Confessing to the disciples

Comments

• clay

  January 2008

  In those days confession was different- one confessed to the whole parish. Even in the West this practice continued into Medieval times (I remember hearing on a documentary), and you would only be able to confess once in your lifetime (frightening, I know!). I am not sure how confession evolved, but it seemed to occur quite early if all Orthodox Churches and early schismatics such as the EOC (I don't mean any disrespect to our good friends) and Catholic Church have similar rites. It probably was one of mercy, and partly also to stop people from using this occasion to get attention of others (These were suggester reasons, I believe, from other threads). I still think absolution was done by the Presbytery (I have no basis to substantiate this), and not the congregation. It would be interesting to get the information from the more informed in the forum. I apologize if anything I write is inaccurate.
  
  So, if the above is correct, it would mean that the Disciples confessed to each other etc. I think some Monasteries may still be doing this, or maybe I am reading to much into my understanding of the story of St Moses the Black.
  
  Many of the prayers of the Hours have accumulated over time, some based on primitive prayers. Perhaps there is something in the Didache that could answer your question, though that is considered by many (probably on false pretenses) that it was written in the third century.
• Safaa

  January 2008

  Meena_Ameen,
  
  You are trying to act cute, unfortunately you are planting seeds of doubt on tasbeha, It is not anymore your protestants friends who asked you those silly questions, but you have an agenda to undermined the Coptic Church faith and her sacraments’.  It is easy to discern, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, between a legitimate question from a seeker and from one whom continuously ridiculing the Coptic Church!!!!!
  In order that you do not through dirt on our church, I will try to answer your many questions:
  
  + Our God, Lord and king Jesus Christ stayed forty days with His Disciples and Apostles teaching them all things concerning the Kingdom of God on earth; establishing a church, performing the sacraments, teaching and interpreting the Holy Scriptures and appointing new bishops and priest, using the power given to them from the Lord Himself.
  
  + Not every teaching from the Lord to the His Disciples were written in the Bible, “ And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in details, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written.” John 21:25
  The last statement can answer your many questions
  
    + “The Holy One Apostolic Church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and Jesus Christ is Her Cornerstones.”
  
  + How can anyone reconcile the presence of almost all the rites, dogmas, sacraments’ within the two family of orthodox and the Catholic Churches, unless the answer is: they were once one church acquiring their resources from the same source; The Lord Himself.
  
  + As of the Protestant Church, her foundation was illegitimate and built on arrogance and deceit
  
• Meena_Ameen

  January 2008

  safaa, r u seriouse? You think im trying to plan seeds of doubt on tasbeha? I have honestly never been more offended about anything in my entire life. One of my close friends who is coptic has left the church and went to the protestant church. Everytime i see her i try to convince her that the coptic church is the true faith. But you cannot convince someone of something if you do not have every single answer to every question they ask. All ive been trying to do lately was gather up as much information as i can, and ive been on tasbeha for almost over 2 years now, growing more spiritual because the knowledge i get from everyones help on here is trully a blessing from God. Than one day you come and tell me im trying to corrupt peoples minds? Did you know that tasbeha is always my last resort before i start asking these questions? I go to my father, my cousin who is a very big deacon in the church, i read online information about the church but cannot always find what im looking for, and than finally I come and ask your help and i get disrespected and accused of hating MY OWN CHURCH.
  
  Maybe you should read my questions over and see that they are infact not questions trying to hurt the church, but very detailed questions.. ONLY QUESTIONS A PERSON WHO IS REALLY DETERMINED TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH WOULD ASK.
  
  Im sorry if you feel i have tried to put doubts in the church, but in order to answer and help other denominations of people who call themselves christians i must be able to use as much BIBLICAL refferences as possible, because if its one thing they accept without a doubt, is that the bible can never be wrong.
  
  I dont understand why your sitting at your computer literally Judging of crimes i never commited, and telling me that its not that i want to know the answer its that im trying to undermine the coptic church. Like i said before i have never been more insulted and hurt in my entire life. Had this been anything else it wouldnt have bothered me what others thought. But for one to say im trying to hurt my church, when i cant stop talking about how great and true my church is to everyone else i meet, its most possibly the worst thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you for your response safaa. I dont think ill be asking anymore questions on tasbeha anymore.
• Severus

  January 2008

  Meena, do not be offended because of what just one person said.
  
  The thing with our Church is that we draw a lot from Patristic tradition. That means while we have very strong roots in the Bible, we draw a lot from Patristics as well. Therefore, we can not answer people's questions if they do not believe that tradition was inspired by the Holy Spirit, when in fact it was.
  
  
• Meena_Ameen

  January 2008

  thats the only answer i was looking for, thank you severus... like i said before i wasnt trying to put down our church.. i was trying to see if there was any biblical references concerning how exactly the confession was practiced in the early church. I havent read the entire bible, and even if i did it would be hard for me to recall versus off the top of my head... all i meant to ask was, IS there any biblical references that talk about how confession was to be done. Thank you for telling me that there are none in the bible... Im sure they must have some in the didache if not another source from our church. I actually just finished listening father anthony messeh's sermon on the tradtion of the church (tradition of God) vs the tradition of men, and he used many biblical refferences to explain how the tradition of our church was commanded in the bible to be kept, where as we should Not hold the traditions of men AS traditions of God. ANyways, thank you for your response Severus
• clay

  January 2008

  What some people don't seem to understand is that the Scriptures are only seen sacred and fit for doctrine because it was written by holy men through the Holy Ghost, and the Church acknowledged its inspiration and deemed it necessary to be in the canon. It fit the Church's criteria. So let's get this stright, saints of the Church wrote the Scriptures, the Church examined them, the Church canonised it and thus to know why they were accepted and how to interpret them, it is only logical that it is the Church that explains it. The Apostles are our former Bishops, no different to existing Bishops. And their writings have been accepted in the canon, as it was indeed Orthodox. IIf Demas wrote an Epistle, we would probably not have allowed it into the canon since the Church recognises that it is not Orthodox.
  
  The same men who canonised the Holy Bible are being classed as heretics by those who believe in sola scriptura? Those that recognised out of many books that claimed to be by saints, they apparently choose the books flukishly? The same people who recognised the Bible your Protestant friends say is inspired, worshipped God and had very similar liturgies and practices as we have today. Does that not make you think?!
• Meena_Ameen

  January 2008

  it sure does clay... I think the only problem is that none of these protestants are actually willing to sit down and study the history of not only our church (the Orthodox church) but their OWN church, and how it came into being. How Martin luther got rid of books that have been accepted by the church for about 1100 years and call them apocrypha, just because they didnt agree with his doctrine of sola scriptura which still can be shown in the bible they have today as false doctrine.
• clay

  January 2008

  Actually, I think there is a bit of a case against the Deutrocanon, since some even prominent Church Fathers were reluctant to use them in their works.
  
  Some Protestants, especially Lutherans and Anglicans are very knowledgeable about Church history. So, the generalization is true to an extent.