I first started writing something with this title more than 30 years ago. It has often been on my mind. Indeed, as soon as I started learning about the early Church, the Church which the Apostles established and taught, I started to think about the relationship of the thousands of Christian groups which we see […]
I am not afraid of technology. I just wanted to get that sorted out right at the beginning. My last job, before I was ordained a priest, was IT Manager of a manufacturing company. I’ve spent nearly 20 years developing websites, especially database driven ones. I have a modern smartphone, and it naturally has the […]
The idea that Christians do not need the Church and can find spiritual life and sure guidance without membership of any organised community of believers is a very recent but certainly popular one. It is the end point of the development of the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, which established the personal interpretation and opinion […]
I would like to consider the dogmatic aspects of Sin, Death and the Fall which are the basis of man’s estrangement from God, and the cause of our needing a Saviour. We will look at these different aspects in turn, and we will begin in the Garden of Eden, when God gave Adam a simple […]
You are becoming attracted and even convinced by the teachings and practices of the Orthodox Church as far as you understand them. It seems as though the next step is to become a member of the Orthodox Church. But looming up in the distance is the confusing requirement of baptism. Surely as folk who have […]
It seems to me, from my study of St Cyril and St Severus (which I am not suggesting is comprehensive), that the Anselmian notion of Penal Substitution is very far from their own Orthodox teaching. Indeed I do not believe it is Orthodox at all. Penal Substitution states that God the Father was infinitely offended […]
Patriarchal Bull issued by Pope Demetrius II (Translated from the Arabic – by Gulian Lansing) From Demetrius, the servant of Jesus Christ, called by the high grace of God, Patriarch on the Chair of Mark in Alexandria and the Egyptian and adjoining Provinces, to our blessed children, the trusted priests and renowned pillars and honoured […]
In the first paper in this series we have established that the early Protestant missions held a negative view of the life and spirituality of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and considered it their duty to either reform the Church, that is thoroughly Protestantise it, or convert the […]
I am most grateful for the emails you have sent, and which provide a useful set of criteria with which to consider the topic of the will in Christ. I am especially glad that you have taken time to consider some of the obstacles to understanding which might be presented, and have explained your own […]
Protestant Attempts to Influence the Coptic Orthodox Church Part I – The first Protestant missions in EgyptIt would be a mistake to consider that any criticism of the influence of Protestant practices, teachings and spirituality within the Orthodox Church is due to a judgemental attitude towards the members of Protestant communities. On the contrary, apart […]