Common Questions Answered
General questions about the faith
We are the original church, where the Holy Spirit established it on Pentecost, which is a day that the Holy Spirit was poured out the disciples in the forms of tongues of fire. Pentecost was 50 days after Easter (Acts 2.1-4).
Christ then entrusted the faith to the disciples and the apostles (who were selected by Jesus) to keep the faith. They then passed on the faith and the traditions to the next generation until today!
No, we are a separate church for the Catholic church. We don’t have the same Pope, nor do we have anything to do with the Vatican in Italy. We don’t answer to Pope Francis. We also have our own beliefs and our theology that is different from the Catholics.
We are the original church, the one that was set up by the disciples. The ‘newer’, ‘charismatic’ or Protestant churches are not what the disciples had in mind. We believe that spirituality should be like a candle: the light illuminates the whole world but is not loud.
If the teachings and love of Christ who willingly sacrificed Himself is not enough and you want more proof, then please see the gift that God gives us every Orthodox Easter.
No, we do not pray to Mary. She gave birth to God (Word) incarnate as a Virgin, so she has the only title in the world “Theotokos”*. The “Theotokos” is the Mother of God, holds a special place with God. So we ask her to ‘intercede’ on our behalf – which means that we ask her to intervene to God for us. Don’t you sometimes ask others to pray for you? Or send ‘thoughts and prayers’? This is the same thing but with the Theotokos to God on our behalf.
*Theotokos is a Greek work which means “Theos” which means God, “tiktein” to give birth, so in Greek: Theotokos means the one who gives birth to God.
“You will know the type of tree by their fruit” (St. Matthew 7.16).
The teachings of Christ is like no other. He taught to love and to pray for everyone, including your enemies and those who do you wrong. Imagine a world where there is one rule: love your enemy. This would be a fantastic world to live in. Now add in the other principles of Christ such as, ‘do onto others what you would like them to do to you’ and ‘to first take out the plank of wood in your eye before you take out the speck in your brother’s eye’.
Is this not beautiful fruit?
The Holy Spirit will transform you more like Christ. This is just the beginning! Where you go from here is your journey.
The teachings of Christ is heavenly and like no other because Christ is like no other. We implore you to taste the beauty of Christ for yourself.
Bible & historical questions
Of course we do! The Bible is the book of books put together by holy men who under the direction of the Holy Spirit chose what writings should be there and what won’t be in the Bible.
PENTECOST DAY! 50 days after Easter!
See Acts 2:1-4 in the Bible:
1“When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them b]”>[divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
One of the apostles John Mark was the writer of the Gospel of St. Mark met and knew Jesus well. After Jesus’ resurrection, he left Jerusalem to go to a city called Alexandria in Egypt. From there he established the church until he was martyred in 68 A.D., but the church continued to flourish even under oppressive regimes.
Church questions
Yes, you can, and we promise that you won’t burst into flames 😊 Feel free to come in and see what it is about, the best time would probably be Sunday morning when the liturgy is happening.
The pictures on the wall are usually pictures of the Saints. The saints are ordinary people like you and I but they loved God and allowed God to work through them. So the Saints are in the Paradise of Joy where they can intercede for us right now. They are with us in prayer, and they are the shining light of what we could be.
The priest is doing one of the sacraments, which is the liturgy. The liturgy = mass. So the liturgy is where the priest sanctifies the bread and the wine to make it the real bread the actual Body of Christ and the Wine to be the actual Blood of Christ. This is the whole point of the liturgy, which is the Zennith of our faith. The liturgy is more important and should be studied in-depth, but should be respected and learned.
You will find that a lot of the services are in English and can be understood by everyone. We do usually have other languages mixed into like Coptic or Arabic (generally for those who want to hear it), but for the vast majority of the services is in English.
We do come from the lands of emigration, which means that there are the same services in their languages too. Double-check with your local church when the English service is on or grab a dictionary 🙂
This is a loaded question but to answer simply, it is basically one of two things:
- An Egyptian Orthodox Christian; or someone who comes from an Egyptian Christian background.
- Someone who is not an Egyptian but is a member of the Coptic Orthodox Church through baptism.
This question can be debated until Jesus comes back again, but @ Orthodoxy.com.au, we don’t care about semantics: we just want you to experience Christ in His fullness. Amen.
Our priests
We have priests because Jesus implemented the priesthood! The disciples and apostles were the first priests, and the Bible talks about Bishops and taking Office, so the Bible supports it. Jesus instituted the priesthood to men so that they can continue the faith all of the world and for future generations.
Yes and no. Firstly let’s get this out of the way: the priests are always men.
There are churches in the monasteries and there are churches in the city for everyone. The priests are married to women and usually have children. We believe that the priests should be men who have raised families and from their community so that they can understand what other people are going through and can give them advice. You can get help from someone who has lived the life, lived the faith in this world and is from their own community, so they understand the real issues that are happening. The priest is now serving the people; the theory is that the priest of the people, for the people.
We get this question a lot so here is something else: they are still married to their wives, so there is little temptation elsewhere.
The unmarried ones are priests in monasteries and the Bishops of the church, as they both give their lives to the church. The monasteries are for the monks, and the nunneries are for the nuns.
Black is the colour of death. They wear only black because as they are priests with the faith and are now dead to the world. They do not wear fashion or worry about looking good. It is meant to be a simply, modest attire. The priests are meant to worry about spiritual life and not about the world.
Community
As important as it is to take care of our church, it is also essential to take care of our community. Christ commanded us to visit the sick – not just the Christians, feed the poor – not only the Christians but to do all of these things in his name to everyone.
There are important things for us to do in church but we help the broader Australian community. Please feel free to check out the charities page.
Absolutely! Get in touch with the charities directly and contact them. We think that it would better for you to contact and organise with them so that you’re not relying on us. If you do help them out, we would like to hear from you. Please feel free to check out our charities page.
About us
We’re a husband and wife team that wanted to reach out to Australians so that we could raise awareness on how Orthodoxy could benefit you in your life. This faith has saved us, kept us sane in an insane world, and has allowed us to grow as people. We would love nothing more than for you to taste the beauty of this faith. We know that the Orthodox has a stigmatism in Australia that is attached to being an Ethnic or speaking Ethnic (Greek, Serb, Russian etc.) but the actual faith couldn’t be further away from the truth and this is why we meet many Aussies who are converting to the faith right now.
This website is designed to be a pitstop: somewhere where you can gather some quick information and have use it as a map for your spiritual journey. This is the reason that we want to stay anonymous – it’s about you and your journey and not about us and we make no money from this. If you read articles or book that you may have otherwise may not have, or help (or get help from) one of the listed charities then this website has done its job.
Orthodoxy.com.au doesn’t accept donations because we don’t want to make any money from it and it doesn’t cost that much to run; we would instead you donate directly to the charities which we know will actually go to the community. If you have some extra dough then feel spread some kindness to someone who truly needs it.
Honestly, the costs of running this website are reasonably low, so if you gave me money I would probably just spend it on KFC anyways 🙂
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Photos: Christian Coptic Orthodox Churches around Australia
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