Chapter Seven
Because the aim of Orthodox teaching is to form the whole Christian personality, it attends to all the aspects of human personality: the soul, the spirit, the mind, the body and human relationships. We read a great deal about these different directions that complement each other in the Bible, in the writings of the Fathers, and in the Church laws.
The Orthodox teacher's message is complete. It contains a glimpse of Church history and the lives of the saints. Each tree has roots as well as a stem, and it is impossible for it to flower or come to fruition except
if it be satisfied and nurtured on its original food. That is why you find a doctrinal glimpse in his speech and in the manner of his delivery, for doctrine is basic to sound spiritual building up, although it is devoid of meaning if it
is not lived and experienced. His speech also does not lack spiritual explanations of Church ritual with its spiritual, theological, and educational riches. We also find that this teacher shares the daily life of the Church with
his students, for he says the prayers of the Hours with them; he enjoys the Holy Liturgy with them; and is punctilious in his attendance of Paskha and the Keyahk evening services. From time to time, he spends periods of love and 'agapi' and
teaches them the feeling that the individual is a member of one body and the need to open up in affection to others and to all of society, so that they may be bright lights and loving hearts, regardless of the pain and hindrances they may
encounter. The orthodox Christian personality is integrated, experiencing union with the Lord, fellowship with those in heaven, unity with the faithful, and witnessing to those who are outside. It is a
personality that reacts to the age, to culture, and to society, and is aware of the role it is required to play, thus witnessing to the Lord who lives in it.
We have the best example in St. Mark, who when he discovered that Greek philosophy had a great influence on Alexandrian thought, faced up to it with studies and learning. He established the Theological School of Alexandria which studied the era and its culture, then accepted and rejected, then selected and graduated a great number of theologians and teachers of the world.
The objective of Orthodox teaching is to make the orthodox individual a whole personality through whom God is glorified whether he is active or at rest, and in all the areas of his life, the private, familial, church, and societal. This aim is inseparable from the comprehensive work of shepherding man, whether rich or poor, with all his different needs and component parts, neither is it divorced from sublime spiritual prayer. Did not St. John command his disciple, Gaius, saying: "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers." (3 Jn. :2).. Success, therefore, is required in all things and in all the facets of the human personality.
The Church endeavors to make her children whole and perfect in a number of important areas:
1. Perfect in knowledge. 2. Perfect in personality. 3. Perfect in relationships.
I. Perfect in Knowledge:
St. Peter says: " but grow in the grace and knowledge of our lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Pet. 3: 18). The Apostle thus advises a balanced and parallel growth, that is a reciprocal growth in two directions that progress together as a whole:
A growth in grace which is spiritual and experiential growth that takes place in the heart.
A growth in knowledge, which is the cultural and intellectual growth of the mind.
The person who grows in knowledge without grace is in danger of
pride, while the person who grows in grace without knowledge is in danger of ignorance. The Holy Bible advises us to be wise, for in the book of Proverbs it says: "seek wisdom, seek understanding". It asks us to have the "
mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2: 16), and to ask the Lord of Glory for the wisdom we need: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of god, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him."
(Js.1:5). He differentiates between heavenly wisdom and earthly wisdom which he describes as 'earthly, sensual, and demonic', whereas the wisdom which is from above is first of al pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and hypocrisy (Js.3: 15 -17).
In the Church there are a great number of sciences which the Orthodox teacher should acquire, some examples of which are:
1. Ecclesiastical Sciences: These are a wide ocean from which the believer drinks to quench his thirst and the teacher drinks to overflow to others. These
are some of them: a. The Holy Bible:
how did we get it, the languages it was written in, its geography, its historical events, the personalities in it, its book, its archeological digs, the old manuscripts, the schools of exegesis, its translation, its Greek origins, etc. Two. Theology and its Branches:
scholastic theology deals with our Loving and great God, His existence, His Oneness, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, salvation, eternity, the infinite qualities of God. Doctrinal theology studies orthodox dogma, its origin, its legislation, its Biblical support, its traditional support, and its patristic origin. Literary theology explains conscience, responsibility, and freedom. Comparative theology deals with the differences in the concept of Divinity held by the different Christian sects. There are also the different branches of theology like Positive Theology (western) which attempts to give us positive descriptors of God, and which, in our view, is certainly limited and cannot reach the depths. Passive Theology (eastern) explains how sublime and infinite God is and how impossible it is for our limited minds to comprehend Him. It negates some traits in Him and confirms others, as in the Gregorian mass:
"The power of Your Wisdom is indescribable; no tongue can define our love for man.... We thank you O One and Only True God, lover of mankind, who cannot be described, invisible, without limits, without beginning, eternal, timeless,
from time immemorial, who cannot bounded." Three. Theology of Salvation: Soterology and Christology study the nature of the Lord Jesus who is One nature in two and the difference between our conception and that of the
Calcedonian Orthodox as well as our joint condemnation of Eutychism and Nestorianism. Four. Ecclesiastical Theology:
which studies the Church whose head is Christ, its heavenly members, and its struggling members on earth, and the fellowship of all. It deals with the meaning of membership and the meaning of function and role, the group spirit and the avoidance of individuality.
Five. Ritual Theology: It takes us deep into the Church ritual such as the Holy Liturgy and the other holy sacraments, into the Paskha and Keyahk, the various services, and the Church praise.
Six. Church History: whether it is the history of the general Church (before and after schism) or the history of our Coptic Orthodox Church in the apostolic age, in the age of the Councils, monasticism, and the ministry. It
explains how our Church was ecumenical, not isolated from the general Church or from contemporary intellectual trends, such as the eastern Greek philosophies. It also studies the important personalities in Church history in the areas of
asceticism, theology, martyrdom, and ministry. Seven. Patrology:
is a broad science which we mentioned in a previous section. It deals with who the Fathers were, how to read their works, how they are classified either on the basis of language, geography, history, subject matter, or on what they wrote.
These are only a few simple examples to show how vast Church knowledge is and how greatly in need the ministers are to drink from this ocean of learning till they are full to overflowing!
2. General Culture: The minister must be
cultured, which means that he must acquire general culture and the human sciences such as: a. Psychology: whose various branches deal with the different areas of human activity. It takes us into the depths of the
human psyche and its reactions without, with its finite human resources, being able to cure the human crisis or the psychological troubles. It is here that the spiritual minister, the father confessor comes forward to heal the spirit
through faith in God, through the work of grace, through Christian society, and through training in public life. a. Philosophy: How marvelous it is to study the achievements of the finite mind of man and to add to it
the infinite power of faith! The mind will have rest if it "understands: that the two worlds were made perfect by the word of God"
(Heb. 5). We mentioned before that faith cannot dispense with the mind and the mind cannot dispense with faith. This is exactly similar to the naked eye, which has limitations and which must use the microscope or the telescope. Many philosophers were able to get to God by contemplating the infinite in nature, in the human body (anatomy and histology) and in numbers.
a. Sociology:
It offers us good studies of the growth of societies and the differences between them. It first studies small societies and how they were formed and their doings. It carries out field research on different phenomena like addiction, deviation, and apostasy in a scientific way that is not devoid of the work of God's Holy Spirit. Thus, science and religion are united in the service of contemporary man.
a. Management: We greatly need to make use of the modern science of management in the administration of our churches, of our ministry, and of our meetings. How can we discover talents and how can we
exploit them, coordinate them, supervise them, and promote them? How can we organize our work and delegate responsibility? How can we take group decisions in which the group does not do away with the leader and neither does the
leader do away with the group? What about successful debate and what about the means of communication? a. Electronic Computation: we must make use of it in the storage and retrieval of data, in making
Church membership lists, in the possibility of retrieving specific data, or a name of an individual with all the information as to his needs, his potential, and his circumstances. We must make use of it in the recording of marriages,
deaths, baptism, for the production of books and bulletins, for activities and study sessions. Computations by computer and laser, this is the language of the age; we must not be left behind. a. The Arts: The
Church was a pioneer in this area through its icons, its church architecture, its cells, its monasteries, and through the different types of leather work, of ceramics, through Coptic art and music which is our immortal heritage, through work
on wood, through photography and the theater. a. Literature:
such as poetry, the short story, the novel, Church publications, and other different literary forms which we must study so that we can present Christianity through them. They are doubtless effective and affective means and certainly there is, among the children of the Church, literary talents and superior appreciation.
a. The Sciences:
This includes modern technology and means of communication, such as the cassette tape, video, and the cinema; and the modern sciences such as genetic engineering, space exploration, test-tube babies, and the relationship of all these with religion.
The Integrated Personality: The aim of Orthodox upbringing is to form an integrated
personality that can lead a Christian life that glorifies God in all areas: individual, familial, church, and societal. If the personality is the outcome of the reaction of man with his environment, the Church intervenes to help him
control the way his private life is going. It offers him a holy environment where his social character is developed, then sends him into the world to bear witness to the Christ who dwells in him. Because of his great flexibility,
he is able to interact with his friends, his colleagues, and his compatriots without deviating or getting lost. This integrated personality, in our Church view, is characterized by: a. A full spirit,
in touch with God, which reads the Bible and lives it in daily conduct. It takes Holy Communion in a spirit of readiness, so that it may be rooted and established in God and that God may be established in it. It attends spiritual meetings and reads spiritual literature regularly. It serves in the church in accordance with its talents.
a. A Sublime spirit
controls its instincts by striving and through grace. It satisfies its needs with the work of God and with decent human conduct. It sanctifies its general incentives and so does not follow the crowd in wrongdoing; it shows discrimination and does not emulate people in everything, but discriminates between what is of value and what is not. It distributes its sanctified, purified, and controlled feelings among God, the Church, school, knowledge, service, psalms, worship, friends, and those whom it serves. It watches its habits, rejecting those that are evil and acquiring every good habit. It determines its path in accordance with the leadership of God's Holy Spirit.
a. An enlightened mind:
the integrated personality is mentally active in spiritual readings, in various fields of knowledge, and in general culture. It has an enlightened mind that is able to distinguish and discriminate, profit and criticize, accept and reject.
a. A healthy body: Christianity was never against the body; on the contrary, it advises us to strengthen it, to train it, to control it so that it is neither weakened by asceticism or illness nor made flabby by
laziness and gluttony. It should be controlled by fasting and 'metanias', by repentance and watchfulness. It is rendered healthy by an adequate amount of food, rest, sleep, and physical exercise.
a. Good relationships:
in the family circle, on the street, in the school, in church and in society. Christianity does not teach us to live in isolation from society, but that we should be a light and salt for it, and that we should function as ambassadors of Christ who interact with, influence, and serve others, and spread love and good.
The Environment: Through various activities, the Church creates a good environment for the
spiritual seed to grow. These activities help us discover our weaknesses, our talents, and our role in the service of the one body. These activities are:
. Trips and picnics . Meetings . Exhibitions . Church clubs . Performances . Competitions . Service of the environment
. Service of rural areas . Service of the needy, such as the poor, the sick, the old, the handicapped, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the mentally retarded, etc.
Through sound interaction between the individual and his environment, such as the home, school, church, and society, he becomes a whole integrated personality that is able to give and take without waste or excess, but
rationally and with commitment.
Integrated in Relationships: The Christian individual must be
successful in his relationships, either in the family, in church, or in society. He has a living relationship with God and fellowship with the saints. Through this divine gift and through heavenly aspirations, he is able to build
successful relationships in the family, in church, and in society.
In the family:
In Church"
In society:
May the Lord grant that we may strive together so that the Orthodox servant might glorify God in his public and religious life. May the grace of God be with us all.
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