I have always wondered about dead saints/martyrs seeing us and asked the Coptic priest who said they can see us! In the Bible Moses & Elijah I think it was appeared in a vision talking to Iosa. At first I felt great thinking the big cloud of believers are watching in the other realm but now I feel abit uneasy re it all. Do you think they see us literally or in some spiritual dynamic realm of warfare? The Bible also says never to pray to the dead - it puts me right off even wanting to pray to anyone other than Jesus Christ.
Comments
The Saints including martyrs which are saints see us just as angels, both holy and fallen, see us. Through the spirit. This should be comforting us as well as making us cautious, although the angels and Saints see us and pray on our behalf, Satan and all his servants are always fighting us in order to bring us away from God. Seeing this, we should seek the help God has generously provided us through prayer (Jesus prayer, psalms, metania, sign of the cross and more) and seeking the intercession of His saints.
Secondly, it is important that when deciding and judging on issues of faith, we must do so with understanding and reasoning as instructed to us by the early church fathers and in the epistles of Saint Paul. What does this mean and why is this important in our life with Christ? Faith with understanding as explained by the church fathers is inquiry leading to faith. So when asked about the validity of the resurrection for example, I have faith that this event toke place because I have been provided with sufficient evidence (historical documents, eyewitness martyrs, Christ's work in His church and more) which led to my understanding of why I hold this belief. This is important because when one claims that they have faith in something to be true, one must understand why hold such a belief. If I were to simply have faith without understanding why, I could easily believe that asking (meaning to pray) the living ("I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? God is not the God of the DEAD, but of the LIVING " Mt 22:32) members of our church to pray for us would be equivalent to the worshiping of idols if someone were to interpret the bible in a way to tell me that it is idolatry to do so. So it is necessary to understand why and what exactly I have faith in so that I do not fall into misconceptions and at times deceptions.
Thirdly, I suggest that you should address feelings such as "it puts me right off even wanting to pray to anyone other than Jesus Christ" to your Coptic Orthodox priest so that you could get insight on whether such feelings are "fuelled" by misconceptions or possible warfare from the devil. It is important to know that the heart is deceitful as it corrupted along with our sinful nature. It is also important to have a spiritual mentor who has attained a spiritual life than you currently, so that they could warn you and protect you against the deception of the devil.
Lastly, regarding the Bible saying never to pray to the dead, this is a major misconception. Scripture, in reality, in many occasions tells us that it is futile to to pray for those who are committing "sin leading to death" (1 John 5:16) which is living in sin till death. This means that is useless to pray for those who are spiritually dead (in hades). This is an example of a contortion of scripture for the sake of creating dissent which, unfortunately, many Christians are misleaded by. May God protect us all and have mercy upon His children.
Forgive me and please pray for me as I will do for you.
Here is a video done by a group of priests called Coptic Orthodox Answers, an article written by Bishop Youssef of Southern US in response to a question similar to yours, a short book on intercessions by our former Pope and Patriarch Shenouda The Third and
lastly, an article from our brothers and sisters of the Eastern Orthodox Church biblical and early church evidence of prayers for the dead (alive spiritually).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gYn2tB2qSSQ&feature=youtu.be
https://www.suscopts.org/q&a/index.php?qid=744&catid=210
http://www.stmarkboston.org/our-fatih/intercession-by-pope-shenouda-iii/
http://www.pravmir.com/prayers-dead-bible-tradition/