I was delighted to hear the following statement of His Eminence Bishop Rafael, secretary of the Holy Synod. He said: “Orthodox teaching is against occult. Please make sure before spreading any news. Such obsession does not glorify God and doesn’t benefit our faith.
On the contrary, it gives a negative impression about the Orthodox faith. The Holy Fathers handed us over dignified, practical and respectable faith. Miracles and revelations are not common events, but the real miracles in our faith are the Holy Bible, the Eucharist, piety and love of God and people in addition to the practice of virtue.
If you want to evangelize, perform good deeds and explain incarnation of the Word for them. If you want to teach the children your faith, teach them spiritual hymns. If you want to convince an atheist, talk to him with reason. Use verses to teach the right faith, and use stories of the fathers to teach the virtue. If you want to inherit the kingdom of heaven, let’s repent all our sins; know the Orthodox faith and server to the others”.
Such advises of His Eminence are wonderful, and matches the calls to establish a modern civil state in Egypt that respects science and reason. However, such statement didn’t mention the next steps to fix the situation.
There are ministers who use television to record their weekly miracles. Our traditions are full of myths and fairy tales without control. Morover, there are some people who use them for their own benefit.
