Actually you do read of praying to the saints in the book of Maccabees.
And to the point of paganism - that’s more in line with the non-Christian beliefs that one finds outside orthodoxy.
Say, your group is outside orthodoxy, right?
You also read the following which is a grave error, proving the book is not Scripture...
2 Maccabbees 12:43, "And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection."
Say, your group is outside orthodoxy, right?
My gathering is Biblical, without the accretion of errors seen in Catholicism and the Orthodox.