Chapter 20. Faith, Education and Legislation

Prohibition of the book "Illuminated sayings of the Church Fathers"

Original Arabic Text

On the book "Illuminated sayings of the Church Fathers"

  1. This book represents a great danger to the credibility of education in the Church, because it is clear that it collectively calls for a "heresy of deification of man."
  2. There is no picture of His Holiness in the book. It is a compilation of many articles published in Mark Magazine before 2008, and it was published in Arabic and in front of it on every page is the English translation and the Greek text for the same, attributing the text to each of the fathers of the Church such as Saint Irenaeus, Saint Basil the Great, and Saint Gregory of Nazis, Saint Kyrillos of Jerusalem, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Athanasius the Apostolic, Saint Kyrillos the Great, Saint Makar, Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Saint Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna, Saint Hippolytus, Saint Clement the Roman, Saint Anthony the Great, and other writers and historians.
  3. The book contains fallacies in translating into the Arabic language with the intention of affirming the idea of "the deification of man." Or, certain parts of the sayings of the fathers were amputated from the full text, or the rest of the statement that clarifies the correct concept, as was written by the fathers. Or the title of the chapter is chosen so that it is the phrase to which it is intended from the quotation as a whole (see the appendix 25 that shows an example of changing the text in the Arabic translation)."
  4. The Committee requests the announcement of the ban on the distribution of this book in the libraries of our churches, as there are many educational fallacies. The seriousness is that it is entirely attributed to the fathers, some of whom are the greatest holy fathers who are teachers in the church, and there are no explanations from the publisher, nor do we have the name of the publisher.