Hello everyone, this is Father Paul, and I hope you're having a good day. You're listening to Copts in Conversation. Hello everyone, today I have the pleasure of speaking with Archdeacon Mark Solomon, who is a prominent figure in the Coptic Orthodox Church Diocese of LA, and he serves under the guidance of his eminence, Metropolitan
Serapion. archdeacon mark is deeply committed to his spiritual work and community engagement he is well known for his passion in engaging and connecting with young adults across the diocese and through the coptic clubs at various universities his home parish is the st paul coptic american church in Irvine, California. In addition to his religious service, Mark is a triathlete. He has completed an Ironman, and he's also an accounting and finance professor at USC Marshall
School of Business. And probably his most prominent role and the one that's relevant to our conversation today is him being director of the Department of Church and Culture, known as Rediscover IM, within the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles. And this department is dedicated to addressing the unique needs of Copts in the American diaspora through a variety of ministries. Welcome, Marty. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to have you here. It's a pleasure to be here, Abuna.
And I know you've been to Canada a few times. And I don't know, did you ever come to Canada during winter? Yeah, I think last year. For some reason, I only seem to come during the winter. Last year, I came, I think, in February for a family retreat as well. It's cold, but I've lived in Michigan. I've lived in Chicago, so I'm kind of used to the weather. Well, the joke's on you. It's always winter in Canada. We have a couple of weeks that we call summer, but mostly it's
winter. So this Department of Church and Culture caught my attention because I've never seen anything like it in any other diocese. and it seems like this is exactly what we need the kind of conversation the kind of issues that we need to tackle and um what's the story here how did it begin where did it come from So, His Eminence Metropolitan Serapion, he's quite a visionary, I have to say.
He approached me a little over a year ago and asked me if I would sort of head up a ministry devoted to, and it started with kind of youth, maybe what we call GYP, graduate and up. And then it quickly, as we started having discussions as to what this would look like, it quickly emerged into something a bit bigger. And it wasn't just a youth issue, but it became a cultural issue. Like, how do we serve these people? And I think, you know, the conversation started with, we need
to figure out why the youth are leaving. And to that end, I spent several months. just doing research, talking to lots of people who left the church, people who left and came back, going on, looking at surveys online, Orthodox Church stuff, reading all kinds of documentation, and really put together a very long list of reasons why youth are leaving. And then I had AI sort of morph that down into like nine or ten major
points. And then I gave several actually talks about this topic, like why are they youth leaving? And those talks kind of went viral. And so I presented MSRP and sort of the results of all of this stuff. And he looked at it for like 30 seconds and he said, OK, what are you going to do about it? And then that's sort of what we
devoted the next year. uh two which is you know obviously the parish church and the parish priest that's the that's the bread and butter that's the meat and potatoes of the spiritual life and so that's there and that's that's where people go to be fed and so you can't replace that you know that's the sacraments but what you what you can do is look for places where you can be a resource to that process right so the priests and the churches all overwhelmed all you know
under a lot of pressure and they're just kind of hanging on to hold on to doing services. And so some churches are big, have a lot of resources, some don't. So providing resources that maybe don't make sense for a particular parish to spearhead themselves, but you can have the diocese pull together some of the best resources we have in the diocese and then organize it such that everyone can benefit from these individuals that we have
and kind of coordinate the effort. So the idea was to sort of serve the people in North America, the American, you know, the American people in the way they need to be served, you know, think about how they need to hear orthodoxy and how they need to understand it and approach it from that kind of Western ear. And, you know, in Ambassadabian's words, to be very orthodox, yet very American. Right. You know, and in your case, Canadian.
And, you know, and he told me a story that he, you know, he shared it and said he went to someone's house once. And, you know, he's saying, you know, how are the kids? You know, just a simple. And they said, oh, you know, the great Satan, they're not Americanized. And he said, what do you mean by that sentence? And they said, oh, they don't do drugs. They don't sleep around. They don't. And he goes, oh, so in your mind, the word American means sin. Right. You know, they're not sinners.
You know, when they said. And it bothered him. Like, we have this very negative view. Like, American is the devil. American is the enemy. And what it creates is a very us versus them culture, right? So then if they're all the bad guys, then we need to isolate our kids, protect our kids from them. And unfortunately, that just approach just doesn't work because our kids like it or not. If not this generation, the one after.
They are Canadian or American. And we have to relate to them the way they need to be related to and talk to the way they need to be talked to. And preach just like Christ did and like St. Paul did. Preach the gospel to them in a way that they can understand. In the case of Christ, really simple examples about farming
and fishing and stuff they got. And we have to... continue to be innovative and and this is what we see in the fathers you know the fathers were so innovative right um they quoted modern people they quoted modern thinkers modern right they quoted philosophy Plato they knew that's what the people understood and so they would teach You know, Athanasius in particular would teach through this philosophy and try to free the theology
from the philosophy and pull it all out. So this is ultimately the big vision of what we're trying to do. Absolutely. And this is exactly the kind of thing I see in my own ministry, that in some people, their vision of the larger community is that, no, the... This is evil. This is something that we just need to isolate from. But at the same time, the irony is that this is the place that you left everything to immigrate to. And in the minds of most people, the West is Christian.
So it's kind of like a paradox or there's inconsistency
there. How is it that you chose to leave? the the the comfort and safety and the relative you know spirituality of the east of egypt and then come to a place where you know this kind of stuff is happening why would you put your family in that in that kind of place so it doesn't really make sense right and the point of uh of us being here is almost always lost like i'm here for me to take as much of this place as i can it's for my own benefit but as you can see like we're
This is the water we swim in now. We're all westernized to one degree or another, to one level or another, in one way or another. This is how we think. And we need to take that seriously rather than thinking that this is something that I need to weed out of my children. Rather that the question is like, what am I called to do here? What's the point of me being here? It's not just because somehow I won the lottery and I got it. a visa, a ticket to America or to Canada if I couldn't
get into America. And then, you know, that's it. But there's a reason I'm here. And I think some of those reasons are, you know, we talked about it a little bit general, but in the vision statement of the ministry, it gets a little bit more detailed. So when you say things like, you know, we need to speak with them as they see themselves, as they are, meet the people where they are, How do you flesh this out? What exactly
do you mean by that? I mean, you know, this is a great point because, you know, when we immigrated to the United States, we came as immigrants. We didn't come as missionaries. Had we come as missionaries, and so like when the Coptic Church goes to any other country, it doesn't go to conquer another country. It goes and, you know, you look at what they're doing in Africa, right, for example. It's presenting, you know, Kenyans, for example, with orthodoxy and letting them be Kenyan. and
not trying to convert them to being cops. And so we have to, as Christians, I mean, that's the Great Commission. We're to go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so we have a responsibility as Christians not to isolate. I mean, we are called to be the light of the world. We're not
called to isolate. And in the history of the church, starting with the apostles, and we're an apostolic church, starting with the apostles, they were just spreading out everywhere, talking and preaching and being light to this world. And so this is a duty that we have. It isn't so much even, you know, we need to protect ourselves. No, no, it's the opposite. We need to go into the world. And this large fear of us versus them,
you know, it paralyzes us, right? And at its core, it's actually not Christian, you know, to say an us versus them. It's all us. There is no them. You know, we're all God's sons and we're all sinners and we're all broken and we
all need each other in different ways. So I think that the first... way that we start this process is is seeing the world around us for actually what it is the reality is there is no enemy here right these are these are the sons of god just like i'm the sons of god you know christ didn't come for the the northeast corner of africa you know um he came for the whole world you know saint athanasius says his arms were open when he was crucified you know so um that's the that
that i think is our first objective is is once we can stop demonizing everyone else um uh it works and and i think part of the issue that we found is many parents have tried this approach and you know we you know i was you know i was born in jersey city you know 54 years ago right and and i've watched generations of people lost you know i think of my own youth group growing up lost right because All we did is demonize the outsiders. Don't be like the Americans. Americans
are bad. They're going to blah, blah, blah. And then the kids go out in school and they're like, you know, these kids aren't bad. Their parents are really nice. This guy actually serves the poor. And now you've spent all your time telling everyone how bad these people are. And then they realize you're wrong. And now you lose credibility as a parent. And now the church loses credibility because the church may have even, your Sunday school teacher may have demonized everybody else.
And then you attend and you hear and you talk and you're like, these people are great. So that ability to just see God's image in everybody, I think that's that first step. And Christ took it to the extreme and he said, not only just everybody, the enemy. The enemy you have to love, right? And that's the guy who's got a sword who's coming at you. You know, forget, you know, the liberals or the whatever community. So I think that has to be our first step is just to remove
that. You know, that's why when we started our American Coptic churches in Los Angeles, you know, we're very particular to put the word American in the name. And to a lot of people, this was scandalous. It's kind of like saying American Coptic is the same as saying devil Christ. How could you put those two together? But Satan was very purposeful. He's like, we need to destigmatize that word. By putting it in the name. By putting it in the name. Because we're all Americans.
And we're citizens of this country. And he always quotes Pope Shenouda, who used to talk about how cops love their country of Egypt. That was okay. And if he said, can I take what Pope Shenouda said and just replace the word America, since that's where I live now, or Canada, and we should be able to do that. If we truly are a Catholic Church, as we say, if we're a universal church and not, again, limited to a particular country, then we need to be able to adapt and go anywhere.
And if we can't, and all we can do is isolate ourselves and huddle around our old culture and our own traditions and ourselves. Then we may suffer the fate of some of these other Eastern Orthodox churches who have come before us. Some of those, like the Russian church, it was decimated at some point. There's nobody in it but three old ladies for a while just because they insisted, no, no, no, we're Russians. We pray Russian, we sing Russian. Everything. And all their kids
are like, actually, we're not Russian. That's the outcome. So it behooves us, it helps us to look at history. Forget long -term history, just the history of America and what worked and what didn't. And not make the same mistakes. Because our churches are packed because of immigration. But they won't be for long. Can we take that as a sign that we're doing something right? It's bolstered by immigration as soon as it slows down. And in some cases, starting to reverse
where people are like, hey, you know what? Life in Egypt, if I can get a salary from the U .S. and get paid in Canadian dollar and live in Egypt, that's the dream. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, the churches are full. There's lots of money. Everyone's happy. But, you know, to use an expression I heard, it's like there's internal bleeding and the patient looks fine. Right. You don't
see any blood on the outside. there's internal bleeding and something bad's happening yeah and you know i mean i i talk with so many people and i'm sure you come up i mean so many kids are just slow exodus right in their 20s they just kind of drift away like slow and silent slow and silent silent exodus um and it's uh and because the churches are full we're not noticing as much uh it takes a lot of work to get those youth back and um but that's our that's our future
and we have to be aware because You know, when you're successful, that's the most dangerous time, right? It's because then you take your eye off the corner. What's coming around the corner, you know, churches are full, lots of money, we're building buildings, wonderful. That's when you're most vulnerable if you're not seeing
what's coming next. Because you tend to look at short -term things and short -term objectives because what's happening right now is great and I have all of... all these people in the church every Sunday. So that's great. But what's coming around the corner should be of great concern to all of us, right? And we do hear that a lot. I mean, in conversations, especially with young people that come and ask, you know, my friends from school are good people. They're not as bad
as you described them. They're not as bad as you said they were. It's not all bad outside and all good inside. In fact, some of my friends from outside of the church are better than my friends inside the church. And this reminds me of this Russian Gulag survivor, Shulnitsyn, after he came out of the... of the work camp in Siberia and he returned to his Orthodox faith and he
wrote his memoirs. He said, I discovered, I thought it used to, the line separating good and evil, you know, runs between countries or between people, you know, between the guards and the prisoners, between those in power and those who are being oppressed. It doesn't. It runs through our very hearts. Every heart has good and evil. And unfortunately, if we have this impression of the West that it's dark and it's evil and we even see it. in the doxology of St. Athanasius, the dark west. It's
enshrined in our prayers. But at the same time, this is where we chose to come. This is where we are choosing to live. And if this is how we see it, then it's logical that we're going to be isolating and staying in our ethnic enclaves and staying within that bubble and trying to recreate a piece of back home for the sake of
not having to interact. with outside world so like you were saying like we didn't come as missionaries we we came as immigrants and as immigrants seeking a better life and the anything that threatens that vision that dream is a problem right anything that takes our focus off of that dream is a problem so uh you know the great commission And while great, it's secondary to the primary goal of why we're here. We're here to make a great life
for ourselves. And if we're able to put a light on that and reverse that and say, no, our focus is not economic prosperity, but it's the Great Commission. We start to see the image of God in every single person that we meet. Well, and the sad part is so many people, they come for the wealth and the prosperity and they achieve it. And then they lose their kids. And then it's like, what did we do all this for? My sons or
whatever, my daughters, whatever. And I've lost them and they're drug addicts or they're married outside the church or they don't come anymore. And so it actually turns out if you want to capture your kids, you have to be that example, right? They have to see you. in love with Christ, not just in love with preserving a heritage of, you
know, what we did in Chopra. And if we can just do it like we did in recreate Chopra, we win, you know, they need to see you serving, they need to see you loving, they need to see you helping people. And that's the impression, right? So, you know, it turns out when you When you take your eye off the ball and the Great Commission becomes number two, you actually might lose your
kid too, you know, and despite gaining. And then you feel, you know, at the end of your life, like, why did I come here and why did all this happen? What's the point of all of this? What's the point of all this, you know? Absolutely. So I want to just pause for a second and go back to something you said about the time you spend researching why kids are leaving church. And you said you distilled it down to nine and ten points. If you're able to take us briefly through
those, that would be great. Or at least highlights of those. Yeah. Okay. Let me see if I can think of them. There's several of them. I think the big ones come down to... Seeing the church as a means, sorry, as the end, as the goal. A lot of the youth see things as being overly ritualistic and losing the focus on what really matters. And it turns out it's sort of a good sign when our kids say, you know what, we're doing all these things, but there's no love in your heart,
Dad. You know, where's the caring for the poor? Where's the, where's the things that Christ said in Matthew 25? Um, that means you raise them right. You know, that means that's a good thing, you know? And, um, and I think sometimes they get, uh, disillusioned when they see us, the adults not focused on those things. And they're like, you know, I'm reading my Bible, like you told me, and I'm actually reading it. I think better than you are dad and mom. And, uh, and
this is what. This is what I'm seeing, but I'm not seeing it in you. I'm not seeing it in the services. I'm not seeing it. So that's one reason. Another one is they're looking for an example of Christ in the church. Someone who will... Be that light to them, just an example of what it's supposed to look like. And it doesn't take many. You know, you can have a church full of people judging you and all this other stuff.
But man, there's that one guy every Sunday, he sees you and he gives you that hug and he really wants to hear about your week. And you almost want to go just to see that one person, you know, and we can all think of that one Sunday school teacher that changed us and not because they gave good lessons, you know, because they loved. And I don't remember any of my other Sunday school teachers. Or do I remember any of the lessons?
But I remember he loved me. And those are the kinds of touches that they're really looking for. Another reason people leave is they view the church as bigoted, homophobic, racist. And there's aspects of that, unfortunately, that I would say are true. There's some language I'll hear sometimes. And let me step back here. When I say the church, I usually don't mean the church.
I mean... the parents right forgive me um and uh the they hear things from the parents about uh you know homosexuals or about black people or about whatever it's and it's just over the top and unfortunately because of the cultural the way the culture is it the parents don't see it they're like well you know what's wrong with saying those things but when you live in a multicultural society like you know canada or the united states you know we've been taught from the early ages
you must tolerate everyone every religion every language every color every everything right otherwise we all just start fighting you know right that's how a multicultural has to stay together we tolerate everyone there's no right or wrong um and then you come along and you say well you know all black people are whatever right it's like holy moly you know i can't believe you just said that yeah so that's another thing uh that that's that's perceived that way um a lot of youth have very
judgmental experiences at church. They're scared of the people at church. They're scared of being found out at church. I know parents that tell their kids don't post anything on Instagram because what if someone at church sees it? Which means the person you're scared of is the body of Christ that's standing next to you on Sunday. That's your biggest fear on earth. And so this whole idea of let's look at perceptions and what are people going to think of us and our family and
our reputation. This stuff is destroying families completely. And so then you become scared of the people at church. You're judged by the people at church. And then after a while, you get in your 20s and you're like, I'm not interested.
And this is why, and I can speak, I don't know how it is in Canada, but in... la you have a lot of kids who college kids who they their best friends aren't coptic their best friends are at school their roommate in college in the dorm someone in class because they don't want to tell the coptic kid something because that if that coptic kid tells his mom his mom's going to tell planet earth you know so you got to hide stuff from the coptic kids right so your good friends
are not coptic My Coptic friends, I keep them on a short leash, on a need -to -know basis, right? Very few I trust. And eventually, even the ones I trust burn me and talk because we have a gossip culture. So then it creates very superficial relationships between the youth. There's no, you know, like the way St. James talks about the church of confess your sins to
one another, right? Of this community of... believers of sinners who opened up to one another and love and try to help each other like a real community in christ right um you know they don't have that they have the you know how are you good how are you good the fake stuff the superficial stuff and then you go into the houses and the homes and it's a fire you know it's a disaster um but people aren't talking and all of a sudden you hear oh we're getting divorced it's like we had
no idea there was a problem well i was scared to tell you i'm fighting with my husband because you're gonna gossip and so i don't have a community you know and so the youth really don't react well to that because in western society we don't have that kind of stigma you know like you'll you'll meet someone you'll just meet him like two days and he'll go yeah you know i'm an alcoholic i'm a recovering alcoholic and he'll just say that yeah you know no No Egyptian guy will tell
you I'm a recovering alcoholic at church, right? He's just not going to bring that up. Because that threatens that sanitized image, right? Exactly, right? And then my kids won't get married because abuham, you know, khumargi or whatever, right? So that kind of openness and transparency, that's something in Western culture. It's actually very nice. It's very freeing and you know what you're getting and no one's trying to play games and
no one's trying to hide anything. um you know you don't get that and so the kids are used to that openness and then they come to church and everybody's locked down their parents are scaring them don't wear this the people will talk about you you know and then we impose things and we say okay dress really good for church so that people don't talk about you you know instead of saying dress really respectful for church because you're standing before god and do this
from your heart and dress wear whatever you want but do it from your heart for god that's a beautiful way to say it versus the people are going to talk about you and have a reputation. And even if people don't talk, when you're thinking that way, you're going to see every look, every gesture. That's judgment. Yeah, you've taught the girl, every time a tant or someone turns around at you, oh, there she goes judging you, she's going
to talk about you. And I've had young girls say, I stood there at a wedding, and I just felt 30 eyes behind me. And I think half of it was in her imagination. Doesn't matter. Her mom has fed her that everyone there is out to get you. And this is not the loving community. This isn't the hospital St. John Chrysostom talked about. Exactly. It's more like a courthouse. It's a courthouse, exactly. And there's actually some similarities between this book I read recently,
You Lost Me. And it talks about why young Christians are leaving church and rethinking faith. And
some of those reasons you mentioned. are highlighted in the book as well so the church overprotective relationships are shallow repressive anti -science exclusive the church is doubtless meaning does not allow them to express their doubts right they feel the the church's response to doubt is um that you can be talking about doubt right and It's these things that keep coming again over and over in research, in surveys, Barna Group, Pew Research. This stuff keeps happening.
But there's a tendency to think, not us, never us. This is other churches that have to deal with these issues. The Coptic Orthodox Church is strong, is protected by God from all of this. But in reality, we have... We're all swimming in the same water and our children are facing these issues. And if we don't come face to face with them, if we're hiding from them or pretending that they don't exist, I don't see any other
way it could end. But services like this that tackle these things, these very uncomfortable ideas head on, this is exactly what's needed to move the conversation forward. I mean, I think that's actually one of the other things that came up in the surveys is, you know, sexual topics, for example, very taboo. We don't talk about them. And I think we sometimes, you know, have a misguided understanding and saying, you know,
well, if I talk to someone about. homosexuality, if we talk about this topic, what if the kids want to try it out and become gay or something? It just doesn't work like that. And so I think the youth are very keen of what we are and are not talking about. And they notice we're not talking about things. And like you mentioned, science. And sometimes you'll hear people just attack evolution as if it's from the devil. And there's nothing to hide from Darwin's theories.
And without getting into it, they're fine. Natural selection, sure. The bird with the big beak can eat, and the bird with the small beak can't, so the bird with the small beak dies. That's not going to threaten my belief in God in any way. And when our kids see us scared, Of evolution, scared of these things. They're kind of curious, why are you so scared? And when they see us fearless,
they're not. My son was in eighth grade and he came up to me and said, I don't know if I believe in God because my biology teacher taught us about evolution. And I had to take a deep breath. That's not something you want to hear your eighth grader say. And I took a deep breath and I was like, oh yeah, evolution. Natural selection, survival of the fittest. He goes, oh, you know about those. And I go, of course. And I told him all about it. I said, those are fine. There's nothing wrong
with those. Those are great theories. And does that mean there's no creator? I don't think so. In fact, it's not scientific for you to extrapolate from those theories to say there is no creator. And I talked about the hypothesis development and the scientific method. And he's like, oh, you heard about it. So when he saw me calm, he was calm. And he wasn't scared. He saw I wasn't scared of these things. And so he wasn't scared of these things. So I don't know if I got off
on that. No, but that's perfect. Because you taught him more by how you responded rather than just the content of the response. But how you responded, that was an equally important lesson. You know, and if I'd gone off and like these teachers are teaching you, they're from the devil. Call the principal. I'm going to pull you out of the class. I'm going to embarrass you. So then the kid goes, oh, okay, I'm not going to talk to my dad about this topic anymore because
he's kind of crazy, right? So I'm going to, this topic is off limits for my dad. Oh, no, no, dad, I believe in God. Don't worry about it. Yes. And I'm not going to talk to you about it, right? And so we've actually taught them not to talk to us by our reactions. Right. You know, and so this is, I think, you know. Again, one of the many things. And so that's why the ministry now has moved into, because when Satan started,
he said, start with the 22s and up. And I was like, Satan, the problem started in eighth grade. It didn't start at 22. When they left isn't when the problem started. So if you can get to the kid before that, and you get to the parent before that, and try to give them these tips and try to help them out, at least try a different approach than what did work in Egypt. And it did. It was successful. But it worked in that culture because that culture thought a certain way. And so it
worked beautifully. And there was a reason it worked in Egypt. And it actually evolved in Egypt to work. They tried different things that didn't work. And this is the one that worked. And so, you know, when someone says, well, it's worked for 2 ,000 years, you know, in Egypt, why, you know, it should work here. It's like, well, you
know, we moved, right? And in the history of the church, right, it doesn't happen ever that a church, you know, is integrated in a culture for 2 ,000 years and then just switches continents like that. That's never happened. That's an experiment we've never seen before. So culture and religion always mix. And that's healthy and it's beautiful. And we express our Christianity culturally. You go to Ethiopia, it looks Ethiopian. You go to Russia, it looks Russian. You go to Syria, it
looks Syrian. You go to Egypt, it looks Egyptian. It's beautiful. That's the way it should be. But now you're... in America or Canada. And so it's got to look American, right? And you can't be scared of that sentence because that's the way it is in every other country. I mean, if history will tell us anything, in Syria when the Arabs came, by the 8th century, they had a Syrian Bible. For us in Egypt, it wasn't until
the 10th century. So we had a couple of hundred years to see if this whole Arab thing is going to stick around or maybe they'll move on. Something else will happen. So we don't have to translate. We kept things in Coptic. But we begin to see these Copto -Arabic translations and writings pop up around the 10th century. So does that mean we have to wait a couple of hundred years
to see? authentic American orthodoxy. And part of the context, it's important to highlight that in Egypt, when the Sunday school movement began to take root, Egypt is very, it's bicultural. The dividing line is very clear. We know where we are, where the other camp is, Christians and
Muslims and relations. questions that keep popping back and forth between the two camps and what to say and the mentality is that no no it's not about interaction it's about knowing how to defend that line how to stay on your line and not to lose any ground to the other camp but here in in america especially in canada is very multicultural yeah you know how many lines are around you that you must maintain. What are you going to say
to this group of people? In GTA alone, in the greater Toronto area, we have over 70 languages being spoken. Imagine how many groups and how many ideas about things and about life and about God and about everything surround us and how you intelligently and thoughtfully interact with all of these rather than just being, I'm scared of everyone, I'm just going to keep everyone out, I'm going to stay within my own bubble. my own echo chamber and just hear my own voice
being echoed back to me. I mean, a very simple example where we're, we're building a church in our church in LA and, and the, the, you know, I'm on the board and we discussed putting up a fence around the church and, you know, St. Paul's right at St. Paul's. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, and then lots of churches, there's a fence, you know, and you go to Egypt, there's
a big fence with, you know, steel. swords on top of it right and it's like this is us and you guys stay outside right you know but when i drive around the united states and i look at lots of different churches there's no fences it's open the parking lot's open it's welcoming there isn't this big wall between us and them with not a gated community exactly right it's like welcome come we're part of the community Whereas our churches feel sometimes like, okay,
we're in your community, but we don't want you in here. And we're Egyptian here. And if you're not, if you're one of those other 230 countries, we're not really interested. And that's the feeling you get. And it's difficult to understand that when you're in it. But I always give people the thought experiment. I say, walk into a Chinese church. Just go in there. And I'm sure everyone's talking Chinese. And you walk up to a conversation.
It's all Chinese in the hall. And then someone looks at you and goes, oh, hi, welcome, happy you're here. And then they turn around and they're talking Chinese. You're not going to stay there very long, right? I mean, two or three weeks. And you'll be like, hey, I don't think this is the church for me. I'm not fitting in. I don't fit in here, right? And they're nice. They didn't do anything wrong. They're not trying to alienate
you. And I think we have to realize that when people from the outside come into our churches, that's how they feel. No one's trying to alienate them. But it can be exclusionary, just the language, just the gates, the fences, the certain things are, this is, you know. Not for everybody. All these obstacles that you must overcome before
you're accepted into the group. And then, you know, what happens when you have this discussion is people quickly say, oh, okay, so do you want to just give up the sacraments now and become Protestant? And you're like, eh, habibi. Like taking it to the extreme. Who said any of these things? Like equating, you know, the Coptic.
with the sacrament exactly and and it's like no you know i mean saint mark when he came to egypt he picked up these high you know uh these pharaonic hymns i mean let's think about this pharaonic hymns that's paganism right and these things are from the devil and he said you guys have these devil hymns no problem these are pharaonic worship songs let's let's let's use them I mean, if we did that now, people would go crazy. Right. Of course, right. But look at the open -mindedness
of how you approach another country. So you go in and you morph into their culture, not try to isolate yourselves from it. Right. I mean, it's hard to do that when you actually know very little about the culture. You're engaged on a very superficial level with the culture. And then you try to separate, you know, the wheat
from the chaff. You're trying to separate what is elements that are, you know, light bearing or capable of bearing the light of the gospel from elements that really just all darkness. And you throw the baby with the bathwater and you just it's easier, more comfortable to say, like, I don't want any of this. Just get rid of it all. And, you know, the funny thing is, you know, so like in the 1970s, when people first
immigrated. uh to the united states and you know my dad came in 1968 or something wow the church there's two extremes that evolved and back then that a more popular extreme was hey we're american now forget the coptic church let's break away let's do protestant songs let's do worship let's do blah blah blah right so either extreme is dangerous right which is the let's you know let's throw everything out and and just dissolve into this culture versus the let's completely isolate
from this culture and i think the process that you're talking about is going to take a while like we have to be thoughtful about it and think about it prayer prayerfully look at every little piece of it and say, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is this beautiful or not? And there can be elements of beauty in things that are secular. And this is what we saw the ancient fathers, St. John Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, do all the time in their writings, is find beauty,
godly beauty in the secular. And so plenty of
that is here. There's plenty of Christmas carols that are just... beyond deep beyond beautiful like really amazing theology so enlightening you know and then there's you know the the reindeer and the and the christmas tree and whatever right so you know does that either extreme is christmas carols are haram okay bad extreme or let's just sing rudolph the red -nosed reindeer in church yeah both of them are during the distribution yeah they're both bad solutions right but so
either extreme it's always in the middle right and i think we we but we need to allow we need to allow ourselves that that opening to say can i look for good here and be very rooted and and this is where why education is so important it's very rooted in your orthodoxy and i find that when people go to seminary and they really read and they really learn they become more open -minded not less because they understand okay the church is very adaptive you know you know when you hear
someone say like oh this is the way we've done it since the time of the apostles well you know that's not true right anyone who's read a book knows that's not true and so then that's just ignorance speaking and then as soon as i do read a book i realize oh that's wrong you know so i think education is is the solution here education and spirituality right and you know learn about your faith learn what's right and what's wrong and don't equate things you know like if i if
i get rid of this then i might as well get rid of the eucharist well what happened you know why are you saying these crazy things so and you know the sunday school really something very new mm -hmm we did not have it since the time of the Apostles it has not been in Egypt for 2 ,000 years doesn't mean the education is in their religious education upbringing and formation was in there no it was there it just wasn't done this way and the reason it's done this way is
important to consider whether it still makes sense again made sense in the mid 20th century Egypt does it still make sense in 21st century multicultural America I agree with you a thousand percent. We have to ask that question. But to be honest, when I read this in Exerium, and this is my little rant that I have to do in every episode, is that I see that parents taught the child the ways of God. Parents taught the child the books of the church. I never see parents
took the children to someone to teach them. We
have that. very important vocation of being incarnating the light of the gospel in the lives of the children right and if we don't do if we outsource it if we just tell them you know get someone else to teach you i'll be the chauffeur i'll drive you to church and they can teach you something drops in all of this then it just becomes like this head knowledge faith is just about knowing some facts and information dissemination and basically once you have the right amount of information
that's good enough that's really all that religious upbringing is all about just having the right information whereas uh when we read the history of the church and especially in the cynic serum especially and the lives of the saints we see that it did not happen this way you know they had an example at home they had a mom and dad who would pray they had a mom and dad who would give alms they had a mom and dad who would forgive and they had a mom who would practice the virtues
right it's not just about taking them to sunday school yeah no i i agree a thousand percent with that i mean when when uh You know, Habib Gerges, St. Habib Gerges and Pope Shenouda and Zergey, you know, they started this Sunday school movement. It was in a time of massive ignorance in the church. You know, the priests were ignorant. They didn't give sermons. There weren't any books. People were illiterate. It was a bad time in the church. And they were solving that problem.
And again, this is the beauty of tradition, right? Tradition is not the same as imitation. You don't just do what the, you know, if they had stopped and said, well, you know, the apostles didn't have Sunday school, so we're not going to have Sunday school. I mean, no, they saw a problem and they innovated, you know, they fixed it. And this kind of this closed mindedness of tradition is imitation is dangerous, right? Because it's not the history of the church. It's not orthodoxy.
In fact, you know, when you look at the Quran, it's not one word of the Quran is to be changed, altered, edited, deleted, added to blah, blah, blah. And then you say, oh, is this where we're getting our thinking about tradition? We're not one word. I have to give it exactly as I received
it. Well, that's not necessarily true. if what with the situation has changed you know um you know the example that you know that you know ambassador up you'd actually you know said to me was like look at saint anthony he's like he invented monast he didn't you know he just made it up he just started it and then the church saw it he didn't go and get you know approval from the synod and you know and he innovated and that innovation caught on you know right
um and people imitated obviously so You know, going back to Sunday school, you know, not only does the cynics are, you know, it doesn't even just say taught them. It didn't say speak about God. They lived it. And the kids breathed it. And they knew that their parents didn't talk
badly about people. And they saw people coming over their house at 1 o 'clock in the morning because they're fighting with their spouse and their mom handling the situation and bringing in this person who's a beggar off the street. And that's what they saw. They saw their parents live it, not just talk about it, not just say, go to Sunday school. I'm going to go to Starbucks. And when Sunday school's over, call me. And I'll come get you. I'm going to go to my own thing.
And so that constant kind of innovation, that's truly traditional. That's what the church always does. And we needed information dissemination back then because there was no books in the country. So these people would drive to a central location, read a book, write it down on a piece of paper, and then drive to whatever village and say the words. But now I've got Google. I've got every book known to man on PDF. We have a flood of information. Information is not our problem anymore.
So Sunday school is kind of solving that issue. Let's tell the kids a Bible story. All these kids, their parents read Bibles at home. There's tons of kids' Bibles and picture Bibles and all the videos and games and puzzles, everything. Now the kids' issues, it's depression, it's anxiety, it's loneliness. These are the issues of our day. The issues of the day, that's what I was going to say. And we need to pivot. We can't
just say, well, this is what worked. It worked in the 50s in Egypt, but we have a different issue now. If I want a lesson on St. Athanasius, I'll Google it. There's a one -page summary, a 10 -page summary, and a 1 ,000 -page summary, and everything in between. And that word that
you started, like, if. yeah if i want exactly right if i want do i do i want do i want and so inspiration is the key now right if i can inspire the kid and feel love in me and and he gets that spark of the holy spirit sky's the limit kid can be a phd scholar whatever right after being a drug addict But we have to give them that spark. And the spark, and what all the kids are saying, especially in these surveys, is I want to see a spark in someone else. And
that spark is infectious. And it just communicates itself from person to person. And you see this. You see someone like Abunabshoi Kamen. He goes, everyone around him becomes a priest, bishop, or a monk. It's like, what happened? He infected them all with that spark of the Holy Spirit.
absolutely so clearly this ministry is not one of those safe ministries where it's straightforward what to do how to address issues that you're constantly getting challenged with very complex issues and how to deal with them you know must place a lot of weight on your shoulders how do you navigate all the complexities i mean it it can be easy it can be simple straightforward um It isn't. You know, there's lots of opinions.
And, you know, I have to say that a huge, huge part of this is his eminence, Ambassador Opion. He's so supportive and so encouraging. And I won't share all the things he says when we meet privately, but he's very encouraging. One of the things he said, he's the one who said that example about internal bleeding. He said, some people, when you say, look, that guy over there is bleeding. They're looking for blood. They don't see blood. They're like, he's not bleeding.
There's no problem. I don't see the problem. But you do see the problem. So you have to, as a doctor, address that problem. Because you know that guy's about to drop. And so the encouragement is always, you just do what's right. And you can't necessarily wait for consensus. This is a safe place, if you will, to innovate. I run everything by him. I run everything by his greatest bishop, Kryllos, as well. I have a group of people that I trust dearly, a few clergy, a few lay
people. we think a lot about everything and we talk a lot about everything and we, you know, we sift through it. And of course, we're going to make lots of mistakes. And, you know, someone's going to say, that's a really bad idea. And I'm going to say, you're probably right. Then we'll probably scrap it. And there's already been a few ideas we've thought about and just scrapped or sidelined for another time. And so I think, you know, one of the beautiful things about the
way. I keep talking about the LA Diocese, I'm sorry, but the way it's sort of managed is it's managed like a portfolio, right? There is no single solution here, right? You have people that were in Egypt two days ago, and there's people who were on the streets of Canada and America two days ago who are new to the church and married an Egyptian or whatever. You can't serve them the same. And then everything in between. The person's been here five years, 10 years,
15 years, 20 years. They're all different. So the best solution isn't trying to find a solution. It's to find a portfolio of solutions, right? Everyone serves in different ways. And the people who have that need will gravitate toward that service. So you don't have to limit it. Because we're in a 50 -year transition period, right? This is going to take a while to flesh out. There's all levels. And so you just have to meet everyone where they're at the way Christ did. It's just
a challenging time for the church. And I think we're doing a decent job meeting the people who come from Egypt, serving them the way they were served in Egypt. And that's what they want. And that's what they deserve. And that's what they should get. I'm all for Arabic liturgies. In fact, I love Arabic liturgies personally. But that's the language. That's how they pray. And don't ever take that away from them. In our diocese, we have Arabic youth meetings. And they're youth
meetings for kids in their 20s, 30s. And they speak Arabic. And that's their primary language. And when they go to the English meeting, and you can make the argument they need to learn English, they need to adapt. They go to the English meeting, and people make fun of their accent. And they're not funny. And their jokes don't land. They just don't fit in. And so I actually personally, I love to go to the Arabic retreats. I give talks in Arabic. And I enjoy that vibe.
It's a very energetic vibe. And we're meeting them. That's their need. Yeah, they'll be American someday. And when they are, they'll go to the other meeting. And so I don't think there is
a solution. you know there's just a ton and the the more solutions you can put out there you're gonna find a small pocket of people you know like this um like the his beloved group that we that we have right this is a group for you know uh people who are lgbtq and and struggling and um it's a support group we meet twice you know once every two weeks and um you know it's again it's not for everybody it's for a very small pocket it's a group of lepers you know
who can't come to church or you know are known or ostracized and so we reach out and find them where they are you know and and so i think that's kind of the key is to is to produce as many services as possible um and if someone says well you know that's we don't need that you know the answer is someone may need that right and if a small enough group of a group needs it then we'll we'll try to provide something right you know for that group and i can imagine you know a lot of trust
and and is required for a meeting for a service like this yeah and anonymity perhaps is also absolutely yeah so you know i'll i'll do a shameless plug the group is called his beloved website
hisbeloved .co and uh it's a support group and and obviously confidentiality is a huge part of it everybody in the group actually knows everyone like they they they don't hide their cameras and they don't hide their names they're actually um you know open with with one another and it's it's it's the most beautiful service i'm a part of because you know here's a group of people who's really really struggling and they want to be true to their faith they want to and and
they don't you know want to be like this and and you know we don't it's not conversion therapy we're not trying to change them we're not trying to shame them and you know we just offer them the gospel we present christ to them and we meet them where they are and we're there and we're just going to walk on that journey with them And that's all we can do, you know. And just be friends, you know. And it's, again, a community of sinners. And we're all bound together, you
know, trying to help one another. And so, yeah. there might be some people like, oh, look at what these people are, you know, and, and, you know, our community loves to fill in the blanks right there. They're supporting whatever and they're, you know, and people can say whatever
they want. Right. But again, having the, the, the blessing of, of Ambasarapio, you know, he went through our website, you know, and, and we've had, we have a different clergy member attend every two weeks, every other meeting. Sorry. So like Amba Krulos has attended and lots of different priests have attended from all over the country, actually. And from Canada. This is an online meeting. It's online. It's on Zoom.
And so, yeah, we try to keep that connection, of course, with the church, but at the same time meet them where they are. And so, yeah, there's lots of opinions out there. I can imagine. But this is exactly what a group like this needs, is a group, is a community. It's very lonely and isolating trying to go through something like this all on your own and trying to figure out. How do I do this? How can I make it? If I'm expected to do it by myself, I don't know
if I have the strength. And things can get very dark very quick. But with a group, a service like this, I can imagine that it gives hope. It provides light. Before I move on to another question, I want to move back to something. You mentioned His Eminence a few times. And I've met Sayyidina. A couple of times in the past, he's a lovely person. And he has a vision about what American Orthodox means. And this is something I took from his inaugural message to the Rediscover
I Am on YouTube. He said the early immigrants, they came, established churches. And how they essentially established the churches was as their churches in Egypt. But now with a new generation
coming. we have these issues coming not only related to the language whether we use english or not but also is related to the culture where we are in this society and it was very simple for the kids in early time of the immigration to ask about their identity are we american or egyptians now we are trying to solve this problem by saying we are christian we are orthodox christian we live in america and we are americans but what is important is that we are christian orthodox
the challenge for us is how the faith which we received from egypt how we present it without any change in the american culture where we live today how we express our orthodox faith in the american culture discern or discernment is really what's needed what is related to the culture sayidna says and what is related to the faith and from the culture here what is the positive things in the culture and what are the negative things in the culture which we have to overcome
so this is satan's vision this is how he's approaching it that we're american we can't pretend that we are in the diaspora and our roots lie in egypt in the sense that we are egyptians but egyptians living in america we are americans and we need to see ourselves as this but there's another vision and this is something that came up recently and it you know it was something that happened in canada and it was when his holiness visited canada in 2014 and there was a story about One
of the churches he visited, he was here for about a month, and he visited almost all the churches in Canada, which is a huge feat. So one of the churches, a youth choir presented, and one of the songs was all about the trees in Canada and the rivers in Canada and the weather in Canada. And Sayyidina realized that there's nothing mentioned about Egypt. There's a lack of connectedness.
There's no prayer about... you know egypt and the nile and the weather in egypt nothing about egypt so a lack of connectedness and this is what prompted him to do the logos youth forum where he invited youth from all over the world in order to re -establish that connection with egypt now whether or not this was effective and how effective really is up for debate but you see like it's a different approach like we are egyptians living abroad or no we're american
that this is where we are and we need to meet the people that expression you keep saying any expression i heard from others as well if you um be aware of um that was his thing that was his motto meet the people where they are and for for us living you know in the west thinking of ourselves as easterners living in the west or you know coming to the realization that we actually live in the west this is where we are this is how we see ourselves it's two different
visions there are some common elements but we see something like the american or the establishment of the american orthodox church and i remember when that when news of that came out it was like you mentioned it was scandalous it was something like what's going on like are we abandoning the faith are we no longer calling ourselves coptic And this happened in L .A. and I believe also happened in S .U .S. clubs with Mba Youssef.
And for something like this, to put American in the name is not only, like you mentioned, destigmatizing what we think of the West, what we think of America, but it's also providing this way of making a footprint that is uniquely and authentically. American Orthodox. So in doing this, do you find that the pushback on this idea is coming from, well, rather than pushback, you find acceptance for this idea limited to a certain age group, or is it more widespread? how are
people receiving this idea? How have people received it? I believe it's been in practice for a few years now, for a number of years, maybe five years? No, no, no. More? Oh, the American Coptic Church. Yeah. No, our church is, ours is the first church, the first American Coptic Church, and we're 12 years old. 12 years old. Okay. So how has this... So the American Coptic Church experiment, I think is... If I had to characterize
it, I'd say it was successful. I think when we first came out, it was scandalous, as I'm sure you guessed. And people would just say all kinds of things. But one of the things we focused on at St. Paul's a lot was being very orthodox. And so we actually focused more on... the teachings of the fathers and sort of deep spirituality and just simply didn't talk about culture. You know, like the amount of debates every church has about English versus Coptic versus Arabic.
I mean, how much time is wasted between deacons and people and fighting. We just, we no longer had to have that debate. So all that time, we then shifted to, you know, a women's meeting and a men's meeting and study of the fathers and studies of the liturgy and kind of digging deeper into the faith. So I think very quickly people realized, oh, you know, in fact, you know, as evidence, you know, what I was joking and someone made a comment about the American church
or about our church. And he said, I love this comment. He said, uh, the St. Paul's is the most Orthodox church I have in my diocese. You know, it's a beautiful little comment. And so, um, I think that's people quickly realize, you know, we're not out trying to change the world. And, um, and we're also not saying that you have to be like us, you know, we're not saying anyone else is wrong. You know, it's a group of people saying, this is how we want to worship. This
is just a small piece. And, you know, if you don't want to, if that's not, that's great. You know, you prefer Arabic. That's good. I prefer English. That's good too, right? You know, just like you prefer Arabic, I can prefer English. And so that's it, you know. And so there isn't, at some level, you know, when you attend an American Coptic church, it's kind of, It's not a big deal. It's anticlimactic. You get there and you're waiting for fireworks to go off. I'm waiting
for the heresy. Yeah, and it's just an English liturgy. Nothing has happened that's unique. And we throw a few in. Disappointed. I didn't see anything scandalous. Yeah, it's really nothing exciting. But what's nice about it isn't the liturgy. Every church has an English liturgy. That's not a big deal. I mean, every church in
our diocese, it's really the hall after. Because when you go in the hall after, everyone's speaking English, you can relate to people, there are people that you can find community with, that understand you, that get your jokes, and that you're funny too. And so you feel home. You feel welcome. You know, like everybody's, oh, everyone's like me. And that's it. That's the big difference. So it isn't even the English part. I mean, it's not like we teach anything or do anything different.
It's just the culture in the hall afterwards, right? And so everyone is someone you can relate to. And the youth like it because, you know, there's a lot more harmony between the youth and the adults because the adults are all like me, you know, old men who grew up in the United States. And, you know, we tell jokes and we know who's playing on Sunday and we know what football's going on. And, you know, we can talk about Taylor Swift and we can do all the things. So I think
now I think it's settled down a little bit. I don't think people see it as the threat that it used to be. And now I think most of the new churches that have started in the Diocese are actually American churches. And we do find that the youth, they kind of grow up in the traditional church. I don't want to say traditional, another church. A lot of them will sometimes just, as they get married and they have kids, they'll start to come to it. They gravitate towards it.
It's very, very slow, right? There wasn't a lot of quick movement, which is good. The church shouldn't have a lot of quick movement. It's dangerous to move too quickly in the church. It's a slow -moving thing. And so changes have to be made slowly and methodically, and then you make a change and then you wait. And then you kind of watch how it happens, right? It's kind of like a big oil tanker. You just can't
turn it very quickly. So you make a change, you wait, you look at what things you didn't think about, what are the unintended consequences, what went right, what went wrong, and then you adjust on the next one, right? And then that's sort of the way you operate. And so even with this ministry, we decided we had lots of ideas of things to do, and we were just going to go crazy. And then, like, no, we're going to do
three. this year you know and we're just going to focus and and execute on each one slowly and see how it's received and see what the feedback is and and thank god you know most of the stuff we're doing is on parenting and on relationships and we see this as a big need there's just lots of divorces and fights and all kinds of things um and the reception has been very very good like just overwhelmingly good And so we're happy
with that. And so we're continuing that. And we're slowly kind of adding ministries one at a time after we think about them carefully. through your prayers and you know and god's grace we yeah god yeah yeah so the the first one was the parents ministry and focusing on that yeah yeah so you know we started an instagram page uh rediscover i am just one word there's another shameless
plug um and then the website rediscoveriam .org i'm sure you'll post all these things but um and then uh yeah the parenting ministry was was very important because you know everyone's suffering you know and um And, you know, we had already started the His Beloved ministry. Was it also part of the department? It got morphed into the department because I was part of its launch, you know, outside of before the department. This was a few years ago when we launched His Beloved.
And then it just sort of, you know, melded its way into the department. And so I think at some level, it's sort of picking up different ministries that have the same cohesive theme and it's organizing them. You know, so, you know, we're trying and we have lots of different ideas, especially around new couples and premarital counseling. And that seems to be like a focus that we're, you know, really hitting because I think, you know, strong families make strong churches, you know, and
like you said earlier, right? It's every story in the cynics are. So if you can get the family
going and you got to teach them how to be. a strong family when they're in the eighth grade you know that's when it starts and if i don't see that example at home to the best of the ability the church can supplement and try to inject what that looks like and if we can create these mature emotionally spiritual people that eventually become great husbands and great mothers and sacrificial and christ -like then the kids just naturally just you know you know uh you know when i do
with lemme has this great thing he says you know you know um you know this you know upbringing just gets absorbed by the kids you know so as a parent you don't have to do much you just have to be you just have to be you know and and the kids just absorb it that's right they're not going to listen to you as much as they follow your examples yeah let's do it all in fact if you say it they won't do it but if you do it they'll do it they'll do it so parents is um
one of the areas that you focus on what are the other two um well we also focus on cop the club so the you know kind of that campus ministry campus ministry how has that been um was it just started with the uh launch of the department or has it been no no it started um actually you know a funny story ember is grace ember carlos and i started cop the clubs at the same time he started in ucla i started at cal poly pomona in 1993. That's when you were in school, in college.
Yeah. So we, that was when the first Coptic clubs started and then quickly after, you know, several other Coptic clubs. And now I think we have like 16 Coptic clubs. Recently we're, we're organizing, we've assigned the Coptic clubs into regions. So there's three regions. All in LA. All in LA. LA is a big place. So the Southern region, the Eastern region and the Western region. And we've also have, we now have two priests assigned to
each region. And the job of the priests, you know, again, the Coptic Club isn't really part of the church. It's the kids are doing it. And we sort of want to protect that. Like, it's their thing. And they're going to make mistakes, and that's okay. We're going to let them learn and grow. And the priest's job... Space for that. Give them space, right? But the priest's job is just to be there as a... to meet them where
they are, meet them on campus. So we encourage the clergy to go meet them for confession, meet them for coffee, show up to campus, pray liturgies there, be a presence on the campus, not there to get involved in the politics of the club or the running or what should we do, not try to control them, but rather just to serve them where they are. And then we're looking at other ministries. We're looking at creating a discipleship program for, we think discipleship is key. And it's the
model that Christ used. It's the model that the monks used. It's the model that the fathers used. It's the model. Go and make disciples. It's more straightforward than that. And it's what Jesus did. And so right now our model is more of give talks, give lessons, give classes, give lectures, which is okay. And I think when the ratio of speakers to... People served is not good. You know, a lecture to 200 people is the most efficient way to get there, right? I can't disciple 200
people. But as that number increases and I have more people, then God willing, I can have more discipleship and sort of break the world up into smaller pieces. So one of the things we really want to figure out how to do is add more discipleship
to the model. in particular um and whether that be youth or even couples you know um i actually got this idea from my my uncle uh abu antonius in mansoura he did this 50 years ago he every time a couple got married he would assign them to a senior couple in the church and he said you know you meet with them once a month you guys have dinner if you have a problem they're your first call and they mentored them you know and He said his number of marital problems dropped
dramatically. Makes sense. And now it's creating community, right? There's a bond between you and another couple. And they don't have to be old. They could be five, ten years married, whatever. But just assigning them to someone, that's your first line of defense, right? So we want to formalize a program like that throughout the diocese, maybe pilot it in a few churches. But if we can get every church to pick four or five couples, and when you get married, you say, here's your five
couples. Pick one, the one you're comfortable with. And that's your mentors. And you can train those couples and say, here's the things we elevate to a buna. Here's the things you don't talk about. Here's the things we don't get involved with.
If you see this. call us a therapist you know so there's bigger but most things are you know when the first that first couple years of marriage he fights about this and then you know I'm upset about that and then you just need someone to tub tub and say it's okay you know like we fight about the same things like oh okay this is normal yeah helps put things in perspective everyone calms down you know you know the Syriac Orthodox Church they have that assigned senior couple
As part of the ceremony. Oh, wow. So they have the couple standing before the altar with the bride and groom. Really? And they also have prayers for them. Really? And it's like sponsors for the guardians for baptism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they have them for the couple. Yeah, that's perfect. And before the altar, they have this responsibility given to them that you're going to care for them. You're their sponsor. You need to follow up with them and take care of them.
It's beautiful and it makes sense. It makes perfect sense. No one knows how to be married until you're married. And then you have all these questions. Who do I go ask? I can maybe go ask Abuna, but I can't ask him for every single question. And that when you have a couple like that, it makes perfect sense. I mean, and I think one of the things that I see a lot is people don't want to serve. They think a buna has to do everything. And it's just not the case. I mean, the clergy's
job is the mysteries. It's the sacraments. And outside of that, do they need to teach every class at the seminary? No. You can have a scholar
who teaches something. Do they have to do your kids on... on drugs do you call it no there's there's a treatment center for that you know you're having marital problems okay maybe there's a spiritual component but the rest of it could be couples therapy right so um this whole idea of just going back to buna as as it it floods abuna with stuff that doesn't necessarily have to be him you know and i love the idea of anish being you know um for uh for this maybe something
we can right you know and and the role of deacon What I see mostly today is that the deacon is just a liturgy helper, like communion helper. That's about it. Whereas, you know, serving table and serving, you know, the widows. And there's a huge diaconal service ministry that is part of this rank. And we're leaving all this undone.
falls usually back on abuna to manage it to handle it to assign someone to do it um you're a deacon you're an archdeacon so what does that mean what does that entail in terms of services within the community within the church so you do speak um how how is it that the diaconal service kind of plays out in your day -to -day I mean, I would say that probably most of the archdeacons in our diocese, I think we have like 20, you know,
sort of fit the mold that you talked about. They're usually older and their job is primarily communion, you know, giving the blood. And recently, you know, Sedna has ordained now one or two of us who our job is more about service and to truly be a servant of the people. And so, you know,
I always kind of envision. the the the deacon if you look at it historically you know the the the priest was he's he's the mysteries he's he's the church he's the sacraments um and the deacon at some level becomes sort of this interface between the mysteries and the people you know and so the early church you know as you know he the deacon would take communion to those who were sick, those in prison, those who couldn't come to the church. So he was that middle ground.
And so his job is always the service of the people in any way. As far as I'm concerned, I mean, I'm definitely, I attend St. Paul's and I've been there since its inception. But certainly this, and I've been an archdeacon for six years or something, six or seven. But this new minute, I've always sort of served the whole diocese. And I go to lots of different churches and put lots of miles on my car because I'm kind of running around a little bit. But it's truly a great blessing.
Would it make your service easier if you had a helicopter perhaps? I've said that to a few churches. I'll go there and it's like a two and a half hour drive. And then they'll say, you know, can you come back every month? And I'm like, you know, get me a helicopter and I'll come back. No problem. But so there's a lot of running around. But thank God there's such a nice spirit. You know, there isn't my church, your church, my youth, your youth, my meeting,
your meeting. The kids are running around between meetings. There's a meeting every night at some church. And some churches are like, why even start a meeting? There's a meeting down the street here and there's a meeting down the street here. Why do we need our own meeting? And they encourage their youth, go to that meeting, go to that meeting,
go to this meeting. So there's a beautiful... uh canonia there right spirit of cooperation yeah and no one's out you know grabbing all the people and doing all sheep stealing or anything yeah exactly right and and no one thinks of it that way and there's lots of meetings you know that are just for youth right whoever whoever comes comes you know so um so that's nice so i've been doing you know i do a lot of that type of stuff i think And definitely this new ministry
is, you know, a lot. It's, you know, getting something up and running just takes a lot of time. And, you know, organizing and, you know, I send 50 texts a day, you know, just trying to keep up on different things and everything
is, you know, just takes time. Of course. And, you know, it's not just starting a new service, but a service that... where there are a lot of opinions about which direction to take and you know you have to think and consider all these opinions and all these ways of doing this and you know it puts a lot of responsibility on you right so um do you have anything that's coming down the pipe anything in the plans that you're able to speak about oh like a new uh ministry
um Gee, I'm sort of drawing a blank right now on all the different things we're doing. I'm excited about sort of the Coptic club and discipleship and, you know, being there for these kids, you know, for the big things. Obviously, it doesn't replace the confession father in any way, but there's all these little things, you know, like, you know, I want to talk to this girl and how
do I deal with the situation? And so it'd be nice that if the community can give back to itself, you know, we have so many people have graduated from these colleges and so many people want to give back. And I think giving them an outlet, an ability to give back, you know, I mean, so many adults, you know, 40s come up to me and
they're like, hey, anytime you need me. just let me know how i can help you know so many people say that right and then you see all that untapped potential of all these people right and they're they're successful spiritual great people they aren't on the speaker you know circuit running around giving talks but they're great great mentor people and then you have you know the priest buried you know underwater and unable to breathe and you're like okay you know there's a disconnect
here right and so we've kind of gotten this mindset of like well only the priest can serve you know and and that's a bonus job and i'm not gonna you know well there's a person who wants to you know become an atheist you know you want to go talk to him and you're like no no no abuna will do that right it's like well you know not everybody should talk to that person but there are some people who can yeah um and relate their experience and and handle it and listen you know why do
you become and then you find figure out it's nothing with atheism it's about a problem i have with this girl right or that or my parents or and then that's why you want to become an atheist right and so we're thinking atheism you know we're scared of the word and all of a sudden it's just well you know here's what your dad's really trying to say right and he loves you very much you know and oh okay i'm not an atheist anymore you know so sometimes crises can be averted
just by having somebody there who can listen absolutely 100 and with the with the priest like you say being buried and then you have all this untapped potential It takes a special person to kind of be in the right place at the right time to say, you know what, I can help you organize. I can point you in the right direction. I have, I know, I know where there is a need and you're connecting, you know, the people with the time to the people who have the need. And that's very
important. There's definitely something that, you know, I have a long way to go in terms of being organized and recognizing this and just.
you know not like taking things on my own shoulder recognizing you know the the gifts that god is giving to people to go and serve and minister and and and be a light to the world discipleship parenting and campus ministry and and i think the last thing that we we the big one that i'm eager to start um is really dealing with the problem of pornography um it's just rampant and um and figuring out a way to create something that people won't be ashamed to come to, you
know, that maybe maintains your privacy in some way, but something that pairs you with a mentor or somebody who's another ish bean, maybe, you know, someone who's responsible, someone you can go to when you're tempted. And so I think we really need to address this, this issue. not just because, you know, lust and lust is bad. It's because it's destroying marriages, right?
And destroying relationships and actually creating a backlog because, you know, there are guys who don't want to get married, you know, because I have porn, you know, and whatever, right? So it's creating all kinds of, you know, these issues. And so that's the next thing that, you know, God willing, we're... we're vetting, we're going through, we're thinking about the best way to do it. There's lots of churches, you know, Winnipeg and DC has done some great stuff. Other churches
have done great stuff. There's lots of programs out there. I think it's just a matter of time to kind of go through and sort of institutionalize something for our diocese. Again, be a resource, right? You know, every priest hears it, every confession. So if he can point and say, hey, there's a program out there that might help you, you know, and then offload it off his, you know, I mean. Really, our job is to make Abuna's life
easier, honestly. If we can offload things, something he trusts, something that's run by the diocese, and say, hey, there's a program here by the diocese. Check this out. See what you think. It's one less headache for him. That's a big thing we also want to work on. And with that, I want to thank you very much for your time and your wisdom. And I'm going to be continuing to look at your ministry with great interest. This is a lot of
amazing stuff. So if there's one thing you want to end with as a kind of message of hope when it comes to church and culture, what would you say? I think the message is sort of the... The thing that we have on all of our merch, which is see Christ, know Christ, be Christ, which is actually the theme of the retreat that we're going to attend you and I soon. But, you know, I think we just have to go back to the basics. And I think we keep our eye on him. And he will,
you know, he guides. And so seeking him and then knowing him and then being him. I think if that's our focus, then. all these things get solved naturally and without too much problems. God willing. Beautiful words to end on. Thank you so much, Archie. Thank you so much. And I hope you come visit back. Thank you very much. I'll come in the summer. Yeah, I'd recommend waiting until the summer. Thank you so much. Thank you, Abhi. I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode.
For questions, comments, feedback, or if you'd like to make a suggestion on a topic for a future episode, please feel free to reach out to the email in the bio. And don't forget to subscribe to get a notification when new episodes drop. God bless you and have a great day.