Diocese Welcomes His Grace Bishop Youssef to speak about “Egyptian Christians in America”

The Dio­cese joy­fully announces the upcom­ing visit of His Grace Bishop Youssef, the Cop­tic Ortho­dox Bishop of the South­ern United States, in which His Grace will present a lec­ture enti­tled “Liv­ing Between Two Worlds: Egypt­ian Chris­tians in Amer­ica” on Decem­ber 1 at Clare­mont Grad­u­ate Uni­ver­sity from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

From the university’s promotional material:

Cul­ture con­sists of socially acquired infor­ma­tion through beliefs, val­ues, knowl­edge, ideas, etc. that impact one’s behav­ior and atti­tude espe­cially in the fam­ily set­ting. The change from a famil­iar envi­ron­ment to an unfa­mil­iar one is faced by many Egypt­ian Chris­tians in Amer­ica. This lec­ture will present how indi­vid­u­als adapt dif­fer­ently to a new cul­ture and illus­trate the chal­lenges imposed dur­ing this adjust­ment period. The lec­ture will also explore the impact of indi­vid­u­als’ adap­ta­tion on their fam­ily rela­tion­ships and the role one has in the fam­ily adap­ta­tion process. This will lead to the most impor­tant ques­tion: what is the impact of cul­tural adap­ta­tion on one’s spirituality?

We strongly encour­age our con­gre­ga­tions, and espe­cially the youth, to attend this blessed event and be nour­ished through the words of His Grace.

For infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing times, address, and con­tact infor­ma­tion, please visit the event page here.

On the Celebration of Halloween

“A time is com­ing when peo­ple will go mad and when they see some­one who is not mad, they will attack him, say­ing, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’”

– Abba Antony the Great

On Octo­ber 31, mil­lions of Amer­i­cans will cel­e­brate Hal­loween, many of them Ortho­dox Chris­tians unaware of the incom­pat­i­bil­ity between Chris­tian­ity and Hal­loween. This arti­cle endeav­ors to exam­ine how the cel­e­bra­tion of Hal­loween con­tra­dicts our Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian iden­tity so that we may choose Christ, the True Light, over the dark­ness of the world.

It is gen­er­ally accepted that the ori­gin of Hal­loween is the pagan feast of Samhain (pro­nounced saw-on) of the Celts in Ire­land and Britain, and their priests, the Druids.1 There is much debate as to whether the feast was a Satanic obser­vance ded­i­cated to the Celtic lord of the dead or whether it was sim­ply a pagan obser­vance not affil­i­ated with any par­tic­u­lar god. We, as Ortho­dox Chris­tians, are not con­cerned with the answer, because we fol­low Christ only. Whether Hal­loween is Satanic or sim­ply pagan does not change our response to this hol­i­day, because every aspect of Hal­loween is incon­sis­tent with our Ortho­dox Christian faith.

I. Hal­loween is Con­trary to the Chris­t­ian Faith con­cern­ing the Liv­ing and the Dead

The Celts believed that, dur­ing this feast, the spir­i­tual bar­rier between the liv­ing and the dead was at its thinnest so that the evil spir­its of the dead returned to the earth to wreak havoc among the living.

This belief is con­trary to the Chris­t­ian the­ol­ogy of the liv­ing and the dead, which rejects any belief in the ghosts. As Ortho­dox Chris­tians, we acknowl­edge the exis­tence of evil demons, who were angels like Satan that opposed God and fell. Abba Antony the Great spoke of their exis­tence when he wrote,

The demons were not cre­ated as the fig­ures we now iden­tify as “demonic,” for God made noth­ing bad. They were made good, but falling from the heav­enly wis­dom and there­after wan­der­ing around the earth, they deceived the Greeks 2 through appari­tions. Envi­ous of us Chris­tians, they med­dle with all things in their desire to frus­trate our jour­ney into heaven so that we might not ascend to the place from which they fell.

Ghosts, on the other hand, are human spir­its that return to earth to haunt peo­ple and cause tur­moil. The Ortho­dox Church rejects any belief in them.

This is not to say, how­ever, that the Lord does not per­mit legit­i­mate appari­tions of His saints. In Matthew 27:52, we read that, after Our Lord’s cru­ci­fix­ion, “the graves were opened; and many bod­ies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and com­ing out of the graves after His res­ur­rec­tion, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.” Sim­i­larly, God per­mit­ted many to see visions of the saints, a notable mod­ern exam­ple being the appari­tion of the Holy Theotokos Saint Mary in Zeitun, Egypt. More­over, Abba Antony the Great and his spir­i­tual chil­dren in the desert strug­gled against visions and appari­tions of demons for many years.

The dif­fer­ence between these legit­i­mate holy appari­tions and the belief in ghosts is that the for­mer gives glory to God while the lat­ter has an evil pur­pose. The saints who rose from their graves preached the Lord’s res­ur­rec­tion and vic­tory over death after the Lord released them from Hades. His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion teaches us, “The death of Christ on the Cross freed mankind from bondage to Satan, released those cap­tives in Hades who remained in hope (Eph­esians 4:9, 10) and opened the gates of Par­adise to mankind.”3 This is the sub­ject of the uni­ver­sal Ortho­dox hymn <ric­toc Anecty. Thus, their appari­tion was for faith, a procla­ma­tion of the Lord’s glo­ri­ous res­ur­rec­tion and eter­nal life. Sim­i­larly, the appari­tion of the Holy Theotokos in Zeitun com­forted and strength­ened the faith of mil­lions. Finally, the Lord per­mit­ted demons to appear to the ascetic fathers in the desert so that, through their strug­gle in Christ, the fathers might defeat them through their faith and humil­ity and leave us with an exam­ple of Chris­t­ian perfection.

When com­pared to these legit­i­mate appari­tions that give glory to God, the wan­der­ing of spir­its in the pagan feast reveals an evil pur­pose. The evil spir­its dur­ing the feast of Samhain were said to instill fear, wreak havoc, kill ani­mals, and steal infants from rival tribes. Far from man­i­fest­ing the glory of God, these evil spir­its wrought wicked­ness wher­ever they went. The pagan people’s response also demon­strated wicked­ness, includ­ing human sac­ri­fices to appease evil spir­its that many of them believed were gods. What should our response be to the evil that was ven­er­ated and prac­ticed in this feast? St. Justin Mar­tyr tells us in his First Apology:

We deny that the spir­its who have done those things are true deities, but assert that they are wicked and infa­mous demons, in no way even capa­ble of such actions as men who strive for good­ness and merit.

Let us there­fore acknowl­edge that the ancient ori­gin of Hal­loween is a pagan feast of dark­ness and evil that offers a false teach­ing about the liv­ing and the dead.

II. Hal­loween Trick-or-Treating is Con­trary to the Christian Life

a. The Pagan Origin

One of the prac­tices that devel­oped out of Celts’ pagan beliefs was the offer­ing of var­i­ous “treats” to appease the ghosts wan­der­ing about dur­ing the dark­ness of the pagan feast. These “treats” were offered so that the ghosts would not do an evil “trick” to the peo­ple. With time, the Druids, who were priests among the Celts, began to dress in cos­tumes as evil spir­its and paint demonic images on their faces, trav­el­ing from house to house demand­ing treats to exor­cise spir­its from each house. This, of course, is the prim­i­tive pagan ori­gin of trick-or-treating.

Ortho­dox Chris­tians can­not accept or encour­age the prac­tice of going from house to house ask­ing for treats, because it com­mem­o­rates a pagan rit­ual of exor­cis­ing evil spir­its. Our Lord Jesus Christ gave us author­ity over these evil spir­its when He said, “Behold, I give you the author­ity to tram­ple on ser­pents and scor­pi­ons, and over all the power of the enemy, and noth­ing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19). We acknowl­edge this through­out the day and in our litur­gi­cal ser­vices as we recite the Prayer of Thanks­giv­ing. Nowhere in the Holy Tra­di­tion of the Church do we see an exam­ple of exor­cis­ing evil spir­its by imi­tat­ing them. Indeed, the Holy Scrip­tures teach us to do the oppo­site: “Beloved, do not imi­tate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God” (3 John 1:11). The writ­ings of the Church Fathers teach us that the tools for exor­cis­ing evil spir­its are fast­ing, prayer, humil­ity, and Chris­t­ian strug­gle, not imi­ta­tions of evil spir­its and demons. We must be care­ful to avoid the hypocrisy of pray­ing the words “For You have given us the author­ity to tread on ser­pents, scor­pi­ons, and upon all the power of the enemy” and sub­se­quently dress­ing our­selves as these evil things. Not only is this hypocrisy, it is a denial of the power of God.

b. All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day

Those who vig­or­ously defend the cel­e­bra­tion of Hal­loween con­sis­tently refer to the later devel­op­ment of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day as feasts that “Chris­tian­ize” the cel­e­bra­tion of Hal­loween. To under­stand whether these days offer a Chris­t­ian alter­na­tive to Hal­loween, we must pray for wis­dom and exam­ine their history.

In the early Church, Chris­tians held yearly com­mem­o­ra­tions of the saints who were mar­tyred by pagan emper­ors. As of the fourth cen­tury, this yearly com­mem­o­ra­tion was held through­out the Church on May 13.4 Later, dif­fer­ent loca­tions within the Church adopted dif­fer­ent dates for this com­mem­o­ra­tion of mar­tyrs.5 The Roman church attempted to “Chris­tian­ize” the cel­e­bra­tion of Hal­loween in eighth and ninth cen­turies by mov­ing the May 13 com­mem­o­ra­tion to Novem­ber 1 and call­ing it “All Saints’ Day.”

In 998 A.D., the abbot of a French monastery ordered a Latin mass be prayed for the souls of the Chris­t­ian dead in his monastery. Over the next 200 years, this feast made its way into the West­ern Chris­t­ian litur­gi­cal cal­en­dar and came to be known as “All Souls’ Day.” With time, this feast became united with All Saints’ Day in that peo­ple cel­e­brated “All Hallow’s Eve” on Octo­ber 31, All Saints’ Day on Novem­ber 1, and All Souls’ Day on November 2.

A close exam­i­na­tion of the rites and prac­tices of these feasts reveals they, too, are not con­sis­tent with our Ortho­dox Chris­t­ian faith. This led Arch­bishop Kyrill of the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church to observe, “One can see in con­tem­po­rary West­ern soci­ety that the West­ern Church’s attempt to sup­plant this pagan fes­ti­val with a Chris­t­ian feast failed.”6

On All Souls’ Day, for exam­ple, Chris­tians were encour­aged to attend requiem masses to pre­vent haunt­ings by ghosts who returned to earth because of their inabil­ity to enter heaven.7 As men­tioned above, there is no belief in ghosts within the Ortho­dox faith. In an attempt to “Chris­tian­ize” a pagan feast, the feast of All Souls’ Day spreads more con­fu­sion about the liv­ing and the dead.

In addi­tion, churches in the West rang their bells con­tin­u­ously on All Souls’ Day to arouse those who were in pur­ga­tory and ward off evil spir­its. The idea of pur­ga­tory is uni­ver­sally rejected by the Ortho­dox Church. Our broth­ers in the Roman Catholic Church teach pur­ga­tory as a place where souls are “sus­pended” to undergo atone­ment for their sins until our Lord’s sec­ond com­ing. The Ortho­dox Church has never accepted this idea on the basis of the Holy Scrip­tures and the teach­ings of the Church Fathers. As Ortho­dox Chris­tians, we do not try to explain every aspect of what hap­pens to souls after their depar­ture from the world. Indeed, when Abba Antony the Great asked God about sim­i­lar mat­ters, a voice came to him say­ing, “Antony, attend to your­self; for these are the judg­ments of God, and it is not for you to know them.”8 There­fore, we do not accept pur­ga­tory or par­tic­i­pate in feasts that promote it.

More­over, the “Chris­tian­ized” ver­sion of Hal­loween con­tains many other prac­tices and beliefs that are against Ortho­doxy. Among them are the prac­tices of dress­ing skele­tons in fancy cloth­ing for the rest of the fam­ily; leav­ing food for the dead; and light­ing bon­fires to repel evil spir­its from graveyards.

Gen­er­ally speak­ing, these feasts reveal a focus on dark­ness, evil spir­its, and death. We must ask our­selves whether a pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with these things gives glory to God or whether it emanates from Satan. It is fit­ting that we live a life that rejects Satan and all his pow­ers. Indeed, when we were bap­tized, our parents–who were spon­sors on our behalf–openly rejected Satan by fac­ing the West9 and say­ing, “I denounce you, Satan, and all of your pow­ers and evil works…” The Greek word for this action is apotaxis, which implies a turn­ing away from Satan. We must pray for wis­dom and ask our­selves whether cel­e­brat­ing Hal­loween ade­quately reflects the turn­ing away from Satan that we pledged in our baptism.

III. The Mod­ern Cel­e­bra­tion of Hal­loween is No Less Evil

Some peo­ple may say that the mod­ern cel­e­bra­tion of Hal­loween is harm­less and inno­cent. On the con­trary, we say that it is even more dan­ger­ous, because it tar­gets chil­dren through­out soci­ety and nor­mal­izes evil. In the pagan cel­e­bra­tion of Samhain, peo­ple acknowl­edged evil spir­its as evil and did their best to avoid them. Today, how­ever, peo­ple have been deceived into dress­ing them­selves as the same evil spir­its with pride! This decep­tion reflects a com­mon quote about Satan that says, “Satan’s great­est trick is con­vinc­ing the world he does not exist.”

The effect is espe­cially dan­ger­ous for our chil­dren. By nor­mal­iz­ing evil in soci­ety, Hal­loween makes the power of Satan more relat­able to them. It very well may be that most chil­dren today know noth­ing of Halloween’s pagan ori­gin, but the fact remains that the nor­mal­iza­tion of evil is creep­ing into the col­lec­tive con­science of our chil­dren. Peo­ple may say that the form of evil depicted in Hal­loween is “cute” and “inno­cent,” but we respond with St. Paul’s teach­ing to “abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:22).

Some may still not be con­vinced, say­ing, “We don’t want to deprive our chil­dren of this social expe­ri­ence.” To this, we respond, “What is the role of a Chris­t­ian liv­ing in this world?” It is not to par­tic­i­pate in the world, but to man­i­fest Christ’s light to the world. His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion teaches us that “the goal of rais­ing chil­dren is to make them chil­dren of God.”10 Con­se­quently, chil­dren should be guarded against the evil things of the world, as the scholar Ter­tul­lian said, “Our tongues, our eyes, our ears have noth­ing to do with the mad­ness of the cir­cus, the shame­less­ness of the the­ater, the bru­tal­ity of the arena, the van­ity of the gym­na­sium.”11 In other words, our Ortho­doxy must be clear and our lives must rotate around our Chris­t­ian faith, not vice versa. If liv­ing this life means we won’t be fully accepted by soci­ety, this is a price we should gladly pay so that we may emu­late the words of St. Paul, “For the wis­dom of this world is fool­ish­ness with God” (1 Corinthi­ans 3:19). Par­ents must ask them­selves whether allow­ing their chil­dren to par­tic­i­pate in Hal­loween cel­e­bra­tions accom­plishes this goal.

IV. Cel­e­brat­ing in the Church

In our Dio­cese, we are thank­ful for the guid­ance of His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion and the efforts of the priests and ser­vants in many parish churches to pro­tect chil­dren and youth from the dark cel­e­bra­tion of Hal­loween. His Grace has encour­aged parish churches to do the fol­low­ing on October 31:

1. Gather chil­dren and youth in the church to avoid par­tic­i­pa­tion in trick-or-treat: “For where two or three are gath­ered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).
2. Design a church pro­gram for this evening that includes an agape meal for every­one, includ­ing the Lord’s brethren, rather than unhealthy candy. The cur­ricu­lum of this pro­gram may include:
   1. Prayers from the Agpeya and lita­nies for the Church, His Holi­ness the Pope, our bishop, our fam­i­lies, and our children.
   2. A spir­i­tual word explain­ing the ori­gin of Hal­loween and edu­cat­ing par­ents and chil­dren alike why the church rejects this celebration.
   3. The chant­ing of hymns, such as the Glo­ri­fi­ca­tion or Mid­night Praise, or spiritual songs.
   4. A pre­sen­ta­tion or play with a focus on the saints of the church, who reflected the light of Christ, instead of evil spir­its. The church may espe­cially focus on the saints of the day or the lives of saints who are unknown among our congregations.
   5. Mul­ti­me­dia pre­sen­ta­tions that offer spiritual nourishment.
   6. Com­mu­nity ser­vice activ­i­ties, such as assem­bling bas­kets of food for the Lord’s brethren to teach our chil­dren and youth to focus on serving others.

Parish churches that con­sis­tently hold such cel­e­bra­tions will greatly help future gen­er­a­tions under­stand their Ortho­dox faith and com­bat the evil mes­sage of Hal­loween within our Orthodox community.

May God grant us the faith and wis­dom to live a per­fect Chris­t­ian life, shun­ning the dark cel­e­bra­tions of this world while reflect­ing Christ’s light in all our actions.

Glory be to God now and forever, Amen.

Writ­ten by Paul Samaan under the guid­ance of our beloved father, His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion. May the Lord pre­serve him and keep him for the Church and his flock for many years.

1. 1. See also Bishop Suriel. “Hal­loween: Hal­lowed or Harm­ful?.” Cop­tic Ortho­dox Dio­cese of Los Ange­les, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, and Hawaii. 29 Octo­ber 2009. http://www.lacopts.org/articles/halloween-hallowed-or-harmful.
2. 2. Here, the word “Greeks” is intended as a ref­er­ence to all who fol­low things such as astrol­ogy, the occult, phi­los­o­phy, and other things over Christ.
3. 3. Bishop Ser­a­pion. “Our Suf­fer­ing Christ is the Pow­er­ful Christ.” Cop­tic Ortho­dox Dio­cese of Los Ange­les, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, and Hawaii. 29 Octo­ber 2009. http://www.lacopts.org/articles/our-suffering-christ-the-powerful-christ.
4. 4. Nicholas Rogers, Hal­loween: From Pagan Rit­ual to Party Night (New York: Oxford Uni­ver­sity Press, 2002), 24.
5. 5. In the Greek rite, for exam­ple, this com­mem­o­ra­tion falls on the first Sun­day after the Great Feast of Pen­te­cost and is known as the “Sun­day of All Saints.” Notably, the Cop­tic rite does not con­tain a sim­i­lar feast, because, as His Grace Bishop Youssef points out, we cel­e­brate the saints every day. In addi­tion, unlike the Greeks, Syr­i­ans, and Romans, the Copts changed their entire cal­en­dar to com­mem­o­rate the innu­mer­able mar­tyrs in Egypt who suf­fered per­se­cu­tion under Roman emper­ors on the Feast of Nay­rouz. In this way, our entire cal­en­dar is a com­mem­o­ra­tion of martyrs.
6. 6. Ortho­dox Life, Vol. 43:5 (Sept./Oct. 1993)
7. 7. Edward Muir, Rit­ual in Early Mod­ern Europe (Cam­bridge, Eng­land: Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity Press, 1997), 51.
8. 8. Apoph­theg­mata Patrum (P.G. 65), Antony, 2 as cited in Tim­o­thy (now Bishop Kallis­tos) Ware, The Ortho­dox Church (Lon­don: Pen­guin Books, Ltd., 1997), 255.
9. 9. The West being the oppo­site of the East, which represents God.
10. 10. Bishop Ser­a­pion. “Rais­ing Chil­dren to be Chil­dren of God.” Cop­tic Ortho­dox Dio­cese of Los Ange­les, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, and Hawaii. 29 Octo­ber 2009. http://www.lacopts.org/articles/raising-children-to-be-children-of-god.
11. 11. Ter­tul­lian, Apol­ogy, Ch. 38, ML 1, 466.

Diocese Youth Missionary Trip to Hawaii 2010

The Dio­cese joy­fully announces its annual Youth Mis­sion­ary Trip to Hawaii from June 30 to July 12, 2010 under the guid­ance of His Grace Bishop Ser­a­pion, who will par­tic­i­pate in the mis­sion­ary trip. Par­tic­i­pants work among home­less chil­dren and their fam­i­lies. All of the Lord’s brethren served in this mis­sion are invited to the parish church in Hon­olulu for a meal and a lec­ture about the faith. In addi­tion, par­tic­i­pants are enriched by daily litur­gies, Bible stud­ies, and fellowship.

Dur­ing the last mis­sion­ary trip, Father Daniel Habib microblogged the expe­ri­ence through Twit­ter. He offered the following thoughts:

Mis­sion trip to Hawai’i. We’re “mis­sion­ing” in par­adise to won­der­ful peo­ple. “Live aloha”.

Prayed liturgy at 4 AM and then went straight to serv­ing home­less chil­dren on beach and in shel­ters. No need for caf­feine, only God :)

Pass­ing out hygiene kits to chil­dren and par­ents liv­ing in tents in Waianae.

Today we tutored older home­less chil­dren at a shel­ter in Kalae­loa, HI, as well as played with the preschool­ers. May God bless them.

If you would like to par­tic­i­pate in this amaz­ing activ­ity, please con­tact Father Daniel Habib by Feb­ru­ary 21, 2010. The cost of this year’s trip is air­fare cost + $650.00 for all food, hous­ing, and transportation.