August 28, 2025 Show with Samuel Farag on “The Monks of Orthodoxy”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 28th day of August 2025.

Samuel Farag’s Background and the New Eastern Orthodoxy Series

And today, we have an ex-Roman Catholic, which happens to be me, interviewing an ex-Coptic Orthodox individual, and that would be Samuel Farag, my guest, who is returning to the program. And although I have had Samuel on the program before, and although I have discussed on this program previously the heresies of Eastern and Coptic Orthodoxy, I have never had a two-hour program specifically on one aspect of those religions.

Today, we are going to discuss the mysterious monks of Orthodoxy, the preservers, protectors, and purveyors of idolatry and heresy, and to do so is the aforementioned Samuel Farag, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church of Gorham, New York, and convert out of Oriental Coptic Orthodoxy, who by the grace, mercy, and love of our sovereign God was saved by the blood of Jesus Christ and drawn to embrace Reformed Baptist theology.

And it is my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Samuel Farag.

Thank you so much, it's such a blessing to be back and to be able just to discuss God's Word together.

Amen. And tell us something about Bethel Baptist Church of Gorham, New York.

So we're located in western New York in the Finger Lakes area, so it's a nice rural area there. And we're just a small church, but sharing the gospel truth, expository preaching. So you're going to come and hear the Word.

We're going right now currently through the Gospel of Luke, which we've been in there now for the past few years, but we have a YouTube channel, so if anyone wants to keep up on it, if anyone's in the area, we would love to have you come and visit the church, and if there's a church that you like, we'd love to have you be part of the congregation.

Now how do they find that YouTube channel?

So if you search Bethel Baptist Church of Gorham, New York. G-O-R-H-A-M. Correct, yep. And then if you also search for Expositing the Word Ministries, that's my own ministries. I also post the same videos there, and I link the two different YouTube channels to each other.

So either way, they can find it.

And the website for Expositing the Word is ExpositingtheWord .org. Correct. And before we go into the heart of our conversation about the mysterious monks of Orthodoxy, please tell us about this project you are working on, a new project involving Orthodoxy.

Yeah, so I'm partnering up with American Gospel TV, working with Brandon Kimberg, who is the director of the American Gospel Documentaries. So releasing a 10-episode teaching series, Eastern Orthodoxy Through the Lens of Scripture.

The first episode is out there, and it's for free, and there's also a little introduction to this. There's a little bit about myself. Then there's going to be nine episodes that are still to be released.

We're aiming for about every two weeks or so, but of course, it's just when the editing will finish on those. They're all recorded already, and it'll just go in-depth about what does Eastern Orthodoxy teach and how does that compare to Scripture.

And what we find is there's a lot of conflict with what they're teaching versus what Scripture says. Each episode is about 40 to 45 minutes, so we go pretty in-depth to show what does Eastern Orthodoxy teach, and also presenting the actual documents and teachings that the Eastern Orthodox Church themselves teach.

So we're showing what they teach in their own words and then comparing it to the Word of God. And another project that will be coming about, Lord willing, in the future is compiling those manuscripts and turning it into a book.

So I'm already in talks with a publisher who may potentially be putting that book out there. So there's been talks to take that and put it into a book form, too.

Do you have a website for American Gospel?

Yeah, it is. I believe it's watchagtv .com, I think. Let me double-check.

And I have another one, americangospelfilm .com. But the other one that you mentioned sounds—.

Oh, it's watchagtv .com. Yes.

Great. Well, if anybody has family, friends, or loved ones who are Eastern Orthodox or Coptic Orthodox, please contact them right now by phone, text, email, however you get a hold of your friends and loved ones, and tell them to listen to this program.

It's very important, especially for them. The website, of course, is ironsharpensironradio .com, and they can click on live stream it, and they'll be able to join us here on the air. But tell us something about the monasteries and monks of Orthodoxy.

As I said, I've never spent two hours specifically on this one area of Orthodoxy. But tell us about the history of the monasteries. Were there ever any theologically sound monasteries? And perhaps tell us how they developed into a more heretical group of false Christians and the specific history of the Orthodox monasteries and monks that we're talking about.

The Rise of Monasticism and Nominal Christianity

Absolutely. So, it's an important part to start with a little bit of history on monasticism in general. So, monasticism really originated in the 3rd and 4th centuries in the regions like Egypt and Syria.

So, you see a lot of the Desert Fathers, they'll call them, who played a crucial role in this movement. Now, why did monasticism come about during that time? This was a response to what's called nominal Christianity.

Those are people who call themselves Christian by name, but they're not actually true born-again genuine believers. So, this took place around the time when Constantine first legalized Christianity. And by legalizing Christianity, he didn't just legalize Christianity, he also made it a very popular religion.

If you wanted to advance in your offices in the empire, it was very profitable to be a Christian. We saw Constantine building a lot of the large churches, the large basilicas, we saw an influx of people who became Christian, but for the wrong reasons.

And then Emperor Theodosius, who's an emperor after Constantine, took it to another level. He actually made Christianity mandatory, where if you wanted to be part of the empire, you had to be a Christian, or you weren't going to be protected from the empire and so forth.

So, you had a lot of people now who really didn't want to become Christian at all, but because it was now mandatory, they became Christian. So now you have this influx of a lot of people who identify as Christian, but they aren't truly Christian.

And you can even pinpoint here where a lot of false practices like icon veneration, the way that Mary was venerated and elevated to treating her basically like a goddess, all those things came about from nominal Christianity.

So while this was happening, there were many people who were just completely turned off from what was happening in the popular Christian world. So you saw people say, okay, we're just going to go into the desert, we're going to go away from the world and try to get closer to God to develop any spiritual purity by going into the deserts.

So you had St. Anthony of Egypt, who is commonly referred to as one of the founding members of monasticism, and he inspired a lot of people to take that approach of going into the desert and living the solitary life.

So what you see from the very beginning of monasticism, it started off with some very good intentions. It seemed very noble. It seemed like they were trying to get away from what they saw as people acting in an unbiblical way.

But we have to understand that if you look at the history of the Pharisees themselves, they also started in very noble intentions. That was the rise of Hellenism coming about and many Jews adopting unbiblical ideas.

So the Pharisees started off by saying, no, we need to stick to what Scripture says. Again, started off with a noble idea. But what happened with the Pharisees is they started adding their own man-made traditions and that evolved into something completely different from what was intended.

And what you see with monasticism is the same thing. Good intentions, but what it developed over time was something completely shocking and very different from what Christianity is as it says in the Bible.

Yeah, this happens every time people with so-called good intentions follow those intentions outside of what God clearly teaches and commands. One classic example is Uzzah in the Old Testament when the Ark of the Covenant was being carried on an oxen cart and the ox stumbled and the Ark of the Covenant was about to fall off of the cart.

You would think it would be a completely logical and noble and acceptable thing to put your hand out to stop the Ark from falling off the cart. And Uzzah did that, and the Lord struck him dead for it because you weren't supposed to touch the Ark, which is why they had those poles that they were to attach to the Ark to carry the Ark with the poles.

Yeah, absolutely. Every time that we try to use our own human logic and reason and break God's commands with what we think is going to be something good, we get ourselves into a lot of trouble. So that formula we've seen throughout Scripture is not a good formula to take on.

And this is what we see with what the monks do here. We see that they start obsessing with different views of this high view of virginity and chastity and then living these lives that they think must be these physical lives where they're basically punishing and self-harming their bodies in this view that by doing this to their bodies, there's somehow a very holy practice.

So it started evolving from what, again, would start off as a good intention, but then really became something radically different from what Scripture ever commanded us to do.

Yes, and you never see Jesus Christ other than for a period of time isolating himself and fasting and praying and so on, but he didn't live out the entirety of his life as a hermit isolated from the rest of mankind to keep himself away from the influence of sinners, and neither did his disciples behave that way, which is why most of the apostles were martyred.

And even after that, in the first century, many Christians were tragically and gruesomely tortured and martyred because they knew that they were supposed to be salt and light in the world. They were supposed to be in the world, but not of the world.

It is, and that's it right there. They were in the world, but not of the world. And that's what you miss out with Manessis. And they're actually trying to take themselves out of the world. And what that ends up doing is they have to then manufacture certain persecutions.

But now that they've taken themselves out of the world, you know, now they have to manufacture these persecutions. And what you'll see, and we'll talk about later on, is they'll actually start abusing themselves in order to replicate certain things if they were in the world.

And again, it's all worldly wisdom. And again, yeah, like you said, Christ and the apostles, they never conducted any of these acts. And why this is so vital to the discussion with Eastern Orthodoxy is the monks truly represent the actual leaders of the church.

So as this practice grew, the people themselves started to look to the monks as being more influential. And there was a power struggle between those who were officially in the church and this new order of monks that came about.

And then you actually saw the power shift to the monks. And now if you look at the structure of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the highest authority in the Eastern Orthodox Church when it comes to leadership is what's called the synod.

And the synod is made up of the patriarch and a group of bishops. And the bishop, the patriarch is considered a bishop, too, and is considered the first among equals when it comes to bishops. So it's not exactly like how Catholicism has the pope or the pope is actually an office that's higher.

The patriarchy is just viewed on as the leader of the bishops, but considered a first amongst equals. But within Orthodoxy, that synod is made up of those bishops are basically mostly monks. Some of them are priests who became celibate or take a vow of celibacy, but mostly the synod and bishop, most of the bishops are made up of monks.

So you have them as basically the leaders of the church. So you look at the different churches within the Eastern Orthodox Church, the OCA, which is the Orthodox Church in America, has 14 bishops. The Church of Greece has 101 bishops.

The Russian Orthodox Church, which is the largest one, has about 382 bishops, give or take one or two. They are the actual leaders of the church. They're the ones who can put together official documents.

And those documents then are treated as if they're infallible, because within Eastern Orthodoxy is the doctrine that when the church speaks in an official capacity—so not just when a single bishop speaks or a single priest speaks, they may just be sharing their opinion or whatever—but when they actually speak as an actual church, like they put together a document and they sign as the actual church, that's considered infallible because their doctrine is that the church cannot err, the church cannot make a mistake at all.

So this is why studying monasticism in Eastern Orthodoxy is so important, because they're the ones who are the head of the church.

And this would be where Eastern Orthodoxy, well, one of the many areas where they are separate from Rome is because, from what I understand, Rome makes no such claim about monasteries and monks and priests and bishops.

They believe only the papal office is infallible when it declares something as dogma, declares something ex cathedra, and apparently not even a pope is always infallible according to them. Of course, we believe that the pope is very fallible all the time.

Not every word that comes from the lips of a pope or everything he writes is considered infallible, which is the way that the Roman Catholic apologists of a more conservative bent have been able to excuse away Pope Francis, the late Pope Francis, for his leftism and Marxism and absolute heresy, even from a Roman Catholic standard.

Yeah. So they actually believe that these monks are declaring infallible teaching—the Eastern Orthodox, I mean.

Yeah, when they gather together and they make a decision all together, then it would be considered infallible. And certain documents, like the Confession of Docetius, that document that came out in, I believe, 1672, that document was treated as absolutely binding.

Like, what was said in that confession is treated just like Scripture is treated. And the reason is that they believe that as the Church speaks, it's the same way as if the Holy Spirit inspired the text of Scripture.

So yeah, for Catholics, you have the pope as the highest authority, the magisterium. For Eastern Orthodoxy, it would be the synod and when they speak in official capacity. So ecumenical councils, when there's a decision and there's an ecumenical council, those are considered infallible.

When there's a confession that is released by the Church officially, those are considered infallible. So they add so much to the Scripture.

Monasticism, Infallibility, and the Authority of the Church

Now, I don't know if there's anything else from the historical point of view that you want to add as far as the monasteries and monks throughout the centuries. But if you have completed that area, I'm curious when there was a notable difference not only between the monasteries of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox, but also the different monasteries within Orthodoxy.

Like, you have already been on the program saying that there are very significant differences between Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy and the Coptic sect. So what would be, unless you've not finished yet with your history lesson here, I'm wondering what any significant differences would be in monasteries of Rome and those within Orthodoxy.

And then, of course, tell us about any differences within Orthodoxy itself.

Yeah, absolutely. There is a document, a book that's significant that we'll get to it. And in there, there's a lot of examples of the problematic teaching. But what I would say is, yeah, within Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, they each view each other separately.

So they don't even acknowledge each other as the true church. So within Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, if you actually walked into, say, a Coptic Orthodox liturgy and you also walked into a Greek Orthodox liturgy, it's going to be very, very similar.

For most people, they're not going to be able to even be able to tell the difference. The biggest difference for them is that the amount of councils that they accept, the Oriental Orthodox Church, they accept three councils, whereas the Eastern Orthodox only have seven ecumenical councils.

So basically, it's like the difference of someone saying, well, I believe in 66 books of the Bible, and another person says, I believe in 70 books of the Bible. And because there's that difference there and they have that built in that each of the churches believe that they can't make a mistake, they really can't go back and correct that or go back on that.

So they really don't acknowledge each other. Although if you see the practices of monasticism within, say, the Coptic Orthodox Church or the Oriental Orthodox Church, the Coptic being within the Oriental Orthodox Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, it's very much the same, where it's this abuse of the body in order to reach some level of holiness.

So the book that I think is important for us to look at, it's called The Ladder of Divine Ascent, and it's written by a person named St. John of the Ladder. The reason that this book is so important, especially within Eastern Orthodoxy, is that first of all, it's considered a timeless classic within Eastern Orthodoxy, and it is considered essential reading for all those in the monasteries and for laypeople within Eastern Orthodoxy.

So it is by far the most widely used handbook on the ascetic life in the Orthodox Church. What this book does is it contains 30 steps to guide one on this path of a spiritual life to spiritual perfection, in fact.

They describe this as a grace-filled writing, and what you see there is that this book is viewed on so highly that monasteries every year will actually read this book out loud during the lentil season.

And then Eastern Orthodox laypeople are encouraged to also read this book so that they can develop great wisdom and great depth from this book. So this book is really the best source to go to to see what's being taught within Eastern Orthodoxy in regards to monasticism, and I will say, when you read the book, it has some of the most shocking statements there, and I break down some of those key highlights of some of those shocking statements.

Great. Why don't you begin doing that when we come back from our first commercial break? And I want to remind our listeners that after this live program is over, I'm sure your appetites will be wet to discover more about Samuel Farag and both Coptic and Eastern Orthodoxy.

And if you go to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio website, ironsharpensironradio .com, and you type in Farag in the search engine, F as in Frank, A-R-A-G as in George, you will see the interview that Samuel conducted with me where he actually provides his testimony of salvation and coming to discover the doctrines of sovereign grace and becoming a Reformed Baptist.

And I'm sure you will find that both fascinating and edifying. But if you have questions that you'd like to ask Samuel during today's live broadcast, submit them to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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He is a convert out from Coptic Orthodoxy, and he is a staunch believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace and a Reformed Baptist. And we are specifically talking today about the mysterious monks of Orthodoxy.

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Well, Samuel, you are about to begin to tell us about some of these shocking statements that have come from the monasteries of Orthodoxy. Samuel Timmins.

Ladder of Divine Ascent. And again, that is by St. John of the Ladder, or also known as John Imacius. And I would recommend that if somebody wants to follow along, what I'm going to do is I'm going to give this step that's mentioned, because there's 30 steps in total in this book.

The step and the paragraph, and if basically we have time, the subjects that I'd like to cover is abuse that's happening within the monasteries, the inappropriate views of the leaders of the monasteries, self-harm, the low view and bad interpretation of Scripture, and sinful actions that are just glorified.

And if you could, repeat the name of the book again, because I actually accidentally had you on mute when you began talking.

Oh, no worries. No worries. So the book is called The Ladder of Divine Ascent, and it's by John of the Ladder or John Imacius, but it's The Ladder of Divine Ascent. So you can also find the book in PDF form online, or you can get the book from Amazon.

But it's good to see, these are the words that the Eastern Orthodox are saying in their own mouth. And this is a book that's read every single year in the monasteries. It's encouraged for lay people to read this book.

This book is considered the definition of true holiness because this is representing the leaders of the church. So that's why this book is an important work to view and really see what are they saying in their practice, in their own words.

So as I go through it, there's, again, 30 steps in the book. So I'm going to give the step and the paragraph, so this way it's easy for people to follow if they want to see where these quotes are coming from.

So first, I want to look at the abuse that monks endure in the monastery. I want to look at step four and look at paragraph 110, and this is what it says. And he endured so much from his elder that to many people it will perhaps seem incredible.

For the elder tormented him daily, not only with insults and indignations, but even with blows. But his patience was not mere senseless endurance, and so seeing him daily in wretched plight like the lowest slave, I would ask him when I met him, What is the matter, brother?

How are you today? And he would at once show me a black eye or a scarred neck or head. But knowing that he was a worker, I would say to him, Well done. Well done. Endure, and it will be for your good.

Having done nine years with this pitiless elder, he departed to the Lord. So what you're seeing here being described is this monk who's writing this book is seeing this other monk being abused. And once he's aware of the abuse, instead of stopping the abuse, it's just telling him just keep on enduring.

And this monk, this elder monk, is actually beating this other monk. He's insulting him, but he's also physically beating him, leaving him with black eyes, scarred neck, scars on his head. And if you say, OK, well, maybe this is just a single instance of this.

Well, all you have to do is continue reading in this book, and you'll see that this is actually not only is this a single instance, this is a common practice that you see within the monasteries. And when advice is given to those who are deciding to seek monasticism, they're actually told to seek monasteries that will abuse you the most so you can reach a higher level of holiness.

Now, this book, just to make it clear, this book is celebrating this. Exactly.

This is celebrating it. And the author who's writing this is actually saying this is great because they're basically saying by the monks enduring this abuse, it's like they're enduring persecution. And like we were saying before, when you take yourself out of the world and Christ talks about how much we have to endure persecution, and now they've removed themselves from the world with their own human logic.

Well, now they're trying to manufacture persecution. So now you have certain monks abusing other monks, and they're tolerating it, and they're encouraging it, and they're glorifying it in order to say, look, we're enduring persecution.

So yeah, you see a lot of human wisdom here. And yes, the book is actually glorifying this. This is why it's absolutely shocking. And now in paragraph 8, verse 25, this is what it says. Advice on selecting a monastery.

It says he should especially choose the most ascertained. Then he will be spiritually stretched and beaten by the insults, flights, and surging rebuffs of the brethren, and perhaps even sometimes physically thrashed and trampled on and kicked.

And so he may wash out the filth which is still in the perspective part of his soul. So they're basically encouraging people to select the monastery of the harshest reputation so that they can be insulted and trampled on and kicked on.

This is absolute abuse, and this mentality resembles nothing of what Christ has shown us as how we're supposed to act. And again, be mindful that we're talking about the leaders of this church. This is the mentality that they have.

These are the leaders who are making decisions and speaking in an official capacity in this church. Truly, these actions come straight from the pit of hell.

Tom Doerrer. Certainly sounds like it. Well, move on with some of these others.

Abuse and Self-Destruction in the Monasteries

Now another one is the inappropriate views of their leaders and how they, in general, view leadership in the Eastern Orthodox Church. So I would recommend people to go look at step 4 and look at paragraph 121, and this is what it says.

This is shocking. It is better to sin against God than against our Father. Our Father here meaning the head monk in the monastery. For when we anger God, our director can reconcile us. But when he is incest against us, there is no one to propitiate him for us.

But it seems to me that both cases amount to the same thing. So this person is basically saying that it's better to sin against God than versus to sin against your leader. Again, where did this mentality come from?

But it gets even worse. If we look down and step 26, paragraph 11, I'm just going to look at the highlighted text in there, but you can feel free to read the whole step. It says that this is the advice that you're given.

Accept their advice. This is their leaders from just as if it's the mouth of God, even if their advice be contrary to your own view, and even if those consulted are not very spiritual. So they're basically told when you are given advice from somebody who is superior in a monastery, don't question it, accept it.

Even if the person is not spiritual, just obey it and treat it as if it comes from the word of God. Again, this has nothing to do with what Christ has taught us to do. This is a very inappropriate view of leadership.