In this video, Fr. Seraphim Cardoza talks about the sign of the cross, a gesture of ancient Christian origin by which people bless themselves, others, or objects. Why do we cross ourselves? Left to right or right to left? This is an honest and lovely conversation between an Orthodox Priest (Fr. Seraphim Cardoza) and an Evangelical Pastor (Perry Atkinson). Rev. Archpriest Seraphim Cardoza, is a former evangelical pastor who was drawn to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In 1995 he was ordained and assigned to minister to the small ROCOR congregation in Medford, Oregon, US. Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/XmM-xwUW5zY
Special thanks to theDoveTv for allowing this translation.
Fr. Seraphim Cardoza:
Try wearing something this big, you know what?
I couldn’t imagine doing it…
You’re gonna find your Evangelical friends saying: “what are you wearing that for?” That’s exactly what you’re going to see.
They have no clue that it has always been from day one… Oh, I love the early Church! But I love the Church the way it is now! Talk to Polina’s grandfather about the cross, how he suffered for the cross… Someday get her to tell a story of her grandfather and how they beat him and beat him, how they treated him because he wouldn’t take off his cross and how when they exiled him and came back he put on his cross again and they beat him again…
You see me doing this Perry… it’s because I’m Portuguese and sometimes my tongue gets a little bit out of control and I’m also a former Marine and there’s there’s words that are still swirling back there…
“Okay, okay, okay, I got it!” Before I get into that, you know what? “Lord have mercy on me! I don’t want to go there!” We trace ourselves with that sign of the cross that Christ gave his life for us and was resurrected and so we’re unashamed of the sign of the cross, totally unashamed, we belong to our Lord Jesus Christ and this is what we do. We put our three fingers together. What does that mean? In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, one God three Divine persons. And these two fingers come down and touch our palm of our hand: Jesus Christ the true God and true Man, a complete divine nature and a complete human nature. He came down to earth and humbled Himself and we put this in the devil’s face, we put everything we believe right in his face, we put it right there…
And I am telling you I have seen more wonderful powerful things happening over that.
In the name of the Father, here’s the top and the bottom of the cross, our mind and our emotions… Where does Christ sit now in the heavens?
“On the right hand side…” Now you got it, in the name of the Father and of the Son (on the right hand side) and of the Holy Spirit. Lord have mercy! Why our friends the Catholics go to the left no one knows. It wasn’t that way from the beginning. That’s okay, I mean, that that’s okay. The next time you’re in trouble, really in trouble, with thoughts mostly, just make a little sign of cross over your forehead: “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy!” Wow, it is amazing! “And that’s the Jesus prayer”. The Jesus prayer: “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!”
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