gift is Salvation. And its
something you hear in every liturgy. After Abouna finishes
the mass he lifts the plate / tray with the body of the Lord and says given for
us for Salvation, remission of sins and eternal life to those who partake from
it. Salvation, because this is the blood of the Lord.
Look, the blood of the Lord that we take through the Eucharist saves us how?

1. The blood forgives the past – it’s
in the Bible, without shedding blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

2. It purifies the present. The blood of Jesus purifies us from every sin.
It purifies us now.

3. Sanctifies the future. Jesus to sanctify us suffered the pains outside
the doors of Jerusalem.

4. Gives God to abide in me and I in him. Now I am
going to be stable in Christ.

5. Gives me eternal life.

What else can give us these five gifts other than the blood of Jesus
Christ?

Lets say them again.

1. Forgives the past

2. Purifies the present

3. Sanctifies the future, these are verses from the Bible.

4. Abide in me and abide in Him

5. Gives me eternal
life – and this is the salvation.

Yes, it’s very good to have all these
gifts from the Eucharist but no gift is without responsibility. No pain without
a gain and also no gain without pain. But the pain here is lovely because you
are going to have a lot of gains out of this.

(1) Spiritual Strife:

If you want to enjoy the blessings of the
Eucharist you have to have some spiritual struggle & strife. Look His
Holiness Pope Shenouda says “who is the
spiritual person? He is the one whose body is controlled by his spirit and his
spirit is controlled by the Holy Spirit. Again? Who is
the spiritual person? The one whose body is controlled by his
spirit - the human spirit. And his spirit is controlled by the Holy
Spirit. There is much difference between the human spirit and the Holy Spirit.
The human spirit is limited or unlimited? Limited. class=GramE>Sinful or not sinful? Sinful, it can sin. And therefore
despite we start by saying the body is controlled by the spirit but this spirit
needs the Holy Spirit to control us. And this is our spiritual strive. You are
all the time struggling against your body, your lust, your
senses. Against those sins that are in this world. And this struggle is
supported by your spirit belonging to what and your spirit is supported by the
Holy Spirit who can purify you and give you the power for self control. They
always put labels saying “Say NO to drugs” They are saying NO how?
Say NO to smoking or to what… etc. Abstain from sexual immoralities. I
remember I was on a craft with Anba Thomas and while
we were on the airplane I was sitting with Anba
Thomas and a third person in the third seat. He was holding a newspaper. The
big heading of the newspaper, Anba Thomas pointed it
out to me and said “look at the heading of the newspaper” –
the main headline. So I looked and found it was had written ‘The Only
Protection from HIV is abstinence’. The ONLY protection – they are
not tricking them by saying ‘safe sex’ no. There is no such thing
as safe sex. They say don’t hang your life on a piece of rubber. Really,
they say that to them in America
now. And they say instead of safe sex, save sex. But how, take abstain,
I’m weak. Yes, you are weak but God is strong. If you have the Holy
Spirit then you will be successful in your spiritual strive. You are going to
nourish yourself spiritually, you are going to confess whenever you sin, you
are going to try not to sin again, you are going to nourish yourself through
the Bible through the church sacraments, through the church meetings, the
church and spiritual readings and so on. You are going to nourish yourself
spiritually in order to be fit for having the Lord living inside you. Therefore
this is one of the responsibilities that we have. Spiritual strive.

(2) Service:

It is a responsibility being a member in the
body you have to be serving. No member without function except the so called in
our body – the appendix. The appendix in the past had a function. It was
digesting the cellulous when we were vegetarians. After we started eating meat
and entered the crowd and the cholesterol and these things that was it all
these things began to shrink, shrink, shrink disuse atrophy so it became a
little thing whenever the surgeon can get access to it even if it is not
inflamed he will remove it as it has no use. It’s an appendix without a
function. So you are not an appendix, you are a member. Being a member in the
body of Christ you have something to do. You may preach, you may teach, you may
serve the poor, you may serve the sick people, you may take care of certain
cases, you may educate the children, a lot of functions.
I leave you to read Romans 12 to find twelve functions there. Twelve services
in Romans 12. These are services inside the church. Don’t say I am not a
servant, you can be a servant. The church is full of service and you have to be
an active member, a working member, a giving one – this is responsibility
number two. I can’t be a passive one who enters and prays and has
communion and goes home, I don’t speak to anyone and don’t want
problems. You are very passive – you have to do something in the church and
we can select for you a special type of service. And you can discover a type of
service to participate in. And that is why the second responsibility of
Eucharist is service.

(3) Witnessing:

Last is witnessing. We are not going to
isolate you from society. This is very wrong. You have to witness for the Lord
in society. And as you listen to the liturgy you hear the priest saying for
every time you eat this bread and drink this… you what proclaim –
what does proclaim mean (te basharoony
be mawty) you proclaim my death so you are not
telling Jesus Christ to the Christians and the believers they already know it
but you are proclaiming the death of Christ to those who are around you. They
ask you what is this and why did He die and you start to speak about the
redemption and how God became man in order to redeem us and also to dwell
inside us and to teach us and therefore we are proud of Jesus Christ God
incarnate because God became near to us and now He is ready to be inside us
through the Eucharist. You proclaim my death and confess my resurrection and
remember me till I come therefore I have something to tell the world. Therefore
we are longing to have many people to become Christian. The world now is in bad
need of Christ and Christ is waiting for everybody to work with Him in building
the kingdom of God
and preparing humanity for the second advent of Christ. You have a role inside
the church service outside the church is witnessing for the Lord by your deeds
by your model. Look if you have some concentration very quickly we are having
six analogies for the believer and his role in the world and in society. One,
He said you are the light of the church. Did He say the salt of the church? class=GramE>Or the salt of the earth – all the earth. Number three
He said you are the ambassadors of Christ another time He told us you are the
aroma, which means you are the flavour you are the
perfume. Another time He said you are the message read by all people –
message. And another time He said you are like the yeast or the leaven in the
dough. What’s the difference between the leaven and the dough? Leaven has
the bacteria. Like when I was in the monastery making the class=SpellE>korban they gave us the leaven to activate it in some warm
water. So we would put it in boiling water. Straight away the bacteria
would die. I can’t see if it has died or not. It is something which is
microscopic so we then put the yeast in the dough and leave it for a few hours
and when we return we find the dough as it is because the bacteria is gone. You
have life inside as Jesus Christ for me to live as Christ He is my life. If you
are a living Christian, if you have life inside you, Christ inside you, then
you are going to witness for the Lord all the people around you will see the
light of the Lord shining through you and they are going to glorify God.

QUESTIONS &
COMMENTS:

Sayedna style='color:#FFCC00'> when you said that the Spiritual Person is controlled by
his spirit and this spirit is controlled by the Holy Spirit you said that the
persons spirit is limited it can sin – the human spirit so this is not
the verse that says “the born of God does not sin”?

You put here “Born of God”. So you
have put who here now body and human spirit and plus who? Plus
God. As long as God is inside me I don’t sin. But, a big But, God
is not always inside of me. I sometimes say to God close your eyes for a bit I
want to commit this sin and I have my free will or not? I have my free will
even in baptism after we baptize a baby and he is born of Christ he received
the second birth. Does this mean that sin was cancelled inside of class=GramE>him. No. The old nature is still inside him but in a very
limited way. And the new man in Christ was created in him. Now, day after day,
year after year according to his free will he will get either the old nature to
flourish and suppress the new or the new to flourish and suppress the old
therefore it’s the struggle still working God is inside us but we have
our free will still. Therefore we may commit sins. But after I commit sin I go
back to the Lord and repent.

Sayedna style='color:#FFCC00'> could you please give us a brief history of the recent
history of the ecumenical movement for people who are interested in ecumenical
issues or ecumenical affairs, do you advise us to have combined activities with
other Christian denominations or what is your advise
on that?

Leave this question for a while if there are
any questions about the Eucharist and don’t forget this question.

Sayedna style='color:#FFCC00'> in regards to the Eucharist is there any precautions
because the tradition in style='color:#FFCC00'>Egypt style='color:#FFCC00'> after taking the communion there are some precautions?

Yes there are precautions mainly are spiritual
in order not to commit any sin after having communion because I have a blessing
inside of me a power inside me take care of sins this is number one. Number
two, the church in order to remind you all the time that you took a blessing
you took a gift you took God Himself we say don’t walk bare foot or you
may bleed and if you bleed this is not good because you must try to preserve
the blood inside, but if it happens accidentally then its no problem because
imagine after we pray on the baptistery the water for the baptistery has the class=SpellE>mayroon. There is a prayer that abouna
prays so the water can return as it was. So God can take care of himself its no
problem. But it is a matter of keeping you alert. Don’t take a bath,
don’t swim please remember that you took the body of Christ. Something
like that, it’s a matter of giving you the opportunity to concentrate on
the gift that you took. But it should not be taken too literally but it is good
to be committed to this. They say don’t take out the pip from your mouth,
why remember that you took the body of the Lord. So be cautious but at the sane
time more important than these materialistic things is to be cautious
spiritually. You can let bad words come out of your mouth that is more
dangerous than the pips.

Sayedna style='color:#FFCC00'> we know that baptism is death and resurrection with the
Lord so why our old nature didn’t die completely and vanish?

I just mentioned if our old nature could
disappear and vanish completely then I lost my free will. Right?
I have created a puppet. It comes out and never does wrong. You ask him does he
love Christ and he says I can’t love anyone else. So commit a sin and he
says he cannot. Do you wish you could? I haven’t my free will. Are you
going to the Lord by your own decision. class=GramE>My decision why, He is the one who has made me like this. I
am going to lose my free will. God is giving you both the old and the new.
Leaving the old suppressing it by baptism and creating the human side after
that either you flourish the new and get it to be prevalent and the old you are
all the time suppressing it or reverse it is up to you to decide.

Sayedna style='color:#FFCC00'> a lot of times we hear we died with Christ on the cross
and actually when we partake of the communion we are in the body and the blood
I was wondering if you can explain that?

That’s in the body of Christ, it’s
a good phrase it means that we are going to be members in the body of Christ
because this is the body of Christ. The korban becomes
the body of Christ therefore, it is right to say we became part of this class=SpellE>korbana and this korbana now is
inside us unified with us. So I think this is right we are going to be parts
inside the body of Christ and the body of Christ will be inside all of us.
Therefore, it is a matter of union so simply we are united together. We were
united together and we became members in the body of Christ that is this class=SpellE>korbana is now the body of Christ.

Sayedna style='color:#FFCC00'> with the point on membership and the circle that your
grace drew you said that there could be three different parties we could have
father, mother and children or the church and the congregation and we’re
all moving to the same goal to be unified in Christ what if one party
isn’t, how do you get the other parties to have the same goals as you?

I’ll draw another triangle like that.
Look this is Jesus Christ and husband and wife. There is love tracing from
Jesus to the husband and from the husband to Jesus. From
Jesus to the wife and from the wife to Jesus. Then it will pass from the
husband to to wife and from the wife to the husband.
Now let me break this. The husband lost his relation with God what will occur?
The base of the triangle will drop down but not yet broken because still the
wife is in good relation with Jesus now if this link is broken then this house
will fall down. Therefore, if one of the two partners is sticking to the Lord
the house will still be in tact. Yes, it’s agitating and it’s
suffering but still in tact. If the two lost their relation with Jesus Christ
then this house will fall down. That’s why we ask one of the two partners
to be patient and to always try to be in touch with the Lord and to pray and to
wait in some sort of durability otherwise this house will fall down. And that is
what happens, you find the house fell down because the two partners…I was
reconciling a couple in which the wife was totally dependant on her mother. The
father of the son told the mother to let the problem move on. Let the children
reconcile and to stop listening to the devil. The mother said Satan is here and
here and started to kiss Satan. We couldn’t reconcile the children until
after the death of the mother. So anyone having no relation with God will class=SpellE>destabilise the home. If the two partners are leaving God
it’s finished.

Sayedna style='color:#FFCC00'> could you please give us a brief history of the recent
history of the ecumenical movement for people who are interested in ecumenical
issues or ecumenical affairs, do you advise us to have combined activities with
other Christian denominations or what is your advice on that?

We are in an era now called the era of
ecumenicalism where we have relations of love between the Christians all over
the world and we have ecumenical bodies and we as the Coptic church
are members in these ecumenical bodies. We are members in the World Council of
Churches and His Holiness was one of the presidents for seven years for the
World Council of Churches. We are members in the Middle East
Council of Churches and His Holiness is still one of the four presidents of
this Middle East Council. We are members in the All Africa
Council of Churches. I know that you are members in the Australian and the
American and the Canadian Council’s of Churches. Sure it is very good to
be in love with the Christians all over but in love we are one, in faith and
doctrines we differ. Therefore, we are starting dialogues. In the days of His
Holiness Pope Shenouda we are in dialogue with most
of the Christians all over the Christendom. We are in dialogue with the
Catholic Church many years ago. In dialogue with the Greek Orthodox and the
family of the Orthodox with the Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, the reformed
churches, with the Swedish churches, the Norwegian churches we are in dialogue
with all the churches of the world. But this dialogue means love and then
concerning faith we start to negotiate and discuss the differences and tell
them what our belief is on each issue. We reached some good achievements with
the fifteen churches of the Greek we reached an agreed statement we are signing
it now. After that we and the Greek are going to be one. With the Catholic we
reached to and agreement concerning Christology of Christ. We studied purgatory
and we studied the procession of the Holy Spirit and actually our doctrines are
very precise because they are straight forward and biblical and patristic. And
therefore we benefit for sure by giving our Orthodox view to these beloved
brothers and sisters and they are starting to appreciate it and then weigh it
and as I notice they start to neglect these negative things. They have stopped
talking about purgatory now. I was speaking with one of my Catholic friends
called Anba Youhanna while
we were in dialogue about purgatory we went out to eat and we were arguing with
love about purgatory which is against redemption and against the bible. So I
said to Sayedna when you go to console someone who
has lost somebody do you tell them that there beloved one has gone to be burnt
in purgatory is that a comfort to them? He said Anba class=SpellE>Moussa I don’t bring up that topic be quiet. Yes they
start to neglect purgatory because it is anti-biblical. So that is a good
achievement alone. With all other denominations we are in dialogue class=GramE>its therefore love and we have an ecumenical youth committee
in Egypt they participate
together in anything that are not doctrinal. Just the love some hymns and so on
to express the Christianity is one religion but we differ afterwards in other
doctrines and we come into dialogue with them concerning this. And that is why
we encourage the ecumenical thing but we are not ready to move from one
denomination to the other we must stick to our church and our doctrines because
they are very correct.

Our church
believes in one baptism but how come when someone joins our church they are class=SpellE>rebaptised?

It’s not rebaptism we believe in one
baptism. We say that the baptism was done under certain circumstances
that is the mutual anathemas. You know the anathema that is the
ex-communication and the two churches are ex-communicating each other in
history. Now these anathemas are to be lifted. Even with the Greek we had
anathemas but we started now through the agreed statement to lift the anathemas
then we are going to accept each other without repeating the baptism. Actually
it is not repetition we don’t consider it legal because of the anathema
– there was ex-communication and they believe the same thing. If you pray
things will move because we are with the Greek it is finished and with the
Catholic we need some negotiations because it is an illegal thing. When you
read the agreement with the Greek Orthodox you will find a big item called
Lifting ex-communications pray so that it can be lifted.

The Catholic church
is a closed circle writing the sacraments and the Orthodox Church the sacraments
are valid inside the church. If you move from this to that and that to this
then you need to lift the anathemas otherwise the baptism must be done. The
church sacraments are valid inside this closed circle if you move to another
circle enter from the door of baptism you are going to move your circle.

But I am not
really asking about change of denomination if the guy is still in the same
denomination but will he have the Holy Spirit after baptism?

Sure, and the sacraments in the tradition of the church I mean the
Catholic, Greek Orthodox and the churches that believe in sacraments. For
example the Protestant church they don’t believe in sacraments, even the
baptism is not considered a sacrament (in the Protestant church) he himself
says it is not a sacrament and is not important – how can I consider it
important. That is why if he comes to me he should be baptised
so that he can have the baptism that is a sacrament. The baptism he has had is
not a sacrament. They never call it a sacrament, they
call it a symbol of Christianity. We say no it’s not a symbol it’s
a sacrament.

http://youthbishopric.com