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Samuel Farag: Eastern Orthodox Church - Christian Or Another Gospel? · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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defending biblical Christianity, no topic, off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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Friends and family in Christ, thank you so much, brothers and sisters, aren't you glad
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we're family?
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Aren't you glad we have an amazing blessed hope?
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And the future that we have to look forward to beyond this life, this life is a bit of
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vapor.
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And we have such encouragement from the truth of scriptures and from the one true living
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God in his presence in our lives that we can ever a relationship with him.
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I just, I'm so encouraged.
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And plus with all the people I get to talk to, including today's guest, you're going
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to love this.
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And there's a book, very important book coming out very, very soon in a couple of weeks.
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But I've got author and pastor Samuel Farag with me.
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He received a Master of Theological Studies from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
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and is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity and Empty of Degree.
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He's an ordained and licensed minister and he serves currently at Bethel, Baptist Church
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of Gorham, New York.
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And that's where he comes to us today from, brother, good to see you.
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Thanks for your time today.
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Oh, thank you so much for having me.
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I appreciate it.
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You're so welcome.
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How did we connected?
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I believe it was Jan Niza.
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Was she the troublemaker that God has connected?
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Yes, yes, definitely.
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She's a dear friend.
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I love her.
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She's been on with us for years and I've got to have her back by the way.
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But anyway, you've got a very important book out.
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We're going to talk about your story because you used to be in the Eastern Orthodox Church
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years ago.
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I think you said Oriental, but I'll let you explain the difference there.
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I want to mention your book because when this podcast is released, we're recording this
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a little bit earlier, the book is going to be out because this is going to come out early
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June.
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So the book is out right now.
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I want to make sure people know that they can go get this book on Eastern Orthodoxy
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through the lens of solar scriptura, Eastern Orthodoxy.
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The website is freegracepress.com, that's the publisher, freegracepress.com.
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And Sam's website is expositingtheword.org, expositingtheword.org, you can find them over on YouTube
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as well.
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You can find them on Facebook, expositing the word ministries.
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And brother, let's just talk about your story because a lot of people write pastors,
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authors, Christians.
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We write about different religions or cults or different things that maybe there's a
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fascination about or that we were once involved in.
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So talk to us about your background in the Eastern Orthodox Church and then we'll start
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talking about doctrines and things that they believe that I think the body of Christ needs
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to understand.
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Absolutely.
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So, I spent the first 32 years of my life in the Oriental Orthodox Church, specifically
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the Coptic Orthodox Church.
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And so some people are saying, okay, Oriental Coptic Orthodox Church, what's the difference
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between that and say Eastern Orthodoxy?
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So they have a big difference where they had a disagreement at the fourth ecumenical
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council and the way that they saw Jesus' will.
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So the Orientals will say that since Jesus is one person, he has one will.
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Whereas the Eastern Orthodox will say, well, he is divine and he's human, so therefore
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he has two wills.
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So because of that disagreement, there was a disagreement at the fourth ecumenical
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council.
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So therefore, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, they believe in the first three ecumenical
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councils, whereas the Eastern Orthodox Church believes in the seven ecumenical councils.
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And for them, this is the key part, they see those ecumenical councils as just as inspired
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as the word of God.
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So this is very important to them.
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And because of this difference, they are actually separated even though their practices
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are virtually the same.
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If you walk into an Oriental or an Eastern Orthodox Church, it's very much the same.
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So grew up Oriental, but I did have friends who are very close family friends who were
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Eastern Orthodox.
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So used to attend the liturgy of them all the time and my brother actually converted
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from the Oriental Orthodox Church to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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So I do have a lot of personal experience, plus that's where my research mostly focuses
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on is the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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And the reason that this is so important at this time is that so many people are converting
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into the Eastern Orthodox Church, especially after COVID.
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And we want to really make sure that we're clear, what does the Eastern Orthodox Church
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teach?
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This is not just our brothers and sisters in Christ in the East, they actually teach a different
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gospel.
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Yeah.
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Well, let's start there.
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That's chapter one in your book, The False Gospel of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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You nailed it right out of the gate.
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So what is this false gospel?
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Is it their emphasis on works or is it more than that?
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Yeah, there's a huge emphasis on works and they have a lot of writings and this is an
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important part to know about the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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They believe that they themselves as a church are infallible, that they cannot actually even
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commit an error.
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So therefore their ecumenical councils are considered just like scripture, any confessions
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that they come out with, any official statements that they come out with.
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Those are considered to have no errors in them whatsoever.
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And because they view themselves in that manner, there's a document called the Confession
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of the Scythias, which I recommend people to read through.
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In that document, they even say that our good works, they are considered meriting.
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They merit our salvation.
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They even use that language.
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So it is important to realize that this is a works-based system.
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And on top of that, they also add requirements to the scripture, requirements to the gospel
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that they see as infallible requirements that are also considered mandatory.
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So one of the biggest ones to point out at the seventh ecumenical council, the way that
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they talk about icons is not just that they practice icons or that it's permissible
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to practice icon veneration, which consists of kissing the icon, bowing down to the icon,
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offering incense to the icon.
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In addition to that practice in them saying that it's okay to do, they actually say it's
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mandatory to do, that if you're not participating in icon veneration, you don't love icon veneration.
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You are actually under anathema, which anathema means you're cursed by God to hell unless you
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repent.
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But for them, in order to repent, one must join their church.
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Because again, they see themselves, well, they'll actually describe themselves as the
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arc of salvation, that unless you're in their church, you are under the God's wrath
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and the floodwaters.
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So when you see what they actually teach, you realize that they're adding to the gospel
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message, which is what Paul specifically warned us against in Galatians, that if anyone
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adds anything to scripture and the Judaizers, again, they would be considered trinitarian,
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they would agree with what Paul was saying, except they added certain requirements like
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circumcision as mandatory.
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And Paul said, even that slight change is not just a slight change.
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It actually completely makes void, though the actual gospel message.
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And that's what we see with the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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Okay.
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I'm glad you explained that, but I need to dig down a little bit deeper on the idea of
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icon veneration.
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With all the scriptures throughout the Bible, warning about idolatry.
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Isn't that idolatry what they're teaching or what they're saying is mandatory?
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Absolutely.
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So we can look at scriptures themselves, and it's very clear that we're not supposed
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to participate in any type of cultic veneration of images.
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Now, there could be a discussion on whether using images is permissible or not, but the
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actual cultic use, you know, the bowing down and serving the image, the kissing it, that
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is very clear in scripture that we are not supposed to do this at all.
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In fact, even if you look at church history, all of the early fathers, anytime they ever
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spoke of any type of veneration to an image, they always condemned it.
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It was actually unanimous.
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And it wasn't until much later in church history.
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So how did we get to this state?
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This is why looking at church history is very helpful in this area.
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So you look at emperor Constantine.
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And when he became emperor, he had the edict of Milan, and he made Christianity legal, but
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not only did he make it legal, he also made it very popular.
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So a lot of people became Christian in order to have political positions.
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And then along came emperor Theodosis.
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And with his edict of Thessalonica, he actually made Christianity mandatory.
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So now in order to be part of the empire, you had to be Christian.
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So what that resulted in is what's called nominal Christianity, those who became Christian
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by name alone.
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And what happened then is you took these people who had pagan backgrounds, who loved their
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pagan religions, but only became Christian by name alone, they started to Christianize
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some of their pagan practices.
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So when you look at the practice of idol worship, I like to use Zeus as an example, you had
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a statue of Zeus.
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And that statue, they didn't see Zeus residing within the statue.
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They saw that Zeus resided in Mount Olympus, but they saw this statue as a window that they
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communicated through to get to Zeus.
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So icons, if you actually see how the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches their doctrine of
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icon veneration, they see those images as windows to who is represented in that image.
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So you see that as a very dangerous practice, but you see that it actually has pagan origins.
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It's not Christian at all.
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Wow.
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Wow.
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This is so concerning because you said earlier since COVID, and I think, I mean, a lot
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of people went different directions because of all the video content and everything online.
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So Sam, what's the attraction, then, to maybe someone who grew up in America?
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This is our context here in America.
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The American Church is not too deep, doctrinally, too mature, but there are some great churches,
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great men and women have got across the country.
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I like to refer to them as maybe the remnant, but more people are susceptible to these
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lies.
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What is the attraction to the Orthodox Church, do you think?
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Is it reverence?
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Is it some of what you're describing?
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What is the attraction for some people, do you think?
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Yeah.
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Well, if we look on our society, we see how liberal and progressive and the woke movement
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that we see in our society.
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So people wanted something that seemed like it was unchanging.
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And when it comes to the Eastern Orthodox Church, that's the sales pitch that they deliver.
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Oh, we're unchanging.
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Since the time of Christ, we've never changed at all.
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Now, if you actually looked at church history, you realize there's been many accretions
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over time.
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That this is not the practice of the apostles, though that's what they're going to say.
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We have the same teaching as the apostles, and we've never changed.
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And where have we heard that before?
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Look at the Pharisees.
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We have the teachings of Moses, and we've never changed, but Christ rebuked them and said,
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instead, we're supposed to follow what the Word of God says, because all your additions
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that you've added to the true message has actually made void the Word of God.
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Because they're not just adding doctrine, they're elevating it above God's Word.
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But for those who want something that seems to be unchanging, Eastern Orthodoxy seems to
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be very appealing.
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They also saw the reverence in their building and their design.
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This seemed like something beautiful to them, something that seems apostolic.
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But again, we see that those were additions added in.
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And what you see is you had people who had an experience go to another experience.
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For example, you have certain churches that have the fog machines and the TED talks and
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all the different, you know, experience, the concert like experience, and certain people
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were turned off from that.
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But then they go to another experience.
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Now you have the incense.
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Now you have the ancient hymns.
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Now you have all the icons and all the imagery.
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So it's going from one experience to another experience.
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But what's missing in it all is the actual strength and truth of the Word of God.
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Fascinating explanation.
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That makes sense to me.
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Because a lot of people that are wanting more and maybe seeking something more spiritual
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or about God, they go to some of these churches and they're just being entertained.
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It's not too deep, doctrinally, and like you said, the worship, it's just like a concert
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and not all churches, but a lot of churches are doing that, trying to attract the world
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and they're thinking there's got to be more to it than this.
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So they go the opposite direction and they go back to something so regimented or traditional.
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And they think that goes all the way back to the early church, but it doesn't technically,
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if you read how the church started in people's homes.
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And anyway, so I wanted to clarify something, Sam.
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So the Orthodox church claims to be the one true church of Christ.
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And if you go to Russia, if you go to Greece, there's the Greek Orthodox, there's the Russian
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Orthodox.
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We're talking about the Eastern Orthodox.
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So basically whatever state or country you go to, there could be part of the Orthodox
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church, but they all believe the same thing.
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Is that correct?
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Yeah.
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So they call them like auto syphilist churches.
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So in the Eastern Orthodox church, there's anywhere from 14 to 17 churches.
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And the reason why there's not an exact number is because some churches acknowledge other
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churches and other ones don't.
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So yes, there's the cultural differences, but when it comes to their actual doctrines,
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they share it across the board.
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So they all fall under, so the Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, they all fall under the
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umbrella of the Eastern Orthodox church.
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Okay, so I was reading through some of the notes, and again, I want to mention the website
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expositingtheword.org, expositingtheword.org.
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The book is out, guys, this is very important.
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So why?
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Because they claim to be the one true church.
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And there are a lot of issues, particularly with the doctrine of justification by faith,
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which is absent from, I think that there is history and the theology of the church.
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Do they ever believe anything other than a works righteousness or tradition?
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Do they believe tradition is just the same?
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I think I read that somewhere.
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The equal authority of church tradition and scripture.
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Can you break those down for us, Sam?
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Yeah, in fact, what they'll say when it comes to tradition is they actually hold their
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holy tradition as they'll call it above even scripture itself because what they'll
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say is that their tradition is what produced the scriptures.
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So they'll often say when you see a debate with someone who's Eastern Orthodox, they'll
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say, we gave you the scriptures, which is, again, very similar to the idea of the Pharisees
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where they saw their tradition of the elders to be the highest authority and dictated
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how they interpreted the word of God.
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But we see consistently from Christ that we're supposed to go to the word of God and not
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to the traditions of men, especially these man-made traditions.
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In fact, when people have that pushback and they say, look, we gave you the scriptures.
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Well, who gave us the Old Testament?
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You know, and that's where there's a problem, but yet Christ used the Old Testament authoritatively.
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So we know that we can go to scriptures because Christ actually practiced Solascriptura.
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He showed us that we can use scripture and focus on scripture along.
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In fact, that's what we see if the Bereans, when Paul and Silas came and they were teaching,
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the Bereans didn't just take Paul's word for it.
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They actually look to the scriptures and they were able to take his words and compare it.
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But if you do the same thing with the Eastern Orthodox Church, in fact, that's what this book does.
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It lays out their teaching, their official teachings, and then compares it to the word of God.
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And what you see there is it's not the same thing.
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So let me just ask you this because I know somebody we talked before we got on the podcast
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who just converted a couple of years ago, full on into the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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If I were to buy your book and send it to him, he's relatively new.
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Now know this is speculation on your part and opening your book, would there be a desire
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to learn what you're saying, what you're writing about and what you're differentiating?
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What do you think?
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Because I really want to send him this.
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Yeah, if the person is truly seeking for truth, then this is exactly what they would
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want to see because what I believe in is we're supposed to steal man, not strong man.
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So when I present the Eastern Orthodox view, this is their official teaching.
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And when speaking to even their top Eastern Orthodox apologists who are faithful, because
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a lot of them are not actually being faithful even to the Eastern Orthodox teaching, the
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one who are faithful to the Eastern Orthodox Church is teaching.
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They'll say, yes, that's true.
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We do believe this.
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So if someone is seeking truth, they'll see, here's what the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches.
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And then I just lay out scripture and expound upon scripture.
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And they can have it all in front of them if someone is truly seeking the truth.
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What I've also encountered, unfortunately, is there are some people who are in this honeymoon
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period where they love being in the Eastern Orthodox Church and they don't really want
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to be challenged.
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And therefore they won't even look at challenges made to the Eastern Orthodox Church,
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caring to seek truth.
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And if they are, then this book lays it out for them and really challenged the ideas.
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Because these are not the things that people who are going through this catacument process
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are going to encounter.
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One of the biggest things that you won't see encountered head-on is, for example, the practice
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of monasticism, which you can develop later on in history, but here's why monasticism
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is so important.
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The leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Church, they are the Holy Synod, which is made up
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of monks.
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So they are the ones who come out with these confessions, they're the ones who make decisions
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for the church, but there's a book called The Ladder of Divine Ascent.
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It's considered the highest, most authoritative book in Eastern Orthodoxy for the practice
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of monks.
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Within this book, and you can read the book yourself and look at the context for it,
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it talks about monks abusing other monks, will verbally and physically.
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It talks about beating their chest to the point that they're spitting out blood, smashing
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their heads on the ground in the most shocking statement that some monks even pray to be
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possessed by demons.
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There's no way to explain this.
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And I've seen people try to, they'll try to explain, well, this is an extreme form
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of repentance, and they're thinking that if they just get possessed by demons, but they
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can avoid hell, then that's a good thing.
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That's not an explanation.
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We are never, ever supposed to do that.
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And if the leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Church, this is what they subscribe to.
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I mean, they read this book every year during the lentil season, all the monks read this
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book.
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This is not what we should be doing.
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No.
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That's the way in the recent phenomenal movie, A Great Awakening, the story of a George
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Whitfield, Benjamin Franklin, and early in American history, what happened with The Great
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Awakening, Whitfield tried to deprive himself and starve himself.
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And he was trying to, you know, do that, some of these things you're talking about.
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And then the great scene in there where he's curled up and yelling, it's not working.
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It doesn't work.
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And by the way, Jesus, talking about traditions again, Jesus spoke very harshly to the Pharisees
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about you're following the traditions of man and not God.
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But let me go back to something I read over at gotquestions.org.
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It says the head of each Orthodox church is called a patriarch or metropolitan.
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The patriarch of Constantinople in Istanbul, Turkey is considered the ecumenical or universal
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patriarch.
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And so this is close to like the Pope and the Roman Catholic church, correct?
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Can you explain that a little bit?
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How each leader in these, like the Greek or the Russian churches, they have a patriarch.
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Can you explain the hierarchy?
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Yeah.
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So the patriarch is a bishop.
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So he's a monk too.
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And that's considered a person who is at the highest level.
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But they see all the patriarchs as, so for the patriarch of Constantinople, they'll say
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he's the first among equals.
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So it's not exactly like the papacy where the Pope is clearly a completely different
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position than, say, the cardinals of whoever else is under him.
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So they'll say first among equals, there's a little bit more respect, almost like they
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would say, Peter was the head of the apostles, you know, even though all the apostles were
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at the same level or the same office.
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So that's how they would explain it.
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Okay.
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So before we run out of time, I've got to talk about chapters five and six or ask you
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about that.
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We talked about idolatry, icon veneration and worshiping icons or idols.
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Let's explain the Eastern Orthodox church and their relation to, or their doctrine of
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Maryology.
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I think a lot of our listeners might go, wait a minute, is that like worshiping Mary?
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Go ahead.
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Yeah.
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So Maryology is the doctrine that one has about Mary.
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And this is another shocking area.
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And again, if you remember what we talked about with how icon veneration developed, same
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thing happened when you had the visible church just infiltrated by those who became Christian
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by name alone, but had pagan origins.
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One of the big things you noticed about pagan religions is they had goddesses.
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Now there's no goddesses in Christianity.
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So what did they do?
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They took Mary and they gave her to attributes that should only be to God.
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Wow.
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So you have Mary being called a propitiation of her sins that in certain priors, they say
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that Mary can bring about whatever her will is.
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So they basically make Mary completely sovereign.
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You have Gregory of Palamos, who's one of their saints, who talks about Mary in a way where
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Mary entered the Holy of Holies.
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And again, we know from scripture that that's only for the high priest, but she entered
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the Holy of Holies and she gave God the idea of salvation.
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And they almost make it where Mary is actually more merciful than Christ.
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They have these owns where there's a sinner praying to Mary who's done communicating with
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Jesus.
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And what you see is that Mary in that story is the one who's more compassionate than Christ
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because at the very end, Christ is like, oh, I don't want to forgive this person.
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But you know what?
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For you, Mary, for you mother, I'll do it for you.
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So they're promoted, they're encouraged to go to Mary because she's seen as more compassionate
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than Christ.
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So when you actually look at all the theology they have regarding Mary, it's actually dishonorable.
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It's not honorable to Mary at all.
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Okay.
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So this brings me to another question about what they believe about the possibility of
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receiving salvation after you die.
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Is that part of their belief and what about prayers of the dead or prayers for the dead?
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Tell us about that.
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Yeah.
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You'll see within their divine liturgy, their services that they have.
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They actually pray for those who've passed away because they believe that through the
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prayers and then they'll even say through Mary's intercession and through the saints'
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intercession, that these people can actually receive salvation even afterwards.
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They even have these belief in something called tollhouses now to be clear, not all
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Eastern Orthodox believe in tollhouses, but about half of them do.
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And tollhouses is basically like, like, purportary in Roman Catholicism, but you go through
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all these different stages and you get cleansed and you have certain things forgiven.
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For them, again, it's a merit-based system.
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So if you haven't done enough good works, there's still a chance for you in the afterlife
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that you can still be cleansed, but again, it's due to the power of saints' prayers, the
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monks' prayers, the Mary's prayers.
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It's a system completely foreign to anything you'll find in the scriptures.
24:04
So Sam, how do they align that with the overwhelming amount of scriptures about faith in Jesus,
24:12
believing in Jesus, believing in your heart, you know, Jesus, accepting Him as Lord, putting
24:19
your faith in Him, trusting Jesus, that's faith for salvation.
24:24
There's so many scriptures about that.
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How do they make sense of that?
24:29
Yeah.
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The way that they really look at it is, they'll say, oh, yeah, it's true.
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You have to have faith in Jesus, but that's not the whole picture.
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So for them, when they hear the gospel and something else, Jesus isn't exactly.
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For them, it's not satisfactory.
24:43
Okay.
24:44
Wow.
24:45
That's, that's, that's really sad, but it explains a lot, and I think a lot of faiths
24:51
struggle with that same thing.
24:53
They think, well, really, all you got to do is believe in Jesus, it's too simple for
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them.
24:58
No, no, I gotta work.
24:59
Yeah.
25:00
I gotta do something.
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I lived a bad life or whatever.
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I gotta make up for past sins.
25:03
Well, then what, what did Jesus have to die in the cross for if you have to make up for
25:08
your sins?
25:09
Sam, we're down to two minutes, and I did want to ask you about, you might as well
25:12
talk about the five solas really quick, because that's part of the subtitle on the book.
25:18
And you can just explain that because the Eastern Orthodox Church do not align with those
25:23
five solas, correct?
25:25
Yeah.
25:26
No, they don't, they don't align with them at all.
25:29
So when it comes to solar, and that's the heart of it there is that we know that we,
25:34
the scripture enough lays out for us what it means to be saved.
25:38
But for them, they, they see, no, it's scripture plus tradition.
25:42
You know, we see that it's by faith alone, they see that it's by faith and by the works
25:46
that you do.
25:47
We see that it's everything that we're supposed to do is for God's glory alone, but they
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see it's for God's glory plus for Mary and the saints and so forth.
25:55
So everything in the solas, they always add an additional thing to it and take away
26:01
from the actual gospel message that we see laid out in scripture.
26:05
So instead of becoming something that's supposed to be for the glory of God alone, that Christ
26:10
is the only one who saved us.
26:11
It's Christ alone.
26:12
No, they see it as Christ plus the saints plus the church.
26:15
And ultimately for them, it's solar ecclesia, which is it's for all for the church alone.
26:21
Okay.
26:22
Thank you, brother.
26:23
This went by so fast.
26:24
There's so much more.
26:25
That's why I'm definitely going to get a copy of the book and send it to this friend
26:28
to mind.
26:29
I was telling you about friends.
26:30
You can check out Sam's podcast over at expositingtheword.buzzsprout or you can go to just his website
26:37
expositingtheword.org and click on podcast and you'll get over to the expositing the word
26:43
with Samuel Farag brother, thank you so much.
26:47
This was very, very informative and a little disturbing and disheartening, but we've got
26:52
to be able to share the truth and know sometimes how to defend our faith and know what others
26:56
believe so we can share the truth about Jesus Christ.
26:59
We appreciate all that you do and we'll look forward to hearing from you again in the
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near future.
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Thank you, brother.
27:05
Thank you for having me on.
27:06
It's a great honor.
27:07
You're most welcome.
27:08
Friends, thank you for sharing the podcast and for praying for our ministry.
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God bless you and as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.
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We'll see you next time.