Who are Jehovah’s Witnesses?

• They deny the Holy Trinity and do not acknowledge the persons of the Son and the Holy Spirit as we understand them in Orthodox doctrine.

• The Sabbatarians (Seventh-day Adventists) believe that Christ is the angel Michael, limiting his divinity from being fully God incarnate.

• Both groups deny the immortality of the soul: the state of death for them is total dormancy until the day of resurrection, and they do not accept the intercession of saints or the soul’s feeling after death.

• They have particular understandings of the Second Coming and the resurrection, such as the idea that only the 144,000 go to heaven and the rest live an earthly kingdom after the earth is purified by fire.

• They promote Jewish-tinged ideas (such as the Sabbath and considering Jerusalem the capital of the new world) and mix many heresies and interpretive fragments about the end of the world and the kingdom.

Practical and Behavioral Effects according to the lecture:

• They do not believe in the efficacy of the sacraments (like Eucharist and Baptism) as we believe; for them the church is merely a congregation of believers without a temple or altar.

• They do not acknowledge obedience to rulers nor national symbols (they refuse saluting the flag and military service) which led to persecution or legal suppression of their associations in some countries.

• They hold biblical interpretive practices that lead to many innovations and false concepts about the salvation of souls and the punishment of the wicked.

Spiritual and Educational Conclusion:
Pope Shenouda III calls for conscious distinction between Orthodox doctrine and contemporary heresies, stressing the necessity of safeguarding the apostolic faith in the sacraments and the Trinity and rooting spiritual life in truth, repentance, and ecclesial rite. The lecture urges believers to theological knowledge to demonstrate the truth and refute error without mistreating persons.

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