Terms

Effective 16 October 2026

By using theorthodoxforge.com you agree to what follows. If you do not, please do not use the site. It is written for adults.

What this site is

Orthodox Forge publishes Coptic Orthodox teaching drawn from primary sources, and offers a question box that answers from a corpus of those sources with citations. It is educational and devotional material. It is not spiritual direction, and it is not legal, medical, financial, or professional advice of any kind. It does not replace your priest, your father of confession, or your physician.

It speaks for no bishop, diocese or synod. Nothing here, and no answer in Ask the Forge, is an official statement of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

It is not crisis help. If you are in danger or thinking of harming yourself, call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number.

On the answers

Answers in Ask the Forge are written by AI and then checked against the retrieved sources before they are shown, and anything that fails that check is withheld rather than displayed with a warning. That process is good; it is not infallible. Verify anything that matters against the cited source, which is exactly why the citation is there. How Ask the Forge works sets out each step.

Using the material

Quote us, teach from us, and share us, with attribution. Do not republish substantial portions as your own work, and do not present a generated answer as though it were the direct words of a Father when it is a summary citing him. The quotations themselves come mostly from public-domain translations, which were never ours to restrict. Some works in the library may be republished with their rights holders’ permission and remain their copyright; each work’s page says which it is. A few short passages elsewhere on the site are quoted from copyrighted translations under fair use and remain their owners’ copyright.

Fair use of the question box

There is a daily limit on questions, and automated or bulk querying is not permitted. Do not attempt to scrape the corpus, defeat the rate limits, or use the site to generate content at volume. Do not submit anything unlawful, and do not type personal or sensitive information into the question box.

Your questions

When you ask a question, you let us use its wording and its ideas, without anything that identifies you, in what we write and publish. The stored text is still deleted after 90 days, as the privacy policy says; this covers what we write because of it.

The email list

Joining is voluntary and leaving is one click in any message we send. What we do with the address is set out in the privacy policy.

Availability

The site is offered as it is and as it happens to be available. We may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of it, including the question box, without notice. Everything is currently free, and nothing here promises it stays that way forever.

No warranty

The site and everything on it are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the site will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of harmful components.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Orthodox Forge and Andrew Assad will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, goodwill, or other intangible losses, arising out of or relating to your use of or inability to use the site, whether based in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, or any other theory, and whether or not we were advised of the possibility of such damages.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability for all claims relating to the site will not exceed one hundred United States dollars (US$100). Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

Indemnity

If your use of the site breaks these terms or the law, and someone brings a claim against Orthodox Forge or Andrew Assad because of it, you agree to cover the resulting losses and costs, including reasonable legal fees.

Links out

We link to Substack, YouTube, and other services we do not control. Their terms and privacy practices are theirs, not ours.

The whole agreement

These terms and the privacy policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the site. If a court finds any part of them unenforceable, the rest still applies. Not enforcing a term is not giving it up.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute about the site will be decided in the state or federal courts in Hillsborough County, Florida, and you agree to their jurisdiction. Nothing here takes away a protection that the consumer law of your own country gives you.

Changes

If these terms change materially, the effective date above changes with them. Continuing to use the site after that means you accept the revised terms.

Questions about these terms go to theorthodoxforge@gmail.com.