It seems like there are two properly separate issues here that are being conflated, though I'm not sure why.
1) The atmosphere in Zoxsasi's church being not Christ-centered enough for him;
and
2) The intersection of nationality/ethnicity and reli…
Ah, my apologies. I missed that. :-[
Perhaps there is something in Mark J. Edwards' Ancient Christian Commentary, New Testament VIII: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians
I'm not sure if I buy the general division you're making between "traditional and spiritual" and "cultural and social", George. My own experience has been in Eastern Orthodox circles and Catholic circles, and I am sorry to burst any bubbles but they…
I understand and agree with your point about making borderless the Orthodox faith (of course it already is, but it sometimes might not seem that way), Zoxsasi, but I cannot understand your stance that you don't care about Egypt because it's a countr…
I haven't attended liturgy yet (soon, God willing!), so I can't say how much I might agree or disagree with your friends as a fellow non-Egyptian, but I do want to share a video here that I found last week, because it addresses building a multicultu…
What makes you think you'll get married if you become a Catholic? I don't understand that. I was a Roman Catholic for about five years and didn't get married. Now that I'm not longer Catholic, I'm still not married. The only constant is me. It's not…
I would refer to the Coptic service as "liturgy", not "Mass". Like Father Peter, I associate "Mass" with the Latin church and find it inappropriate outside of that context (as the RC likewise taught me in their initiation classes, though I do rememb…
No, not at all! Where do you see anything like that in my post? I'm asking what the church thinks about this, and if there's any material discussing it that I could read.
Edit: Ahhh, reading it over I almost see how you could get that impression, …
[quote author=seekfirst link=topic=11855.msg141528#msg141528 date=1310693205]
Should I surround myself with friends that won't take my advice?[/quote]
Your friends should listen to you, and you to them. It doesn't necessarily mean that they'll take…
I'm confused. Doesn't the quote you just gave date Biblical fragments in Bohairic to the 4th and 5th century? So wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it cannot be dated to earlier than that (not the ninth)? It wouldn't really make sense for them…
As a fellow (hopeful) convert from outside of Orthodoxy, I don't think you're being harsh at all. Everything that you have written sounds true to me. I am curious, though: What translation of the scriptures do you read? I asked about getting a new B…
Hahaha. I think Mina has a point. Most English-speakers (in the USA, anyway) are quite aggressively monolingual, and not everyone can be named Ed, Steve, or Becky. ::)
An Eastern Orthodox friend of mine put it thusly: In Eastern monasteries (and I would suspect that this also applies to Oriental monasteries), as in Eastern monasticism, the entire focus is on prayer. Yes, there is physical labor, too, but there is …
Something like what Cephas wrote: The Oriental Orthodox didn't "become" Oriental Orthodox, just as the Eastern Orthodox didn't "become" Eastern Orthodox. These terms were applied years later to distinguish the differing stances taken by each communi…
Who are you intending to follow with your Christianity: The people who go to your church, or God who is always in it even if everyone else there is a jerk?
If the worst thing that happens in your life is gossip then God has already given you a muc…
It is important to remember/realize that the positions we now refer to as "Oriental Orthodox" or "Catholic" (really more clearly stated as "non-Chalcedonian" and "Chalcedonian", respectively) were not then and are not now chosen in opposition to eac…
I always stumble over "adversitive" myself. My brain is thankfully much smarter than my mouth, so I know what they're going for, but...yeah, not quite there! I still cherish my Agpeya, but a native English-speaking editor or consultant wouldn't hurt…
Well that was interesting. We returned from Albuquerque last night around 10 pm. A few things that happened that make me more pessimistic about this than before:
- He repeatedly interrupted me during my attempts to pray from the Agpeya, even though…
Very good points, +iloveJesus. It took me several ruined romantic and other relationships to learn the "don't depend on others but God for happiness" part, but boy is it ever the truth! And the sooner you learn it, the better off you are. Sometimes …
Forgive me, I mean to say that I thought it was meant as a joke. Whether or not it is funny or appropriate is another matter (and, no, I don't believe it is either). Sudani has apologized for jokes here before, so I assume it is just his sense of hu…
Bigeee, I was reading the sayings of the Desert Fathers earlier today and found something that really helped me cope with my own situation. Maybe it could also help you in yours, if you meditate on it.
Abba Nilus said 'Do not always be wanting ever…
[quote author=Timothym link=topic=11593.msg140269#msg140269 date=1309122090]
As for the Arabs, I too Dzheremi have read in many places that the Copts welcomed the Arabs with open arms as a lesser of the 2 evils in comparison to the Byzantines...Isla…
[quote author=Father Peter link=topic=11704.msg140291#msg140291 date=1309163243]
I visited St Catherine's and they weren't very friendly at all. Indeed they were pointing and saying 'monophysite heretics'.
[/quote]
Yeah, I remember reading in Fr. G…
Not that I want to get involved in this argument at all, but I feel compelled to mention that none of the scholarly sources I've ever read support this idea that the non-Chalcedonians greeted the Arabs as liberators from Byzantine rule (see for inst…
I can sort of understand where ILSM is coming from. I have a small collection of English-language Coptic hymns, and they do sound funny. Not necessarily bad, but you can tell (if you're a native English-speaker, like me) that they're trying to fit E…
Thanks, Ophadece. I was going to keep doing that, but honestly mostly because I have no idea what else I can do, not because it has such a great track record of working out in immediately-observable ways lately (not that it should have to, mind you;…