As a Roman Catholic I appreciate this a lot: 1) Get a spiritual director 2) adopt a spirituality, just one 3) fasting, and little mortifications of the will, little to avoid pride 4) The spiritual and corporal Works of Mercy 5) Daily Readings from the Mass or Divine Office, or just dive right in 6) go to Mass as often as possible, daily if you are able.
@stevenchristoforou1667
6 жыл бұрын
Thanks for this list, John! My favorite thing about this is number 6. I regret that so many Orthodox parishes have fallen out of the habit of offering daily services.
@tyxikosgatopoulos3094
4 жыл бұрын
And one other. Leave the false teachings of the papist pseudo church and become Orthodox.
@CatholicHousewife2017
7 ай бұрын
I'm the Christy who asked this question. I'm now a Catholic (was Greek Orthodox) and I appreciate your Catholic spin on this answer. Thank you!
@ShaddySoldier
6 жыл бұрын
This is one off my new favourite channels. Been thinking about joining orthodoxy for a few months now
@stevenchristoforou1667
6 жыл бұрын
Glory to God! Have you connected with a local Orthodox parish? If you're exploring the Church, you should definitely talk to a priest in your area. If you're in the US, here's a link to find a parish near you: assemblyofbishops.org/directories/parishes
@DChristina
5 жыл бұрын
ShaddyCrunchum - good for you! Converting to Orthodoxy was the best decision I ever made:-)
@Ash_Queen16
6 жыл бұрын
I’m not even orthodox but this sounds really encouraging. I’ve been spiritually distant lately and I’m trying to get back on the path of righteousness.
@stevenchristoforou1667
6 жыл бұрын
May God bless and light a spark in your heart!
@tyxikosgatopoulos3094
4 жыл бұрын
You can get on the right path only by becoming Orthodox.
@NorthmanWoodworks
2 жыл бұрын
Steve, I absolutely love these videos you make! As a new convert, these videos and your podcasts are a tremendous help! Thank you!☦️☦️☦️
@stevenchristoforou1667
2 жыл бұрын
Glory to God alone! I'm so happy to hear these videos and podcasts have helped you get to know Christ. May the Lord continue to open your heart!
@bonnie_gail
4 жыл бұрын
very timely for me - I am going to visit an Orthodox Church this month
@stevenchristoforou1667
4 жыл бұрын
Glory to God! How did it go?
@Walte25
2 жыл бұрын
Thank you 🙏
@saadhanna3440
6 жыл бұрын
God bless you your family always aman
@janeofthejungle123
9 жыл бұрын
Such a great episode, I used it in a lesson with my teen Sunday School group today. Thank you!!!! This is what we did in class: Number a blank piece of paper 1-6. Watch this Be the Bee episode and write down each of the 6 pieces of advice. Discussion: What is the value of these 6 practices? How do they help us connect with God better? Think of a time you were doing one of these things with intentional love. Did it help you feel closer to God, the source of all love? How did it affect your relationship with Christ? Let's start with #1. Who is your spiritual advisor? It might be our parish priest, or someone else. Write a short letter to your spiritual advisor about something on your mind-- whether that be about a temptation you struggle with or just something you don't understand about our faith. Give the letter to them this week. It's your confidential conversation with your spiritual advisor. (I keep a record of lesson plans here: skepticalsparrows.wordpress.com/2015/08/16/deepening-faith-and-increasing-love-for-god/ )
@y2am
9 жыл бұрын
+Ashley Zappe That's awesome! May God bless you and your students!
@mujerdivina1590
4 жыл бұрын
Só much wisdom here. Thank you so much!!!
@christinepolydorou8392
4 жыл бұрын
As always, great message!!! What a fantastic channel!!!! God bless you and your family!!! Thank you!!!
@vickykentrota9031
5 жыл бұрын
I can't get enough from all these beautiful videos.God bless you.
@znovosad555
8 жыл бұрын
Thank you so much! I will definitely use this on my path back to orthodoxy!
@stevenchristoforou1667
8 жыл бұрын
Great to hear! Did you used to be Orthodox? If so, I'm super curious: what caused you to fall away, and what caused you to want to return? Forgive me for asking, and no pressure to respond if you'd rather not. It's always amazing to learn a bit about people's stories, and learn about ways we can better help. God bless you!
@znovosad555
8 жыл бұрын
+Steven Christoforou I was! I was a young child when I was. Once my grandmother stopped driving, we didn't really go as much and eventually just stopped going to church. Because it was never really taught to me I never followed it. I had grown up with science class and that's what I believed for most of my life. On Christmas Eve 2014, my sophomore year of high school, my great grandmother passed away. Her funeral just gave me a completely different out look on life. I started researching orthodoxy, praying, and trying to learn as much as I can about orthodoxy. I have finally found that this is who I am as a senior in high school. As soon as I have my drivers license in a few months I plan on starting to go to church again and learning more and more about Christ.
@stevenchristoforou1667
8 жыл бұрын
May your great grandmother's memory be eternal! May she pray for you, especially as you walk your path back to the Church. God bless you always!
@znovosad555
8 жыл бұрын
+Steven Christoforou thank you so much! God bless!
@tyxikosgatopoulos3094
4 жыл бұрын
@@znovosad555 Your great grand mother sees you and rejoices.Your whole perception of life and the world around you will change as you see things through Orthodox eyes. Remember that. God Himself is present in all ourMysteries and that Orthodoxy is a window through which we can get a glimpse of the Divine. I would suggest that you start reading about the lives of Orthodox saints.
@monjarebeca3479
9 жыл бұрын
Really great! Thanks!
@haliml
9 жыл бұрын
OK Steve you rock.
@ohheybigbabysweets
3 жыл бұрын
Love this page
@stevenchristoforou1667
3 жыл бұрын
Glory to God!
@realestaterelief
2 жыл бұрын
Great video. How to pray for a spiritual father? Any questions to ask a potential spiritual father ?
@stevenchristoforou1667
2 жыл бұрын
Spiritual fatherhood is a relationship. It tends to emerge organically: you get to know a confessor over time, he gets to know you, and he becomes the person you turn to. I've known my spiritual father since I was 15. We never did anything to be like "you're my spiritual father now." The relationship simply developed. God bless you as you seek a spiritual father!
@Aquapod9
5 жыл бұрын
How can someone find a spiritual Father? God bless~
@stevenchristoforou1667
5 жыл бұрын
Great question! Are you close to an Orthodox parish? The best thing to do is visit, introduce yourself to the priest, and ask for his guidance. If you're too far to visit, you can start by calling the community closest to you. God bless you!
@hedera.hellix
3 жыл бұрын
Can we chant during our home prayers?
@stevenchristoforou1667
3 жыл бұрын
Of course!
@dmaster254
9 жыл бұрын
This is a question from a friend of mine. She's a catechumen, but because of her hectic schedule in classes in her senior year of college, she hasn't actually gone forward in her learning in the Church. She feels excluded in services at Communion, since she isn't able to receive. How would one respond to this as a bee? ***** Y2AM Department
@Batko10
6 жыл бұрын
If your friend is serious then she should make the time to complete her learning in the Church. Until she receives the Sacrament of Holy Baptism she will not be part of the Church body and will continue to feel "excluded," especially at the part of the Divine Liturgy when the catechumens are called on to depart.
@AnatolyPotapov
10 ай бұрын
I still have difficulty with this teaching. I cannot understand a love which doesn’t experience *joy* in communion with the beloved, but instead is only left with the exercises of joyless duty and devotion to the beloved, performances and the outward and verbal acts such as the charity and prayers of saints, whose hearts were wholly animated by the love of Christ God, a gift which I plainly I do not possess. I cannot believe that love is anything but incomplete if it is without joy and happiness in communion with the beloved. How can you honestly talk anyone out of this and say that’s selfishness speaking? If this is selfishness, I cannot believe in wholly self-denying love, which cannot even find an elevated beauty worth all the pains in the possession of the beloved. It seems like drudgery told to hope to be uplifted by final reward. But we’re also told that won’t happen, being told if we don’t acquire the love of God here, that will be the state we’ll be in hereafter. You don’t really explain how to acquire this love, instead suggesting obediences, that readings, prayers and fasting will acquire it. What if they don’t, what if it’s a divine gift, given to some, denied others, and there’s no working and trying to imitate saints by which to draw it down?
@HomoEucharistica
4 ай бұрын
I have watched this video several times now, and still I don't see how that comment is related to the content of the video. It is not said anywhere that emotions are not a part of loving, nor that joy (which is not actually an emotion, unlike happiness, but a state of being) does not belong to love. Try to see it this way: for those to whom love is merely an emotion, their relation with God is like the Honeymoon - it lasts some time, but when strong feelings and clear expressions of love diminish (or when they must do hard choices or put more effort) they are, figuratively speaking, filing for divorce. Sure, emotions are great and it's lovely if you can feel them every day, but your life or decision-making should not be driven or dominated by your emotions (which are victims of the corruption of fallen nature), but by your commitment and devotion and faith. And who says duties (if you want to call them like that) and joy would be mutually exclusive? They are not, just like freedom and responsibility are not mutually exclusive. Joy is the reason why people are exercising their "duties" (for and with their beloved ones), and exercising "duties" is a way to deepen and produce joy and love, since love is multiplied by consuming it - because the more we use and seek it, the more God pours it upon us because we can receive and bear more and more through this endeavour. Even so that those "duties" become as essential and natural part of our way to live as breathing, eating and sleeping. Those who love are also faithful to their beloved ones, and faithfulness is about obedience, and obedience puts us to make sacrifices for God. Considering this, readings, prayers and fastings are very good tools and medicines in acquiring the love of God - as it is the lived experience of 2000 years in the Church. But only as long as the Christ and unity in Him is in the focus. If a person has lost her focus, all these "duties" are relatively useless, except they help her to get a good habit that might be beneficial to her later on.
@birdlynn417
4 жыл бұрын
I tried to attend an Orthodox church and even attended classes, but no one ever invited me into a relationship with the spiritual father at church. Believe me, I needed to and longed for that, but they didn't seem motivated to reach out to me that way. It still seems men are afraid of single women.
@stevenchristoforou1667
4 жыл бұрын
Did you reach out to the priest? Sometimes people hold back because they don't want to presume what someone wants; they're going to wait for people to open the door rather than seem to apply pressure themselves. Does that make sense?
@birdlynn417
4 жыл бұрын
@@stevenchristoforou1667 Yes, that is how I felt, but they did not reach out. The priest was Republican too, so maybe I didn't feel comfortable reaching out further to him. ha-ha He knew I was Democrat. ;) I love them though, and did reach out to them for some help when I moved away, and they helped me. I still do want spiritual guidance in the near future.
@stevenchristoforou1667
4 жыл бұрын
@@birdlynn417 I certainly hope politics wasn't a factor! I'm very glad the community offered support when you moved. And I do hope you reach out to the priest again for spiritual guidance; that's something we all need. God bless you!
@birdlynn417
4 жыл бұрын
@@stevenchristoforou1667 I am in a new state now, how do I go about reaching outnow when churches are closed due to coronavirus?
@stevenchristoforou1667
4 жыл бұрын
@@birdlynn417 you can always send an email to the priest.
@tyxikosgatopoulos3094
4 жыл бұрын
As a spiritual father I thank you for your good advice. I would like to ask what the origin of the title be the bee is
@stevenchristoforou1667
4 жыл бұрын
It's an image we see in Scripture, the writings of St Basil the Great and St John Chrysostom, etc. St Paisios very famously used the image. My old boss, Fr Jason Roll, learned it from him. And then passed it on to me.
@tyxikosgatopoulos3094
4 жыл бұрын
@@stevenchristoforou1667 Thank you
@dudasandras2551
6 жыл бұрын
How often should orthodox christians receive holy communion
@stevenchristoforou1667
6 жыл бұрын
Ideally, whenever one attends the Liturgy. But in practice, one should speak with one's spiritual father.
@dudasandras2551
6 жыл бұрын
Thank you!
@DChristina
5 жыл бұрын
Dudás András -As often as possible 💕
@cplunajr745
6 жыл бұрын
He’s cute
@fromchronictocure7152
7 жыл бұрын
I asked my Coptic friend and she says they don't have confession... is that true?
@klarag9919
5 жыл бұрын
No, I'm a Coptic (other word for egyptian) orthodox Christian too and we do have the 7 sacraments. The sacrament of confession and repentance is even of the four compulsory ones.
@melisbertasoapanddetergent8280
5 жыл бұрын
orthodox has confession and it's a must to a believer
@meganbeams8752
7 жыл бұрын
Which app is it?
@stevenchristoforou1667
7 жыл бұрын
Which app do you mean?
@meganbeams8752
7 жыл бұрын
Steven Christoforou, you mentioned a daily readings app and showed a little picture and I just found it 😆 God bless
@stevenchristoforou1667
7 жыл бұрын
Ok great! Sorry I was so slow in understanding you. Here's the link in case anyone else needs it: www.goarch.org/-/daily-reading-app
@meganbeams8752
7 жыл бұрын
No worries dear, the video was a couple years ago!
@Batko10
6 жыл бұрын
While I didn't notice anything in the narrator's presentation that was contradictory to Orthodox Christian dogma, I did find the video annoying in its "cutesy" Nicktoons' format.
@stevenchristoforou1667
6 жыл бұрын
Sorry you don't like the style!
@Batko10
6 жыл бұрын
Steve, don't get me wrong. I appreciate you're efforts on behalf of the Orthodox Church. And, I suppose that the "style" of the video will attract some younger people. However, we don't want to fall into the trap of becoming like the Protestants and evangelists who will use any kind of propaganda and gimmick to attract potential converts. I lived in the USSR and then post-Soviet Russia when the Protestant armies unsuccessfully invaded the former Soviet republics and saw first hand what hypocrites and liars they are. Russian people are not naïve and the vast majority recognized the Protestants for what they are and called their movement the "Protestant Show." I guess I have a bit of thin skin when it comes to this kind of presentation of Orthodoxy due to my experiences with the Protestant invaders in Russia.
@stevenchristoforou1667
6 жыл бұрын
Help me understand. All I'm doing is preaching the Gospel in a modern language on a modern platform. I'm not sure what would make this propaganda or gimmicky. I'm also not sure what style you want me to use that would somehow be more "authentic." Help me understand what you're saying. To use an example from Church history: St Gregory the Theologian wrote poetry, referred to classical philosophy and literature, etc. Was this "gimmicky" or was he simply speaking the language of his day?
@stevenchristoforou1667
6 жыл бұрын
Thanks for your comment, James! Two points for you: First, I'd suggest that the Church isn't a native part of any culture. Some cultures may express truths about the Church, but they certainly don't capture it entirely. As the first Christians realized as they preached the Gospel to more areas, we can use local cultural traditions to preach the Gospel. That's all we're doing with KZitem. And I'm glad it's been helpful for you to watch our videos and have that reminder during the day. Second, that isn't what I said about prayer. I didn't say we should "pray only when we want." That's the opposite of what I actually said. To quote the video: "If we set our own prayer rule, we can be tempted to be too easy on ourselves, and set a lazy rule, which won't help us very much. Or we may be too hard on ourselves, and set an overly strict rule, which could lead us to get discouraged and stop praying altogether." God bless you!
@stevenchristoforou1667
6 жыл бұрын
Looks like we were separated by a common language. :-)
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