So short thing before hand, I am Coptic Orthodox we have priests (who are married) and we see them for lots of things Confession, advice, help, all sorts of problems we also attend something called Divine Liturgy which is about 3 hours long (Mantis and then the service itself). So I went to see him today and one of the things I asked him is if I had to wear a mask at Liturgy (we are in orange county florida and there is still a mask mandate for us) some how this conversation turned into a discussion about the vaccine. And even he isn't going to be taking it he said it has nothing to do with religious reasons just he hasn't seen good things from it. Meaning lots of side effects from people (bad ones).
I spoke to one of my friends who is also Coptic and he said at his own parish that a lot of people especially the elderly will wear a mask just to enter the church but eventually during the service they will take it off and put it to the side. I think this really goes to show that a lot of people are completely fed up with the masks, my friend said the only people who believe in the mask is the government.
As for at my parish unfortunately I still have to wear it because Abouna (this is what we call our priests) said he can't make special exceptions because then everyone will want to take it off. I tried to tell him how a big part of the Liturgy in the incense it kind of mentally draws you in and how difficult it is to smell it, to which he said he could smell it just fine I said that is because he is the one censing the Church!
Something about Orthodox we do not self interpret the scripture like that, incase this wasn't you meming, we look towards the fathers for what they have had to say on it least we fall into heresy. St. John Chrysostom talks about this verse and he says that "For he said before, You are the Epistle of Christ; and here, But we all with open face. Yet they came like Moses, brining a law. But like as we, he says, needed no veil, so neither ye who received it..." so this verse would be speaking about the law of Moses.
Matthew 23:9
Do you not call your dad your father? If you do or anything related to father then in your own view you are going against what God said. "No one should be called teacher or father except God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is the Father, because all things are from him. He alone is the teacher, because through him are made all things and through him all things are reconciled to God. But one might ask, “Is it against this precept when the apostle calls himself the teacher of the Gentiles? Or when, as in colloquial speech widely found in the monasteries of Egypt and Palestine, they call each other Father?” Remember this distinction. It is one thing to be a father or a teacher by nature, another to be so by generosity. For when we call a man father and reserve the honor of his age, we may thereby be failing to honor the Author of our own lives. One is rightly called a teacher only from his association with the true Teacher. I repeat: The fact that we have one God and one Son of God through nature does not prevent others from being understood as sons of God by adoption. Similarly this does not make the terms father and teacher useless or prevent others from being called father. ." St. Jerome
No I did not call my dad father.
But you just called him dad, dad means father.