The Orthodox Way: Recent Episodes
Father Peter Farrington
Podcasts exploring different aspects of the Orthodox Christian Faith by Father Peter Farrington, a priest of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, living and serving in the UK.
This is a recording of a lecture I gave over Skype to a group of university students in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in September 2016.
My concern was especially to show that there was a difference in both the text and the context in which Scripture is received and understood by Orthodox Christians compared to that of the various Protestant groups.
This is a recording of the Coptic Orthodox Liturgy of St Basil celebrated by Father Peter Farrington of the Patriarchal Diocese and Father Hedra Fahmy of the Diocese of the Midlands on Saturday 17th September.
I don't usually, or indeed ever, post recordings of the liturgy, but quite a few people ask how I pray, or try to pray, and this was a happy celebration of the liturgy. So here it is. I have only been praying this liturgy for a year, after 20 years of praying the Liturgy of St James, so I am still making slow progress.
Most Protestants object to the very idea of Christians asking those who have departed to pray for them, and count such a practice as being close to necromancy or at least as standing in the way of a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet it has been the continuing practice of Christians from the earliest centuries to ask those who have reposed to intercede for them, not as being dead, but as being truly alive in Christ.
In this podcast Father Peter Farrington considers both the practice of Orthodox Christians and the objections which are raised by many Protestants, and shows that these objections do not have any weight, and should not stand in the way of all Christians expressing their unity with the Church both living and departed to be with Christ through the seeking of the intercession of the saints.
Most people who are members of Orthodox Churches have been born into families who belong to ancient Orthodox communities. But increasingly people from the West, even from the UK, are discovering the spiritual treasure that is the Orthodox Christian faith and are seeking to become members of a variety of Orthodox Churches.
Father Peter Farrington was born into a devout and committed evangelical family, and it was as a result of his seeking a deeper experience of the spiritual life that he began to be introduced to aspects of Orthodox spirituality and the history of the Church from the time of the Apostles.
In this podcast he speaks a little about how his spiritual pilgrimage led from evangelical Protestantism to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.
Tradition tells us that the Apostle Thomas travelled as far as India, and through his preaching established a small Christian community there, where he was also martyred. Perhaps this seems rather far-fetched. How could there be any historical evidence to support such pious legends?
In fact there is substantial written and material evidence to suggest that in fact this particular tradition is rooted in actual history, and that the Church in India was indeed the fruit of the missionary endeavours of St Thomas the Apostle.
In this podcast Father Peter Farrington considers the available evidence and concludes that St Thomas reached India in the first century and converted some of those among whom he preached to the Christian Faith.