A Beginner's Guide to Orthodox Christianity

so firstly welcome to our church I know you've all been here many many times before we do do regular services and as we'll look at a little more in next for tonight's talk on your history we have been and continue to be the only English language Orthodox parish in Brisbane so we're in and the only such church building in Queensland the only church building set aside for Orthodox worship in English and one of a handful across Australia and welcome to our course so entering the kingdom is a course it's from our previous courses has been drastically retooled and I like to call it bring bastard because I like the work a lot of the stuff from previous years has been redone we put together a radiator doffing I was mentioning just earlier that two hours on church history is lovely and if you're wanting that talk and it's on our YouTube channel but it's not necessary for every kind of human it's not necessary preparation for someone to be baptized and so for that reason and for similar reasons we've been able to at the same time condense each talks and to offer more talks so if things like the vigil service that will be discussed in the second session you can see here the various topics that we'll be discussing discussing we've got to talk on the Trinity here on Jesus Christ anthropology where we understand humans to be salvation what atonement and theosis and all those funny words that we can't quite photo translation for our ecclesiology the what is christ church and then some spirituality and how it is that we bring that we live our orthodoxy and then we bring our orthodoxy into our everyday life so five talks on the creed 3 talks on spirituality today's introduction and next important notes brief history grounds out this part of the course and then the second part of the course is after after Christmas after theophany we'll be looking at vigil and confession which is usually done during the vigil service we'll be looking at the liturgy and communion which is the sacraments that that's done during the liturgy baptism and chrismation as as you would expect very important for a catechism course one other talk on the occasional services the services that we ask for that aren't normally a part of part of our regular everyday like memorials funerals the sole end-of-life issues will can be coming up here and lastly evangelism an apologetics that's not going to be a very large thing but as sin Peter tells us we need to be able to have a defense for the faith for the joy that is within us and so that's where our last talk on evangelism in apologetics will come in as you can see round about every two weeks with a couple of exceptions will be the frequency of our talks over the course of this series and we're prepping for those who are preparing for baptism and I know this there's a can I get a show of hands people who are preparing definitely preparing for baptism so a few people around the room preparing for baptism and this we're hoping though hope is that on Holy Saturday will be that day for baptism so brought in together as a community this is a little about me so my own journey was in a non-theistic family and I discovered an orthodoxy when I was about halfway through high school bit after half way and that was after a period of time where I was looking for God's religion and I was received into the churches just before I went to school he's maybe I needed that and did various degrees wrote a couple of books including one that was a introduction to Orthodox Christianity which we also sell at the bookstore which is what this course was originally based on designed to be written designed to be read with with very simple does I'd be easy to understand so if you're looking for a book to take away it's about 120 pages people have told me that they've read it on a sunny Sunday afternoon which is the greatest problem than I could ever I could ever hope for I was ordained and served both here and in Toowoomba what I'm looking to do today what I'm hoping that each of you will be able to do is to answer the question what's orthodoxy in under 30 seconds I'll stretch it to a minute but 30 seconds to a minute how do you explain what is orthodoxy because I'm guessing that if someone said what is it Orthodox Christianity the main room main response would be I have no idea how to explain this to you it's a very very common response because you're thinking how do i condense 2,000 years into something that you're interested in it's very challenging so that's what we're trying to answer today to give a variety of explanations there's no one correct answer but hopefully in this session we'll be able to have a answer that is good for your own purposes I can pretty much summarize this slide by saying be cook as I said earlier questions will have to be at the either after the talk I may have a little bit of time for Question Time during the talk but I can't promise that and based on how best one that I'm going a little extra in this introduction probably not today at least but after the talk I'm very happy to answer all the questions that you have you hopefully have my email or Facebook on that those are mediums that that you can ask questions on as well so we should talk about what is the road to baptism how do we get from where we are to baptism itself the first stage along this road is to be a Enquirer which pretty much is what we're expecting this to be where we're saying I'm interested I am inquiring what is this Orthodox Christianity thing and there's no commitment to this stage you're just looking for information the expectation for someone who has is going beyond the first introduction someone who is preparing themselves for baptism is is along these lines someone who is wishing to be baptized should be attending Wheaton weekend services as much as they are able to and for for someone who lives in proximity to the church we'd be expecting weekly or somewhere along those lines and the other expectation is well you guys are already doing that you're here so to be attending catechism courses to be instructed about the Orthodox faith to make sure that this is exactly what you want to be doing this is something that has concept or Consequences so there's not doing it of course but with the option there necessity to choose that option a person who is a catechumen has made a commitment it's it's not the perfect analogy but it's a bit like getting engaged if you're in get if you're dating someone you may or may not something though may not happen but if you're engaged then you're expecting to be married you expecting to to continue on so a person who is a catechumen as is being prepared for upcoming baptism and there's a particular service that happens to make a person a catechumen a person who's a catechumen is i suppose we could say on the fringes of the church so if they die before baptism for example they would receive an Orthodox funeral but they wouldn't be able to have communion as yet they need to wait till baptism for that there's a few implications with that the first is that a person who is a catechumen should be praying like anyone else morning prayers evening prayers those kind of things as well as attending church and continuing to be in session along these lines the same sacramental strictures apply so a person who is a catechumen can't be receiving Communion outside of the orthodox church there's the same same rules and restrictions that all of the rocks Christians have just as normal folks aren't able to receive Communion in an Orthodox Church and the third implication is that a catechumen shouldn't be going to other churches on a normal basis going for a family's baptism is a different thing but well when Sunday's coming around should be attending your local Orthodox Church as as your normal place of worship the length of varies I'm still tossing up when the right time would be but I'm I'm thinking later this year we'll be saying you know who is it that's wanting to prepare for baptism are you sure after you've looked at the Creed and you think you've gone through the Creed's talks so we're probably looking at a couple of months but once once that time comes along I'll be asking the question and if you're sure then you say yep I want to be a kind of humanist be put down here that the end of the catechumen process after that a date for baptism will be set for us the norm is Holy Saturday so that's the Saturday that's the day before Easter we're having midnight service I've forgotten exactly but I think it's around April the 28th and that day that's Saturday will be the baptism sorry brother 27th and then a person who is being baptized is called a newly illumined so the baptism takes place there's a couple of things that need to be prepared for that clothes for particular clothes black clothes and backwards baptismal cross finding of godparents is an important part of that there's some things that need to be brought or prepared and we'll go into detail on that in the baptism talk in the second session and then after that you start to take partaking of the sacraments and that's where the journey begins so the journey isn't let's try to get to baptism baptism is the beginning and the rest of your life is is the end goal of baptism all right so what do Orthodox Christians believe this is where we try to answer this really really simply clearly eloquently at least we make our best best attempt at that so if you are looking for a short way of answering what is Orthodox Christianity this is one to live a godly life following the gospel that Christ preached in the church that Christ founded in some ways it's as simple as that so the living a godly life following the gospel that Christ preached in the church that Christ founded there's a lot of things that it's not this is our usual default when we say what is oryx christianity we go well it's Catholicism but it's we don't have the Pope well it's it's like Protestant Christianity but also we do this and this and this that's what we usually try to do in and it's not unreasonable to do that but we should at least for ourselves we should know that orthodoxy stands on its own so there's a few things that we're not we're not we're not the we're also not the club for people with silly hats yeah we've all seen the Seinfeld episode of the Latvian Orthodox Church and I like your hats that's why I'm converting yeah I know that some of us are eccentric but that's that's a that's a whole different kettle of fish the reason that a person becomes an Orthodox Christian is not because they're they're loving fourth century Byzantium or 19th century Russia or whatever the case may be the reason that a person becomes an Orthodox Christian is because they want to follow Christ in the church that he founded and a more famous way of putting it all together of saying what is orthodoxy is to put it in juxtapositions so to say that the Orthodox churches evangelical but not Protestant to say that it's Orthodox but not Jewish Catholic but not Roman and that we're not a non-denominational Church where before all denominations were a pre denominational Church in short where we have been believed taught preserved defended and died for the faith of the Apostles for 2,000 years since the day of Pentecost so that's the second way of explaining what is Orthodox Christianity one of the big things that we've got is what is the gospel we talk a lot about the gospel if we go to the actual words then we're looking at good words that's where the word God's gospel comes from not just words but words with power like spells our words with power so that's where that's where even the word gospel comes from to have to be God's words and good words put most simply to explain what the gospel is is that Jesus Christ so Jesus is God Christ is risen therefore we can be saved as a result of this now you can already see how it is that we have a talk on each one of these things we're going to talk on the Trinity who is God we're going to talk on Jesus Christ it's sort of foundational to our faith and we've got a talk on salvation how how is it that we are saved and how do we go along this path of salvation very very important topics which is why we've got entire talks dedicated to the movie all right sir the Gospel story begins many many years ago feel a little like I'm telling them a bit of a story here which I guess I had so way back when God created everything and he created it all in just a short period of time any created humans he said let us create humans according to our image and likeness and then he created humans according to his image the likeness you'll note wasn't mentioned the likeness but we had to grow into we had to grow into being like God it's very important for our understanding of salvation how it is that we approach God and become to holiness and then something happened humans were created which is great that's how we exist and we were created to be with God our first job was to name animals which sounds pretty sweet on us that was what we were there to do and then the fall happened I'm sure that we're familiar with the big idea of this the snake came along and said well why don't you be like God why don't you be God more more more precisely and God's God came after the fact after they had eaten the Apple and that's what happened now what you're looking for is repentance when you do when you say to your kids what did you do you're looking for them to be honest first up be honest it'd be nice if you said sorry that'd be great and what did they do well Adam blamed the woman the woman blamed the snake the snake wasn't given an opportunity to respond which is probably for the best and thus sin was brought into God's creation what sin is is a brokenness sin is what gets between us and God it's like a barrier between us and him and we put it there for the computer people in the room it's like dead pixels in your monitor it gets in the way and obstructs what you're trying to see what you're trying to try to look at and hopefully we as humans we are trying to contemplate God that's what it means to be human and so blocks in the way fundamental problem and this sin broke what was supposed to be a creation being created lived with the creator this became impossible after the fall but there was a promise straightaway there was a promise that the the seed of a woman would would would trample on the head of the snake while the snake while the seed of the snake would bite the foot of the seed of woman now basic biology tells us that that's not supposed to be possible for dead that there would be seed of woman and what do we find 2,000 years sorry what do we find several thousand years later we find this was prophesied in Christ who had no human father and knowing the DNA sense and so already there was a promise that we would not be left and we would not be left to Wilson and to go the way of entropy so time passed Israel was one was became the chosen people a small group enslaved at the time not a very good choice if you're looking for the biggest baddest truck around and it was this group that was chosen and we're told in Scripture why was this group chosen because so that it was clear that this was God that was with them he couldn't say that this enslaved were enslaved by the one of the main empires that was around at the time that they did it on their own wouldn't make sense clearly God was with them and that would be a witness to the world everything that happened was a witness to the world and the lore was given them to keep them on the straight and narrow and we'll find later on that it became their preparation for Christ the prophets were given them to keep reminding them to come to come back to the straight paths to come back to following God and well there were varying degrees of success and if you read the Old Testament you can see that they were very varying Jesus went so far as to say that the fathers of the people that he was speaking to that and their forefathers were slayed the prophets and then you know later on we can celebrate them now they're not talking to us they're talking to other people but that promise was still in effect and so 2,000 years ago Jesus was born and he came to fulfill that promise as well as all the other prophecies of the Old Testament a new covenant was born a new agreement with between humanity and God was born that those who follow Christ would now be part of God's people it wasn't ethnically based anymore it was based on belief and faith and that's how it is that non-jews can be part of the people of God firstly let's look very quickly at the at God now the first thing that we need to know is that we're not going to make total sense of the Trinity we know that it doesn't make sense according to human logic we're fully aware of this but God revealed this to us and by this revelation we learned and so we accept the revelation we don't try to second-guess God and tell him that he made a mistake he told us that he is father and Son and Holy Spirit right we'll run with that all three of these are united in the similarity of their inner being which is what we mean when we say of one essence so Jesus is of one essence with the Father like from like the two candles birthing Sherriff have that flame they're equally candles and equally lit the Trinity is in unity and in unity is nonetheless Trinity a plurality of sorts Trinity there's no analogy and we're going to go into analogies in a couple of sessions time there's no analogy that's going to adequately explain the Trinity because we have nothing to compare God with which kind of makes sense if you believe that there is only one God then he is unique and any analogy as an approximation and sometimes because of this we just have to we have to learn our place to understand that we can't be comprehending God it doesn't work like that no more than we expect up the heads to comprehend us but instead we simply bow before the mystery and accept what he has given to us most clearly revealed through one Lord Jesus Christ who is the Messiah he was born around 2,000 years ago in humble circumstances specifically a cave he lived simply as the son of a carpenter he ministered simply talked about not having a place to lay his head on he took up his cross and of course there's only one reason that a person would ever take up a cross and that is to die with it at which he did before rising from the dead on the third day so the day he died was the first day then there was a full day and then there was the third day that's why it's Friday Saturday Sunday is on the third day he then ascended into heaven at the fortieth day after his resurrection to the right hand of the Father and by doing this he took human nature with him into the so whenever we talk about Jesus it's probably easiest for us to to divide it into what we see as human and divine which is what what we've chosen to do here it's not technically correct it's not as precise as it can be but it's probably a useful way for us to to understand Christ as well as possible so we talk about Jesus having been born over 2,000 years ago but the reality is that he always existed it was always the son of God he came to save us we believe that he is both God and human both divine and man he had to be God because it is only God that can do the work of saving this is a very very clear in Scripture by saying that Jesus Saves we are making a claim about him that he is divine consonant with all the scripture he had to be God because only God can do the work of saving he had to be human in order to make that bridge because only thus could he save us only by being both could he form that bridge to bring us to heaven only by being human could he be that sacrifice that was required to fulfill and complete the Old Testament law he took flesh and humanity and we don't forget this particularly given that we are a church dedicated to this particular event he took flesh because Mary said yes that was how he went into the world theoretically yes I know someone else could have said yes but she did she disregarded social norms she disregarded and being what was proper what what ought to have been done in her day in order to say yes to God whatever may happen to say yes to God he told people Jesus while he was here taught people how to live better and he didn't just tell them how to live he made it possible for us to live with him forever in paradise he died for us he preached in shell which is discussed in the epistles of Peter he destroyed the power of death and then rose again and because of this because he he dismantled the place of the dead there was the normal place that a dead person will go in Jewish thought because of this we pass from this life to eternal mana and for this reason some Paul tells us that we oughtn't weep in funerals as if we had no hope not that we shouldn't weep but we shouldn't we hopelessly we've weep in the same way that a person travelling a long distance that will never see you again we are saddened by that division but we still have the hope that we will see them again in rising from the dead and ascending to heaven he also brought human nature into the Godhead I was very new brought human nature into the Godhead God came into the world in a way never before possible because He loves us that's something we've seen from the beginning of creation because He loves us and because he wants the best for Humanity because of this we can be saved and we talked about sin earlier what is sin and if we look to the word in the New Testament we find it that it's an archery term if you didn't hit the bull's eye then you didn't quite make it you missed that's what it is to sin in English we it's it's different and for a variety of reasons but even the word implies a judgment they place that we've committed a crime and this is probably how we teach our children at least small children because it's easiest to say you've done wrong you've got to to say sorry but the child's faith is appropriate for a child being adults adults and we know that missing the mark is a real problem it puts that divider as we said between us and God if we aren't living a pure life if that actions are impure then we create blocks in our relationship with God and our purpose is to be as close to God as possible because of this we should be trying to get rid of all things that stand between us and God to get rid of all brokenness in our relationship with God and to follow him as perfectly as we can this is after all why we have a sacrament not just baptism - to bring us into the people of God but confession and communion and why we encourage people to partake of these frequently and prayerfully the life in Christ is a relationship sin damages that relationship that's why we stay away from it because we want to be close to Christ we're going to be looking at an atonement in a lot more detail in button in the talk on salvation but for now atonement is actually a surprisingly Orthodox word we store them and it's not the way that its uses Thoreau and different to the way that Orthodox would understand how it is that we reconciled to God that the word itself is thoroughly orphan us to be made at one with God how we describe this is where the word called theosis to be like God this is our plan so the way that we look at this the way that we look at how we're made at one with God however reconciled to him is is through Christ assuming human nature in its entirety it's not he made a sacrificial act and we call this expiation that's a technical term it's a and this sacrifice is an offering that attempts to change the one who offered it and the one who offered it was humanity it's why it's so important that Jesus human humanity offered this sacrifice which changed the nature of humanity to change our relationship with God he Christ died in order to defeat and to destroy sin and so that those fallen in spiritual bondage may become fully human that's what it is to be transfigured to be fully human to be all that we were created to be just as God intended we don't do this to appease the wrath of an angry and vindictive Father in heaven we don't do this to avert the wrath of God upon sinners do this because we want to go home put differently we believe that humans are able to conform to the image of Christ that we are able to be crass way so when when we asked what would Jesus do it's not a rhetorical question we hope that we will be able to answer this properly but theosis is the process in which we return to the original pristine state of creation where we return and grow to the likeness of God it's the process of being reconciled with God and becoming more like God it's the endpoint of our Christian struggle the completion of God's work for us and it's unique to Orthodox Christianity that believed that God loved us too much to let us be away from him we live the a theme of Sir John's gospel that God is present in us and we in God we lived a constant reminder of some Paul's epistles about the Laughing Christ and we become partakers of the divine nature as Peter says in his second epistle this relies on a few foundations firstly that we have free will we have the freedom to choose Christ or not but we have the freedom to choose him we are co-workers with God then he created children not robots sure it would be much much easier if we were programmed to do the right thing but that's not what being human is about while while what God does is far greater it's him that knocks Tim that gives grace it's him that made the sacrifice it invites us to join him well what he does is much much much more infinitely more we still have to do what we can we still have to do what we are able so what then must we do at the end of Peters sermon to a crowd in Jerusalem here he said he they responded what then must we do to be saved and the the question leads to how how it is that we live out our beliefs what is a spirituality we're going to much more detail later on but it's important to note that our beliefs and our spirituality are inherently linked it's sometimes attempted to divide these two to pick out a portion of all thoughts spirituality and to take that out of its native environment and this is not good it's like taking a fish out of its natural environment what happens you've got a fish but it's not living so from our beliefs spring out prep and then from there we get a feedback loop from our press bring out beliefs and so on and so forth for a quick run through the basics of our spirituality the first is a belief in the triune God in Father Son and Holy Spirit and then the Son of God is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior to love God and to love our neighbor these were the two commandments that Christ gave to us to summarize the entirety of the Old Testament number three is prayer and fasting and scriptural reading according to a rule this is summarized as our prayer world so what is it that we are doing every day to be closer to Christ communal worship sacramental participation these two things go hand in hand we have the liturgy which is communal worship and in that we have the sacrament of communion very important that we are participating in all that the church is able to offer to us the pursuit of education and this comes in in various ways they've got catechism classes most obviously we've also got Bible studies we've got retreats and seminars nowadays we have podcasts and books and so on and so forth many many more besides we have the stewardship of our time talents and our treasures so what it is that we have been given we want then to work out how can we offer some of that some of that back to God when we offer Communion we one of the things that the priest says is your own of your own we offer to you in every way and for everything that is we don't have anything ourselves I can't say I've made this if if I was to try to to make something maybe we can start from is something as simple as a plant well no get your own dirt good luck but all of all that God has given to us we can offer that and a portion of that you know as part of our Thanksgiving and gratitude and lastly our moral purity and this includes our actions first of all but also our words and our thoughts usually in that order by the way for obvious reasons with each of these things makeup components of our spirituality which we'll be looking at in further detail in a later session these are simply the foundations by the way for what we do so there's much more besides and trying to apply principles to real life situations part of what we do as Christians it's challenging but we need to be doing it we keep in mind that the life in Christ as a marathon and not a sprint and it's very easy to get discouraged some people who come for confession and say I know you've heard this 20 million times before well yes but that's not the point the point is to keep going back the point is to keep repenting to keep trying to align your life with God in any kind of long journey like we've got between here in heaven even one degree off can land us in a totally different place that's why we're always realigning to God and that's what we do in in confession in real life we have a lifetime to learn each of the things that we're going to be talking about and more and to grow into the fullness of our relationship with God as you can see we're going to be going into much much more detail in the future talks talk three we'll be talking about the Trinity talk four will be talking about what's called Christology so who is Jesus talk six we're going to be talking about our return to God in our salvation and atonement theosis and talk eight we'll be looking at a guide to the spiritual life this is what we've learned so far so we're going to flash through history because I promised an introduction to orthodoxy and that means God taking it back from the original so church history is a story of God's love for his creation to bring us from ignorance to life with him and this starts way back in Eden all the way through to now after Jesus rose from the dead the Apostles preached everywhere they could from Spain to India from Kiev to Ethiopia when Jesus says go ye therefore into all the world they took him seriously they really tried and of course we continue that today because well I'm not sure how much more end of the world we can get than the other side of it where even the weather is the wrong season when it comes to church order the church continued through the Apostles appointing successors which are called bishops who oversaw the church in a particular area and this through to the present day is what we call apostolic succession which we understand as being both the succession of physically laying hands on another of automation and also this accession of faith so a person can be validly ordained have beliefs and has ordination but if they leave if they change their change their faith then they are then they also leave behind their succession in our understanding of the term they're a three-tier Ministry of words so the authority in a given place was told by a bishop he was assisted by presidents by elders of the church and deacons acted on behalf of a bishop particularly in charitable roles and that that evolved over time to be administrative and then educational and liturgical roles each of these are completely valid rules for deacons but always to support the bishop and or his delegate all right so this is where we take a deep breath and you know how we try and explain 2,000 years of both Oryx Christianity and a single in a minute so in 33 we it all started Pentecost happen and we went that ran around to everywhere we got persecuted but we also spread in after 300 the that was the last main persecution in 313 was the Edict of Milan and that's when Christianity was made legal in the Roman Empire we went oh thank goodness for that I just used a lot of ways by doing that denied and that made life a lot easier we weren't getting killed in 325 to 787 we were able to go alright we need to sort out this fact we need to talk about one of this we believe and define some things to to make sure that we're actually teaching the right thing that what God revealed to us we're passing on which is very important thing a little after that was the evangelization of the Slavs very very important for us in particular since that's where we trace our own ecclesial lineage there was a split between orthodoxy and Catholicism between 800 1100 we I know people talk about 1054 it's not quite right there are a lot of things that happen in between 800 and 1100 but bye-bye 1100 or so we can definitely say that the split had happened 1453 saw the fall of Constantinople which was tragic 1821 saw the Greek revolution which is when the Greek Orthodox finally were free as well as other other Orthodox groups unfortunately just after that the Russian Revolution saw communism rise which saw great swaths of the Orthodox world again under persecution many Orthodox arrived in Australia as a result of one or more of these things so the rise of communism World War two economic problems for communism and the war and civil war brought pretty much all all ethnicities of Orthodoxy to use a comfortable expression explains things to our shores the largest at jurisdiction by far is the Google folks archdiocese that followed by the serbian orthodox metropolitan earth then our work with us ascending Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese we're actually the fifth largest religious group in Australia you wouldn't believe it from how little people talk about us but sure enough fifth largest and we're right in between reformed and Buddhism Buddhism is number six reformed this number four and we slide in at number five in Australia we have eleven parishes in Brisbane three on the Gulf Coast and 14 in the remainder of Queensland our own parish here was established in 1972 became the first English language Orthodox parish in Australia in 1986 and we continue to follow this tradition by serving both Orthodox services in the English language through to the present day welcoming everyone who wants to be part of the Church of Christ founded I didn't get it in one breath but I gave a good shot so we talk about a bunch of stuff in church history that'll be the subject of our next talk in a couple of weeks time last last thing that we're going to go speedily through is what does it offer its church look and feel like and how is it been we worship once again this is going to be topics for future talks we have a talk on the vigil and a talk on the liturgy in the second part of this series next year but you can look here and you see a lot of similarities in prep it's exactly the same Old Testament and New Testament in the other things we've pointed down here pretty much the same New Testament and Old Testament the big difference is blood in the Old Testament blada was a important part of sacrifices whereas we offer the bloodless suffer bus or a sacrifice of praise Thanksgiving so that means that our sacrifice can happen in the Holy of Holies rather than being held outside for reasons that are obvious if you've ever slain an animal and that was a big change our church properly done looks like this they've got an altar on the left hand side got what's called the nave in the middle and the narthex the entry over here on the right hand right hand side there's a whole bunch of things that make up a part of a standard typical Orthodox Church probably the most noticeable is the icon screen which you can see here that that acts as a membrane between the nave and the altar so the altar is traditionally the altar is where you go the nave is where baptized allows you go the narthex is where everyone else goes we don't really have this anymore in either in standard churches or in our parish in particular but if you're looking for why it is that there are three sections to this to this structure that's that's the reason because people would go into each of these places why should in Solomon's Temple you might move some similarities once again you've got the altar at the back you've got what we would consider the nave in the center where a lot of the a lot of these celebrations happen and then you've got the outside which is still a place where restrictive access but outside is where that fiery altar was where you'd offer up your sacrifices so you can see here that we've taken a lot of inspiration from the Old Testament the other place we've taken inspiration from in our church worship is revelations so anytime the Bible describes heavenly worship we've looked to that as a guide for reasons that I've ever apparent this is this - from dura europas a particular synagogue and people talk about how should we be having iconography and the the evidence is that icons aren't a problem images aren't a problem God even if we go back to the previous slide even commanded that statues be made so images are the problem worshipping them is a problem and it's a problem for us too so any image there's worship that's wrong we pray to God we worship God not - not the icon in front of us no matter what it does that we worship God we may glorify God for say miracle working or dreaming icons we may pray we may ask the prayers of a saint or as depicted in front of us but to worship it to worship that is to make an idol out of that and all that Orthodox are thoroughly agreed God three to seven so the Divine Liturgy in one slide and this is the service that that you do all would have experienced today so the liturgy is the greatest prayer service that we have it's where God becomes present in heaven and earth unite that's what makes it so different and it should be different to the outside world it's during this we speak of the life of Christ and the writings of the Apostles the faithful commune with God receiving him into ourselves and the structure first described by st. Justin Martyr in the second that century is a struck the structure that we still follow today to this day there's readings a sermon prayers greetings Khan the consecration of the gifts administering communion to the faithful charity and mutual encouragement this is what we do every week fantastic we have three minutes remaining so that's probably not enough to answer questions because I know that I've seen people writing them down it's fantastic I look forward to answering them but we will cut the cut the tour short prior to that and your homework tasks I don't see anyone running down their homework okay your homework task is how do you say it answer what is orthodoxy how do you answer the question what's orthodoxy we get this a lot like in workplaces it'll be why you celebrating Christmas on the seventh of January didn't you just have a public holiday for that and will say yeah but well Orthodox so so we celebrated on the seventh of January and they'll go what's that and your best answer can't be um we can do better so a hundred and fifty words brief that explains what is Orthodox Christianity not the whole of it you might get the whole of it but something that can be useful something that that you can use to answer the person in front of you this is what Orthodox Christianity is do we all understand our homework yes but understand nope and sort of once a teacher always a teacher right one thing that may help you is to imagine a friend so sometimes the problem is how do I get something that's so general I can use it for everyone and the answer is you can't not well what you can do though is to think optional of your best friend or a friend that you have who doesn't really know and you go how can I answer this for badminton that'll give you maybe there a Buddhist and it's just totally different to what they know there's a couple similarities that you can build on and someone and so forth how can you answer it for that person in particular we all reckon we can give it a shot I can't wait to hear some responses okay no really like we get really good responses when asked for how do you explain it there's ways that I keep learning this way sir new each time that's fantastic that's that's why we do this exercise so just a reminder in two weeks we'll be looking at church history so the 19th of August a brief history of church same time same place just in two weeks time on the 5th of August and I look forward to seeing you all there thank you all very much for coming and we open with a prayer and as Orthodox how do we close things brother prayer

Channel: Holy Annunciation Orthodox Church

Views: 7,672

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Catechism, Orthodox, Church, Christianity, Orthodoxy 101, Christian, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, ROCOR

Id: 4VIsnZJCKtk

Length: 51min 58sec (3118 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 23 2018