In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I am Father Peter Farrington, a priest of the Patriarchal Diocese of the Coptic Orthodox Church, living and serving in the UK. In this video I want to begin to speak about the characteristics of the Church which are […]
Over the weekend some exciting developments have taken place in the St George Orthodox Ministry of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Father Peter Farrington had been instructed to begin his ministry within the Patriarchal Diocese under the name of the St George Orthodox Ministry, and now HG Bishop Angaelos has blessed Father Simon Smyth and Deacon […]
How will persecution come upon us? At the hands of grey men in suits and carrying clipboards. In the name of health and safety they will prevent us offering incense to God. In the name of equality they will require us to ordain women, and those who follow a lifestyle incompatible with our faith. When […]
Over the weekend of Friday 13th to Sunday 15th May, Father Peter Farrington organised an Orthodox spiritual retreat at Barnes Close, a residential centre in the countryside outside Bromsgrove, England as part of the activity of the St George Orthodox Ministry of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Barnes Close is set in a rural landscape, with […]
I would like to speak briefly about Orthodoxy and the Holy Spirit. I grew up in an evangelical community as I have described a little in my talk this morning. And during the late 70s and early 80s, in my late teens and early adulthood, the effects of the charismatic renewal reached even into our […]
Unto the church of God …, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, … who … call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. I Corinthians 1:2 Those who have been made holy in Christ Jesus, are now called to be holy. Do we imagine that we ourselves are […]
What is the Church for? It surely matters that we should know. When a business loses track of its core purpose it can easily start to invest time and money in peripheral things, all the while alienating those customers it should be supporting and encouraging to spend more. I worked for such a company. We […]
At the beginning of the 21st century it seems that the relationship between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox communities is as close as it has been for centuries. There certainly remain those within the Eastern Orthodox community who perhaps view the Oriental Orthodox community through a prism of lack of knowledge and misrepresentation, some of […]
Though Christ prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, ‘that they may be one’[i], it surely must seem to any student of Christianity that His prayer has failed. Any impartial observer writing a history of modern Christianity might legitimately describe it as being inherently divided and divisive. In fact research has suggested that there are over […]
Introduction It might seem that the Orthodox Church must have entirely closed all discussion of the intermediate state of the soul after death. Surely the patristic and liturgical texts are so filled with settled opinion that there is no scope for confusion or controversy? Nevertheless, from time to time, there are variant teachings which become […]