The One, his Church, and the People

The One, his Church, and the People

Prologue

This booklet is dedicated to the remarkable priest-monk, Abouna Silas Spear (born on Indian Independence Day, 15 August 1947, at Khurja, and reposed on the feast-day of Maria of Egypt, 01 April 2021, at Rajpur). + May his blessed memory be eternal. Please Lord, bring Abouna Silas to eternal salvation. Save him and allow him to meet with us again with you in eternity. May Abouna Silas' prayers be with us once he has been saved. Ameen.

The One

Why God Is

God is. God is, what? God is. A sentence unto itself. When speaking about himself, he is able to say, "I am". Another complete sentence. Ordinarily, these two sentences make no sense however they are complete and accurate sentences when spoken about God and by God. For no-one else this can be true, only for him. For all others, the sentences must be qualified. But for God, he just is. He says: I am. I cannot say such things about or for myself.

God is that thing, the is, that always is. He always was, is, and is to come. He is unto himself. There can be no others. He is unto himself he who is. The One Who Is, a famous title for God as well as the I Am. When you think about it logically, God is that thing which causes to be and which has no cause. No other being calls himself into existence and in all eternity he has done the same, entirely outside of space and time which are caused by him.

Somewhere in eternity, God calls himself into existence. In fact, some nowhere in eternity he calls himself into existence. In writing, I had nearly said that he called himself into existence but of course there is nowhere in time that he had done so and therefore neither in space, either. God has been from all ages and unto all ages. This is why we also say that he is righteous, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. He was and is, and is to come.

For all things in creation, we can distill them down into their causation. We have been able to think and to understand evolutionary processes. We can see things unfolding. We can describe empirical events, explaining them within their own created paradigm and predicting them within that same paradigm. We think we are very clever doing so, giving ourselves a pat on the back as we unravel the story within its own boundedness.

What we cannot do is go further than that, as our brains are part of that created logic. Occasionally in our dreams we catch glimpses of the uncreated is but on waking cannot remember anything about it other than it is located entirely outside the boundedness of our brains and our selves and matter, space and time. Our brains cannot observe themselves. We are always the observed and we are always looking into the bounds but never out.

Some are under the delusion that "scientists" have been able to "explain" the is away by making it sound like matter itself is the is. It is utter delusion. Space and time cannot be explained with reference to themselves. The sheer fact of creation is not an explanation unto itself. God is. God is. Creation can be explained up to the point of it coming into existence and beyond that there can be no pre-existing matter other than the is himself.

Again some are under the delusion that scientists have identified pre-existing "constants" that explain creation. If that is the case, those "constants" themselves are this thing called God we are referring to. He is inexorable. There is no getting away from him. No-one can pretend that they have explained why matter came into existence with the big bang if the big bang had to have come from somewhere. There is no pre-existing matter only God.

But how did God will himself into being? The point about God is that he is. If grammar leads us to sentences which are complete but irrational then the same is said for our own thought processes when meditating upon him. When losing oneself into the is, thinking deeply about the amazingness that is The One Who Is, you experience a rush of power greater than any wordly emotions. It is boundless beauty beyond measure. Beyond beyond.

Meditating on God also leads us to think of absolutes even in the world that are attributes of him. Truth, justice, love, sacrifice, goodness, and untold numbers more. Ultimately we have an entrenched, fundamental conception within ourselves as to what is truth and what is falsehood, what is justice and what is wrong, what is love and what is evil, what is sacrifice and what is selfishness, what is goodness and what is wickedness. Again they are inexorable.

It is absolute that we can go back to the big bang and no further because the big bang did not will itself into being and if it did then it is God himself. But it did not because it belongs to the created paradigm that gets caused and never causes. It causes not itself to be but is only ever caused so one hits an end of the paradigm and reaches its very edge at the big bang. Science is merely descriptive, explanatory and predictive within its own bounds. Any constants that explain the big bang do not explain existence itself.

In thinking of truth and falsehood, we can unravel all we want until we reach certain fundamentals that cannot be taken further than that. There is absolute in something being right or wrong in accordance with what is right for a collection of souls that are all part of creation, are created by the creator and have no existence unto themselves. They all must submit to The One Who Is as they cannot comprehend the Lord's own existence.

Unfortunately it might not be easy fathoming what submission to the Lord entails as myriad layers of filth have accumulated to prevent us from always being right about what God wants. We have reached a point in societal evolution that it is considered right that millions of humans should be destroyed through abortions and euthanasias supposedly for their own good and for the good of others. And yet for thousands of years we did not think so.

We must now consider more about what our own existence is to mean. He did not create us for nothing. We have discovered that so far our persons are the most complex things in creation. We have yet to discover anything in the created universe more complex than man himself. It does not necessarily mean there is nothing more complex out there but we have yet to discover it and we should be taking our lives in this world far more seriously.

Now as I write in 2025 more than ever before, man is on the cusp of destroying himself whilst simultaneously convincing himself that the very things he thinks and does will save him. We are constantly bombarded with messages that we must worship the planet and the ecology rather than God and that everything that for hundreds and thousands of years was considered good is really evil and vice versa. These are issues that must be addressed.

Why the Triune God

Some have thought there are more than one god. A multiplicity of gods is a contradiction in terms. Some have said, "The world is too big to have been made by one god!" This makes no sense. God is precisely he who causes to be and who has no cause. There is no pre-existing world which gods were born into and within which they were to mold creation as creation itself had to come into existence alongside time at the point of the big bang.

We know there can only be one God. He is and he is The One Who Is. When we meditate on him we know this to be true and we are filled with exhilarating ecstasy. All other gods are part of the creation and were caused. They could never have brought themselves into existence, willed themselves into existence. They are creatures like each and everyone else of us. So, no, they had no role in manufacturing themselves or anything else of the world.

What do we know of this one God? We have a relationship with him which is hopefully everlasting. Once we have been made, perhaps God's love to have spilled over into making us is so great that he cannot let us perish. His love is as infinitely unbounded as he is causing all things to come into being that have no pre-existence unto themselves. This includes every planet in an unfathomably large universe and every minutest particle and person.

God has been the is from eternity unto eternity. Can it be that his love begins with time and that it spills over at a point in eternity without having been there from all eternity? It is a curious thing that creation itself is not co-eternal with God. Perhaps we have always existed as ideas in the mind of God but we do not know. Somehow it seems extraordinary that the infinite love that is God that spilled over into creation did not manifest in all eternity.

Christians believe that it did. The Christian God is the Trinune God, the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In all eternity, God's infinite love spilled out unto his own self causing a relationship within himself. He is unity but has a relationship of three persons, to experience love, self-sacrifice, and loving obedience. The Father spilled into begetting a Son as well as a Spirit, the Son obeying the Father who loves the Son and the Spirit serving them both.

From all eternity there has been relationship within God himself. It is not a moment in time that it happened, as was the birth of each of us in time. A person born in 1902 did not exist in 1900. Even if all the souls had been created at some point earlier than their births ready to be placed in the world at the right place and time , it still does not mean co-eternity with God. We do not have co-eternity with God even if we are immortal once we are made.

This is important. One's conception of God might be that he thinks whatever he can imagine, God is greater than that still. This is correct. God is ever-greater than the greatest thing imaginable and more and more. He is beyond all comprehension and he is beyond beyond. One aspect of God is that he has always in all eternity experience relationship. He did not need to have made creation for this as he experiences relationship unto himself.

So in all eternity, God's infinite love spilled over into persons within himself for there to be relationship, self-sacrifice, and loving obedience. The Father begat the Son and also the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and serves both of them. The Son is obedient to the Father. God himself can experience the love of a father towards his son, giving him the whole world and in return for which the son gives obedience. The spirit serves all.

A purely uniform god does not experience love. He cannot be self-loving. We realise that self-love is no love. We realise that the highest love is self-sacrifice for the other. There should be another to share with for us to enjoy anything to the fullest. We prefer our activities to be in groups rather than alone. We want another to share in what we are doing to experience it to its fullest otherwise it does not seem fulfilling or satisfying as much.

Where would God's love go in eternity in the absence of his creation. Yes, he decides to spill over into creation and start the big bang at the beginning of time. He creates the fulness of the universe which is unfathomably huge, featuring trillions of stars and potentially thousands of hospitable planets with other civilisations out there which could be more advanced than our own. His love certainly is there and he experiences that love now.

But without creation, God still is love. He does not just love himself but spills over into relationship within himself so that three persons there can experience this. It is not one of self. Neither is it two persons only looking just at one another and with no other to share. It is not a group of four with its dynamics that could exclude one. It is three which includes oneself and two others. You can meditate on this and see how profound the Trinity is.

Were God to be uniform from all eternity and unto all eternity, there would be no such thing as relationship within himself. There would be a oneness that experiences not love and therefore features imperfection. There is nothing that God cannot do. He is able to accomplish all things. He is even able to accomplish infinite love without having created anything at all. He loves within himself a selfless love without having created any one of us.

Relationship is something outside of ourselves that enhances to an infinite degree our uniqueness. We cannot just have self-regard unto ourselves and feel satisfied. Even the most solitary monks and nuns of the wilderness are looking at God all day and night in their prayers. Without that relationship would be barren nothingness, death, oblivion and hell. God at the top might be lonely but never experienced it because he does not have to.

The one God is Triune. There is relationship of infinite love within himself that is neither self-loving, nor exclusionary, nor political in its dynamics. The dynamic established from all eternity unto all eternity within God is Triune because it has three persons only, no less and no more, not self-love, nor consuming or group false-love, but wholesome love between the three persons who can experience everything good without even need for creation.

Why God incarnate

At the heart of Christian belief in the Trinity is that one person of that Trinity, the Son, became Man. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the Man-God. The Trinity manifest in various ways throughout history but the pinnacle to this is the incarnation. This is the very height of the salvific story that God became Man so that Man can become like gods. And he did it through the ultimate self-sacrifice of emptying himself for all of Man's sins.

Earlier on, we see the Trinity manifest even from the outset. At the beginning of Genesis we see the Trinity speaking as, "We". We also see the "Spirit" at work in the creation. At various times the Trinity appeared to people such as when he appeared to Abraham at Mamre. We also see the Son appear in pre-incarnate forms such as the mysterious priest Melchisedek appearing for a limited time or the angel in the fire with Daniel and the youths.

The Son actually becoming Man is a major thing. It is the centre-piece of Christianity and is the pinnacle of God's grace in this world, atoning for all the fall and bringing us entirely back to him. It is not necessarily unique in the world's religions as there might be religions that conceive of God becoming incarnate however what is certainly unique is God dying. This is something perceived of as "foolishness" amongst people that God could be known to die.

In becoming Man, God has set for us an example of utter selflessness in the course of his life, ministry, and death in the world that allows us to set ever-higher goals for our own lives that can never be met but can make us ever-better people and ever-closer to him. It enables us to set in motion the wheels towards salvation that, once we have died and risen again, continues forever into eternity with him never to face death again. It keeps getting better.

In becoming Man and living the only entirely selfless life ever lived, God has been everywhere Man is ever capable of going. There remains no place in the entire cosmos that Man could go to that God has not already been. There is no amount of suffering that God himself has not experienced. This takes some thinking. When you meditate it becomes ever-clearer this must be true. There is no conceivable suffering God has not made his own.

The universe rightly belongs to God. Everything should bow at his name. Everything does belong to God. All things belong to him and ultimately return to him. There is no particle of this universe that he does not own. It is infinitely profound that God is able to lock himself into the life and body of a Man to irrevocably experience that life for the sake of all his creation. In doing so he sets right all that was wrong and brings back all that was lost.

Some have denied the omniscience of God. They would say he cannot be found in all places because some places and substances are unclean. This is ignorance. Every particle belongs to God. When zooming into even noxious substances, focusing near enough, you realise it is made of particles that are not themselves unclean. It is only the level of Man in his fallen state that a substance can be perceived of as unclean but in God's omniscience it is pure.

Some have denied the imperative of God to become Man to fully experience the suffering of Man. They argue precisely because of his omniscience there is nothing for him to do other than be God and know all there is to be known about his creation from his Divinity. But there is something missing there. In locking himself into his creation irrevocably he experiences the uniqueness of that life that otherwise remains in his imagination only.

We have the example of Abraham being commanded to sacrifice his only son, Isaac as being one of imperative to go the full way towards knowing what something truly is about and not being sufficient to imagine it only. Abraham embarked on a journey with Isaac, saddling the donkeys for that journey, taking wood with them, an axe, tying Isaac up ready for the kill and reaching the point that but for God's intervention he would have followed through.

Some have denied God could be located in the body and life of Jesus Christ whilst simultaneously being God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Firstly, God can do all things. But secondly, God to do all things, must do all things. It is not sufficient that he could. The relationship that emerged within God in all eternity is not fully realised or experienced without an irrevocable undertaking to become that obedient Man able to worship God.

An obedient Son of God has known from all eternity that the creation would choose sin and death and that in bringing creation back to him he would need to enter creation itself to choose the cross and live not only a selfless life but to taste of death and to experience infinite pain as the only remedy for Man's fallen state. He knew it from all eternity and chose in his infinite love to continue this way, permanently, irrevocably, to satisfy all Man.

God knew from eternity that Eve would sin, that Adam would have to follow her, that Man would fall, that creation would fall, and that Man would be banished from paradise to lead mortal lives shaped by spatial and temporal limitations. Somehow God even intended for them to have fallen. In being given choice Man can experience all that can conceivably be experienced just as God himself can and must. Man can choose anything. He can be a god.

Were Man to be programmed automatically to never have choice there would be nothing amazing about anything. There is ordinately more satisfaction in going through with something to arrive somewhere than were you to not have to go through with anything. God set the parameters at limitlessness and boundlessness as to where Man can end up this way, choosing first death and then through his Son reaching eternal, ever-greater glory.

The God-Man chose the way of selflessness, knowing in his life that he is both God and destined to live selflessly to obedient death on the cross. The infinite paradox of the God-Man, entering his creation knowing he can choose any life, knowing the world owes him everything, knowing the nation to which he was born should know him best and knowing they will reject him and kill him. The greatest evil to be used for the greatest good.

His Church

Why Christianity

God entered the world as planned throughout history via the Jewish nation. He set them apart from early on and his Spirit entered their prophets even before he entered the Church permanently on the day of Pentecost (50 days after his resurrection and 10 days after his bodily ascension to heaven). God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees to come and worship him and to set in motion the rise of the Jewish nation into which he would be born.

The greatest prophet of the Jews was Moses to whom the law was given. Moses' books were ahead of their time. Genesis accurately described the evolution of the universe from light particles first evading the gravity of the big bang to the creation of Man the most complex of all creation. Linguistically and conceptually nothing could rival Genesis' account of evolution 4000 years ago and it took until the 1960s for the big bang theory to validate it.

This is remarkable. At one point in the 20th century, cosmology favoured Sir Fred Hoyle's "steady-state theory" of eternal expansion and contraction of the universe. Since the 1960s instead cosmology has been united in confirming the big bang must have happened 14 billion years ago and Einstein's theory of relativity also confirmed that it was light particles that first escaped from that big bang thus validating the very opening lines of Scripture.

Genesis goes on to accurately describe the evolution of the solar system, the earth with its life-forms progressing from the simpler ones to the most complex, Man. All of this was at a time when the Hebrew language linguistically and conceptually could not have allowed Moses to "make it up" and most would have laughed at him just as they laughed at Noah for spending 40 years building an ark for his family and the animals well ahead of any floods.

God's purpose in consecrating to himself a nation was for that nation to evolve to the point a righteous woman could emerge able to bear his birth into the world without hesitation or question. The righteousness of the Jews did evolve to such a point but only in the midst of hundreds of years of struggle, tested by the sword, blood, toil, tears, massacres, rapes, pillages, captivities and continued accurate prophecy and promises being fulfilled.

The Jews learned in their history that God will always fulfill his promises through the prophecies of the prophets and that disobedience would bring separation from him and obedience would fulfill their desires. Ultimately the Jews were yearning for the fulfilment of the Messiah to be born in their midst for their redemption. It became fulfilled in the fulness of time through one Jewish girl, the Most Holy Mother of God.

In one perfect lady emerging amongst the Jews, God could have perfect acceptance and obedience to his will through her. He had to be born and after hundreds of years of the Jews' faithfulness to him and learning to hear his voice and to obey, got to that stage a girl could develop perfectly in accordance with his will without hesitation or query. Thus she accepted she would give birth without having slept with her fiance the righteous Joseph.

No other nation on earth could have matched the Jewish nation's capacity for bringing God into the world. The prophets had the Spirit with them for hundreds of years, guiding the development of that nation and ultimately in Jesus all the prophecies were fulfilled, so that not only the Jews would know Jesus was God but all the nations of the world. Thus the need for the Jews' chosen status by God was fulfilled in God's birth to them and death by them.

Judaea is a country located in the middle of the earth and in the midst of civilisations. It is from there God launched his mission to save all Mankind through his 33 years on the planet and three years of ministry. But the work was not done just by being born. First his Holy Mother had the task of continuing to shape him so that the baby she bore for nine months would grow into the 30 year old man who would know his mission and obey to the end.

Syeda Mariam had the task of bringing the boy Jesus up to be righteous as a Man and as a Jew. Despite his divinity and his inability to sin, he was still humanly capable of sin as his very body was mortal and bounded by the realities of fallen nature i.e., the parameters of space, time, illness, death and so on. His very brain itself was a physical thing made of cells and flesh and blood that could house sinful thoughts. But the depths of his heart were divine.

His divinity needed to be unleashed which it did so by the time he was 30 and was called into the wilderness. He knew what he must do and he went and did it. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights whilst praying and defeating the temptations of the devil. In going without food and water for that long he showed what is humanly possible and without magic or use of his divine powers which he still could have chosen for himself and did not.

The devil tried to deter God from his mission by reminding him that the whole world belonged to him anyway and that he could somehow circumvent his mission by not bothering to go through with the suffering part and bring the whole world to worship him directly which is nothing short of what he as God deserves. He was born into the very world which he created and that world owes him nothing less than direct worship.

God however knows from the beginning what will happen. He knows from outside of time what will happen from beginning to end. The devil's plans are limited by space and time albeit he becomes more sophisticated in real time and can jump from place to place instantaneously, receiving information from demons all over the world instantaneously to improve his calculations for as long as Man walks the earth. But God knows infinitely more.

The devil entered the hearts of the very Jews who were to have received God into the world, even the chief priest and one of the 12 apostles, to kill the God-Man. The God-Man saw it through to the end weeping tears of blood in the garden of agony just before the appointed time of the crucifixion, asking the Father three times if he could dispense with it all to bypass the crucifixion and knowing throughout the will is to see it to the very end.

Why the Catholic & Apostolic Churches

The very greatest evil and the very greatest good happened all at once with the crucifixion. At that point the very Jews who should have welcomed God into the world rejected him and fulfilled numerous prophecies in doing so. Jesus had made it clear who he was and they still rejected him despite all the signs pointing to his divinity as the Messiah whom the prophets predicted would enter the world for their salvation and for the salvation of Man.

The very Jews who had welcomed the Messiah into Jerusalem the Sunday before ended up demanding his execution that Friday for no reason other than he was not satisfying their expectations that he will always work miracles for the sake of easing their lives more than was necessary. They did not realise that in teaching them the greatest of commandments is to love God and love fellow Man, they would that way be making their lives easier anyway.

One of the 12 apostles had betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver as prophesied in Jeremiah. Another of the 12 also betrayed Jesus as predicted by Jesus himself - Peter. Peter had emphatically denied that he would just as Jesus was equally emphatically telling him what would happen by the time the rooster had crowed three times. The difference between the two is that only one of them had the courage and humility to pick himself up and fight on.

Our Lord refused to relent to Satan when in agony in the garden and saw his mission through to the end that night and the next day. He asked three times of the Father whether he could dispense of it all and the answer each time was, "No". He knew he could call it off because he is God and he can do anything. But he has also set things up in such a way that in utter love everything made has assumed a reality and he will never destroy that which lives.

Jesus locked himself into his mission irrevocably whilst still having choice and free will. He chose to align himself with the Father's will despite it being infinitely hard to do so. There lies the infinite paradox of Christianity that the God-Man who could do anything and to whom all allegiance in the universe is owed chooses never to use that for himself but only in servitude to others to then point of death. It must have been infinitely hard to do so.

How can something be infinitely hard for God to do? Because precisely because God can and ought to have everything he wants that when choosing to not do things for himself as a Man and choosing to accept the fallen limitations of Man he experiences infinite burden on himself. Ultimately he would have absorbed all sins of all people from all times from all places in the entire universe that day as a Man and in doing so is God because only God can.

He could have pulled the plug as it were on that mission. In doing so would have meant deleting all that he had created including all future lives from all places and all past ones as well. God's infinite love could not do that despite being able to do anything which is again paradox in Christianity. It is not however a perverse paradox but a beautiful one. God's utter love for Man spilled over in sacrificing himself for all Man and being scapegoated.

In coming back from the dead on the third day he had fulfilled not only the mission of seeing it to death but also having visited hell during that period he even went to that one place God is not. Hell is meant to be somewhere in the absence of God but God himself has now been there and the people dwelling there can be sure it is only going to be temporary as they too can now look forward to the resurrection in hope for restoration to a higher place.

He then came back and established his Church using the apostles to set things in motion so that until the last day there would be the ability of Christians to find peace during this lifetime as well as in the next. He already had 12 apostles, one of whom had betrayed him. This one needed replacing and so the group did so and thereafter ensured they would always do so to this day, with at least two apostles ordaining each new apostle each time.

He had already told Peter that he will build the Church on him and had commanded him to "feed his lambs" after he had gone. But he was not yet gone and continued to teach the apostles for 40 days since his resurrection and until he got carried back into Heaven in a bodily ascent to be seated at the right hand of the Father. He awaits the day of judgment when all people account for their sins and find their place in the ultimate order of things.

But he also promised before then that another ten days after he is gone, a "comforter" will come to guide the Church. Thus on the 50th day, the day of Pentecost, with the apostles gathered together with the Most Holy Mother of God in one place the Holy Spirit was gifted to the Church rendering them able to speak in any language needed and which remains a gift given to some people who are able to communicate with others in their own languages.

Thus he instituted an earthly Church to await the last day. He gave the world teachings and examples as well as sacraments. He blessed sacraments of baptism that had already been carried out by John and of marriage which he attended as a guest and at which performed his first miracle. He instituted the sacrament of Holy Communion showing the apostles what must be done in remembrance of him. He performed exorcisms and absolutions of sins.

Today there are Churches which are "Catholic" i.e., they perform universally accepted sacraments as narrated in the Gospel (priesthood - Christ reminding his people to continue in the priesthood of Melchisedek; monasticism - John being the ideal monk and Syeda Mariam being the ideal nun; marriage - Jesus being guest at Cana; baptism - blessed by Jesus; fasting - consecrated at the outset of his ministry; healings; absolutions; exorcisms etc etc).

Catholic Churches are usually also "Apostolic" i.e., their bishops continue being spiritually descended from the original 12 apostles, each time one is ordained he requiring the laying-on of hands from at least two existing bishops. There are major centres of Christianity with an apostolic throne at their heart e.g., the bishop of Rome now oversees the worldwide Roman Catholic communion with Rome being spiritually descended from St Peter himself.

Why Holy Orthodoxy

Sadly, the Roman Catholic Church fell into heresy as did all Churches to varying degrees barring the Eastern Orthodox Church, the direct continuity of the Early Church to this day. Some of the other Churches are closer to Orthodoxy than others but only Orthodoxy contains the, "fulness of the faith", the others falling in concentric circles of varying distance from the centre. Some Churches have become unrecognisable as is the case in Anglicanism.

Orthodoxy became consolidated and codified under the seven ecumenical councils whereby in the spirit of collegialism the global bishops of the Church decided what is Christian doctrine, consistent with the holy scripture. Heresies fell away from the Church as the process continued. The main heresies to be eliminated were of the Arians and the Monophysites. These early heresies related to Christology and the nature of Christ – claiming respectively he is either wholly man or wholly divine.

It continued until the 7^th Ecumenical Council taking place in the 8^th century and which restored the cult of icons which Orthodoxy itself had fallen away from under some of the corrupt Byzantine emperors who had destroyed many icons and promoted geometric shape painting in the churches instead. Iconography was restored at the final Ecumenical Council reaffirming that 2D images of the saints are an authentic window into heaven and visual representation of the Gospel.

Orthodoxy at one point was known as the Imperial Church and was united with the Latin West. The Imperial Church covered most of Christendom, with pockets of the aforementioned Monophysites in places. Essentially, from the Council of Chalcedon in the 4^th century until the Great Schism of 1054, all of Europe was Orthodox, with parts of the rest of Christendom either being Orthodox or Monophysite – either mixed or exclusively Monophysite.

These Monophysites continue to the present day and are under the ultimate premiership of the Coptic Pope & Patriarch of Alexandria, the seat of St Mark which runs in parallel with the Greek Orthodox Pope & Patriarch of Alexandria & All Africa being the second in hierarchy in all Orthodox Churches (or third if counting renegade Rome) which has assumed a “First Amongst Equals” position similar to those of Constantinople in the Orthodox Communion (or indeed Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican one).

The other Monophysite churches are: the Ethiopians, which split from the Copts in 1958 when Pope Kyrillos VI granted them independence; the Eritreans, which split from the Ethiopians when they gained independence followed a war in the early 1990s; the Armenians, whose church is a very ancient one; the Syriacs (who also have a patriarchate in parallel with the Greek Orthodox third in hierarchy Patriarchate of Antioch); and also the Malabarites, a church in southern India (Kerala) founded by Apostle Thomas.

Emphasis is placed on these Monophysites because until 1054, they were the only heretical church in existence outside of Orthodoxy (there has also been a small and numerically insignificant Nestorian church under the Assyrians but they have not been considered as important as the Monophysites who, under the leadership of the Egyptian Church, have been quite powerful and influential (sometimes allying with the Arabs against the Byzantines).

The Coptic Church in Egypt itself largely took over from the Imperial Church under the Arabs although to this day some in Egypt remain loyal to Orthodoxy under their own Pope & Patriarch in Alexandria. Notably, there has always been a large ethnic Greek presence in Egypt (many of whom left following President Nasser’s nationalisations – but many of whom remain) who also are considered to have founded the Egyptian Navy and who have made many contributions to Egyptian culture and business.

The Coptic Church also extends into Sudan, which incidentally also has in recent history contained a thriving Greek community (traces of which remain in road names in Khartoum) and which as mentioned is really the mother church for the Tewahedo Churches of Ethiopia and Eritrea (“Tewahedo” related to the Arabic word “Tawahid” meaning “One-ness”, an emphasis on God’s one-ness and yet another indicator they are Monophysites who believe in hybrid nature of Christ being neither human nor divine.

These Tewahedo Churches have obscure dogma grounded in ancient beliefs in demonology and stories that feature in a large extended canon, with books not found in any other Churches. Even the Egyptians have beliefs in folk magic, with self-appointed lay exorcists who have no priestly authority to undertake some of the things they try to do in the realm of banishing demons (and who really are themselves nothing other than magicians having had their secrets passed on to them from Pharaonic time).

The Armenians have also been influential, maintaining a strong presence in Anatolia, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, as well as in fact in Iran which is allied with them (and in which can be found some beautiful examples of Armenian architecture). They have particular interest in competing with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem but without much success as since the Ottomans restored the power of the Greek Churches in the Eastern Mediterranean they have been the predominant church.

As mentioned, there are also other Monophysite churches, amongst the Syrians and down in the Malabar of India. They were never as successful in Syria itself, which historically has been 20% Greek Orthodox and may it be that the Greek Church remains powerful there following the end of the recent war between President Assad and his enemies. It could be the day comes that Oriental Orthodox will reconcile with the Eastern Orthodox Church and come back under the leadership of Constantinople.

Mention has to be made of the vast Roman Catholic Church which is the single biggest denomination. It too may reconcile with the Orthodox and in fact the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) will then be the overall leader of all Roman Catholics & Orthodox but he would have to be just first amongst equals and not exercise any doctrine of infallibility as this itself is one of the reasons the Roman Catholics fell into heresy to begin with and which will need to be abandoned should they wish to be reconciled with us.

Since the 16^th century Reformation, Christians in Western Europe have been attempting to return to the Early Church but without knowing about Orthodoxy. They did a reasonable job of it for some things (departing from heretical doctrines such as Papal infallibility etc.) but a bad job in other things (departing from any belief that the Most Holy Mother of God is even special and considering her just another woman etc.). Protestantism has continued to spiral into chaos as can be seen in Anglicanism.

Ultimately, it can be seen that Orthodoxy is His Church to which other denominations can come more or less close or more or less distant but never comprise the fulness of faith. Anyone wanting to experience the fulness of Christianity should explore Orthodoxy in which we have kept not only the original teaching of the risen Christ as communicated to the disciples in the 33 years of his earthly ministry & 40 days he walked earth again but also in the holy fathers’ & mothers’ own continuing canon of experience.

The People

Why Man first and then the Church

By “people” we mean all the people who have ever lived in every place and time in this world. Theoretically this includes aliens. It is difficult to speak specifically of aliens because we have not yet been able to meet them but it is worth mentioning them. In the vastness of the universe there are aliens who may be at various stages of civilisation and some of whom theoretically may never have fallen. If so, the laws of physics and biology would be different to them and they would experience immortality.  

Civilisations that never fell are interesting to think about but we do not know one way or the other if they do exist. In the vastness of the universe, there must be intelligent life. Part of God’s incredible plan is to include the vastness of his cosmos to share in the kingdom. We had to travel far to discover just planet earth and in theory it could be that we are part of an old world still where the new world elsewhere in the universe has yet to be discovered and contacted.

In theory, other civilisations might have never fallen. This is difficult to comprehend on several levels. First, we must not be tempted to think that Adam were able to resist temptation forever. Adam may have been designed to sin out of sheer wanting to know what might happen. We sometimes think that we could have done better and surely all it takes is to resist eating the forbidden fruit. Fasting was the first commandment and Adam failed – what could be easier than just having kept to it?

For most of us however, I cannot see how we could have sustained a resistance to sin forever. Temptation is there and it could be God wants us to have fallen. The glory that is in falling and being redeemed, especially through the blood of Christ, is infinite and infinitely more than the infinite glory that already existed in Paradise. It is known in mathematics that there is not only one kind of infinity but there might be infinite infinities and in the same way God’s kingdom will be infinitely raised above Eden.

This is an important point to bear in mind that Adam’s fall makes Adam’s redemption ever-greater. His free will meant that we ourselves can become like gods. We are inventive and creative and within our imaginations can exist all the universe and more. I mentioned mathematics which itself is an arena in which man’s mind can touch unfathomable depths, ever-more complex and ever-more abstract. It might be that were we to have lacked free will, we would not even be able to progress infinitely closer to God.

There is also the notion that it is difficult to process what would the unfallen matter have resembled had Adam never fallen. I am capable of getting cut with a nail. I am capable of losing a lot of blood. I go hungry and thirsty. I need sleep. There even is such a thing as sleep. There is such a thing as illness. There is weakness. There are physical and temporal limitations on what we can do in our bodies. There is the time axis and there are four dimensions we are aware of. There ultimately is death and decay.  

In the unfallen universe there is the possibility that physics works in a different way. This is difficult to comprehend. What would happen if we did venture to a planet containing a civilisation that had not fallen? It is not inconceivable that we would experience it in a fallen way with the aliens that live there still experiencing it in an unfallen way (a similar thing is mentioned in the Narnia universe where on entering our world the White Witch found that she had lost her ability to work magic).

One way of looking at the possibilities in the unfallen universe is exactly what we witnessed in our risen Lord. He could almost like magic, take on different appearances to people, disappear, bi-locate. He never died again although to be absolutely clear he DIED the first time around after which he has never and will never die again as he was taken up into the clouds and will return to the earth the same way that he departed. He is there somewhere in this realm and is invisible to most people.

There are a handful of men and women in this world who are able to see Jesus at various times how he truly is. They see a brilliant, dazzling, white light which is how he appeared to the disciples accompanying him to Mount Tabor and really signifying not the Christ’s Transfiguration but that of those disciples themselves. They could even witness the Christ talking to prophets who were supposed to have died but who seemed to them still alive which is how they currently are whilst awaiting the kingdom.

These same handful of men and women sometimes possess abilities of their own which are reflective of a non-fallen state such as gifts of clairvoyance, communicating in languages they never learned, bi-location, teleportation etc. They can know things about the person speaking to them despite never having met. They can communicate with stones and trees and find out about the history of the place they are standing in including events that took place there long ago.

On some level, the ambition of both the non-fallen and the fallen worlds is the same: to improve the world around us in service of our fellow man. We are commanded by Christ to love God and to love man, in that order. We told these are the greatest commandments. In service to God we pursue excellence and in doing so for others we can make the world a better place including for future generations. Un-fallen civilisations in theory by now could have conquered whole solar systems.

In this fallen world there is opportunity for movement ever-closer to God both spiritually and temporally. We are able to continue this movement for as long as the world still exists. No-one knows God’s plans for how many different people he wants to be brought into this world but there have been many billions on this planet and I cannot believe that there are not many billions more on other planets and in years to come. Mankind is vast and there is no limit to what we can achieve in refining our world.

The Church exists to serve God and the people but it is not above God. God himself can do what he wills and has his own relationship with all peoples. Every human being deserves the chance to participate in mankind’s achievements and to benefit from them. The Church should not view itself as inward-looking but be outward-looking towards the betterment of all societies everywhere. We should look forward to trying to improve people’s lives now and for the future.

Orthodox Christians must never become parochial or cliquey. There is no place for these things amongst Orthodox Christians. We can take a stance on issues that affect us and I will cover these further below. But we must never view outsiders as being inferior to ourselves. In a different set of circumstances, we, like Adam, would have fallen. If Adam feel for breach of a simple commandment to fast, how badly would the cosmic fall have been were we to have been in his position, with our manifold breaches?

Why Orthodox Christians have a place in the world

Nonetheless, Orthodox Christians have their place in the world. We should view ourselves like the righteous men in Abraham’s time whereby Abraham dared to ask God whether he would destroy the city were even a small and dwindling number of righteous to still dwell therein, and the answer each time was that he would not. We are not told whether God would destroy the world were that number to have been reduced yet further even by another one however we should take heart at ten.

We have a duty of care towards our fellow man and must take stewardship of his world seriously. We have been commanded since the time of Adam to take control of the world and to bring it back towards God. In this fallen world, we must bear witness to the crucified and risen Christ and facilitate as many others as possible towards becoming Christians. We should not be keeping Jesus all to ourselves but to sharing the word with all as far and as widely as possible including in many languages.

Today’s world has numerous sophisticated facets that cannot be ignored by the Orthodox Christian. In various fields, the Orthodox Christian is called to excel, so as to understand the world around him and to exert his influence in others coming also to understand what the truth is in Christ and his Church. Part of the beauty of the world is the variety and diversity of its peoples. Even non-Christian peoples have given rise to great beauty in their arts & culture. There is great music and literature from all corners of earth.

Fields in which mankind has come to refinement include asceticism & monasticism, biology & chemistry, communications technology, computer science, fine arts, intelligence & warfare, literature, logic, mathematics, music, philosophy, physics, and rule of law, to name but a few. Of these, only the first one is special to Orthodoxy and the practices of outside religions should not influence Orthodox practice (e.g., Yogic breathing exercises should not be used in conjunction with recitation of the Jesus prayer).

There are things that we can further develop that are common to mankind and should not be kept straitjacketed. Music is an area that can be developed and maintain a neutral character without becoming associated with one culture or another. People can collaborate in making music and enjoy it for the sake of it. It need not be ideological or politicised. Music is a language of its own common to all people everywhere. As Dumbledore once said, music is a type of magic they do not teach at the school.  

Mathematics is surprisingly closely related to music. Music is based on mathematical patterns. Very large numbers and non-repeating irrational numbers intrigue me. We discover larger and larger numbers and none of which ever comes close to God’s infinity. And yet, a larger number is still closer to infinity than a lesser number; more decimal places in an irrational number are closer to the answer and ever-closer still without reaching it. This is the soul’s relationship to God once saved in his kingdom.

Technological developments can be used towards making an ever-better civilisation and bringing us ever-closer to God. A Dyson Sphere is a hypothetical structure built by the most advanced civilisations we can imagine whereby the power of a sun is harnessed directly by an object built to fully encircle it. We are millions of years off such development. But if we continued we could reach it. We could reach technological advancement to be able to teleport and to bilocate, even if holy people already can do so.  

Medical advances are amazing. Remember, in the Bible we can see people earlier on who were able to live to a thousand years. Later on, God set the limit to 120 years (which is remarkably accurate as the oldest verified person was 122). We probably are limited to about that, however, and all the cancers and viruses that plague mankind are a result of an increasingly complex and dark part of the fall that allows these things to creep in. Living lives in accordance with his will can lead to healthier lives as well.

We should do our best to emulate Christ in what he did for people for both the love of God and of man. Some things we do mostly to the glory of God. In building stunning churches, we do so for the glory of God. We can aim on building ever-expansive and intricate churches for his glory and bring people to Christ this way. A church building does not in and of itself serve mankind but it does serve God and when we take special care over how we facilitate his holy mysteries there is much reward to us on earth.

Intelligence services are important in protecting some of the most vulnerable polities from the most extreme behaviours. If it was not for the intelligence services, many millions around the world could have been murdered by terrorists and extremists so we owe our lives to the invaluable work that they perform. This applies in countries that suffer with some of the most extreme terrorism, their own security services do much work to thwart even worse behaviours and attacks against their people.

Orthodox Christians find themselves living in most countries of this planet, and in most of which we are able to openly practice our faith (although in a handful of which, we cannot). Wherever we are even in countries that our churches cannot function, we must live our Christian lives. There is no excuse for not doing so. Even if we are the only Christian in a society, we are living our Christian life. We need not attend a church if there is not one to attend. We are always bearing witness to Christ 24/7 all year. 

In upholding the rule of law we should aim to create societies in which others can feel safe. We want to be able to express ourselves and for others to be able to do so. We want a society in which everyone is able to become Christian freely and openly. If they are executed for it, then they will be saved following their martyrdoms. But we do not want to have to live like this. It is better to have a world where people express what they actually believe in rather than having to pretend or face worldly consequences.

Orthodox Christians have been prominent in some of the greatest societies that have existed and we should aim to emulate any examples of such golden periods as we can. Orthodox Christians controlled the longest-lived empire being the Eastern Roman Empire from 11 May 330 to 29 May 1453. We played an important role throughout the Turkish Empires, being the majority population in the Seljuk Empire and a powerful polity within a polity in its successor Ottoman Empire.

Orthodox Christians in large countries like Russian, Romania, and throughout the Western world like the USA, UK, and Australia, should aim to make full use of their positions for the betterment of the societies they live in and for the whole planet. Those in Russia should aim on making their country even greater, focusing on its strengths and overcoming its flaws. Those in the West should raise awareness of their community without becoming inward-looking and captured by temporal cultures and attendant silliness.

And finally, what are to Orthodox Christians take a position on

The Welfare State: benefits should be there for the most vulnerable and not for the masses. Only a few should benefit from State funds because only a few are too sick to work. Jesus Christ is our ultimate example of the living God who suffered more than any man possibly could and yet still did it. We should not be perturbed by our inner anxieties and carry on working. People are severely physically disabled should be able to get more of the pot to be shared amongst fewer people. For the few, not the many.

Abortions: there should be an avenue available for abortions, within strict limits set by the law. Transgressors of those limits should be punished but also given counselling. Abortions need to be available because of all the terrible mistakes that have taken a hold of man. Some women who are victims of rape need an avenue for being able to prevent a child being born as the offspring of their rapist and should be given that opportunity (alongside counselling). A few other scenarios also apply.

Overall, abortion should be avoided. Take a case study with Downs Syndrome. Currently, people with Downs Syndrome are rare. In Iceland, they abort so many Downs Syndrome children that there is only one person living with it. Aside from the possibility of such a person perversely “benefitting” from some kind of celebrity status, he would actually be suffering a lot more, as would his family, than if all the other children with Down Syndrome would have been just allowed to live.

Climate: currently, the science is pointing not to emissions of so-called greenhouse gases but to other factors that might contribute to global warming (if any – some indicators point to global cooling; others believe there is global warming but it is a good thing). Such factors include solar activity, geothermal activity, volcanic activity, etc. It is good to protect the environment and ecology as well as rare animals and plants but it is not right for us to aim for net zero. Doing so is incredibly harmful to our society,

Interference in languages: one shocking trend in the Greek language is a trend towards changing the sounds of different letters or diphthongs to correlate with simplistic Latin false equivalents. The letters eta, iota, ypsilon, are all different. They sound different. Similarly, the diphthongs eta-iota, omikron-iota, also sound different again; shockingly, even Greek people now seem to think that these all translate back into “i” in English and are pronouncing them the same. This causes deficient cognitive abilities.

Digital currencies: we should avoid digital currency and keep our cash. Cash is king! Having digital only currency is paving the way to antiChrist. All world trends that facilitate one world governance are tools of antiChrist in setting up his false “kingdom”. We should resist all trends that go towards centralised global governance and especially with money because we know from Revelations that everyone will need the mark of the beast to be able to buy or sell. This is a chip implant the government will control.

The Holy Land: there is a complex dispute in the Holy Land which is ongoing as of 2025. It is best to avoid being involved in it. Despite being the land our Lord walked in, there is no single place that is more holy than anywhere else: the altar space of any of our churches anywhere in the world is equally holy and has taken over the place of the Holy of Holies that existed in the Jewish Temple. We need not be concerned with obsessing over visiting Christ’s tomb in Jerusalem which is equally holy with the altar of our parish.

Overlapping jurisdictions: a sad phaenomenon of today’s Orthodoxy is overlapping jurisdictions. In theory we should have one local bishop only. We should all on this planet come under one jurisdiction and not overlapping ones. We could agree precisely to have one jurisdiction anywhere on earth. The relevant churches are: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Moscow, Georgia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Poland, Albania, Czech Lands & Slovakia, & Orthodox Church in USA.

Promotion of Orthodoxy: Orthodox Christians should encourage growth of the Orthodox Churches all over the world, including co-operating with other Christians in the most basic of missions which is translation of the Gospel into all the world’s languages. This is happening but we should be more bold about Christianity being the truth and Orthodoxy being the most authentic expression of our faith. We should not hold back in declaring our faith and we should all memorise the Nicene Creed.

Jesus Prayer: we should all make use of the Jesus Prayer as it is incredibly powerful. We should keep reminding ourselves, “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner”, as well as praying for others: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on thy servant, Maria”. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on thy servant, Michael”. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on the world”, “have mercy on Birmingham”, “have mercy on that guy there”. We should keep reciting “Jesus” in our minds and hearts. It is a potent prayer that changes lives.

Respect for others: we should put others first. We should offer elderly and infirm people first place ahead of us in a queue where possible. We should respect the most vulnerable in society and protect them from having to see things that are upsetting to them. We should not allow them to become shocked. We should reserve resources for those who need them the most, and not because they just claim to be vulnerable but because they actually are too weak to speak for themselves.

Evil eye: the evil eye is by its very description, evil. Do NOT under any circumstances entertain this modern Greek notion that the blue-eyed imagery is something Orthodox because it is revolting to its very core and should be shunned at every opportunity. Do not use emojis of it. Do not hang it anywhere. Do not buy it or sell it. Do not display it in any way. The same can be said for any aspect of Greek culture that stands opposed to Christ. The double-headed eagle also is another vile symbol we should remove.

Sexual immorality: sex outside of marriage should be avoided. The over-sexualisation of society has ruined it. We have become obsessed by our bodies and sexualities and no longer feel love or understand our marriages. We judge everything according to carnal desire but not according to sacrifice and selflessness. We should base our marriages on the self-emptying work of the Trinity in serving or being obedient to the other. We should stop obsessing over finding the perfect sexual match in our love lives.

Ultimately, the Orthodox Christian is called to love God and to love man. That is all that matters. We find when we love God and love man that we end up doing the right things and wanting the right things. We find that we do not want to pursue euthanasia and abortions. We find that we do not want to use foul language or listen to the wrong kind of music. We do not get so aggressive anymore except anger towards the vile things of this world. We should focus on the Mysteries of the Church and on the prayer.

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