[Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you I find it so unfortunate that many Americans are completely unaware of the existence of the Orthodox Church most American Christians think there are only two main sects of Christianity Roman Catholicism and protestantism and they're often Blown Away by the fact that there is another kind of Christianity the Orthodox Church which has over 200 million baptized members when my husband and I say that we're Orthodox people think that we're Orthodox Jews but know w
e're Orthodox Christians and I'm really excited to tell people about this absolutely magnificent Church personally I came to the conclusion that Orthodoxy is the truth through studying church history studying exactly what the Orthodox beliefs are and why they believe what they do and of course through prayer one day during my inquiry into the Orthodox Church I prayed using a prayer from a Orthodox prayer book a prayer from Saint Basil and experienced the most transformative undeniable presence o
f the Holy Spirit I want to cry even now thinking back to that day when God welcomed me into his own arms after years of denying him it was absolutely astounding and with God as my witness I am I promise to you that I am not lying about having that experience overall being Christian is about having a genuine living organic relationship with Christ it's definitely not just about being really versed in apologetics so I encourage everyone watching to pray to God and ask him to lead you to the truth
don't just take my word for it but with all that being said let's get into some apologetics and please subscribe to my patreon to see the unfiltered complete version of this video Simply put the Orthodox Church is the original Church of Jesus Christ it was founded by the Lord Jesus Christ himself and it holds the fullness of truth that's a phrase you'll most likely hear a lot from Orthodox and Roman Catholics that our respective churches hold the fullness of Truth and other churches hold some t
ruth but not all of it so we believe that the Roman Catholic Church holds some truth the Protestant churches hold some truth but the Orthodox Catholic Church Catholic meeting Universal holds the full this of Truth the fullness of Truth regarding everything Christ taught during his ministry about who he is and what he wants us to have faith in Matthew 16 18 and I tell you you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the Gates of Hell shall not Prevail against it we believe that the O
rthodox Church is the church Christ is referring to here the church he built and has not and will never perish I can hear some Roman Catholics watching saying nope the original church is the Roman Catholic church we have Apostolic succession and the papacy and then Protestants believe they reformed the Catholic Church as they believe that the Roman Catholic Church fell away from truth and embraced heresies and while we can be sympathetic to that view much of what Protestants label as heresy is i
tself Apostolic practice and teaching the whole church can never have fully Fallen away from the truth and the development of the two halves of the church after the great schism shows clearly where the seed of heresy was laid so we can say the Orthodox Church is the church founded by the Jesus of Nazareth through his Apostles at the first Pentecost Pentecost was when the Holy Spirit ascended onto the apostles and other disciples following the crucifixion resurrection and Ascension of our Lord Je
sus Christ which empowered them to begin making disciples of all Nations Saint Paul established the Church of Antioch Saint Peter and Saint James established the Church of Jerusalem Saint Andrew established the Church of Constantinople Saint Mark the Church of Alexandra and Saint Peter and Saint Paul established the Church of Rome throughout the first one thousand years of Christendom there was one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church she is one meaning all members are in communion with one anothe
r and not with idolatry heresy racism she is Holy because our Lord Is Holy and the Holy Spirit dwells within her she is Catholic meaning Universal and she holds the same beliefs everywhere and she is Apostolic because Jesus founded her through the apostles who ordered and organized her and she continues in their teachings Ephesians 2 20. the word orthodox means proper way and was utilized in the early church to differentiate the real Christians from those who departed from the original true teac
hings of the church at the time the biggest heresy was gnosticism in its various forms the western or Roman Catholic Church separated from the Orthodox Church in the year 1054 after adding the philio yolk to the Nicene Creed in violation of the canons of the Council of Ephesus and wrongly claiming the supremacy of power of the bishop of Rome the pope over the other Bishops the Orthodox church does not recognize a universal head other than Christ and said it is composed of several adocephalus ade
ncephalus churches led by Patriarchs and metropolitans Jerusalem Antioch Alexandra Constantinople Belgrade Moscow Sophia Tbilisi all bound together by our shared beliefs in the act of sacramental communion the basic beliefs we hold concerning the Trinity are summarized in the Nicene consent to Noble Creed which is the symbol of faith of the entire Christian Church drafted in 325 and 381-80 it goes like this I believe in one God father almighty creator of Heaven and Earth and of all things visibl
e and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God begotten of the father before all ages light of light true God of true God begotten not made of one Essence with the father through whom all things were made who for us men and for our Salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried and he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures h
e ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the father and he will come again with glory to judge both living in the dead whose kingdom shall have no end and in the Holy Spirit the Lord The Giver of Life who proceedeth from the father who together with the father and the son is worshiped and glorified who spoke through the prophets in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic church I confess one baptism of the remission of sins I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age t
o come amen you may think after hearing all that that you believe and all that stuff and shouldn't that be enough I'd argue that Mormons would say that they agree with essentially the entire Creed but if you're Protestant or Roman Catholic you'd agree that Latter-Day Saints are not Christians so even though the Nicene Creed is great in a concise way to sum up our beliefs there has to be an assurance that we understand it correctly and mean the same thing when we recite it we worship God and Trin
ity glorifying equally the father Son and Holy Spirit fraternity is one being three persons glorified maternity is an absolute essential to being a Christian we are also diaphysites meaning that we believe that Jesus's nature is both fully God and fully man he has two Natures that coexist uniquely and mystically within him we're not monophysites or miophysites monophysites believe that Jesus's nature remains altogether Divine and that his humanity is dissolved like tea and Mia physites believe i
n a Divine and human nature smoothie essentially we also honor and venerate the Saints in heaven and ask for their intercessory prayers we do not worship the Saints people often conflate prayer and worship prayer means simply to ask we ask them to pray for us like we'd ask anyone to pray for us like we'd ask our family and friends to pray for us this is not us praying to the dead as they are not dead they're alive in Christ as Christ said those who believe in him will not perish but have everlas
ting life people may object to this because the practice is not explicitly stated in the Bible and they say that the Saints cannot hear us in heaven but this is a part of our holy tradition although there is also biblical president president precedence for an accessory prayer through Angels especially in what Protestants call the Apocrypha but I'll get into that a bit later among the saints mother Mary whom we believe is a Perpetual version which is important for many reasons holds a special pla
ce as God separated her from all of mankind we call her the theatokos meaning Mother of God this is also a good time to mention that we do not believe in Sola scriptura Sola scriptura is a Protestant Doctrine which neither Orthodox nor women Catholics hold to though in theory protestantism does not deny Christian history and tradition it relies on the scriptures as the only word of authority in establishing Dogma Sola scriptura also pauses that the scriptures are easy to understand to Anyone who
reads them we believe that the holy scriptures are of course very very important they are essential but we also believe in the Holy tradition and the authority of the church the church that Christ himself said would not be overcome by the gates of hell we like to say that the Bible was based on our church the church existed before scripture and the apostles certainly did not follow Sola scriptura we need the church as much as we need the scriptures we need the church to give us the proper inter
pretation of scriptures leaving everyone to interpret the scriptures for themselves has led to the dozens of divided Protestant denominations we see today so it's pretty clear that solo scriptura is not valid we also need the church to tell us what the Canon is even composed of for the Old Testament the Orthodox Bible has 49 books Catholic has 46 and Protestant has 39. there are also missing chapters and missing verses and especially the Protestant versions of the Bible because Martin Luther had
to remove things and change words so that scripture would fit his Theology and I'll also say that modern Protestants are honestly nothing really like Martin Luther in his degree of retention of Catholic practices like he prayed the rosary his entire life and the closest you can really find in America today is the Missouri Synod lutherans who who are already Protestant squared to most Protestants today Martin Luther wouldn't be Protestant enough lastly nowhere in the Bible is it stated what the
Bible is or that we should only follow the Bible social scriptura isn't even Sola scriptura so it's a terrible standard Orthodox beliefs and practices are rooted in holy tradition scripture clearly states that we must maintain the traditions we received by word or letter II Thessalonians 2 15. these are the written and Unwritten traditions of the church which have been preserved and passed down holy tradition includes scripture of course the written and Unwritten acts and teachings of Jesus and
the apostles iconography the compositions of Dogma from The ecumenical councils holy canons ecumenical Creeds hymnography Church architecture the lives of saints and patristic writings holy tradition does not go against scripture and both are equally important if we abandon any tradition then we have abandoned and lost the context which preserved and properly understood the Gospels the gospels are then interpreted by the individual which leads to an entire host of significant theological problem
s the Orthodox Church is sacramental meaning that Orthodox Christians participate in certain physical acts through which God's grace works mystically for the purpose of our Salvation their means of Grace we don't consider sacraments given by other churches to be real sacraments schismatic and heretical sacraments are graceless by the same principle that God did not accept the Strange Fire of Aaron's sons the incense of the challengers to Aaron's priesthood and the sacrifices made by the Samarita
ns so we don't believe that there is Grace involved within sacraments given by any other churches which is a huge part of the reason why it is vital to become an Orthodox Christian so you can participate in them and be endowed grace through them to deny the sacraments and the importance of them is to deny Christ the sacraments include baptism Christmas and communion confession marriage and the anointing of oil for most people there's also monasticism priesthood and last rites to my Roman Catholi
cs we usually refer to the sacraments actually as Mysteries instead of sacraments because we believe there are more holy mysteries in the church than the seven or eight main ones which is which the Roman Catholics would refer to as sacraments so firstly baptism is the saving action of God who through the water and spirit mystically recreates his creation you are immersed in water three times in the name of the Father the Son and Holy Spirit and are cleansed from all sin in our regenerated spirit
ually baptism is Then followed by Chris Mason Chris Mason the gift of the Holy Spirit which is by anointing all parts of the person's body with the special kind of oil called holy crism we do also baptize infants in the Orthodox Church which is considered heretical to Protestants but in the Bible it is said that entire households were baptized in the name of the father of the Son and the Holy Spirit so we do not hold the baptism of infants to be heretical but we do not believe that young childre
n actually are sinners who do not believe in the doctrine of original sin meaning that we are born as Sinners which led to the heresy of the Immaculate Conception in the Roman Catholic church we believe we are born with ancestral sin meaning that we are born with a corruptable soul not a corrupted Soul Jesus Christ himself was baptized even though he lived a sinless life so baptism within itself is not just about the washing away of sin for us it is a means of Grace it helps to protect us from e
vil it's the entrance into the saving Ark of the Orthodox Church Mark 16 16 whoever believes and is baptized will be saved some may say that because of the thief on the cross that baptism is not necessary but I'd say that the thief is an example of the exception there are some people who may be saved without the sacraments but most of us are in dire need of them when I entered into the Orthodox Church I did confession on a Saturday during Vespers and then was baptized and chrismated on the follo
wing Sunday so the morning after and then I took my first communion during liturgy Union is the taking of the Holy Eucharist the body and blood of Christ in the mystical form of bread and wine for the remission of sin it also heals the body and soul we believe that the Eucharist contains the actual body and blood of Christ it's not merely a symbol it's at first definitely an odd concept to understand but when you look back to the Old Testament the consumption of any sacrifice made to God was nec
essary for the forgiveness of sin so we continue that now John 6 53 very truly I tell you unless you eat the Flesh of the son of man and drink of his blood you will have no life in you Orthodox communion is vital communion of any other church is not communion there's no Grace no real presence of God present in the communion offered by any other Church in Orthodoxy we also practice confession by confessing through a priest we confess our sins any sin we can think of since last time we confessed t
o God and the priests the priest acts essentially as a witness Roman Catholics also usually do this and perhaps some lutherans and anglicans although how they confess is is different we Orthodox don't confess for instance in a confessional how I did it in my favorite Church which we unfortunately don't attend anymore is that we kneeled on our knees and confess with our heads bowed with the priest right next to us in John 20 Jesus says that his disciples receive the Holy Spirit if you forgive the
sins of any they are forgiven them if you withhold forgiveness from any it is withheld so from the beginning of the church Christians understood that the grace of ordination gave The Shepherd of the flock the priests discernment and compassion to offer guidance and remit confessed sins on behalf of Christ through the priest we are given guidance for our sins and oftentimes Penance for our sins which is very effective when it comes to proper repentance Penance often comes in the form of abstaini
ng from taking up the Eucharist which from personal experience sucks you're just sitting there a spiritual weenie watching people take communion it sucks but again you're supposed to approach the Chalice the Eucharist in a certain State of Grace not having committed a certain sins that's partly why confessing to a priest is important so he can tell what you whether you should approach the Chalice or not it's spiritually harmful to take communion if you're not in a certain State of Grace confessi
on through a priest I found has been so cathartic I remember the first time I confessed my sins it was embarrassing but I'm sure he had heard it all already and I felt a gigantic weight lifted off my shoulders I could feel the Redemption immediately we also are of course encouraged and welcome to confess our sins to anyone but in order to receive communion we must confess through a priest fun fact the early church had a practice in which the people would stand and confess their sins to God in th
e presence of the entire congregation But as time went on and the church grew in numbers strangers came to visit and public confession became more difficult out of Mercy priests began to witness confessions of sin privately our worship is liturgical and traces its Beginnings to the Old Testament Rites of the Hebrews worship apostolically it's clear that the church from the very beginning followed the model of a synagogue which was established through the command of God to Moses so if you hopeful
ly visit an orthodox liturgy you won't just see a pastor on a Podium giving a sermon although sermons are often a part of the Liturgy stepping into an orthodox Chapel is like stepping into another world the smell of the incense the gorgeous iconography and architecture the beautiful hymns it's amazing the Liturgy is a combination of scripture prayers hymns Psalms and canons written by prophets and Saints there will be some seeds for people to set like elderly people people with children or pregn
ant women but Christians traditionally worship while standing it's almost like a form of penance within itself because sitting takes less energy and it's kind of lazier it's definitely not easy to stand for that long and there is no shame really in sitting especially if you're tired or infirm but standing is what's ideal and traditional during the Liturgy we pray we repent we make sign of across dozens of times we bow dozens of times we venerate the iconography we of course take communion and we
only use our voices there is no guitar piano you can really witness the ancient roots of Christianity through an orthodox liturgy and especially compared to mega churches it is very very different of the Orthodox practices that Protestants find very iffy is iconography Roman Catholics also use iconography but usually more in the form of statues I believe I find it a bit streamed though that Protestants will protest to Arc iconography but will put out a nativity scene during Christmas the Apostl
e Luke was actually the first to create iconography which depicted the theotokos Mary the Mother of God holding Christ as a child and some of these icons even exist to this very day the icons depict and preach the gospel through beautiful Dynamic images a true icon painted in the traditional Orthodox fashion portrays the mystical beauty of the spiritual realm there are also instances in the Old Testament of God instructing Moses to instruct certain images in Exodus 26 1 it says moreover you shal
l make the Tabernacle with 10 curtains woven up fine linen thread and blue and purple and Scarlet yarn with artistic designs of the cherubim you shall weave them God also instructed Moses with respect to the Ark of the Covenant to have two cherubim of hammered gold at the end of The Mercy Seat how to become an Orthodox Christian becoming Orthodox is actually pretty simple but it's not necessarily easy because Earnest repentance is never really easy but you simply attend a church Peter the priest
about your intentions become a catacuman which is basically when someone receives instruction of the basic beliefs of Orthodoxy before being baptized please don't be afraid of attending an Orthodox Church Everyone is always so welcoming and they'll be thrilled to see a new Inquirer all you really have to do is try to arrive early so you can briefly talk to the priest then then listen to the Liturgy and then try to say they have a copy of the Liturgy so you can follow along with it especially be
cause most of the time Orthodox churches are established by an Eastern European immigrant so perhaps the uh the Liturgy will be in Russian or in in Romanian or something and the liturgies are often spoken entirely in their respective language at least at least part of it but if you attend an anti-okian or church or a Greek Church there's a good chance it'll be mostly English or partly in English or even entirely in English also do not participate in communion non-orthodox visitors cannot take co
mmunion and if you do it could actually harm you spiritually as well baptize Orthodox Christians really should not take communion without regular confession so it's not it's not personal it's actually good for you if you don't take communion as a non-orthodox Christian so if someone fornicates for instance usually that would mean they cannot take meaning for at least a month but in the early church the Penance would actually be a year if someone fornicates in common practice though the Penance h
as been shortened due to economy the ideal is too tough for us modern spiritual weenies so the priests give us Penance we can actually do without driving us away without without excusing sin because you really should not go without the Eucharist for long at all one main aspect of Orthodoxy that really sets it apart from other sects at least for me is its emphasis on theosis theosis or deification is a transformative process in which the aim is likeness to and Union with God I found that especial
ly within protestantism or non-denominationalism which really is protestantism in essence is that there is instead a huge emphasis on the escaping of the punishment of sin rather than an emphasis on escaping sin itself the main aim is to get to heaven the main aim is to not suffer the consequences of sin you know believe in hell so you don't go to Christ believe in Christ so you don't go to hell that's what that's what the devil says that's what I was told by Protestants when I was a little girl
believe in Jesus or you'll go to hell and although that's definitely part of the reason we want to have faith I personally love the Orthodox emphasis on the escaping of sin rather than escaping from the consequences of sin you know it's actually really interesting to hear Protestants and Roman Catholics discuss their beliefs because Orthodox Christian agree with both sex on certain things for instance we agree with Protestants that the papacy is not something to believe in that indulgences are
Blasphemous the Immaculate Conception is radical but then we'd agree with Roman Catholics that the mother of God is perpetually a virgin that the use of iconography is blessed that you can pray to Saints Etc and then the Catholics and Protestants both believe in the filial which Orthodox Christians reject the fully yoke was actually the first heretical belief that the Roman Catholic Church embraced which led to the Schism the filioce is the belief that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the fath
er and the son instead of believing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father you can see here with this image that the Holyoke actually inverts virginity which is a satanic thing Orthodox believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father not the father and the son now the trinity in its entirety is certainly a huge mystery but it's important for us to hold to what's actually been revealed to us about God's nature this far to close out this video I want to end with two pieces of Holy Scr
ipture the Lord Jesus Christ said that he knows his own and that they know him even as the father knows him and he knows the father and as such if we are Christ's sheep we must know him and the father this is important to remember when we are Discerning who indeed are true Christians Christ goes on to say further that he has more sheep than those present with him in the fold of Israel and that he must bring them also to obey him and that they all shall be one as they all have one Shepherd so it'
s been made clear that Christ's followers must know him obey him and be with one another we must worship Him in spirit and Truth God is a spirit and they would worship Him must worship Him in spirit and Truth these American woman Saint fortina struggling with her recognition of the Lord as a prophet when he is a Jew in her Samaritan asks him how she must worship God and his response is very telling he tells her that while the hour comes that the worship will change the Samaritans don't know what
they worship meaning that they even if they were worshiping the father they don't know him and they don't know Christ combined with what we know from John 10 that the ones who receive eternal life know Christ and therefore the father his statement that they don't know God demonstrates that they do not receive the associated salvation he even says that salvation is of the Jews not everyone knows this but the Samaritans are descended from a group of Israelites that set up their own separate Templ
e and rejected the prophets in contrast to the tribe of Judah which stayed true to the Earthly Authority set up by God knowing this Christ is saying that the Samaritans do not follow Christ's Revelation and Authority on Earth do not know God but that those that follow God's appointed Authority the tribe of Judah do know God it must follow that without following God's appointed Authority we cannot know God Christ goes on to say that God must be worshiped in spirit and truth so likewise The Author
ity sat down by God must be followed to must the truth be followed and by definition truth is not truth unless it's the fullness of Truth the whole truth and you will find the whole truth within Christ's original Church the Orthodox Church I also wanted to answer two specific questions that people had about Orthodoxy firstly why does the cross look like that because Jesus was crucified on a cross that looks like this with a foot rest and a headboard that was labeled Jesus Christ King of the Jews
in addition to the one Cross Beam that westerners are accustomed to and how do you know the Saints can hear our prayers in Luke 16 in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus even before Christ brought the Saints out of Hades Abraham was aware of Saint Moses and the prophets and his counsel to the rich man showing that he was made aware of events on Earth by some miraculous means if before being alive in Christ post-resurrection Saint Abraham could know of events on Earth certainly Saints alive
in heaven and Christ are made aware of Heaven of events on Earth well that is all for today thank you so much for watching all the way until the very end I really appreciate that I'll be doing more videos on Orthodoxy like an Orthodoxy q a and white Orthodox women they fail so if you want to see more videos like this and more videos about lost female education please do like the video and subscribe to my Channel please comment your thoughts and comment any questions you have about Orthodoxy I'll
answer as many as possible but if you'd like to talk to me more personally about Orthodoxy and support my channel enjoy my book club then please consider becoming a patron Patron a patron via the patreon link in my description box thank you again for watching God bless bye [Music]
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