Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- All Categories 13.8K
- General Category 10.9K
- General Announcements 184
- Faith Issues 3.4K
- Coptic Orthodox Church 2.5K
- Personal Issues 1.4K
- Prayer Requests 426
- Random Issues 1.8K
- Introductions 295
- Non-Orthodox Inquiries 232
- Youth Corner 607
- Hymns 2.6K
- Hymns Discussion 2.6K
- Technicial Difficulties 369
- Technical Topics 369
How to tell
How does one determine whether one is in the faith or is not?
NESS<><
NESS<><

Comments
1. You are baptized.
2. You have been anointed with the Holy Myron.
3. You commune regularly.
if you believe in the Bible as the Word of God:
in Jesus as God's Son who came on earth to die for us, thus saving us and to raise us with Him from death by His resurrection and if you abide by the highest commandment: to love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind..
God bless you
Please pray for me
You are technically in the Orthodox faith if:
1. You are baptized.
2. You have been anointed with the Holy Myron.
3. You commune regularly.
You must do 4 out of 7 Sacraments. Severus, I think ur missing Repentence/Confession
[quote author=Severus link=topic=7288.msg97911#msg97911 date=1228340223]
You are technically in the Orthodox faith if:
1. You are baptized.
2. You have been anointed with the Holy Myron.
3. You commune regularly.
You must do 4 out of 7 Sacraments. Severus, I think ur missing Repentence/Confession
The four out of seven are for salvation, not for being recognized as part of the Orthodox Church.
Seeing as how the aim of the Church is to offer the means of salvation through the sacraments, I would think that all 4 sacraments that are necessary for salvation should be listed when identifying who's 'in' so to speak. That being said, God can (and almost certainly does) save whom He wishes, through any means He wishes. God is not restricted to the sacraments, but we are.
As for belief in the Bible being the Word of God, I'm of the opinion that Christ is the Word of God, not the Bible. The Bible is inspired text. But then, my views on this have already been made clear in another thread, so no need to rehash it here.
As far as all four sacraments being needed to be 'in', you have a point. Also, I guess you can say that if you are 'in' you should be attaining salvation, which must be done through the four mandatory sacraments. All of these elements are tied together.
I stand corrected.
Merci beaucoup. :)
1 John 2:3-4
[quote author=coptmorous link=topic=7288.msg97914#msg97914 date=1228343327]
[quote author=Severus link=topic=7288.msg97911#msg97911 date=1228340223]
You are technically in the Orthodox faith if:
1. You are baptized.
2. You have been anointed with the Holy Myron.
3. You commune regularly.
You must do 4 out of 7 Sacraments. Severus, I think ur missing Repentence/Confession
The four out of seven are for salvation, not for being recognized as part of the Orthodox Church.
ANY 4 of the 7 sacraments, and you attain salvation (generally speaking)?
the 4 sacraments that everyone should do are:
baptism
chrismation/confirmation (=meyroon), of course these 1st 2 often happen together
confession
communion
the other 3 are optional:
anointing of the sick (u r exempt if u are well!)
marriage (yes, sorry, it's optional!) or accepting a call to be a monk (this is the considered equivalent to marriage)
priesthood.
so if u are a married priest who was baptised and confirmed but who never confesses his sins or takes communion, that's not enough. this is a theoretical random choice of 4 sacraments, obviously it wouldn't happen like that.
as far as i can see, the coptic church doesn't preach as much on the sacraments as the catholic church because (as others have said) we want to emphasize that it's important to keep all of God's commandments and love one another as ourselves (Jesus' 'new' commandment given through the disciples). we do this in the power of the Holy Spirit, through a relationship with God through faith in the death and resurrection of our Almighty Saviour. the 4 sacraments above are the ways that the church community makes a public declaration of faith and takes care of the spiritual growth of the Christian.