This evening, His Holiness Pope Tawadros II started the Ninth Seminar of the Holy Synod, which will be held over four days at Logos Papal Centre, St. Bishoy Monastery, Wadi El Natroun. This year’s seminar will be discussing “The Coptic Church’s Social Role”.
His Holiness delivered a lecture during the opening session which was attended by a hundred and five members of the Holy Synod.
His Holiness discussed in his lecture five features that should characterise the social role of the Church to be effective, and they are:
1- Renewing of the minds: reviewing our thoughts and continuously developing them
2- Assessing the place and time: to assess the needs of our society based on the place and time. His Holiness then mentioned the verse: “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” (Matthew 9:35), taking our Lord Jesus as our example in preaching in cities.
3- Planning to build: the importance of having a plan to build and develop our works
4- Preparing and perfecting: good choice of the different components, proper preparation and the respect of specialisation. His Holiness then mentioned the saying “We thought that wealth is within the earth, but we then discovered that it is within the academic classrooms”.
5- Liberty: liberation when using our energies in different field

His Holiness emphasized the importance of the social role of the Church and that it comes right after the spiritual role of the church which is preparing us to Eternity.
His Holiness referred to the Biblical principle “Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost.” (John 6:12), explaining that gathering up the fragments refer to taking care of others in all aspects of weakness, health wise, financially, emotionally, etc.
During the second session, a documentation was presented about the World’s Youth Forum that was held in August for the youth from different Dioceses. The session also included the final concluding recommendations of last year’s seminar. This was followed by a presentation foster care, which is also referred to as alternative care.
The Holy Synod of the Coptic Church holds a yearly seminar during November, during which a pastoral topic is discussed and studied after preparing for it by research, studies and reports throughout the year.

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