From the first days of her existence, the Holy Church of Christ has ceaselessly been concerned that her children, her members, should stand firm in the pure truth.

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth," writes the holy Apostle, John the Theologian (3 John 4). "I have written briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand," says the holy Apostle Peter in concluding his catholic epistle (1 Peter 5:12). ("Catholic," meaning "universal," is the name applied to the New Testament Epistles (those of James, Peter, Jude, and John) which were addressed, not to individuals or local churches (as are all the Epistles of St. Paul), but to the whole Church or to believers in general.)

The holy Apostle Paul relates concerning himself that, having preached for fourteen years, he went to Jerusalem by revelation with Barnabas and Titus, and there he offered — especially to the most renowned citizens — the gospel which he preached, "lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain" (Gal. 2:2). "Instruct us in Thy path, that we may walk in Thy Truth" — is the first petition in the priestly prayers (the Prayers at Lamplighting. The "Prayers at Lamplighting" are the silent prayers read by the priest before the Royal Doors while Psalm 103 is being read aloud by the Reader.) in the first Divine Service of the daily cycle, Vespers.

The true path of faith which has always been carefully preserved in the history of the Church, from of old was called straight, right, in Greek, orthos — that is, "orthodoxy." In the Psalter — from which, as we know from the history of the Christian Divine services, the Church has been inseparable from the first moment of her existence — we find such phrases as the following — "my foot hath stood in uprightness" (Ps. 25:10); "from before Thy face let my judgment come forth" (Ps. 16:2); "praise is meet for the upright" (Ps. 32:1); and there are others. The Apostle Paul instructs Timothy to present himself before God "a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing (that is, rightly cutting with a chisel, from the Greek orthotomounta) the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15). In early Christian literature there is constant mention of the keeping of "the rule of faith," the "rule of truth" The very term "orthodoxy" was widely used even in the epoch before the Ecumenical Councils, then in the terminology of the Ecumenical Councils themselves, and in the Fathers of the Church both of the East and of the West.

Side by side with the straight, or right, path of faith there have always been those who thought differently (heterodoxountes, or "heterodox," in the expression of St. Ignatius the God-bearer), a world of greater or lesser errors among Christians, and sometimes even whole incorrect systems which attempted to burst into the midst of Orthodox Christians. As a result of the quest for truth there occurred divisions among Christians.

Becoming acquainted with the history of the Church, and likewise observing the contemporary world, we see that the errors which war against Orthodox Truth have appeared and do appear a) under the influence of other religions, b) under the influence of philosophy, and c) through the weakness and inclinations of fallen human nature, which seeks the rights and justifications of these weaknesses and inclinations.

Errors take root and become obstinate most frequently because of the pride of those who defend them, because of intellectual pride.

So as to guard the right path of faith, the Church has had to forge strict forms for the expression of the truths of faith: it has had to build up the fortresses of truth for the repulsion of influences foreign to the Church. The definitions of truth declared by the Church have been called, since the days of the Apostles, dogmas. In the Acts of the Apostles we read of the Apostles Paul and Timothy that "as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees (dogmata) for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem" (Acts 16:4; here the reference is to the decrees of the Apostolic Council which is described in the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Acts). Among the ancient Greeks and Romans the Greek word dogmat was used to refer a) to philosophical conceptions, and b) to directives which were to be precisely fulfilled. In the Christian understanding, "dogmas" are the opposite of "opinions," that is, inconstant personal conceptions.

On what are dogmas founded? It is clear that dogmas are not founded on the rational conceptions of separate individuals, even though these might be Fathers and Teachers of the Church, but, rather, on the teaching of Sacred Scripture and on the Apostolic Sacred Tradition. The truths of faith which are contained in the Sacred Scripture and the Apostolic Sacred Tradition give the fullness of the teaching of faith which was called by the ancient Fathers of the Church the "catholic faith," the "catholic teaching" of the Church. (In such phrases the word "catholic" means "universal" as referring to the Church of all times, peoples, and places "where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all" (Col. 3:11). A celebrated definition of "catholic" in the early Church was given by St. Vincent of Lerins, the 5^th century monastic Father of Gaul, who in his Communitorium says, "Every care should be taken to hold fast to what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. That is truly and properly 'catholic' as indicated by the force and etymology of the name itself, which comprises everything truly universal" (ch. 2, Fathers of the Church edition, p. 270). The name of "catholic" has been kept from early times in the "Roman Catholic" church, but the teaching of the early Church has been preserved in the Orthodox Church, which even to this day can be and still is called "catholic." In many places in this book, Father Michael will be contrasting the teaching of Roman Catholicism and the true catholic or Orthodox teaching.) The truths of Scripture and Tradition, harmoniously fused together into a single whole, define the "catholic consciousness" of the Church, a consciousness that is guided by the Holy Spirit.

By "sacred scripture" are to be understood those books written by the holy Prophets and Apostles under the action of the Holy Spirit; therefore they are called "divinely inspired" They are divided into books of the Old Testament and the books of the New Testament.

The Church recognizes 38 books of the Old Testament. After the example of the Old Testament Church (Although the Church in the strict sense was established only at the coming of Christ (see Matt.16:18), there was in a certain sense a "Church" in the Old Testament also, composed of all those who looked with hope to the coming of the Messiah. After the death of Christ on the Cross, when He descended into hell and "preached unto the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:19), He brought up the righteous ones of the Old Testament with Him into Paradise, and to this day the Orthodox Church celebrates the feast days of the Old Testament Forefathers, Patriarchs, and prophets as equal to the saints of New Testament.), several of these books are joined to form a single book, bringing the number to twenty-two books, according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. (The 22 "canonical" books of the Old Testament are: 1. Genesis, 2. Exodus, 3. Leviticus, 4. Numbers, 5. Deuteronomy, 6. Joshua, 7. Judges and Ruth considered as one, 8. First and Second Kings (called First and Second Samuel in the King James Version), 9. Third and Fourth Kings (First and Second Kings in the KJV), 10. First and Second Paralipomena (First and Second Chronicles in the KJV), 11. First Esdras (Ezra) and Nehemiah, 12. Esther, 13. Job, 14. Psalms, 15. Proverbs, 16. Ecclesiastes, 17. The Song of Songs, 18. Isaiah, 19. Jeremiah, 20. Ezekiel, 21. Daniel, 22. The Twelve Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi). This is the list given by St. John Damascene in the Exact Exposition of the Christian Faith, p. 375) These books, which were entered at some time into the Hebrew canon, are called "canonical." (The word "canonical" here has a specialized meaning with reference to the books of Scripture, and thus must be distinguished from the more usual use of the word in the Orthodox Church, where it refers not to the "canon" of Scripture, but to "canons" or laws proclaimed at church councils. In the latter sense, "canonical" means "in accordance with the Church's canons." But in the former, restricted sense, "canonical" means only "included in the Hebrew canon," and "non-canonical" means only "not included in the Hebrew canon" (but still accepted by the Church as Scripture). In the Protestant world the "non-canonical" books of the Old Testament are commonly called the "Apocrypha," often with a pejorative connotation, even though they were included in the earliest printings of the King James Version, and a law of 1615 in England even forbade the Bible to be printed without these books. In the Roman Catholic Church since the 16^th century the "non-canonical" books have been called "Deuterocanonical" — i.e. belonging to a "second" or later canon of Scripture. In most translations of the Bible which include the "non-canonical" books, they are placed together at the end of the canonical books; but in older printings in Orthodox countries there is no distinction made between the canonical and non-canonical books, see for example the Slavonic Bible printed in St. Petersburg, 1904, and approved by the Holy Synod) To them are joined a group of "non-canonical" books — that is, those which were not included in the Hebrew canon because they were written after the closing of the canon of the sacred Old Testament books. (The "non-canonical" books of the Old Testament accepted by the Orthodox Church are those of the "Septuagint" — the Greek translation of the Old Testament made by the "Seventy" scholars who, according to tradition, were sent from Jerusalem to Egypt at the request of the Egyptian King Ptolemy II in the 3^rd century B.C. to translate the Old Testament into Greek. The Hebrew originals of most of the books have been lost, and most of the books were composed only in the last few centuries before Christ. The "non-canonical" books of the Old Testament are: Tobit, Judith, The Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus or the Wisdom of Joshua the Son of Sirach, Baruch, Three Books of Maccabees, the Epistle of Jeremiah, Psalm 151, and the additions to the book of Esther, of 2 Chronicles (The Prayer of Manassah), and Daniel (The Song of the Three Youths, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon).) The Church accepts these latter books also as useful and instructive and in antiquity assigned them for instructive reading not only in homes but also in churches, which is why they have been called "ecclesiastical." The Church includes these books in a single volume of the Bible together with the canonical books. As a source of the teaching of the faith, the Church puts them in a secondary place and looks on them as an appendix to the canonical books. Certain of them are so close in merit to the Divinely-inspired books that, for example, in the 85th Apostolic Canon (The "Apostolic Canons" or the "Canons of the Holy Apostles" are a collection of 85 ecclesiastical canons or laws handed down from the Apostles and their successors and given official Church approval at the Quinsext church Council (in Trullo) in 692 and in the First Canon of the Seventh Ecumenical (787). Some of these canons were cited and approved at the Ecumenical Councils, beginning with the First Council in 325, but the whole collection of them together was made probably not before the 4^th century. The name "apostolic" does not necessarily mean that all the canons or the collection of them were made by the Apostles themselves, but only that they are in the tradition handed down from the Apostles (just as not all the "Psalms of David" were actually written by the Prophet David). For their text, see the Eerdmans Seven Ecumenical Councils, pp. 594-600. The 85^th Apostolic Canon lists the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments.) the three books of Maccabees and the book of Joshua the son of Sirach are numbered together with the canonical books, and, concerning all of them together it is said that they are "venerable and holy." However, this means only that they were respected in the ancient Church; but a distinction between the canonical and non-canonical books of the Old Testament has always been maintained in the Church.

The Church recognizes twenty-seven canonical books of the New Testament. (These books are: the Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles; the Seven Catholic Epistles (one of James, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude); fourteen epistles of the Apostle Paul (Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First and Second Thessalonians, First and Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews); and the Apocalypse (Revelations) of St. John the Theologian and Evangelist.) Since the sacred books of the New Testament were written in various years of the apostolic era and were sent by the Apostles to various points of Europe and Asia, and certain of them did not have a definite designation to any specific place, the gathering of them into a single collection or codex could not be an easy matter; it was necessary to keep strict watch lest among the books of apostolic origin there might be found any of the so-called "apocrypha" books, which for the most part were composed in heretical circles. Therefore, the Fathers and teachers of the Church during the first centuries of Christianity preserved a special caution in distinguishing these books, even though they might bear the name of Apostles. The Fathers of the Church frequently entered certain books into their lists with reservations, with uncertainty or doubt, or else gave for this reason an incomplete list of the Sacred Books. This was unavoidable and serves as a memorial to their exceptional caution in this holy matter. They did not trust themselves, but waited for the universal voice of the Church. The local Council of Carthage in 318, in its 33rd Canon, enumerated all of the books of the New Testament without exception.

St. Athanasius the Great names all of the books of the New Testament without the least doubt or distinction, and in one of his works he concludes his list with the following words: "Behold the number and names of the canonical books of the New Testament. These are, as it were, the beginnings, the anchors and pillars of our faith, because they were written and transmitted by the very Apostles of Christ the Savior, who were with Him and were instructed by Him" (from the Synopsis of St. Athanasius). Likewise, St. Cyril of Jerusalem also enumerates the books of the New Testament without the slightest remark as to any kind of distinction between them in the Church. The same complete listing is to be found among the Western ecclesiastical writers, for example in Augustine. Thus, the complete canon of the New Testament books of Sacred Scripture was confirmed by the catholic voice of the whole Church. This Sacred Scripture, in the expression of St. John Damascene, is the "Divine Paradise" (Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 4, Ch. 17; Eng. tr. p. 374).

In the original precise meaning of the word, Sacred Tradition is the tradition which comes from the ancient Church of Apostolic times. In the second to the fourth centuries this was called "the Apostolic Tradition."

One must keep in mind that the ancient Church carefully guarded the inward life of the Church from those outside of her; her Holy Mysteries were secret, being kept from non-Christians. When these Mysteries were performed — Baptism or the Eucharist — those outside the Church were not present; the order of the services was not written down, but was only transmitted orally; and in what was preserved in secret was contained the essential side of the faith. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (4th century) presents this to us especially clearly. In undertaking Christian instruction for those who had not yet expressed a final decision to become Christians, the hierarch precedes his teachings with the following words: "When the catechetical teaching is pronounced, if a catechumen should ask you, 'What did the instructors say?' you are to repeat nothing to those who are without (the church). For we are giving to you the mystery and hope of the future age. Keep the Mystery of Him Who is the Giver of rewards. May no one say to you, 'What harm is it if I shall find out also?' Sick people also ask for wine, but if it is given at the wrong time it produces disorder to the mind, and there are two evil consequences; the sick one dies, and the physician is slandered" (Prologue to the Catechetical Lectures, ch. 12).

In one of his further homilies St. Cyril again remarks: "We include the whole teaching of faith in a few lines. And I would wish that you should remember it word for word and should repeat it among yourselves with all fervor, without writing it down on paper, but noting it by memory in the heart. And you should beware, lest during the time of your occupation with this study none of the catechumens should hear what has been handed down to you" (Fifth Catechetical Lecture, ch. 12). In the introductory words which he wrote down for those being "illumined" — that is, those who were already coming to Baptism, and also to those present who were baptized — he gives the following warning: "This instruction for those who are being illumined is offered to be read by those who are coming to Baptism and by the faithful who have already received Baptism; but by no means give it either to the catechumens or to anyone else who has not yet become a Christian, otherwise you will have to give an answer to the Lord. And if you make a copy of these catechetical. lectures, then, as before the Lord, write this down also" (that is, this warning; End of the Prologue to the Catechetical Lectures). (These three citations may be found in St. Cyril, Catetechical Lectures, Eerdmans ed. pp. 4, 32, 5. This strictness with regard to the revelation of the Christian Mysteries (Sacraments) to outsiders is no longer preserved to such a degree in the Orthodox Church. The exclamation, "Catechumens depart!" before the Liturgy of the Faithful is still proclaimed, it is true, but hardly anywhere in the Orthodox world are catechumens or the non-Orthodox actually told to leave the church at this time. (In some churches they are only asked to stand in the back part of the church, in the narthex, but can still observe the service). The full point of such an action is lost in our times, when all the "secrets" of the Christian Mysteries are readily available to anyone who can read, and the text of St. Cyril's Catechetical Lectures has been published in many languages and editions. However, the great reverence which the ancient Church showed for the Christian Mysteries, carefully preserving them from the gaze of those who were merely curious, or those who, being outside the Church and uncommitted to Christianity, might easily misunderstand or mistrust them — is still kept by Orthodox Christians today who are serious about their faith. Even today we are not to "cast our pearls before swine" — to speak much of the Mysteries of the Orthodox Faith to those who are merely curious about them but do not to seek to join themselves to the Church.)

In the following words St. Basil the Great gives us a clear understanding of the Sacred Apostolic Tradition: "Of the dogmas and sermons preserved in the Church, certain ones we have from written instruction, and certain ones we have received from the Apostolic Tradition, handed down in secret. Both the one and the other have one and the same authority for piety, and no one who is even the least informed in the decrees of the Church will contradict this. For if we dare to overthrow the unwritten customs as if they did not have great importance, we shall thereby imperceptively do harm to the Gospel in its most important points. And even more, we shall be left with the empty name of the Apostolic preaching without content. For example, let us especially make note of the first and commonest thing: that those who hope in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ should sign themselves with the Sign of the Cross. Who taught this in Scripture? Which Scripture instructed us that we should turn to the east in prayer? Which of the saints left us in written form the words of invocation during the transformation of the bread of the Eucharist and the Chalice of blessing? For we are not satisfied with the words which are mentioned in the Epistles or the Gospels, but both before them and after them we pronounce others also as having great authority for the Mystery, having received them from the unwritten teaching. By what Scripture, likewise, do we bless the water of Baptism and the oil of anointing and, indeed, the one being baptized himself. Is this not the silent and secret tradition? And what more? What written word has taught us this anointing with oil itself? (That is, anointing of those being baptized; the anointing of the Sacrament of Unction, on the other hand, is clearly indicated in Scripture (James 5:14).) Where is the triple immersion and all the rest that has to do with Baptism, the renunciation of Satan and his angels to be found? What Scripture are these taken from? Is it not from this unpublished and unspoken teaching which our Fathers have preserved in a silence inaccessible to curiosity and scrutiny, because they were thoroughly instructed to preserve in silence the sanctity of the Mysteries? For what propriety would there be to proclaim in writing a teaching concerning that which it is not allowed for the unbaptized even to behold?" (On the Holy Spirit, ch. 27).

From these words of St. Basil the Great we may conclude: first, that the Sacred Tradition of the teaching of faith is that which may be traced back to the earliest period of the Church, and, second, that it was carefully preserved and unanimously acknowledged among the Fathers and teachers of the Church during the epoch of the great Fathers and the beginning of the Ecumenical Councils.

Although St. Basil has given here a series of examples of the "oral tradition," he himself in this very text has taken a step towards the "recording" of this oral word. During the era of the freedom and triumph of the Church in the fourth century, almost all of the tradition in general received a written form and is now preserved in the literature of the Church, which comprises a supplement to the Holy Scripture.

We find this sacred ancient Tradition

• in the most ancient record of the Church, the Canons of the Holy Apostles; (See above note on the Canons of the Holy Apostles)
• in the Symbols of Faith of the ancient local churches;
• in the ancient Liturgies, in the rite of Baptism, and in other ancient prayers;
• in the ancient Acts of the Christian martyrs. The Acts of the martyrs did not enter into use by the faithful until they had been examined and approved by the local bishops; and they were read at the public gatherings of Christians under the supervision of the leaders of the churches. In them we see the confession of the Most Holy Trinity, the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, examples of the invocation of the saints, of belief in the conscious life of those who had reposed in Christ, and much else;
• in the ancient records of the history of the Church, especially in the book of Eusebius Pamphilus, Bishop of Caesarea, (English translation: Eusebius: The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, tr. by G.A. Williamson, Penguin Books, Baltimore, 1965) where there are gathered many ancient traditions of rite and dogma — in particular, there is given the canon of the sacred books of the Old and New Testaments;
• in the works of the ancient Fathers and teachers of the Church;
• and, finally, in the very spirit of the Church's life, in the preservation of faithfulness to all her foundations which come from the Holy Apostles.

The Apostolic Tradition which has been preserved and guarded by the Church, by the very fact that it has been kept by the Church, becomes the Tradition of the Church herself, it "belongs" to her, it testifies to her; and, in parallel to Sacred Scripture it is called by her, "Sacred Tradition."

The witness of Sacred Tradition is indispensable for our certainty that all the books of Sacred Scripture have been handed down to us from Apostolic times and are of Apostolic origin. Sacred Tradition is necessary for the correct understanding of separate passages of Sacred Scripture, and for refuting heretical reinterpretations of it, and, in general, so as to avoid superficial, one-sided, and sometimes even prejudiced and false interpretations of it.

Finally, Sacred Tradition is also necessary because some truths of the faith are expressed in a completely definite form in Scripture, while others are not entirely clear and precise and therefore demand confirmation by the Sacred Apostolic Tradition.

The Apostle commands, "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle" (2 Thess. 2:15).

Besides all this, Sacred Scripture is valuable because from it we see how the whole order of Church organization, the canons, the Divine Services and rites are rooted in and founded upon the way of life of the ancient Church. Thus, the preservation of "Tradition" expresses the succession of the very essence of the Church.

The orthodox church of Christ is the Body of Christ, a spiritual organism whose Head is Christ. It has a single spirit, a single common faith, a single and common catholic consciousness, guided by the Holy Spirit; and its reasonings are based on the concrete, definite foundations of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Apostolic Tradition. This catholic consciousness is always with the Church, but, in a more definite fashion, this consciousness is expressed in the Ecumenical Councils of the Church. From profound Christian antiquity, local councils of separate Orthodox Churches gathered twice a year, in accordance with the 37th Canon of the Holy Apostles. Likewise, often in the history of the Church there were councils of regional bishops representing a wider area than individual Churches and, finally, councils of bishops of the whole Orthodox Church of both East and West. Such Ecumenical Councils the Church recognizes as seven in number. The Ecumenical Councils formulated precisely and confirmed a number of the fundamental truths of the Orthodox Christian Faith, defending the ancient teaching of the Church against the distortions of heretics. The Ecumenical Councils likewise formulated numerous laws and rules governing public and private Christian church life, which are called the Church canons, and required the universal and uniform observance of them. Finally, the Ecumenical Councils confirmed the dogmatic decrees of a number of local councils, and also the dogmatic statements composed by certain Fathers of the Church — for example, the confession of faith of St. Gregory the Wonderworker, Bishop of Neo-Caesarea (For the text of St. Gregory's "Canonical Epistle," see the Eerdmans Seven Ecumenical Councils, p. 602.), the canons of St. Basil the Great (The text of St. Basil's canons may be found in the Eerdmans Seven Ecumenical Councils, pp. 604-611.), and so forth.

When in the history of the Church it happened that councils of bishops permitted heretical views to be expressed in their decrees, the catholic consciousness of the Church was disturbed and was not pacified until authentic Christian truth was restored and confirmed by means of another council. (True councils — those which express Orthodox truth — are accepted by the Church's catholic consciousness; false councils — those which teach heresy or reject some aspect of the Church's Tradition — are rejected by the same catholic consciousness. The Orthodox Church is the Church, not of "councils" as such, but only of the true councils, inspired by the Holy Spirit, which conform to the Church's catholic consciousness.) One must remember that the councils of the Church made their dogmatic decrees a) after a careful, thorough and complete examination of all those places in Sacred Scripture which touch a given question, b) thus testifying that the Ecumenical Church has understood the cited passages of Sacred Scripture in precisely this way. In this way the decrees of the councils concerning faith express the harmony of Sacred Scripture and the catholic Tradition of the Church. For this reason these decrees became themselves, in their turn, an authentic, inviolable, authoritative, Ecumenical and Sacred Tradition of the Church, founded upon the facts of Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition.

Of course, many truths of the Faith are so immediately clear from Sacred Scripture that they were not subjected to heretical reinterpretations; therefore, concerning them there are no specific decrees of councils. Other truths, however, were confirmed by councils.

Among all the dogmatic decrees of councils, the Ecumenical Councils themselves acknowledge as primary and fundamental the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith (This is the "Creed" ("I believe in One God…") which is sung at every Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church and read at several other places in the daily Divine services.) and they forbade any change whatsoever in it, not only in its ideas, but also in its words, either by addition or subtraction (decree of the Third Ecumenical Council, repeated by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Councils).

The decrees regarding faith which were made by a number of local councils, and also certain expositions of the Faith by the holy Fathers of the Church, are acknowledged as a guide for the Whole Church and are numbered in the second Canon of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (in Trullo). (The "Quinsext" Council in Trullo (692) was actually held eleven years after the Sixth Ecumenical Council, but its decrees are accepted in the Orthodox Church as a continuation of those of the Sixth Council. The text of this Canon may be read in the Eerdmans Seven Ecumenical Councils, p. 361, and the canons of the local councils and Holy Fathers which were approved in this Canon are printed elsewhere in the same volume (pp. 409-519, 589-615).)

In ecclesiastical terminology dogmas are the truths of Christian teaching, the truths of faith, and canons are the prescriptions: relating to church order, church government, the obligations of the church hierarchy and clergy and of every Christian, which flow from the moral foundations of the evangelical and Apostolic teaching. Canon is a Greek word which literally means "a straight rod, a measure of precise direction."

For guidance in questions of faith, for the correct understanding of Sacred Scripture, and in order to distinguish the authentic Tradition of the Church from false teachings, we appeal to the works of the holy Fathers of the Church, acknowledging that the unanimous agreement of all of the Fathers and teachers of the Church in teaching of the Faith is an undoubted sign of truth. The holy Fathers stood for the truth, fearing neither threats nor persecutions nor death itself. The Patristic explanations of the truths of the Faith 1) gave precision to the expression of the truths of Christian teaching and created a unity of dogmatic language; 2) added testimonies of these truths from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and also brought forth for them arguments based on reason. In theology, attention is also given to certain private opinions (In Greek: theologoumena) of the holy Fathers or teachers of the Church on questions which have not been precisely defined and accepted by the whole Church. However, these opinions are not to be confused with dogmas, in the precise meaning of the word. There are some private opinions of certain Fathers and teachers which are not recognized as being in agreement with the general catholic faith of the Church, and are not accepted as a guide to faith. (As an example of such "private opinions," one may take the mistaken opinion of St. Gregory of Nyssa that hell is not everlasting and that all — including the demons — are to be saved in the end. This opinion was rejected decisively at the Fifth Ecumenical Council as contradicting the Church's "catholic consciousness," but St. Gregory himself is still accepted as a saint and as a Holy Father in the Orthodox Church and his other teachings are not questioned. On the Orthodox attitude toward such mistaken "private opinions" of the Fathers, and specifically, concerning the teaching on this subject of such Fathers as St. Photius the Great and St. Mark of Ephesus, see the article "The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church" in The Orthodox Word, 1978, nos. 79 and 80, printed also as a separate booklet, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1983.)

The catholic consciousness of the Church, where it concerns the teaching of faith, is also expressed in the Orthodox Divine Services which have been handed down to us by the Ecumenical Church. By entering deeply into the content of the Divine service books we make ourselves firmer in the dogmatic teaching of the Orthodox Church. (It should be noted that the composers and compilers of the Divine services were often great theologians in their own right. For example, the Octoechos or book of daily services in the Eight Tones, is essentially the work of St. John Damascene, the 8^th century Holy Father who summed up the Orthodox theology of the great patristic age.)

The content of the Orthodox Divine services is the culminating expression of the teaching of the holy Apostles and Fathers of the Church, both in the sphere of dogma and of morals. This is splendidly expressed in the hymn (the kontakion) which is sung on the day of the commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils: "The preaching of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers have imprinted upon the Church a single faith which, bearing the garment of truth woven of the theology from above, rightly dispenseth and glorifieth the great mystery of piety."

The interpretations of the Symbol of Faith, or the "Symbolic Guides" (from the Greek symballo, meaning "to unite;" symbolon, a uniting or conditional sign) of the Orthodox Faith, in the common meaning of this term, are those expositions of Christian faith which are given in the Book of Canons of the Holy Apostles, the Holy Local and Ecumenical Councils, and the Holy Fathers. The theology of the Russian Church also makes use, as symbolical books, of those two expositions of the Faith which in more recent times were evoked by the need to present the Orthodox Christian teaching against the teaching of the unorthodox confessions of the second millennium. These books are: The Confession of the Orthodox Faith compiled by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Dositheus, which was read and approved at the Council of Jerusalem in 1672 and, fifty years later, in answer to the inquiry received from the Anglican Church, was sent to that church in the name of all the Eastern Patriarchs and is therefore more widely known under the name of "The Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith." Also included in this category is The Orthodox Confession of Peter Mogila, Metropolitan of Kiev, which was examined and corrected at two local councils, that of Kiev in 1640 and Jassy in 1643, and then approved by four Ecumenical Patriarchs and the Russian Patriarchs Joachim and Adrian. The Orthodox Christian Catechism of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow enjoys a similar importance in the Russian Church, particularly the part which contains an exposition of the Symbol of Faith. This Catechism was "examined and approved by the Holy Synod and published for instruction in schools and for the use of all Orthodox Christians."

The attempt at a comprehensive exposition of the whole Christian teaching we call a "system of dogmatic theology." A complete dogmatic system, very valuable for Orthodox theology, was compiled in the eighth century by St. John Damascene under the title Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. In this work, one may say, St. Damascene summed up the whole of the theological thought of the Eastern Fathers and teachers of the Church up to the eighth century.

Among Russian theologians, the most complete works of dogmatic theology were written in the nineteenth century by Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, two volumes), by Philaret, Archbishop of Chernigov (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, in two parts), by Bishop Sylvester, rector of the Kiev Theological Academy (Essay in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, With an Historical Exposition of the Dogmas, five volumes), by Archpriest N. Malinovsky (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, four volumes, and A Sketch of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology in two parts), and by Archpriest P. Svietlov (The Christian Teaching of Faith, an Apologetic Exposition). (These 19^th century Russian "systems" of theology have been out of fashion among Orthodox academic theologians in recent years, and some have criticized them for supposed "Western influences" which they show. This criticism, while to a certain extent justified, has for the most part been one-sided and unfair, and has led some to a blind trust in today's Orthodox theologians as being untainted by "Western influence." The truth of the matter is that the division of theology into "categories," its "systematization" (which the present book itself follows) is a rather modern device borrowed from the West, but as a solely external organization of the subject-matter of theology. Father Michael himself has elsewhere defended these systems of theology for their usefulness in teaching theology in the schools against accusations of "scholasticism," which are totally unfair. In intent, these systems are only a 19^th century attempt to do what St. John Damascene did in the 8^th century, and no one can deny that the basic content of these works is Orthodox.)

The dogmatic labor of the Church has always been directed towards the confirmation in the consciousness of the faithful of the truths of the Faith, which have been confessed by the Church from the beginning. This labor consists of indicating which way of thinking is the one that follows the Ecumenical Tradition. The Church’s labor of instructing in the Faith has been, in battling against heresies: to find a precise form for the expression of the truths of the Faith as handed down from antiquity, and to confirm the correctness of the Church's teaching, founding it on Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. In the teaching of the Faith, it is the thinking of the holy Apostles that was and remains the standard of the fullness and wholeness of the Christian world view. A Christian of the twentieth century cannot develop more completely or go deeper into the truths of the Faith than the Apostles. Therefore, any attempt that is made — whether by individuals or in the name of dogmatic theology itself — to reveal new Christian truths, or new aspects of the dogmas handed down to us, or a new understanding of them, is completely out of place. The aim of dogmatic theology as a branch of learning is to set forth, with firm foundation and proof, the Orthodox Christian teaching which has been handed down.

Certain complete works of dogmatic theology set forth the thinking of the Fathers of the Church in an historical sequence. Thus, for example, the above-mentioned Essay in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Bishop Sylvester is arranged in this way. One must understand that such a method of exposition in Orthodox theology does not have the aim of investigating the "gradual development of Christian teaching"; its aim is a different one: it is to show that the complete setting forth, in historical sequence, of the ideas of the holy Fathers of the Church on every subject confirms most clearly that the Holy Fathers in all ages thought the same about the truths of the Faith. But, since some of them viewed the subject from one side, and others from another side, and since some of them brought forth arguments of one kind, and others of another kind, therefore the historical sequence of the teaching of the Fathers gives a complete view of the dogmas of the Faith and the fullness of the proofs of their truth.

This does not mean that the theological exposition of dogmas must take an unalterable form. Each epoch puts forth its own views, ways of understanding, questions, heresies and protests against Christian truth, or else repeats ancient ones which had been forgotten. Theology naturally takes into consideration the inquiries of each age, answers them, and sets forth the dogmatic truths accordingly. In this sense, one may speak about the development of dogmatic theology as a branch of learning. But there are no sufficient grounds for speaking about the development of the Christian teaching of faith itself.

Dogmatic theology is for the believing Christian. In itself it does not inspire faith, but presupposes that faith already exists in the heart. "I believed, wherefore I spake," says a righteous man of the Old Testament (Ps. 115:1). And the Lord Jesus Christ revealed the mysteries of the Kingdom of God to His disciples after they had believed in Him: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God" (John 6:68-69). Faith, and more precisely faith in the Son of God Who has come into the world, is the cornerstone of Sacred Scripture; it is the cornerstone of one's personal salvation; and it is the cornerstone of theology. "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God- and that believing ye might have life through His Name" (John 20:31), writes the Apostle John at the end of his Gospel, and he repeats the same thought many times in his epistles; and these words of his express the chief idea of all of the writings of the holy Apostles: I believe. All Christian theologizing must begin with this confession. Under this condition theologizing is not an abstract mental exercise, not an intellectual dialectics, but a dwelling of one's thought in Divine truths, a directing of the mind and heart towards God, and a recognition of Gods love. For an unbeliever theologizing is without effect, because Christ Himself, for unbelievers, is "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense" (1 Peter 2:7-8; see Matt. 21:44).

The difference between theology and the natural sciences, which are founded upon observation or experiment, is made clear by the fact that dogmatic theology is founded upon living and holy faith. Here the starting point is faith, and there, experience. However, the manners and methods of study are one and the same in both spheres; the study of facts, and deductions drawn from them. Only, with natural science the deductions are derived from facts collected through the observation of nature, the study of the life of peoples, and human creativity; while in theology the deductions come from the study of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The natural sciences are empirical and technical, while our study is theological.

This clarifies the difference also between theology and philosophy. Philosophy is erected upon purely rational foundations and upon the deductions of the experimental sciences, to the- extent that the latter are capable of being used for the higher questions of life; while theology is founded upon Divine Revelation. They must not be confused; theology is not philosophy even when it plunges our thinking into profound or elevated subjects of Christian faith which are difficult to understand.

Theology does not deny either the experimental sciences or philosophy. St. Gregory the Theologian considered it the merit of St. Basil the Great that he mastered dialectic to perfection, with the help of which he overthrew the philosophical constructs of the enemies of Christianity. In general, St. Gregory did not sympathize with those who expressed a lack of respect for outward learning. However, in his renowned homilies on the Holy Trinity, after setting forth the profoundly contemplative teaching of Triunity, he thus remarks of himself "Thus, as briefly as possible I have set forth for you our love of wisdom, which is dogmatical and not dialectical, in the manner of the fishermen and not of Aristotle, spiritually and not cleverly woven, according to the rules of the Church and not of the marketplace" (Homily 22).

The course of dogmatic theology is divided into two basic parts: into the teaching 1) about God in Himself and 2) about God in His manifestation of Himself as Creator, Providence, Savior of the world, and Perfector of the destiny of the world.

The dogma of faith. Belief or faith as an attribute of the soul. The power of faith. The source of faith. The nature of our knowledge of God. The essence of God. The attributes of God. Sacred Scripture concerning the attributes of God. God is Spirit. Eternal. All-Good. Omniscient. All-Righteous. Almighty (Omnipotent). Omnipresent. Unchangeable. Self-Sufficing and All-Blessed. The unity of God.

The first word of our Christian Symbol of Faith is "I believe." All of our Christian confession is based upon faith. God is the first object of Christian belief. Thus, our Christian acknowledgment of the existence of God is founded not upon rational grounds, not on proofs taken from reason or received from the experience of our outward senses, but upon an inward, higher conviction which has a moral foundation.

In the Christian understanding, to believe in God signifies not only to acknowledge God with the mind, but also to strive towards Him with the heart.

We believe that which is inaccessible to outward experience, to scientific investigation, to being received by our outward organs of sense. St. Gregory the Theologian distinguishes between religious belief — "I believe in someone, in something" — and a simple personal belief — "I believe someone, I believe something." He writes: "It is not one and the same thing ‘to believe in something' and ‘to believe something.' We believe in the Divinity, but we simply believe any ordinary thing" ("On the Holy Spirit," Part III, p. 88 in the Russian edition of his Complete Works; p. 319 in the Eerdmans English text).

Christian faith is a mystical revelation in the human soul. It is broader, more powerful, closer to reality than thought. It is more complex than separate feelings. It contains within itself the feelings of love, fear, veneration, reverence, and humility. Likewise, it cannot be called a manifestation of the will, for although it moves mountains, the Christian renounces his own will when he believes, and entirely gives himself over to the will of God: "May Thy will be done in me, a sinner." The path to faith lies in the heart; it is inseparable from pure, sacrificial love, "working through love" (Gal. 5:6).

Of course, Christianity is bound up also with knowledge of the mind, it gives a world view. But if it remained only a world view, its power to move would vanish. Without faith it would not be the living bond between heaven and earth. Christian belief is something much greater than the "persuasive hypothesis" which is the kind of belief usually encountered in life.

The Church of Christ is founded upon faith as upon a rock which does not shake beneath it. By faith the saints conquered kingdoms, performed righteous deeds, closed the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the sharp sword, were strengthened in infirmity (Heb. 11:33-38). Being inspired by faith, Christians went to torture and death with joy. Faith is a rock, but a rock that is impalpable, free of heaviness and weight, that draws one upward and not downward.

"He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water," said the Lord (John 7:38); and the preaching of the Apostles, a preaching in the power of the word, in the power of the Spirit, in the power of signs and wonders, was a living testimony of the truth of the words of the Lord. Such is the mystery of living Christian faith.

"If ye have faith, and doubt not... if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea — it shall be done" (Matt. 21:21). The history of the Church of Christ is filled with the miracles of the saints of all ages. However, miracles are not performed by faith in general, but by Christian faith. Faith is a reality not by the power of imagination and not by self-hypnosis, but by the fact that it binds one with the source of all life and power — with God. In the expression of the Hieromartyr Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, faith is a vessel by which water is scooped up; but one must be next to this water and must put the vessel into it: this water is the grace of God. "Faith is the key to the treasure-house of God," writes St. John of Kronstadt (My Life in Christ, Vol. I, p. 242 in the Russian edition).

Faith is strengthened and its truth is confirmed by the benefits of its spiritual fruits which are known by experience. Therefore the Apostle instructs us, saying, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" (2 Cor. 13:5).

Yet, it is difficult to give a definition of what faith is. When the Apostle says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1), without touching here on the nature of faith, he indicates only what its gaze is directed towards: towards that which is awaited, towards the invisible; and thus he indicates precisely that faith is the penetration of the soul into the future ("the substance of things hoped for") or into the invisible ("the evidence of things not seen"). This testifies to the mystical character of Christian faith.

God in His essence is incomprehensible. God dwells "in the light which no man can approach unto; Whom no man hath seen, nor can see," instructs the Apostle Paul (1 Tim. 6:16).

In his Catechetical Lectures St. Cyril of Jerusalem instructs us: We explain not what God is, but candidly confess that we have not exact knowledge concerning Him. For in what concerns God, to confess our ignorance is the best knowledge" (Sixth Catechetical Lecture, Eerdmans tr., p. 33).

This is why there is no dogmatic value to be found in the various types of vast and all-encompassing conceptions and rational searching on the subject of the inward life in God, and likewise in concepts fabricated by analogy with the life of the human soul. Concerning the "fellow-inquirers" of his time, St. Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of St Basil the Great, writes: "Men, having left off "delighting themselves in the Lord" (Ps. 36:4) and rejoicing in the peace of the Church, undertake refined researches regarding some kind of essences, and measure magnitudes, measuring the Son in comparison with the Father, and granting a greater measure to the Father. Who will say to them, `that which is not subject to number cannot be measured; what is invisible cannot be valued; that which is fleshless cannot be weighed; that which is infinite cannot be compared; that which is incomparable cannot be understood as greater or less, because we know something as "greater" by comparing it with other things, but with something which has no end, the idea of "greater" is unthinkable.' "Great is our Lord, and great is His strength, and of His understanding there is no measure" (Ps. 146:5). What does this mean? Number what has been said, and you will understand the mystery."

The same hierarch further writes: "If someone is making a journey in the middle of the day, when the sun with its hot rays scorches the head and by its heat dries up everything liquid in the body, and under one's feet is the hard earth which is difficult for walking and waterless; and then such a man encounters a spring with splendid, transparent, pleasing and refreshing streams pouring out abundantly — will he sit down by the water and begin to reason about its nature, seeking out from whence it comes, how, from what, and all such things which idle speakers are wont to judge about, for example: is it a certain moisture which exists in the depths of the earth that comes to the surface under pressure and becomes water, or is it canals going through long desert places that discharge water as soon as they find an opening for themselves? Will he not rather, saying farewell to all rational deliberations, bend down his head to the stream and press his lips to it, quench his thirst, refresh his tongue, satisfy his desire, and give thanks to the One Who gave this grace? Therefore, let you also imitate this thirsting one" (St. Gregory of Nyssa, "Homily On His Ordination," from his works in Russian, vol. IV).

Nevertheless, to a certain extent we do have knowledge of God, knowledge to the extent that He Himself has revealed it to men. One must distinguish between the comprehension of God, which in essence is impossible, and the knowledge of Him, even though incomplete, of which the Apostle Paul says, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; and I know in part" (1 Cor. 13:12). The degree of this knowledge depends upon the ability of man himself to know (This distinction between what one might call the "absolute" unknowability of God and the "relative" knowability of Him is set forth by St. John Damascene in Book 1, ch. 1 of the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.).

From whence do we derive knowledge of God?

a) It is revealed to men from the knowledge of nature, the knowledge of oneself, and the knowledge of all of God's creation in general. "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead" (Romans 1:20); that is, what is invisible in Him, His eternal power and Godhead, is made visible from the creation of the world through observing the created things. Therefore, those men are without excuse who, having known God, did not glorify Him as God and did not give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning (Rom. 1:21). "The world is the kingdom of the Divine thought" (St. John of Kronstadt).

b) God has manifested Himself yet more in supernatural revelation and through the Incarnation of the Son of God, the God, "who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time-past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son" (Heb. 1:1-2). "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1:18).

Thus, did the Savior Himself teach concerning the knowledge of God? Having said, "All things are delivered unto Me of My Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son," the Savior added, "and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him" (Matt. 11:27). And the Apostle John the Theologian writes in his epistle: "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us light and understanding that we may know the true God" (1 John 5:20).

Divine Revelation is given to us in the whole of Sacred Scripture and in Sacred Tradition, the preservation, instruction, and true interpretation of which are the duty and concern of the holy Church of Christ.

But even within the boundaries which are given us in the light of Divine Revelation, we must follow the guidance of those who have purified their minds by an elevated Christian life and made their minds capable of contemplating exalted truths; that is, we must follow the guidance of the Fathers of the Church, while watching ourselves morally. About this, St. Gregory the Theologian instructs us: "If you wish to be a theologian and worthy of the Divine, keep the laws; by means of the Divine laws go towards the high aim; for activity is the ascent to vision" ("Activity" here is a technical term often encountered in Orthodox ascetic texts; it refers to the means (keeping the commandments, ascetic discipline, etc). which lead one to the end of spiritual life ("vision" or "contemplation" of God).)

That is, strive and attain moral perfection, for only this path will give the possibility of ascending to the heights from whence Divine Truths are contemplated. (Homily 20 of St. Gregory the Theologian).

The Savior Himself has uttered, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8).

The powerlessness of our mind to comprehend God is expressed by the Church, in the Divine Services: "At a loss for words to express the meaning of Thine incomprehensible Thrice-radiant Godhead, we praise Thee, O Lord." That is, having no power to understand the mystical Names of Thy three-rayed Divinity, with our hearts we glorify Thee, O Lord. (From the Canon of the Sunday Midnight Office, Tone VII, Fourth Canticle).

In antiquity certain of the heretics introduced the idea that God is entirely comprehensible, accessible to the understanding. They built their affirmations upon the idea that God is a simple Essence, and from this the false conclusion, being a simple Essence, Who has no inward content or qualities. Therefore, it was sufficient, they said, to name the Names of God — for example Theos (God — "He Who Sees"), or Jehovah ("He Who Is"), or to indicate His single characteristic, His "unoriginateness," in order to say everything that can be said about God. (Some of the Gnostics reasoned in this way — for example, Valentinus in the second century and Eunomius and the Anomoeans in the fourth century, thought this way). The Holy Fathers replied to this heresy with a fervent protest, seeing in it an overthrowing of the essence of religion. Answering the heretics, they clarified and proved, both from the Scripture and by means of reason: 1) that the simplicity of God's essence is united to the fullness of His attributes, the fullness of the content of the Divine Life, and 2) that the very Names of God in the Divine Scripture — Jehovah, Elohim, Adonai, and others — express not the very essence of God, but primarily show the relation of God to the world and to man.

Other heretics in antiquity, for example the Marcionites, fell into the opposite extreme, affirming that God is completely unknown and inaccessible to our understanding. For this reason, the Fathers of the Church showed that there is a degree of the knowledge of God, which is possible, useful, and needful for us. St Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Catechetical Lectures, teaches: "If someone says that the essence of God is incomprehensible, then why do we speak about Him? However, is it true that because I cannot drink the whole river I will not take water from it in moderation for my benefit? Is it true that because my eyes are not in a condition to take in the whole sun, I am therefore unable to behold as much as is needed for me? If, when going into some great garden, I cannot eat all the fruits, would you wish that I go away from it completely hungry?" (Catechetical Lectures, VI, 5).

It is well known how Blessed Augustine, when he was walking along the seashore thinking about God, saw a boy sitting at the seaside scooping water from the sea with a seashell and pouring it into a pit in the sand. This scene inspired him to think of the disproportion between our shallow minds and the greatness of God. It is just as impossible for our mind to hold a conception of God in all His greatness, as it is impossible to scoop up the sea with a seashell.

"If you wish to speak or hear about God," St. Basil the Great theologizes, "renounce your own body, renounce your bodily senses, abandon the earth, abandon the sea, make the air to be beneath you; pass over the seasons of the year, their orderly arrangement, the adornments of the earth; stand above the ether, traverse the stars, their splendor, grandeur, the profit which they provide for the whole world, their good order, brightness, arrangement, movement, and the bond or distance between them. Having passed through all of this in your mind, go about heaven and, standing above it, with your thought alone, observe the beauties which are there: the armies of angels which are above the heavens, the chiefs of the archangels, the glory of the Dominions, the presiding of the Thrones, the Powers, Principalities, Authorities. Having gone past all this and left below the whole of creation in your thoughts, raising your mind beyond the boundaries of it, present to your mind the essence of God, unmoving, unchanging, unalterable, dispassionate, simple, complex, indivisible, unapproachable light, unutterable power, infinite magnitude, resplendent glory, most desired goodness, immeasurable beauty that powerfully strikes the wounded soul, but cannot worthily be depicted in words."

Such exaltation of spirit is demanded in order for one to speak of God! Nevertheless, under this condition the thoughts of man are capable only of dwelling on the attributes of the Divinity, not upon the very essence of the Divinity.

There are in Sacred Scripture words concerning God which "touch on" or "come close" to the idea of His very essence. These are expressions that are composed grammatically in such a way that, in their form, they answer not only the question "what kind?" — that is, what are the attributes of God but they seem also to answer the question "who" — that is, "Who is God?" Such expressions are,

"I Am He That Is" (in Hebrew, Jehovah; Ex. 3:14).

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending with the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:8).

However, these expressions also must not be understood as indications of the very essence of God. Only as concerns the name "He That Is" did the Fathers of the Church say that it "in some fashion" (the expression of St. Gregory the Theologian) or, "as it seems" (St. John Damascene) is a naming of the essence. Although more rarely, this same significance has been given to the names "good" and "God" in the Greek language — Theos, meaning "He Who Sees." As distinct from everything" existing" and created, the Fathers of the Church applied to the existence of God the term "He Who is above all being," as in the kontakion, "The Virgin now giveth birth to Him Who is above all being." The Old Testament "Jehovah," "He That Is," which was revealed by God to the Prophet Moses, has just such a profound meaning. (That is to say: When we say that God is "He that Is," we mean that He "is" in a superlative sense and not in the way that all of His creation "is"; and this is the same as saying that He is the One "Who is above all being" (Kontakion of the Nativity of Christ).).

Thus, one may speak only of the attributes of God, but not of the very essence of God. The Fathers express themselves only indirectly concerning the nature of the Divinity, saying that the essence of God is "one, simple, incomplex." However, this simplicity is not something without distinguishing characteristics or content; it contains within itself the fullness of the qualities of existence. "God is a sea of being, immeasurable and limitless" (St. Gregory the Theologian); "God is the fullness of all qualities and perfection in their highest and infinite form" (St. Basil the Great); "God is simple and incomplex; He is entirely feeling, entirely spirit, entirely thought, entirely mind, entirely source of all good things" (St. Irenaeus of Lyons).

Speaking of the attributes of God, the Holy Fathers indicate that their multiplicity, considering the simplicity of the essence, is a result of our own inability to find a mystical and single means of viewing the Divinity. In God, one attribute is an aspect of another. God is righteous: this implies that He is also blessed and good and Spirit. The multiple simplicity in God is like the light of the sun, which reveals itself in the various colors that are received by bodies on the earth, for example, by plants.

In the enumeration of the attributes of God in the Holy Fathers and in the texts of the Divine services, there is a preponderance of expressions that are grammatically in a negative form, that is, with the prefixes "a-" or "un-." However, one must keep in view, that this negative form indicates a "negation of limits," as for example: "not unknowing" actually signifies "knowing." Thus, the negative form is really an affirmation of attributes that are without limit. We may find a model of such expressions in the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by St. John Damascene: "God is unoriginate, unending, eternal, constant, uncreated, unchanging, unalterable, simple, uncomplicated, bodiless, invisible, intangible, indescribable, without bounds, inaccessible to the mind, uncontainable, incomprehensible, good, righteous, the Creator of all creatures, the Almighty Pantocrator, He who looketh down upon all, whose Providence is over everything, Who has dominion over all, the judge."

Our thoughts about God in general speak: 1) either about His distinction from the created world (for example, God is unoriginate, while the world has an origin; He is endless, while the world has an end; He is eternal, while the world exists in time); or 2) about the activities of God in the world and the relation of the Creator to His creations (Creator, Providence, Merciful, Righteous Judge).

In indicating the attributes of God, we do not thereby give a "definition" of the concept of God. Such a definition is essentially impossible, because every definition is an indication of" finiteness" (In Russian, Father Michael is indicating here the derivation of the word opredeleniye ("definition") from predel ("limit" or "boundary"). In English the same thing is true: "definition" derives from the Latin finis, "limit.") and signifies, incompleteness. However, in God there are no limits, and therefore there cannot be a definition of the concept of the Divinity: "For a concept is itself a form of limitation" (St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 28, his Second Theological Oration).

Our reason demands the acknowledgement in God of a whole series of essential attributes. Reason tells us that God has a rational, free, and personal existence. If in the imperfect world we see free and rational personal beings, we cannot fail to recognize a free and rational personal existence in God Himself, who is the Source, Cause, and Creator of all life

Reason tells us that God is a most perfect Being. Every lack and imperfection are incompatible with the concept of "God."

Reason tells us that the most perfect Being can be only singular: God is One. There cannot be two perfect beings, since one would limit the other.

Reason tells us that God is a self-existing Being, since nothing can be the cause or condition of the existence of God.

The attributes of God, taken directly from the Word of God, are set forth in Metropolitan Philaret's Longer Christian Catechism of the Orthodox Church (English translation (reprinted from the 1901 translation) in The Catechism of the Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Books, Willits, California, 1971, p. 19). Here we read "Question: What idea of the essence and essential attributes of God may be derived from Divine revelation? Answer: That God is a Spirit, eternal, all-good, omniscient, righteous, almighty, omnipresent, unchangeable, all sufficing to Himself, all-blessed." Let us stop to think about these attributes set forth in the catechism.

"God is a Spirit" (John 4:24; the words of the Savior in the conversation with the Samaritan woman). "The Lord is a Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17). God is foreign to every kind of bodily nature or materiality. At the same time the spirituality of God is higher, more perfect, than the spirituality which belongs to the created spiritual beings and the soul of man, which manifest in themselves only an "image" of the spiritual nature of God. God is a Spirit Who is most high, most pure, most perfect. It is true that in Sacred Scripture we find many, many places where something bodily is symbolically ascribed to God, however, concerning the spiritual nature of God, the Scripture speaks beginning with the very first words of the book of Genesis, and to the Prophet Moses, God revealed Himself as He That Is, as the pure, spiritual, most high Existence. Therefore, by bodily symbols the Scripture teaches us to understand the spiritual attributes and actions of God.

Let us quote here the words of St. Gregory the Theologian. He says: "According to the Scriptures God sleeps, He awakens, He grows angry, He walks, and He has the Cherubim as His throne, but when did He ever have infirmity? Moreover, have you ever heard that God is a body? Something is presented here, which does not exist in reality. In accordance with our own understanding, we have given names to the characteristics of God, which are derived from ourselves. When God, for reasons known to Him alone, ceases His care, as it were, and takes no more concern for us, this means that He is "sleeping" ¾ because our sleep is a similar lack of activity and care. When, on the contrary, He suddenly begins to do good, this means He "awakens." He chastises, and for this, we have made it out that He is "angry" because chastisement among us is with anger. He acts sometimes here, sometimes there-and so, in our way of thinking, He walks, because walking is a going from one place to another. He reposes and as it were dwells in the holy powers-and we have called this a "sitting," and a "sitting on a throne," which is likewise characteristic of us, for the Divinity does not repose in any place as well as in the Saints. A swift movement we call "flying." If there is a beholding, we speak of a "face"; if there is a giving and a receiving, we speak of a "hand." Likewise, every other power and every other action of God are depicted among us by something taken from bodily things" (Homily 31, Fifth Theological Oration, "On the Holy Spirit," ch. 22; Eerdmans Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series Two, vol. VII, pp. 324-325.).

In connection with the accounts of God’s actions, in the second and third Chapters of the book of Genesis, Chrysostom instructs us: "Let us not pass over without attention, beloved, what is said by the Divine Scripture, and let us not look only at the words; but let us think that such simple words are used for the sake of our infirmity, and that everything is done in a most fitting way for our salvation. After all, tell me, if we wish to accept the words in a literal sense and do not understand what is communicated in a way befitting God, would not much then turn out to be strange? Let us look at the very beginning of the present reading. It says: "And they heard the voice of God walking in paradise in the cool of the day, and they were afraid" (Gen. 3:8). What do you say: God walks? Do you then ascribe feet to Him? In addition, are we not to understand by this anything higher? No, God does not walk ¾ let us not think thus! How, in fact, could He Who is everywhere and fills all things, Whose throne is heaven and the earth the footstool of His feet ¾ how could He walk in paradise? What rational person would say this? However, what then does it mean: "They heard the voice of God walking in Paradise in the cool of the day?" He wished to arouse in them such a feeling (of God's closeness) that it might make them upset-which in fact is what happened. They felt this and strove to conceal themselves from God Who was approaching them. Sin had occurred, and a transgression and shame fell upon them. The unhypocritical judge, that is the conscience, having been aroused, called out with a loud voice, reproached them, and showed and, as it were, exhibited before their eyes the weight of the transgression. The Master created man in the beginning and placed in him the conscience as a never-silent accuser which cannot be seduced or deceived."

Concerning the image of the creation of woman, Chrysostom teaches: "It is said, `And He took one of his ribs' (Gen. 2:21). Do not understand these words in a human way, but understand that the crude utterances used are adapted to human weakness. After all, if Scripture had not used these words, how could we understand such unutterable mysteries? Let us not look only at the words, but let us receive everything in a fitting manner, as referring to God. This expression `took' and all similar expressions are used for the sake of our weakness." In a similar way Chrysostom expresses himself regarding the words: "God formed man of the dust of the earth and breathed into him" (Gen. 2:7; Works of St. John Chrysostom, Vol. IV, Part One; It should not be thought that Father Michael is here stating that St. Chrysostom was in general opposed to "literal interpretations" of Scripture; when the literal sense was required, St. Chrysostom was quite "literal" in his interpretation. His point, and Father Michael's, is that all interpretations of Scripture should be as "befitting God" and this sometimes requires a "literal" interpretation, and sometimes a metaphorical. In this same Commentary on the book of Genesis, for example, St. Chrysostom writes: "When you hear that `God planted Paradise in Eden in the East' understand the word `planted befittingly of God: that is, that He commanded; but concerning the words that follow, believe precisely that Paradise was created and in that very place where the Scripture has assigned it" (Homilies on Genesis, XIII, 3). He also forbade an allegorical interpretation of the "rivers" and "waters" of Paradise, insisting that "the rivers are actually rivers and the waters are precisely waters" (XIII, 4). Thus, when St. Chrysostom states that the word "take" in Genesis must be understood in a God-befitting way (i.e., it must not be understood literally, because God has no "hands"), he does not mean to deny that Eve was actually created from one of Adam's ribs, even though precisely how this was done remains a mystery to us (Homilies on Genesis, XV, 2-3).)

St. John Damascene devotes one chapter to this theme in his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. This chapter is called "On the things that are affirmed of God as if He had a body," and here he writes: "Since we find that in the Divine Scripture much is said symbolically about God as if He had a body, we must know that it is impossible for us who are men clothed in this crude flesh to think or speak about the Divine, lofty and immaterial actions of the Godhead, unless we use similarity, images and symbols that correspond to our nature." Furthermore, the expressions concerning the eyes, ears, hands, and other similar expressions of God, he concludes, "To say it simply, everything that is affirmed of God as if He had a body contains a certain hidden meaning" (Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Part One, Chapter 11; The Fathers of the Church translation, pp. 191-193).

We today have become quite accustomed to the idea of God as pure Spirit. However, the philosophy of Pantheism ("God is all"), that is very widespread in our times, seeks to contradict this truth. Therefore, even now in the Rite of Orthodoxy sung on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the first Sunday of Lent, we hear "To those who say that God is not Spirit but flesh-Anathema (The Rite of Orthodoxy is celebrated after the Liturgy on the first Sunday of Lent in cathedral churches wherever a bishop presides. At this, service anathemas are proclaimed against the heretics of ancient and modern times who have tried to overturn the dogmatic foundations of Orthodoxy. In many Orthodox jurisdictions today, however, under the influence of "ecumenical" ideas, this service has been abolished and replaced by a "pan-Orthodox" or "ecumenical" service.).

The existence of God is outside time, for time is only a form of limited being, changeable being. For God there is neither past nor future; there is only the present. "In the beginning, O Lord, Thou didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou abidest, and all like a garment shall grow old, and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them, and they shall be changed, - but Thou art the same and Thy years shall not fail" (Psalm 101:26-28).

Certain Holy Fathers indicate a difference between the concepts of "eternity" and "immortality." "Eternity is ever existent life, and this concept is applied usually to the one unoriginal nature, in which everything is always one and the same. The concept of immortality, on the other hand, can be ascribed to one who has been brought into being and does not die, as, for example, an angel or a soul. Eternal in its precise meaning belongs to the Divine Essence, which is why it is applied usually only to the Worshipful and Reigning Trinity" (St. Isidore of Pelusium). In this regard even more expressive is the phrase "the pre-eternal God" (As in the Kontakion for the Nativity of Christ).

"Compassionate and merciful is the Lord, long suffering and plenteous in mercy" (Psalm 102:8). "God is love" (1 John 4:16). The Goodness of God extends not to some limited region in the world, which is characteristic of love in limited beings, but to the whole world and all the beings that exist in it. He is lovingly concerned over the life and needs of each creature, no matter how small and, it might seem to us, insignificant. St. Gregory the Theologian writes: "If someone were to ask us what it is that we honor, and what we worship, we have a ready reply: we honor love" (Homily 23).

God gives to His creatures as many good things as each of them can receive according to its nature and condition, and as much as corresponds with the general harmony of the world, but it is to man that God reveals a particular goodness. "God is like a mother bird who, having seen her baby fall out of the nest, flies down herself to raise it up, and when she sees it in danger of being devoured by a serpent, with a pitiful cry she flies around it and all the other baby birds, not capable of being indifferent to the loss of a single one of them" (Clement of Alexandria, "Exhortation to the Pagans," Chapter 10). "God loves us more than a father or a mother or a friend, or anyone else can love, and even more than we can love ourselves, because He is concerned more for our salvation than even for His own glory. A testimony of this is the fact that He sent into the world for suffering and death (in human flesh) His Only-begotten Son, solely in order to reveal to us the path of salvation and eternal life" (St. Chrysostom, Commentary on Psalm 113). If man often does not understand the whole power of God's Goodness, this occurs because man concentrates his thoughts and desires too much on his earthly well being. Nevertheless, God's Providence unites the giving to us of temporal, earthly goods together with the call to acquire for oneself, for one's soul, eternal good things.

"All Things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him" (Heb. 4:13). "My being while it was still unformed Thine eyes did see" (Psalm 138:16). The knowledge of God is vision and immediate understanding of everything, both that which exists and that which is possible, the present, the past, and the future. Foreknowledge of the future is, strictly speaking, a spiritual vision, because for God the future is as the present. The foreknowledge of God does not violate the free will of creatures, just as the freedom of our neighbor is not violated by the fact that we see what he does. The foreknowledge of God regarding evil in the world and the acts of free beings is as it were crowned by the foreknowledge of the salvation of the world, when "God will be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28).

Another aspect of the omniscience of God is manifested in the wisdom of God. "Great is our Lord and great is His strength, and there is no measure of His understanding" (Psalm 146:5). The Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church, following the word of God, have always indicated with great reverence the greatness of God's wisdom in the ordering of the visible world, dedicating to this subject whole works, as for example the Homilies on the Six Days (Hexaemeron), that is, the history of the creation of the world, written by such Fathers as Sts. Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa. "One blade of grass or one speck of dust is enough to occupy your entire mind, in beholding the art with which it has been made" (Basil the Great). Even more have the Fathers reflected on God's wisdom in the economy of our salvation, in the Incarnation of the Son of God. The Sacred Scripture of the Old Testament concentrates its attention primarily on the wisdom of God in the orderly arrangement of the world: "In wisdom hast Thou made them all" (Psalm 103:26). In the New Testament, on the other hand, attention is concentrated on the economy of our salvation, in connection with which the Apostle Paul cries out: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God" (Rom. 11:33). For it is by the wisdom of God that the whole existence of the world is directed to a single aim ¾ to perfection and transfiguration for the glory of God.

Righteousness is understood in the word of God and in its general usage as having two meanings: a) holiness, and b) justice.

Holiness consists not only in the absence of evil or sin: holiness is the presence of higher spiritual values, joined to purity from sin. Holiness is like the light, and the holiness of God is like the purest light. God is the "one alone holy" by nature. He is the Source of holiness for angels and men. Men can attain to holiness only in God, "not by nature, but by participation, by struggle and prayer" (St. Cyril of Jerusalem). The Scripture testifies that the angels who surround the throne of God ceaselessly declare the holiness of God, crying out to each other, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6:3). As depicted in Scripture, the light of holiness fills everything that comes from God or serves God: "His holy name" (Ps. 32:21; 102:1; 104:3; 105:46); "His holy word" (Ps. 104:41); "the law is holy" (Rom. 7:12); "His holy arm" (Ps. 97:2); "O God, in the holy place is Thy way" (Ps. 76:13); "His holy throne" (Ps. 46:9); holy is the footstool of His feet (Ps. 98:5); righteous is the Lord in all His ways, and "holy in all His works" (Ps. 144:17); "holy is the Lord our God" (Ps. 98:9).

The justice of God is the other aspect of God's all-righteousness; "He will judge the peoples in uprightness" (Ps. 9:9). "The Lord wall render to every man according to his deeds, for there is no respect of persons with God" (Rom. 2:6, 11).

How can one harmonize the Divine Love with God's justice, which judges strictly for sins and punishes the guilty? On this question many Fathers have spoken. They liken the anger of God to the anger of a father, who, with the aim of bringing a disobedient son to his senses, resorts to a father's means of punishing, at the same time himself grieving, simultaneously being sad at the senselessness of his son and sympathizing with him in the pain he is causing him. This is why God's justice is always mercy also, and His mercy is justice, according to the words: "Mercy and truth are met together, justice and peace have kissed each other" (Ps. 84:10).

The holiness and justice of God are closely bound to each other. God calls everyone to eternal life in Him, in His Kingdom, and this means in His Holiness. However, into the Kingdom of God nothing unclean can enter. The Lord cleanses us by His chastisements, as by providential acts, which forewarn and correct, for the sake of His love towards His creation. For we must undergo the judgment of justice, a judgment which for us is terrible: how can we enter into the kingdom of holiness and light, and how would we feel there, being unclean, dark, and not having in ourselves any seeds of holiness, not having in ourselves any kind of positive spiritual or moral value?

"He spake, and they came into being. He commanded, and they were created" ¾ thus the Psalmist expressed God's almightiness (Ps. 32:9). God is the Creator of the world. It is He Who cares for the world in His Providence. He is the Pantocrator. He is the one "Who alone doeth wonders" (Ps. 71:19). However, if God tolerates evil and evil people in the world, this is not because He cannot annihilate evil, but because he has given freedom to spiritual beings and directs them so that they might freely, of their own free will, reject evil and turn to good.

With regard to casuistical questions concerning what God "cannot" do, one must answer that the omnipotence of God is extended to everything which is pleasing to His thought, to His goodness, to His will.

"Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? In addition, from Thy presence whither shall I flee? If I go up into heaven, Thou art there: if I go down into Hades, Thou are present there. If I take up my wings toward the dawn, make mine abode in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand guide me, and Thy right hand shall hold me" (Ps. 138:7-9).

God is not subject to any limitation in space, but he fills everything. Filling everything, God, as a simple Being, is present in every place, not as it were in some part of Him, or by merely sending down some power from Himself, but in all His Being; and He is not confused with that in which He is present. "The Divinity penetrates everything without being mingled with anything, but nothing can penetrate Him" (St. John Damascene). "That God is present everywhere we know, but how, we do not understand, because we can understand only a sensuous presence, and it is not given to us to understand fully the nature of God" (St. John Chrysostom).

In "the Father of lights" there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17). God is perfection, and every change is a sign of imperfection and therefore is unthinkable in the most perfect Being, in God. Concerning God one cannot say that any kind of process is being performed in Him, whether of growth, change of appearance, evolution, progress or anything of the like.

However, unchangeability in God is not some kind of immovability; it is not a being closed up within Himself. Even while He is unchanging, His Being is life, filled with power and activity. God in Himself is life, and life is His Being.

The unchangeability of God is not violated by the begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, for to God the Father, there belongs fatherliness, and to His Son, sonship, and to the Holy Spirit, procession which is "eternal, unending, and unceasing" (St. John Damascene). The words, filled with mystery, "the begetting of the Son" and "the procession of the Spirit," do not express any kind of change in the Divine life or any kind of process; for our limited minds, "begetting" and "procession" are simply placed in opposition to the idea of "creation" and speak of the single Essence of the Persons or Hypostases in God. The creation is something outward in relation to the one who creates, whereas the "sonship" of God is an inward unity, a unity of the nature of the Father and the Son; such also is the "procession" from the Essence of God, the procession of the Spirit from the Father Who causes it.

The Incarnation and becoming man of the Word, the Son of God, does not violate the unchangeability of God. Only creatures in their limitations lose what they had or acquire what they did not have; but the Divinity of the Son of God remained after the Incarnation the same as it was before the Incarnation. It received in its Hypostasis, in the oneness of the Divine Hypostasis, human nature from the Virgin Mary, but it did not form from this any new, mixed nature, but preserved Its Divine Nature unchanged.

The unchangeability of God is not contradicted, likewise, by the creation of the world. The world is an existence, which is outward with relation to the nature of God. Therefore, it does not change either the essence or the attributes of God, as the origin of the world is only a manifestation of the power and thought of God. The power and thought of God are eternal and are eternally active, but our creature-like mind cannot understand the concept of this activity in the eternity of God. The world is not co-eternal with God; it is created. Nevertheless, the creation of the world is the realization of the eternal thought of God (Blessed Augustine). The world is not like God in its essence, and therefore it has to be changeable and is not without a beginning; but these attributes of the world do not contradict the fact that its Creator is unchangeable and without beginning (St. John Damascene).

These two expressions are close to one another in meaning.

Self-Sufficing must not be understood in the sense of "satisfied with oneself." Rather, it signifies the fullness of possession, complete blessedness, the fullness of all good things. Thus, in the prayers before Communion we read: "I know that I am not worthy or sufficient that Thou shouldest come under the roof of the house of my soul" (Second Prayer). Again, "I am not worthy or sufficient to behold and see the heights of heaven" (Prayer of Symeon the Translator). "Sufficient" signifies here "spiritually adequate," "spiritually wealthy." In God is the sufficiency of all good things. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Exclaims the Apostle Paul, "for of Him and through Him, and to Him are all things" (Rom. 11:33, 36). God has no need for anything, since "He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things" (Acts 17:25). Thus God is Himself the source of all life and of every good thing; from Him all creatures derive their sufficiency.

All blessed. The Apostle Paul twice calls God in his epistles "blessed": "According to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God" (1 Tim. 1:11); "which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords" (1 Tim. 6:15). The word "all-blessed" must be understood not in the sense that God, having everything within Himself, would be indifferent to the sufferings of the world created by Him; but in this sense: that from Him and in Him, His creatures derive their blessedness. God does not "suffer," but He is "merciful." Christ "suffereth as mortal" (Canon of Pascha) not in His Divinity, but in His humanity. God is the source of blessedness. In Him is the fullness of joy, sweetness, rejoicing for those who love Him, as it says in the Psalm, "Thou wilt fill me with gladness with Thy countenance; delights are in Thy right hand forever" (Ps. 15:11).

The blessedness of God has its reflection in the unceasing praise, glorification, and thanksgiving, which fill the universe, which come from the higher powers ¾ the Cherubim and Seraphim, who surround the throne of God, flaming it with fragrant love for God. These praises are offered up from the whole angelic world and every creature in God's world: "The sun sings Thy praises; the moon glorifies Thee; the stars supplicate before Thee; the light obeys Thee; the deeps are afraid at Thy presence; the fountains are Thy servants" (Prayer of the Great Blessing of Water, Menaion, Jan. 5; Festal Menaion, p. 356).

"Therefore, we believe in one God: one principle, without beginning, uncreated, unbegotten, indestructible and immortal, eternal, unlimited, uncircumscribed, unbounded, infinite in power, simple, uncompounded, incorporeal, unchanging, dispassionate, constant, unchangeable, invisible, source of goodness and justice, light intellectual and inaccessible; power which is not subject to any measure, but which is measured only by His own will, for He can do all things whatsoever He pleases; one Essence, one Godhead, one power, one will, one operation, one principality, one authority, one dominion, one kingdom, known in three perfect Hypostases, and known and worshipped with one worship" (St. John Damascene, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 1:8; English translation, p. 177).

The truth of the oneness of God is so evident now to human awareness that it needs no proofs from the word of God or simply from reason. It was a little different in the early Christian Church, when this truth had to be set forth against the idea of dualism ¾ the acknowledgement of two gods, good and evil ¾ and against the polytheism of the pagans, which was popular at the time.

I believe in one God. These are the first words of the Symbol of Faith (the Creed). God possesses all the fullness of perfect being. The idea of fullness, perfection, infinity, omnipotence of God does not allow us to think of Him other than as One, that is, as singular and having one Essence in Himself. This demand of our awareness is expressed by one of the ancient Church writers in the words "If God is not one, there is no God" (Tertullian). In other words, a divinity limited by another being loses his divine dignity.

The whole of the New Testament Sacred Scripture is filled with the teaching of the one God. "Our Father which art in heaven," we pray in the words of the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:9). "There is none other God but one," as the Apostle Paul expressed this fundamental truth of faith (1 Cor. 8:4).

The Sacred Scripture of the Old Testament is entirely penetrated with monotheism. The history of the Old Testament is the history of the battle for faith in the one true God against pagan polytheism. The desire of some historians of religion to find traces of a supposed "original polytheism" in the Hebrew people in certain Biblical expressions, for example, the plural number in the name of God, "Elohim" — or to find a faith in a "national God" in such phrases as "the God of gods," "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" — does not correspond to the authentic meaning of these expressions.

1. Elohim. For a simple Jew this is a form of reverence and respect (an example of this may be seen in the Russian and other European languages, where the second person plural, "you" as opposed to "thou," is used to express respect). For the divinely inspired writer, the Prophet Moses, the plural number of the word without doubt contains, in addition, the profound mystical meaning of an insight into the Three Persons in God. No one can doubt that Moses was a pure monotheist, knowing the spirit of the Hebrew language. He would not use a name that contradicted his faith in the one God.

2. The God of gods is an expression that sets faith in the true God against the worship of idols; those who worshipped them called their idols "god," but for the Jews, these were false gods. This expression is used freely in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul; after saying that "there is none other God but one," he adds: "for though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many), but to us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things, and we by Him" (1 Cor. 8:4-6).

3. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is an expression that expresses only the chosen Hebrew people as the "inheritor of the promises" given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The Christian truth of the oneness of God is deepened by the truth of the Tri-hypostatical unity.

Introduction. Indications of the Trinity in the Old Testament. The teaching of the Holy Trinity in the New Testament. The dogma of the Holy Trinity in the Ancient Church. The personal attributes of the Divine Persons. The name of the Second Person — the Word. On the procession of the Holy Spirit. The equality of Divinity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Transition to the Second Part of Dogmatic Theology.

God is one in Essence and triple in Persons. The dogma of the Trinity is the second fundamental dogma of Christianity. A whole series of the great dogmas of the Church are founded immediately upon it, beginning first with the dogma of our Redemption. Because of its special importance, the doctrine of the All-Holy Trinity constitutes the content of all the Symbols of Faith which have been and are now used in the Orthodox Church, as well as all the private confessions of faith written on various occasions by the shepherds of the Church.

Because the dogma of the All-Holy Trinity is the most important of all Christian dogmas, it is the most difficult for the limited human mind to grasp. This is why no battle in the history of the ancient Church was as intense as that over this dogma and the truths that are immediately bound up with it.

The dogma of the Holy Trinity includes in itself two fundamental truths:

A. God is one in Essence, but triple in Person. In other words, God is a Tri-unity, is Tri-hypostatical, is a Trinity One in Essence.

B. The Hypostases have personal or hypostatic attributes: God is unbegotten; the Son is begotten from the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.

We worship the All-Holy Trinity with a single and inseparable worship. In the Church Fathers and the Divine services, the Trinity is often called a Unity in Trinity, a Tri-hypostatical Unity. In most cases, prayers addressed to one person of the Holy Trinity end with a glorification or doxology to all Three Persons (for example, in a Prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ: "For most glorious art Thou, together with Thine unoriginate Father, and the All-Holy Spirit, unto the ages. Amen").

The Church, addressing the All-Holy Trinity in prayer, invokes It in the singular, not the plural, number. For example, "For Thee" (and not "you") "all the heavenly powers praise, and to Thee (not "to you") we send up glory, to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen."

Acknowledging the mystical nature of this dogma, the Church of Christ sees in it a great revelation that exalts the Christian faith incomparably above any confession of simple monotheism, such as may be found in non-Christian religions. The dogma of the Three Persons indicates the fullness of the mystical inward life in God, for God is love and the love of God cannot merely be extended to the world created by Him: in the Holy Trinity this love is directed within the Divine Life also. The dogma of the Three Persons indicates even more clearly for us the closeness of God to the world: God above us, God with us, God in us and in all creation.

Above us is God the Father, the ever-flowing Source, as it is expressed in the Church's prayer, the Foundation of all being, the Father of mercies Who loves and cares for us, His creation, for we are His children by grace.

With us is God the Son, begotten by Him, Who for the sake of Divine love has manifested Himself to men as Man so that we might know and see with our own eyes that God is with us most intimately, partaker of flesh and blood with us (Heb. 2:14) in the most perfect way.

In us and in all creation — by His power and grace — is the Holy Spirit, Who fills all things, is the Giver of Life, Life-creator, Comforter, Treasury and Source of good things. Having an eternal and pre-eternal existence, the Three Divine Persons were manifested to the world with the coming and Incarnation of the Son of God, being "one Power, one Essence, one Godhead" (Stichera for Pentecost, Glory on "Lord, I have cried").

Because God in His very Essence is wholly consciousness, thought, and self-awareness, each of these three eternal manifestations of Himself by the one God has self-awareness, and therefore each one is a Person. In addition, these Persons are not simply forms or isolated manifestations or attributes or activities; rather, the Three Persons are contained in the very Unity of God's Essence. Thus, when in Christian doctrine we speak of the Tri-unity of God, we speak of the mystical inward life hidden in the depths of the Divinity, revealed to the world in time, in the New Testament, by the sending down of the Son of God from the Father into the world and by the activity of the wonderworking, life-giving, saving power of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

The truth of the Tri-unity of God is only expressed in a veiled way in the Old Testament, only half-revealed. The Old Testament testimonies of the Trinity are revealed and explained in the light of Christian faith, as the Apostle Paul wrote concerning the Jews: "But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away . . .It is taken away in Christ" (2 Cor. 3:15-16, 14).

The chief passages in the Old Testament which testify to the Trinity of God are the following:

Genesis 1:1 and the following verses: the name of God ("Elohim") in the Hebrew text has the grammatical form of the plural number.

Genesis 1:26: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The plural number here indicates that God is not one Person.

Genesis 3:22: "And the Lord God said, Behold, Adam is become as one of us, to know good and evil." (These are the words of God before the banishment of our ancestors from Paradise.)

Genesis 11:6-7: Prior to the confusion of tongues at the building of the tower of Babylon, the Lord said: "Let us go down, and there confound their language."

Genesis 18:1-3, concerning Abraham: "And the Lord appeared unto him at the oak of Mamre . . . And he (Abraham) lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him... and he bowed himself toward the ground and said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in Thy sight, pass not away, I pray Thee, from Thy servant." Blessed Augustine says of this: "Do you see that Abraham meets Three but bows down to One . . . Having beheld Three, he understood the mystery of the Trinity, and having bowed down to One, he confessed One God in Three Persons."

In addition, the Fathers of the Church see an indirect reference to the Trinity in the following passages:

Numbers 6:24-26: The priestly blessing indicated by God through Moses is in a triple form: "The Lord bless thee... The Lord make His face shine on thee... The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee."

Isaiah 6:3: The doxology of the Seraphim who stand about the throne of God is in a triple form: "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts."

Psalm 32:6: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens established and all the might of them by the Spirit of His mouth."

Finally, one may indicate those passages in the Old Testament Revelation where the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are referred to separately. For example, concerning the Son:

Psalm 2:7: "Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee."

Psalm 109:3: "From the womb before the morning star have I begotten Thee."

Concerning the Spirit:

Psalm 142:12: "Thy good Spirit shall lead me in the land of uprightness."

Isaiah 48:16: "The Lord God, and His Spirit, hath sent me."

The Trinity of Persons in God was revealed in the New Testament in the coming of the Son of God and in the sending down of the Holy Spirit. The sending to earth by the Father of God the Word and the Holy Spirit constitutes the content of all the New Testament writings. Of course, this manifestation to the world of the Triune God is given here not in a dogmatic formula, but in an account of the manifestations and deeds of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

The manifestation of God in Trinity was accomplished at the Baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is why this Baptism itself is called the "Theophany" or "manifestation of God." The Son of God, having become man, accepted baptism by water; the Father testified of Him; and the Holy Spirit confirmed the truth spoken by the voice of God by His manifestation in the form of a dove, as is expressed in the troparion of this Feast: "When Thou, O Lord, wast baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest. For the voice of the Father bore witness unto Thee, calling Thee the beloved Son; and the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed His word as sure and steadfast. O Christ our God who hast appeared and enlightened the world, glory to Thee."

In the New Testament Scriptures there are expressions concerning the Triune God; and these in a most condensed but at the same time precise form express the truth of the Trinity:

Matthew 28:19: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Of this, St. Ambrose of Milan notes: "The Lord said, `In the name' and not `in the names,' because God is One. There are not many names; therefore there are not two gods, and not three gods."

2 Corinthians 13:14: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen."

John 15:26: "But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me."

1 John 5:7: "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one." (This verse is missing in the ancient Greek manuscripts that have been preserved and is present only in Western [Latin] manuscripts).

In addition, St. Athanasius the Great interprets as a reference to the Trinity the following text of the epistle to the Ephesians (4:6): "One God and Father of all, Who is above all (God the Father), and through all (God the Son), and in you all (God the Holy Spirit)." Indeed, the whole epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians — especially the first three dogmatical chapters — is a revelation of the truth of the "Trinitarian economy" of our salvation.

The Church of Christ in all of its fullness and completeness has confessed the truth of the Holy Trinity from the very beginning. For example, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, a disciple of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, who was himself instructed by the Apostle John the Theologian, speaks clearly of the universality of faith in the Holy Trinity: "Although the Church is dispersed throughout the whole inhabited world, to the ends of the earth, it has received faith in the one God the Father Almighty . . . and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, Who was incarnate for the sake of our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit Who has proclaimed the economy of our salvation through the prophets . . . Having received such a preaching and such a faith, the Church, although it is dispersed throughout the entire world, as we have said, carefully preserves this faith as if dwelling in a single house. It believes this (everywhere) identically, as if it had a single soul and a single heart, and it preaches it with one voice, teaching and transmitting it as if with a single mouth. Although there are many dialects in the world, the power of Tradition is the same. None of the leaders of the churches will contradict this, nor will anyone, whether powerful in words or unskilled in words, weaken the Tradition."

Defending the catholic truth of the Holy Trinity against heretics, the Holy Fathers not only cited as proof the witness of Sacred Scripture, as well as rational philosophical grounds for the refutation of heretical opinions, but they also relied upon the testimony of the first Christians. They indicated: 1) the example of the martyrs and confessors who were not afraid to declare their faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before their torturers; and they cited 2) the writings of the Apostolic Fathers and, in general, the ancient Christian writers, and 3) the expressions which are used in the Divine services. Thus, St. Basil the Great quotes the Small Doxology: "Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit," and another: "To Him (Christ) with the Father and the Holy Spirit may there be honor and glory unto the ages of ages." And St. Basil says that this doxology was used in the churches from the very time that the Gospel was announced He likewise points to the thanksgiving of lamp-lighting time, or the Vesper Hymn, calling it an "ancient" hymn handed down "from the Fathers," and he cites from it the words: "We praise the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit of God" in order to show the faith of the ancient Christians in the equal honor of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son.

There are likewise many testimonies from the ancient Fathers and teachers of the Church concerning the fact that the Church from the first days of her existence has performed baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as three Divine Persons, and has accused the heretics who tried to perform baptism either in the name of the Father alone, considering the Son and the Holy Spirit to be lower powers, or in the name of the Father and the Son, and even of the Son alone, thus belittling the Holy Spirit (see the testimonies of Justin the Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil the Great, and others).

The Church, however, has experienced great disturbances and undergone a great battle in the defense of the dogma of the Holy Trinity. The battle was chiefly fought on two points: first on the affirmation of the truth of the oneness of Essence and equality of honor of the Son of God with God the Father; and then on the affirmation of the oneness of honor of the Holy Spirit with God the Father and God the Son.

In the ancient period, the dogmatic aim of the Church was to find such precise words for this dogma as could best protect the dogma of the Holy Trinity against the reinterpretations of heretics. Desiring to bring the mystery of the All-Holy Trinity a little closer to our earthly concepts, to bring what is beyond understanding a little closer to that which is understandable, the Fathers of the Church used comparisons from nature. Among these comparisons are: (a) the sun, its rays and light; (b) the root, trunk, and fruit of a tree; (c) a spring of water and the fountain and river that issue from it; (d) three candles burning simultaneously which give a single inseparable light; (e) fire, and the light and warmth which come from it; (f) mind, will, and memory; (g) consciousness, knowledge, and desire; and the like. But this is what St. Gregory the Theologian says regarding these attempts at comparison: "I have very carefully considered this matter in my own mind, and have looked at it in every point of view, in order to find some likeness of this mystery, but I have been unable to discover anything on earth with which to compare the nature of the Godhead. For even if I did happen upon some tiny likeness, it escaped me for the most part, and left me down below with my example. I picture to myself a spring, a fountain, a river, as others have done before, to see if the first might be analogous to the Father, the second to the Son, and the third to the Holy Spirit. For in these there is no distinction in time, nor are they torn away from their connection with each other, though they seem to be parted by three personalities. However, I was afraid in the first place that I should present a flow in the Godhead, incapable of standing still; and secondly, that by this figure a numerical unity would be introduced. For the spring, the fountain and the river are numerically one, though in different forms.

"Again, I thought of the sun and a ray and light. Nevertheless, here again there was a fear lest people should get an idea of composition in the Uncompounded Nature, such as there is in the sun and the things that are in the sun. In the second place lest we should give Essence to the Father but deny Personality to the Others and make Them only powers of God, existing in Him and not Personal. For neither the ray nor the light is another sun, but they are only emanations from the sun, and qualities of its essence. And lest we should thus, as far as the illustration goes, attribute both Being and Not-being to God, which is even more monstrous . . . In a word, there is nothing which presents a standing point to my mind in these illustrations from which to consider the Object which I am trying to represent to myself, unless one may indulgently accept one point of the image while rejecting the rest. Finally, it seems best to me to let the images and the shadows go, as being deceptive and very far short of the truth, and clinging myself to the more reverent conception, and resting upon few words, using the guidance of the Holy Spirit, keeping to the end as my genuine comrade and companion the enlightenment which I have received from Him, and passing through this world to persuade others also to the best of my power to worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the one Godhead and Power" (St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 31, "On the Holy Spirit," sections 31-33; Engl. tr. in Eerdman's Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. VII, p. 328).

The Personal or Hypostatical attributes of the All-Holy Trinity are designated thus: the Father is unbegotten; the Son is pre-eternally begotten; the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.

"Although we have been taught that there is a distinction between begetting and procession, what this distinction consists of, and what is the begetting of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father — this we do not know (St. John Damascene).

No kind of logical calculation as to what begetting and procession mean is capable of revealing the inner mystery of the Divine life. Arbitrary conceptions can even lead to a distortion of the Christian teaching. The very expressions that the Son is "begotten of the Father" and that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father" are simply a precise transmission of the words of Sacred Scripture. Of the Son it is said that he is "the only-begotten" (John 1:14; 3:16, and other places); likewise, "from the womb before the morning star have I begotten thee" (Ps. 109:3); "The Lord said unto Me, ‘Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee" (Ps. 2:7; the words of this Psalm are also cited in the epistle to the Hebrews, 1:5; 5:5). The dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit rests upon the following direct and precise expression of the Savior: "But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me" (John 15:26). On the foundation of the above-cited expressions, of the Son it is usually said, in the past tense, that He is "begotten," and of the Spirit in the present tense that He "proceeds." However, these various grammatical forms of tense do not indicate any relation to time at all. Both begetting and procession are "from all eternity," "outside of time." Concerning the begetting of the Son, theological terminology sometimes also uses the present tense form: "He is begotten from all eternity" of the Father. However, the Holy Fathers more usually use the expression of the Symbol of Faith: "begotten." (The English translation does not preserve the distinction of voice, aspect, and tense in the Russian and Greek verbs here; the single English word "begotten" is used to render both the reflexive passive form of the present tense and the past participle.)

The dogma of the begetting of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father shows the mystical inner relations of the Persons in God and the life of God within Himself. One must clearly distinguish these relations which are pre-eternal, from all eternity, and outside of time, from the manifestations of the Holy Trinity in the created world, from the activities and manifestations of God's Providence in the world as they have been expressed in such events as the creation of the world, the coming of the Son of God to earth, His Incarnation, and the sending down of the Holy Spirit. These providential manifestations and activities have been accomplished in time. In historical time the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary by the descent upon Her of the Holy Spirit: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). In historical time, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at the time of His baptism by John. In historical time, the Holy Spirit was sent down by the Son from the Father, appearing in the form of fiery tongues. The Son came to earth through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is sent down by the Son in accordance with the promise, "the Comforter. . . Whom l will send unto you from the Father" (John 15:26).

Concerning the pre-eternal begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, one might ask: "When was this begetting and this procession?" St. Gregory the Theologian replies: "This was before when itself. You have heard about the begetting; do not be curious to know in what form this begetting was. You have heard that the Spirit proceeds from the Father; do not be curious to know how He proceeds."

Although the meaning of the words "begetting" and "procession" are beyond us, this does not decrease the importance of these conceptions in the Christian teaching regarding God They indicate the wholeness of Divinity of the Second and Third Persons. The existence of the Son and the Spirit rests inseparably in the very Essence of God the Father; hence we have the expressions regarding the Son: "From the womb... have I begotten Thee" — from the womb, that is, from the Essence. By means of the words "begotten" and "proceeds," the existence of the Son and the Spirit is set in opposition to any kind of creatureliness, to everything that was created and was called by the will of God out of non-existence. An existence which comes from the Essence of God can only be Divine and eternal; therefore the word of God says of the Son who came down to earth: "the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:18); and concerning the Holy Spirit: "Whom I will send... which proceedeth from the Father" (Here the grammatical present tense is a correct rendering and signifies eternity).

That which is begotten is always of the same essence as the one that begets. But that which is created and made is of another, lower essence, and is external with relation to the Creator.

Often in the Holy Fathers and in the Divine service texts the Son of God is called the Word or Logos. This has its foundation in the first chapter of the Gospel of John the Theologian.

The concept or name "Word" we find in its exalted significance many times in the books of the Old Testament. Such are the expressions of the Psalter: "Forever, O Lord, Thy Word abideth in heaven" (Ps. 118:89); "He sent forth His Word and He healed them" (Ps. 106:20) — a verse which refers to the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt; "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established" (Ps. 32:6). The author of the Wisdom of Solomon writes: "Thy all-powerful Word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior carrying the sharp sword of thy authentic command, and stood and filled all things with death, and touched heaven while standing on the earth" (Wis. 18:15-16).

With the help of this Divine name, the Holy Fathers make attempts to explain somewhat the mystery of the relationship of the Son to the Father. St. Dionysius of Alexandria (a disciple of Origen) explains this relationship in the following way: "Our thought utters from itself the word according to what the Prophet has said: `My heart hath poured forth a good word' (Ps. 44:2). Thought and word are separate one from the other and each occupies its special and separate place: while thought remains and moves in the heart, the word is on the tongue and the lips. However, they are inseparable, not for one moment are they deprived of each other. Thought does not exist without word, nor word without thought, having received its existence in thought. Thought is, as it were, a word hidden within, and word is thought which has come without. Thought is transformed into word, and word transmits thought to the hearers. In this way, thought, with the help of the word, is instilled in the souls of the listeners, entering them together with the word. Thought, coming from itself, is as it were the father of the word; and the word is, as it were, the son of the thought. Before the thought, the word was impossible, and the word does not come from anywhere outside, but rather from the thought itself. Thus also, the Father, the greatest and all embracing Thought, has a Son, the Word, His first Interpreter and Herald" (Quoted in St. Athanasius, De sentent Dionis., no. 15).

This same likeness, the relationship of word to thought, is used much by St. John of Kronstadt in his reflections on the Holy Trinity, in My Life in Christ.

In the quoted citation from St. Dionysius of Alexandria, the quotation from the Psalter shows that the ideas of the Fathers of the Church were based upon the use of the term "Word" in the Sacred Scripture not only of the New Testament, but of the Old Testament as well. Thus, there is no reason to assert that the term "Logos" or "Word" was borrowed by Christianity from philosophy, as certain western interpreters assert.

Of course, the Fathers of the Church, as well as the Apostle John the Theologian, were not unaware of the conception of the "Logos" as it was interpreted in Greek philosophy and in the Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (the concept of the Logos as a personal being intermediate between God and the world, or as an impersonal divine power); but they sharply contrasted this understanding of the Logos with the Christian understanding of the Word — the Only-begotten Son of God, one in Essence with the Father, and equal in Divinity to the Father and the Spirit.

The ancient Orthodox teaching of the personal attributes of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was distorted in the Latin Church by the creation of a teaching of the procession, outside of time and from all eternity, of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son — the Filioque. The idea that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son originated in certain expressions of Blessed Augustine. It became established in the West as obligatory in the ninth century, and when Latin missionaries came to the Bulgarians in the middle of the ninth century, the Filioque was in their Symbol of Faith.

As differences between the papacy and the East Orthodox became sharper, the Latin dogma became increasingly strengthened in the West; finally, it was acknowledged in the West as a universally obligatory dogma. Protestantism inherited this teaching from the Roman Church.

The Latin dogma of the Filioque is a substantial and important deviation from Orthodox truth. This dogma was subjected to a detailed examination and accusation, especially by Patriarchs Photius (9th century) and Michael Cerularius (11th century), and likewise by St. Mark of Ephesus, who took part in the Council of Florence (1439). Adam Zernikav (18th century), who converted from Roman Catholicism to Orthodoxy, cites about a thousand testimonies from the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church in favor of the Orthodox teaching of the Holy Spirit in his work, Concerning the Procession of the Holy Spirit.

In recent times, the Roman Church, out of "missionary" aims, has disguised the importance of the difference between the Orthodox teaching and the Roman teaching of the Holy Spirit. With this in mind, the popes have kept the ancient Orthodox text of the Symbol of Faith, without the words "and from the Son," for the Uniates and the "Eastern Rite." However, this cannot be regarded as a kind of half-rejection by Rome of its own dogma. At best, it is only a disguise for the Roman view that the Orthodox East is backward in dogmatic development, that one must be condescending to this backwardness, and that the dogma expressed in the West in a developed form (explicite, in accordance with the Roman theory of the "development of dogmas") is concealed in the Orthodox dogma in a still undeveloped form (implicite). However, in Latin dogmatic works, intended for internal use, we encounter a definite treatment of the Orthodox dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit as a "heresy." In the officially approved Latin dogmatic work of the doctor of theology A. Sanda we read: "Opponents (of the present Roman teaching) are the schismatic Greeks, who teach that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. Already in the year 808 Greek monks protested against the introduction by the Latins of the word Filioque into the Creed . . . Who the originator of this heresy was, is unknown" (Sinopsis Theologiae Dogmaticae Specialis, by Dr. A. Sanda, vol. 1, p. 100; Herder edition, 1916).

However, the Latin dogma agrees neither with Sacred Scripture nor with the universal Sacred Tradition of the Church; and it does not even agree with the most ancient tradition of the local Church of Rome.

In their defense, Roman theologians cite a series of passages from Sacred Scripture where the Holy Spirit is called "of Christ," where it is said that He is given by the Son of God; from this they conclude that He proceeds also from the Son. The most important of these passages cited by Roman theologians are: the words of the Savior to His disciples concerning the Holy Spirit, the Comforter: "He shall take of Mine, and shall show it unto you" (John 16:15); the words of the Apostle Paul, "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts" (Gal. 4:6); the words of the same Apostle, "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom. 8:9); and from the Gospel of John, "He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22).

In like fashion, the Roman theologians find in the works of the Holy Fathers of the Church passages where often there is mention of the sending of the Holy Spirit "through the Son" and sometimes even of a "proceeding through the Son."

However, no reasoning of any kind can obscure the perfectly precise words of the Savior: "the Comforter, whom I will send unto you from the Father," and immediately afterwards, "the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father" (John 15:26). The Holy Fathers of the Church could not possibly place in the words "through the Son" anything that is not contained in Sacred Scripture.

In the present case, Roman Catholic theologians are either confusing two dogmas — that is, the dogma of the personal existence of the Hypostases and the dogma of the Oneness of Essence which is immediately bound up with it, although it is a separate dogma — or else they are confusing the inner relations of the Hypostases of the All-Holy Trinity with the providential actions and manifestations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which are directed towards the world and the human race. That the Holy Spirit is One in Essence with the Father and the Son, that therefore He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, is an indisputable Christian truth, for God is a Trinity One in Essence and Indivisible.

This idea is clearly expressed by Blessed Theodoret: "Concerning the Holy Spirit, it is said not that He has existence from the Son or through the Son, but rather that He proceeds from the Father and has the same nature as the Son, is in fact the Spirit of the Son as being One in Essence with Him" (Bl. Theodoret, "On the Third Ecumenical Council").

In the Orthodox Divine services also, we often hear these words addressed to the Lord Jesus Christ: By Thy Holy Spirit enlighten us, instruct us, and preserve us." The expression, "the Spirit of the Father and the Son," is likewise in itself quite Orthodox. But these expressions refer to the dogma of the Oneness of Essence, and it is absolutely essential to distinguish this from another dogma, the dogma of the begetting and the procession, in which, as the Holy Fathers express it, is shown the Cause of the existence of the Son and the Spirit. All of the Eastern Fathers acknowledge that the Father is monos aitios, the "sole Cause" of the Son and the Spirit. Therefore, when certain Church Fathers use the expression "through the Son," they are, precisely by means of this expression, preserving the dogma of the procession from the Father and the inviolability of the dogmatic formula, "proceedeth from the Father." The Fathers speak of the Son as "through" so as to defend the expression "from," which refers only to the Father.

To this one should add that the expression, "through the Son," which is found in certain Holy Fathers, in the majority of cases refers definitely to the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the world, that is, to the providential actions of the Holy Trinity, and not to the life of God in Himself. When the Eastern Church first noticed a distortion of the dogma of the Holy Spirit in the West and began to reproach the Western theologians for their innovations, St. Maximus the Confessor (in the 7th century), desiring to defend the Westerners, justified them precisely by saying that by the words "from the Son" they intended to indicate that the Holy Spirit is given to creatures through the Son, that He is manifested, that He is sent — but not that the Holy Spirit has His existence from Him. St. Maximus the Confessor himself held strictly to the teaching of the Eastern Church concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and wrote a special treatise about this dogma.

The providential sending of the Spirit by the Son of God is referred to in the words, "Whom I will send unto you from the Father." Also, we pray: "O Lord, who didst send down thine All holy Spirit at the third hour upon Thine apostles, Him take not away from us, O Good One, but renew us who pray to Thee" (troparion of the third Hour on weekdays of Great Lent; also said silently by the priest before the Consecration at the Liturgy). Confusing the texts of Sacred Scripture which speak of the "procession" with the others which speak of the "sending" of the Holy Spirit, Roman theologians transferred the concept of providential relations to the very existence of the Godhead, to the relations there between the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

Apart from the dogmatic side, by introducing a new dogma the Roman Church violated the decree of the Third and subsequent Ecumenical Councils (4th to 7th centuries), which forbade the introduction of any kind of change into the Nicaean Symbol of Faith after the Second Ecumenical Council had given it its final form. Thus, the Roman Church also performed a serious canonical violation.

But when Roman theologians try to say that the whole difference between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the teaching on the Holy Spirit is that they teach the procession "also from the Son" while we teach of the procession "through the Son," in such an assertion there is hidden at the very least a misunderstanding (even though sometimes our church writers also follow the Catholics and allow themselves to repeat this idea). (The expression "through the Son" does not at all comprise a dogma of the Orthodox Church; it is only an explanatory means of certain Holy Fathers in their teaching on the Holy Trinity, whereas the very meaning of the teaching of the Orthodox Church is in essence different from that of Roman Catholicism.

The Three Hypostases of the Holy Trinity have the same Essence; each of the Hypostases has the fullness of Divinity unharmed and immeasurable; the Three Hypostases are equal in honor and worship.

As for the fullness of Divinity of the First Person of the Holy Trinity, there have been no heretics in the history of the Church of Christ who have denied or lessened it. However, we do encounter departures from the authentic Christian teaching regarding God the Father. Thus, in antiquity under the influence of the Gnostics, and more recently under the influence of the so- called philosophy of idealism in the first half of the 19th century (chiefly Schelling), there arose a teaching of God as the Absolute, God detached from everything limited and finite (the very word "absolute" means "detached") and therefore having no immediate contact with the world and requiring an intermediary. Thus, the concept of the Absolute was connected with the name of God the Father and the concept of the intermediary with the name of the Son of God. Such a conception is in total disharmony with the Christian understanding and with the teaching of the word of God. The word of God teaches us that God is near to the world, that God is love, and that God — God the Father — so loved the world that He gave His Only-begotten Son so that all who believe in Him might have eternal life. To God the Father, inseparably from the Son and the Spirit, belongs the creation of the world and a ceaseless providence over the world. If in the word of God the Son is called an Intermediary, this is because the Son of God took upon himself human nature, became the God-Man, and united in Himself Divinity with humanity, united the earthly with the heavenly. However, this is not at all because the Son is some indispensable binding principle between God the Father, Who is infinitely remote from the world, and the finite, creaturely world.

In the history of the Church, the chief dogmatic work of the Holy Fathers was directed towards affirming the truth of the Oneness of Essence, the fullness of Divinity, and the equality of honor of the Second and Third Hypostases of the Holy Trinity.

In earliest Christian times, until the Church's faith in the Oneness of Essence and the equality of the Persons of the Holy Trinity had been precisely formulated in strictly defined terminology, it happened that even those church writers who were careful to be in agreement with the universal consciousness of the Church and had no intention to violate it with any personal views of their own, sometimes, together with clear Orthodox thoughts, used expressions concerning the Divinity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity which were not entirely precise and did not clearly affirm the equality of the Persons.

This can be explained, for the most part, by the fact that in the same term some shepherds of the Church placed one meaning and others, another meaning. The concept "essence" was expressed in the Greek language by the word ousia, and this word was in general understood by everyone in the same way. Using the word ousia, the Holy Fathers referred it to the concept of "Person." However, a lack of clarity was introduced by the use of a third word, "Hypostasis." Some signified by this term the "Persons" of the Holy Trinity, and others the "Essence." This circumstance hindered mutual understanding. Finally, following the authoritative example of St. Basil the Great, it became accepted to understand by the word Hypostasis the Personal attributes in the Triune Divinity.

However, apart from this, there were heretics in the ancient Christian period who consciously denied or lessened the Divinity of the Son of God. Heresies of this type were numerous and from time to time caused strong disturbances in the Church. Such, for example, were the following heretics:

1. In the Apostolic Age — the Ebionites (after the name of the heretic Ebion). The Holy Fathers testify that the holy Evangelist John the Theologian wrote his Gospel against them.
2. In the third century, Paul of Samosata was accused by two councils of Antioch in the same century.
3. The most dangerous of all the heretics was Arius, the presbyter of Alexandria, in the 4th century. Arius taught that the Word, or Son of God, received the beginning of His existence in time, although before anything else; that He was created by God, although subsequently God created everything through Him; that he is called the Son of God only because He is the most perfect of all the created spirits, and has a nature which, being different from the Father's, is not Divine.

This heretical teaching of Arius disturbed the whole Christian world, since it drew after it very many people. In 325 the First Ecumenical Council was called against this teaching, and at this Council 318 of the chief hierarchs of the Church unanimously expressed the ancient teaching of Orthodoxy and condemned the false teaching of Arius. The Council triumphantly pronounced anathema against those who say that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist, against those who affirm that he was created, or that He is of a different essence from God the Father. The Council composed a Symbol of Faith, which was confirmed and completed later at the Second Ecumenical Council. The unity and equality of honor of the Son of God with God the Father was expressed by this Council in the Symbol of Faith by these words: "of One Essence with the Father."

After the Council, the Arian heresy was divided into three branches and continued to exist for some decades. It was subjected to further refutation in its details at several local councils and in the works of the great Fathers of the Church of the 4th century and part of the 5th century (Sts. Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius, Ambrose of Milan, Cyril of Alexandria, and others). However, the spirit of this heresy even later found a place for itself in various false teachings both of the Middle Ages and of modern times.

In answering the opinions of the Arians, the Fathers of the Church did not overlook a single one of the passages in Holy Scripture which had been cited by the heretics in justification of their idea of the inequality of the Son with the Father. Concerning the expressions in Sacred Scripture which seem to speak of the inequality of the Son with the Father, one should bear in mind the following: a) that the Lord Jesus Christ is not only God, but also became Man, and such expressions can be referred to His humanity; b) that in addition, He, as our Redeemer, during the days of His earthly life was in a condition of voluntary belittlement, "He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death" (Phil. 2:7-8). In keeping with these words of the Apostle, the Fathers of the Church express this condition by the words ekkenosis, kenosis, which mean a pouring out, a lessening, a belittlement. "Foreseeing Thy divine self-emptying upon the cross, Habakkuk cried out marveling" (Canon for the Matins of Great Saturday). Even when the Lord speaks of His own Divinity, He, being sent by the Father and having come to fulfill upon the earth the will of the Father, places Himself in obedience to the Father, being One in Essence and equal in honor with Him as the Son, giving us an example of obedience. This relationship of submission refers not to the Essence (ousia) of the Divinity, but to the activity of the Persons in the world: the Father is He Who sends; the Son is He Who is sent. This is the obedience of love.

Such is the precise significance, for example, of the words of the Savior in the Gospel of John: "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). One should note that these words are spoken to His disciples in His farewell conversation after the words which express the idea of the fullness of His divinity and the Unity of the Son with the Father: "If a man love me, he will keep my words and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him" (v. 23). In these words the Savior joins the Father and Himself in the single word "We," and speaks equally in the name of His Father and in His own name; but, since He has been sent by the Father into the world (v. 24), He places Himself in a relationship of submission to the Father (v. 28).

A detailed examination of similar passages in Sacred Scripture (for example, Mark 13:32; Matt. 26:39; Matt. 27:46; John 20:17) is to be found in St. Athanasius the Great (in his sermons against the Arians), in St. Basil the Great (in his fourth book against Eunomius), in St. Gregory the Theologian, and in others who wrote against the Arians.

However, if there are such unclear expressions in the Sacred Scripture about Jesus Christ, there are many, one might even say innumerable, passages that testify of the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. First, the Gospel as a whole testifies of Him. Concerning separate passages, we will indicate here only a few of the more important ones. Some of these passages say that the Son of God is true God; others state that He is equal to the Father: still others say that He is One in Essence with the Father.

It is essential to keep in mind that to call the Lord Jesus Christ God — theos — in itself speaks of the fullness of Divinity in Him. Speaking of the Son, the Apostle Paul says that "in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9).

The following shows that the Son of God is true God: a. He is directly called God in Sacred Scripture:

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not made anything that was made" (John 1:1-3).

"Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16).

"And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life" (1 John 5:20).

". . . Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, Who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen" (Rom. 9:5).

"My Lord and my God" — the exclamation of the Apostle Thomas (John 20:28).

"Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to the whole flock, over the which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28).

"We should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:12-13). That the title of "great God" belongs here to Jesus Christ is made clear for us from the sentence construction in the Greek language (a common article for the words "God and Savior"), as well as from the context of this chapter.

b. He is called the "Only-begotten":

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father" (John 1:14, 18).

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

c. He is equal in honor to the Father:

"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5:17).

"For what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise" (John 5:19).

"For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will" (John 5:21).

"For as the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself" (John 5:26).

"That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father" (John 5:23).

d. He is One in Essence with the Father:

"I and My Father are one" (John 10:30) — in Greek, en esmen, one in essence.

"I am in the Father, and the Father in Me" (John 14:11; 10:38).

"All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine" (John 17:10).

e. The word of God likewise speaks of the eternity of the Son of God:

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come" (Rev. 1:8).

"And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (John 17:5).

f. Of His omnipresence:

"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven" (John 3:13).

"For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20).

g. Of the Son of God as the Creator of the world:

"All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3).

"For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be Thrones, or Dominions, or Principalities, or Powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (Col. 1:16-17).

The word of God speaks similarly of the other Divine attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As for Sacred Tradition, it contains entirely clear testimonies of the universal faith of Christians in the first centuries in the true Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see the universality of this faith in:

1. The Symbols of Faith which were used before the Council of Nicaea in every Local Church;
2. The Confessions of Faith which were composed at the councils or in the name of a council by the pastors of the church prior to the 4th century;
3. The writings of the Apostolic Fathers and the teachers of the Church during the first centuries;
4. The written testimonies of men who were outside of Christianity and related that the Christians worshipped "Christ as God" (for example, the letter of Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan; the testimony of the writer Celsus, who was an enemy of Christians; and others).

The equality of honor and the Divinity of the Holy Spirit.

In the history of the ancient Church, whenever heretics tried to lessen the Divine dignity of the Son of God, this was usually accompanied by a lessening of the dignity of the Holy Spirit.

In the second century, the heretic Valentinus falsely taught that the Holy Spirit was not distinct in His nature from the angels. The Arians thought the same thing. However, the chief of the heretics who distorted the apostolic teaching concerning the Holy Spirit was Macedonius, who occupied the cathedra of Constantinople as archbishop in the 4th century and found followers for himself among former Arians and Semi-Arians. He called the Holy Spirit a creation of the Son, and a servant of the Father and the Son. Accusers of his heresy were Fathers of the Church like Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Amphilocius, Diodores of Tarsus, and others, who wrote works against the heretics. The false teaching of Macedonius was refuted first in a series of local councils and finally at the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381. In preserving Orthodoxy, the Second Ecumenical Council completed the Nicaean Symbol of Faith with these words: "And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is equally worshipped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets," as well as those articles of the Creed which follow this in the Nicaean-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith.

From among the numerous testimonies in Holy Scripture which concern the Holy Spirit, it is especially important to have in mind those passages which a) confirm the teaching of the Church that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal Divine power, but a Person of the Holy Trinity, and b) which affirm His Oneness in Essence and equal Divine dignity with the First and Second Persons of the Holy Trinity.

a) A testimony of the first kind — that the Holy Spirit is a Person — we have in the words of the Lord in His farewell conversation with His disciples, where he calls the Holy Spirit the "Comforter" "whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me" (John 15:26). "And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on Me: of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged" (John 16:8-11).

The Apostle Paul speaks clearly of the Spirit as a Person when, in examining the various gifts of the Holy Spirit — the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, the discerning of spirits, diverse tongues, and the interpretation of tongues — he concludes: "But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will" (1 Cor. 12:11).

b) The Apostle Peter speaks of the Spirit as God in the words addressed to Ananias, who had concealed the price of his property: "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Spirit... Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God" (Acts 5:3-4).

Concerning the equality of honor and the Oneness of Essence of the Spirit with the Father and the Son there is the testimony of such passages as: "… Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19).

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen" (2 Cor. 13:13). Here all three Persons of the Holy Trinity are named as equal. And in the following words the Savior Himself expressed the Divine dignity of the Holy Spirit: "And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come" (Matt. 12:32).

When man's mind is directed towards the understanding of the life of God in Himself, his thought is lost in its own helplessness and can only acknowledge the immeasurable and unattainable grandeur of God, and the endless, unfathomable difference between creature and God — a difference so great that it is impossible to compare them.

But when the same mind of a believing man is turned to the knowledge of God in the world, to God's activities in the world, it sees everywhere and in everything the power, mind, goodness and mercy of God: "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead" (Rom. 1:20).

Further, turning to one's own soul, looking deep within one's self, concentrating in prayer, being in the Church of Christ, to the degree of his own spiritual growth a man becomes capable of understanding that which is inexpressible in words: the closeness of God to His creation, and especially His closeness to man.

Yet further, before the spiritual eyes of a believing Christian there stands an abyss: the limitless and bright, all surpassing love of God for each one of us, as revealed in the sending down to the world and the death on the cross of the Son of God for our salvation.

The final aim of Dogmatic Theology in its Second Part is the recognition of the wisdom and goodness of God, the closeness of God, the love of God; and from our side, a recognition of what is necessary for man to receive salvation and draw near to God.

Introduction. The manner of the world's creation. The motive for the creation. The perfection of the creation. The Angelic World. Angels in Sacred Scripture. The creation of Angels. The nature of Angels. The degree of Angelic perfection. The number and ranks of Angels. The ministry of the Angels. Man — the Crown of Creation. The soul as an independent substance. The origin of the souls. The immortality of the soul. Soul and spirit. The image of God in man. The purpose of man.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Gen. 1:1). Moses' divinely inspired account of the creation of the world, set forth on the first page of the Bible, stands in exalted grandeur, quite independent of the ancient mythological tales of the origin of the world, as well as from the various hypotheses, constantly replacing each other, concerning the beginning and development of the world order. It is extremely brief, but in this brevity is embraced the whole history of the creation of the world. It is presented with the help of the most elementary language, with a vocabulary consisting of only several hundred words and entirely devoid of the abstract ideas so necessary for the expression of religious truths. But in spite of its elementary nature, it has an eternal significance.

The direct purpose of the God-seer Moses was — by means of an account of the creation — to instill in his people, and through them in the whole of mankind, the fundamental truths of God, of the world, and of man.

A. Of God. The chief truth expressed in Genesis is of God as the One Spiritual Essence independent of the world. The first words of the book of Genesis, "In the beginning God created," tell us that God is the sole extra-temporal, eternal, self-existing Being, the Source of all being, and the Spirit above this world. Since He existed also before the creation of the world, His Being is outside of space, not bound even to heaven, since heaven was created together with the earth. God is One. God is Personal, Intellectual Essence.

After presenting in order the stages of the creation of the world, the writer of Genesis concludes his account with the words, "And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31).

B. Of the world. From the magnificent schema given by Moses of the origin of the world, there follow a series of direct conclusions about the world, namely:

(1) How the world arose:

(2) What the nature of the world is:

(a) The world in its essence is distinct from God. It is not

(b) It was created not out of any eternally existing material but was brought into being out of complete non-being.

(3) What the consequences of the creation are:

C. Of man. Man is the highest creation of God on earth. Recognizing this, man would belittle himself if he did not think, and be exalted in thought, about His Creator, glorifying Him, giving thanks to Him, and striving to be worthy of His mercy.

But these things — glory, thanksgiving, prayer — are possible only on the foundations that are given in Moses' account of the creation of the world. Without the acknowledgment of a Personal God, we could not turn to Him: we would be like orphans, knowing neither father nor mother.

If we were to acknowledge that the world is co-eternal with God, in some way independent of God, in some way equal to God, or else born from God by emanation, then this would be the same as saying that the world itself is like God in dignity, and that man, as the most developed manifestation of nature in the world, might be able to consider himself as a divinity who has no accountability before a Higher Principle. Such a concept would lead to the same negative and grievous moral consequences, to the moral fall of men, as does simple atheism.

But the world had a beginning. The world was created in time. There is a Higher, Eternal, Most-wise, Almighty, and Good power over us, towards Whom the spirit of a believing man joyfully strives and to Whom he clings, crying out with love, "How magnified are Thy works, O Lord! In wisdom hast Thou made them all, the earth is filled with Thy creation. . . . Let the glory of the Lord be unto the ages" (Ps. 103:26, 33).

The world was created out of nothing. Actually, it is better to say that it was brought into being from non-being, as the Fathers usually express themselves, since if we say "out of," we are evidently already thinking of the material. But "nothing" is not a "material." However, it is conditionally acceptable and entirely allowable to use this expression for the sake of its simplicity and brevity.

That creation is a bringing into being from complete nonbeing is shown in many passages in the word of God; e.g., "God made them out of things that did not exist" (2 Maccabees 7:28); "Things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (Heb. 11:3); "God calleth those things which be not as though they were" (Rom. 4:17).

Time itself received its beginning at the creation of the world; until then there was only eternity. The Sacred Scripture also says that "by Him (His Son) He made the ages" (Heb. 1:2). The word "ages" here has the significance of "time."

Concerning the days of creation, Blessed Augustine, in his work The City of God, said "What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more for us to say!" (Bk. 11, ch. 6; Modern Library ed., New York, 1950, p. 350).

"We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but by the setting, and no morning but by the rising, of the sun. But the first three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported to have been made on the fourth day. And first of all, indeed, light was made by the Word of God, and God, we read, separated it from the darkness, and called the light Day, and the darkness Night; but what kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand how it was, and yet we must unhesitatingly believe it" (City of God, Bk. 11, ch. 7; p. 351).

God created the world by His thought, by His will, by His word, or command. "For He spake, and they came to be; He commanded, and they were created" (Ps. 148:5). "Spake" signifies a command. By the "word" of God, the Fathers of the Church note, we must understand here not any kind of articulate sound or word like ours. No, this creative word signifies only the command or the expression of the almighty will of God, which brought the universe into existence out of nothingness.

St. Damascene writes: "Now, because the good and transcendentally good God was not content to contemplate Himself, but by a superabundance of goodness saw fit that there should be some things to benefit by and participate in His goodness, He brings all things from nothingness into being and creates them, both visible and invisible, and also man, who is made up of both. By thinking He creates, and, with the Word fulfilling and the Spirit perfecting, the thought becomes deed" (Exact Exposition, Bk. 2, ch. 2; Fathers of the Church tr., p. 205).

Thus, although the world was created in time, God had the thought of its creation from eternity (Augustine, Against Heresies). However, we avoid the expression "He created out of His thought," so as not to give occasion to think that He created out of His own Essence. If the word of God does not give us the right to speak of the "pre-eternal being" of the whole world, so also, on the same foundation one must recognize as unacceptable the idea of the "pre-eternal existence of mankind," an idea which has been trying to penetrate into our theology through one of the contemporary philosophical-theological currents.

The Holy Church, being guided by the indications of Sacred Scripture, confesses the participation of all the Persons of the Holy Trinity in the creation. In the Symbol of Faith we read: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God . . . through Whom all things were made. . . . And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life." St. Irenaeus of Lyons writes, "The Son and the Holy Spirit are, as it were, the hands of the Father" (Against Heresies, Bk. 5, ch. 6). The same idea is found in St. John of Kronstadt (My Life in Christ).

Concerning the motive for the creation in the mind of God, the Orthodox Confession and the Longer Orthodox Catechism express it thus: The world was created by God "so that other beings glorifying Him, might be participants of His goodness." The idea of the mercy and goodness of God, as expressed in the creation of the world, is to be found in many Psalms, such as Psalms 102 and 103 ("Bless the Lord, O my soul"), which call on one to glorify the Lord and give thanks for one's existence and for all of God's providence. The same thoughts are expressed by the Fathers of the Church. Blessed Theodoret writes, "The Lord God has no need of anyone to praise Him; but by His goodness alone He granted existence to angels, archangels, and the whole creation." Further, "God has need of nothing; but He, being an abyss of goodness, deigned to give existence to things which did not exist." St. John Damascene says (as we have just seen), "The good and transcendentally good God was not content to contemplate Himself, but by a superabundance of goodness saw fit that there should be some things to benefit by and participate in His goodness."

The word of God and the Fathers of the Church teach that everything created by God was good, and they indicate the good order of the world as created by the Good one. The irrational creation, not having in itself any moral freedom, is morally neither good nor evil. The rational and free creation becomes evil when it inclines away from God -- that is, by following its sinful attraction and not because it was created thus. "And God saw that it was good" (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). "And, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31).

God created the world perfect. However, Revelation does not say that the present world was perfect to such an extent that it had no need of, or would be incapable of, further perfecting, whether in the days of its creation or in its later and present condition. The earthly world in its highest representatives — mankind — was fore-ordained to a new and higher form of life. Divine Revelation teaches that the present condition of the world will be replaced at some time by a better and more perfect one, when there will be "new heavens and a new earth" (2 Peter 3:13), and the creation itself "will be delivered from the bondage of corruption" (Rom. 8:21).

To the question: How did the life of God proceed before the creation of the world, Blessed Augustine replies, "My best answer is: I do not know." St. Gregory the Theologian reflects, "He contemplated the beloved radiance of His own goodness. . . . Inasmuch as one cannot ascribe to God inactivity and imperfection, what then occupied the Divine thought before the Almighty, reigning in the absence of time, created the universe and adorned it with forms? It contemplated the beloved radiance of His own goodness, the equal and equally perfect splendor of the Triply-shining Divinity known only to the Divinity and to whomever God reveals it. The world-creating Mind likewise beheld, in His great conceptions, the world's forms devised by Him, which, even though they were brought forth subsequently, for God were present even then. With God, everything is before His eyes: that which will be, that which was, and that which is not" (St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 4, On the World).

To the question, How was God's omnipotence expressed before there was a world, St. Methodius of Patara notes, "God Omnipotent is outside every dependence upon the things created by Him."

The first and highest place in the entire ladder of created being is occupied by the pure and fleshless spirits. They are beings not only comparatively higher and more perfect, but they also have a very important influence on the life of men, even though they are invisible to us.

What has been revealed to us about them? How and when did they come into being? What nature was given them? Are they all of an equal stature? What is their purpose and the form of their existence?

The name "angel" means "messenger." This word defines chiefly their service to the human race. Mankind knew about their existence from its first days in Paradise; we see a reflection of this fact in other ancient religions also, not only in the Jewish.

After mankind fell into sin and was banished from Paradise, a Cherubim with a flaming sword was placed to guard the entrance to Paradise (Gen. 3:24). Abraham, when sending his servant to Nahor, encouraged him with the conviction that the Lord would send His angel with him and order well his way (Gen. 24:7). Jacob saw angels, both during sleep (in the vision of the mystical ladder, on the way to Mesopotamia; Gen. 28:12) and while awake (on the way home to Esau, when he saw a "host" of the angels of God; Gen. 32:1-2). In the Psalter, angels are often spoken of: "Praise Him all ye His angels" (Ps. 148:2). "He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee and all thy ways" (Ps. 90:11). Similarly, we read about them in the Book of Job and in the Prophets. The Prophet Isaiah saw Seraphim surrounding the Throne of God (ch. 6). The Prophet Ezekiel saw Cherubim in the vision of the House of God (ch. 10).

The New Testament Revelation contains much information and many mentions of angels. An angel informed Zacharias of the conception of the Forerunner. An angel informed the Most Holy Virgin Mary of the birth of the Savior and appeared in sleep to Joseph. A numerous multitude of angels sang the glory of the Nativity of Christ. An angel announced the good tidings of the birth of the Savior to the shepherds. An angel prevented the Magi from returning to Herod. Angels served Jesus Christ after His temptation in the wilderness. An angel appeared in order to strengthen Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Angels informed the Myrrh-bearing Women about His Resurrection. The Apostles were told by them of His second coming, at the time of His Ascension into heaven. Angels freed the bonds of Peter and other Apostles (Acts 5:19), and those of Peter alone (Acts 12:7-15). An angel appeared to Cornelius and gave him instruction to call the Apostle Peter to instruct him in the word of God (Acts 10:3-7). An angel informed the Apostle Paul that he must appear before Caesar (Acts 27:23-24). A vision of angels is the foundation of the revelations given to St. John the Theologian in the Apocalypse.

In the Symbol of Faith we read, "I believe in one God . . . Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." The invisible, angelic world was created by God and created before the visible world. "When the stars were made, all My angels praised Me with a loud voice, said the Lord to Job" (Job 38:7, Septuagint). The Apostle Paul writes, "By Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers" (Col. 1:16). The Fathers of the Church understand the word "heaven," in the first words of the book of Genesis ("In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"), as being not the physical heaven, which was formed later, but the invisible heaven, the dwelling place of the powers on high. They expressed the idea that God created the angels long before He created the visible world (Sts. Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Anastasius of Sinai), and that at the creation of the visible world the angels already stood before the Face of the Creator and served Him. St. Gregory the Theologian reflects on this: "Since for the goodness of God it was not sufficient to be occupied only with the contemplation of Himself, but it was needful that good should extend further and further, so that the number of those who have received grace might be as many as possible (because this is characteristic of the highest Goodness) — therefore, God devised first of all the angelic heavenly powers: and the thought became deed, which was fulfilled by the Word, and perfected by the Spirit … And inasmuch as the first creatures were pleasing to Him, He devised another world, material and visible, the orderly composition of heaven and earth, and that which is between them." St. John Damascene also follows the thought of St. Gregory the Theologian (Exact Exposition, Bk. 2, ch. 3).

By their nature, angels are active spirits which have intelligence, will, and knowledge. They serve God, fulfill His providential will, and glorify Him. They are fleshless spirits and, in so far as they belong to the invisible world, they cannot be seen by our bodily eyes. Angels, instructs St. John Damascene, "do not appear exactly as they are to the just and to them that God wills them to appear. On the contrary, they appear under such a different form as can be seen by those who behold them" (Exact Exposition. Book 2, ch. 3: Eng. tr., p. 206). In the account of the book of Tobit, the angel who accompanied Tobit and his son told them of himself, "All these days I merely appeared to you and did not eat or drink, but you were seeing a vision" (Tobit 12:19). "Now," as St. John Damascene expresses it, "compared with us, the angel is said to be incorporeal and immaterial, although in comparison with God, Who alone is incomparable, everything proves to be gross and material — for only the Divinity is truly immaterial and incorporeal" (Ibid; p. 205).

The angels are most perfect spirits. They surpass man by their spiritual powers. However, they also, as created beings, bear in themselves the seal of limitation. Being fleshless, they are less dependent than men on space and place, and, so to speak, pass through vast spaces with extreme rapidity, appearing wherever it is required for them to act. However, one cannot say that they exist entirely independent of space and place, nor that they are everywhere present. The Sacred Scripture depicts angels sometimes descending from heaven to the earth, sometimes ascending from earth to heaven, and thus one must suppose that they cannot be both on earth and in heaven at the same time. (The Holy Fathers teach this quite explicitly. Thus, St. Basil the Great writes: "We believe that each (of the heavenly powers) is in a definite place. For the angel who stood before Cornelius was not at the same time with Philip (Acts 10:3; 8:26); and the angel who spoke with Zachariah near the altar of incense (Luke 1:1) did not at the same time occupy his own place in heaven" (On the Holy Spirit, ch. 23; Russian ed. of Soikin, St. Petersburg, 1911, vol. 1, p. 622). Likewise, St. John Damascene teaches: "The angels are circumscribed, because when they are in heaven they are not on earth, and when they are sent to earth by God they do not remain in heaven" (Exact Exposition, Book 2, ch. 3, Eng. tr., p. 206).)

Immortality is an attribute of angels, as is clearly testified by the Scriptures, which teach that they cannot die (Luke 20:36). However, their immortality is not a divine immortality; that is, something self-existing and unconditional. Rather, it depends, just as does the immortality of human souls, entirely upon the will and mercy of God.

As fleshless spirits, the angels are capable of inward self-development to the highest degree. Their minds are more elevated than the human mind. According to the explanation of the Apostle Peter, in their might and power they surpass all earthly governments and authorities (2 Peter 2:10-11). The nature of an angel is higher than the nature of a man, as the Psalmist says when, with the aim of exalting man, he remarks that man is a little lower than the angels (Ps. 8:5).

However, the exalted attributes of angels have their limits. Scripture indicates that they do not know the depths of the Essence of God, which is known to the Spirit of God only: "The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. 2:11). They do not know the future, which is also known to God alone: "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven" (Mark 13:32). Likewise, they do not understand completely the mystery of the Redemption, although they wish to penetrate it: "which things the angels desire to look into" (1 Peter 1:12). They do not even know all human thoughts (3 Kings 8:39). Finally, they cannot of themselves, without the will of God, perform miracles: "Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone doeth wonders" (Ps. 71:19).

Sacred Scripture presents the angelic world as extraordinarily large. When the Prophet Daniel saw the Ancient of Days in a vision, it was revealed to his gaze that "thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him" (Daniel 7:10). "A multitude of the heavenly host praised the coming to earth of the Son of God" (Luke 2:13).

"Reckon," says St. Cyril of Jerusalem, "how many are the Roman nation; reckon how many the barbarian tribes now living, and how many have died within the last hundred years; reckon how many nations have been buried during the last thousand years; reckon all from Adam to this day. Great indeed is the multitude, but yet it is little, for the angels are many more. They are the ninety and nine sheep, but mankind is the single one (Matt. 18:12). For according to the extent of universal space, must we reckon the number of its inhabitants. The whole earth is but as a point in the midst of the one heaven, and yet contains so great a multitude; what a multitude must the heaven which encircles it contain? And must not the heaven of heavens contain unimaginable numbers? And it is written, thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him; not that the multitude is only so great, but because the Prophet could not express more than these" (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 15:24, Eerdmans tr., pp. 111-112).

With such a multitude of angels it is natural to suppose that in the world of angels, just as in the material world, there are various degrees of perfection; and therefore various stages, or hierarchical degrees, of the heavenly powers. Thus, the word of God calls some of them "angels" and others "archangels" (1 Thess. 4:16; Jude v. 9).

The Orthodox Church, guided by the views of the ancient writers of the Church and the Church Fathers, and in particular by the work, The Heavenly Hierarchy, which bears the name of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, divides the angelic world into nine choirs or ranks, and these nine into three hierarchies, with three ranks in each. In the first hierarchy are those who are closest to God: the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. In the second, middle hierarchy, are the Authorities, Dominions, and Powers. In the third, closer to us, are the Angels, Archangels, and Principalities (The Orthodox Confession).

We find this enumeration of the nine choirs of angels in the Apostolic Constitutions (The "Apostolic Constitutions" are a 4th and 5th-century collection of texts on Christian doctrine, worship, and discipline which give much information on the life of the early Church — though not necessarily of the time of the Apostles. While given respect as an ancient Christian text, this collection, owing to some un-Orthodox additions made to it at different times, has not had the authority in the Church which is enjoyed by other early texts. It should be distinguished from the "Apostolic Canons" which were accepted by the Quinisext Council (692) as authoritative for the Church, but this same Council rejected the Apostolic Constitutions as a whole because of the "adulterous matter" which had been added to them (Canon 2, Eerdmans Seven Ecumenical Councils, p. 361).), in Sts. Ignatius the God-bearer, Gregory the Theologian, and Chrysostom; later, in Sts. Gregory the Dialogist, John Damascene, and others. Here are the words of St. Gregory the Dialogist on this subject: "We accept nine ranks of angels, because from the testimony of the word of God we know about Angels, Archangels, Powers, Authorities, Principalities, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. Thus, concerning the existence of Angels and Archangels, almost every page of Sacred Scripture testifies; of the Cherubim and Seraphim as is well known, the prophetic books speak often; the Apostle Paul enumerates four other ranks in his Epistle to the Ephesians, saying that God (the Father) placed His Son ‘far above all Principality, and Authority, and Power, and Dominion’ (Eph. 1:21). And in his Epistle to the Colossians he writes, ‘By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominions, or Principalities, or Powers’ (Col. 1:16). And so, when we join Thrones to these four of which he speaks to the Ephesians, that is, Principalities, Authorities, Powers and Dominions, we have five separate ranks; and when we join to them the Angels, Archangels, Cherubim, and Seraphim, it is clear that there are nine ranks of angels."

Indeed, turning to the books of Sacred Scripture, we find the names of the nine ranks which have been listed above; more than nine are not mentioned. Thus, we read the name "Cherubim" in the book of Genesis (ch. 3), in Psalms 79 and 98, and in Ezekiel, (chs. 1 & 10); "Seraphim" we find in Isaiah (ch. 6); "Powers" we find in the Epistle to the Ephesians (ch. 1) and in Romans (ch. 8); "Thrones," "Principalities," "Dominions," and "Authorities" in Colossians (ch. 1) and Ephesians (chs. 1 and 3); "Archangels" in 1 Thessalonians (ch. 4) and Jude (verse 9); and "Angels" in 1 Peter (ch. 3), Romans (ch. 8), and other books. On this foundation the number of the ranks of angels is usually limited in the teaching of the Church to nine.

Certain Fathers of the Church express their private pious opinion that the division of the angels into nine ranks includes only those names and ranks which have been revealed in the word of God, but does not include many other names and ranks which have not been revealed to us in this present life but will become known only in the future life. This idea is developed by St. Chrysostom, Blessed Theodoret, and Blessed Theophylactus. "There are," says Chrysostom, "in truth, there are other powers whose very names we do not know . . . Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, and Authorities are not the only inhabitants of the heavens; there are also innumerable other kinds, and unimaginably many classes which no words are capable of depicting. And how is it evident that there are powers beyond those mentioned above, and powers whose very names we do not know? The Apostle Paul, having spoken of the one, mentions the other also when he testifies of Christ: ‘and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above every Principality, and Power, and Might, and Dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come’ (Eph. 1:20-21). Do you see that there are some names which will be known then, but that are now unknown? Therefore, he also said, ‘every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.’ " This opinion is taken by the Church as a private one.

In general, the ancient shepherds considered the doctrine of the celestial hierarchy a mystical one. "How many ranks of heavenly beings there are," reflects St. Dionysius in the Heavenly Hierarchy, "of what sort they are, and in what way the mysteries of their sacred order are performed is known precisely only to God, Who is the Cause of their hierarchy. Likewise, they themselves know their own powers, light, and order beyond this world. But we can speak of this only to the degree that God has revealed this to us through the heavenly powers themselves, as ones who know themselves" (Heavenly Hierarchy, ch. 6). Similarly, Blessed Augustine reflects, "That there are Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, and Authorities in the heavenly mansions, I believe unwaveringly, and that they are distinct one from the other, I hold without doubt; but of what sort they are, and in precisely what way they are distinguished among themselves, I do not know."

In Sacred Scripture, some of the higher angels are given their own names. There are two such names in the canonical books: Michael (which means "Who is like God?" Dan. 10:13; 12:1; Jude, v. 9; Apoc. 12:7-8) and Gabriel, ("Man of God"; Dan. 8:16, 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26). Three angels are mentioned by name in the non-canonical books: Raphael ("The Help of God"; Tobit 3:17, 12:12-15); Uriel ("Fire of God"; III Esdras 4:1, 5:20); and Salathiel, ("Prayer to God," III Esdras 5:16). Apart from this, pious tradition ascribes names to two other angels: Jegudiel ("Praise of God") and Barachiel ("Blessing of God"); these names are not to be found in the Scriptures. Moreover, in the second book of Esdras there is mention of yet another, Jeremiel ("the Height of God," 3 Esdras 4:36); but judging from the context of this passage, this name is the same as Uriel.

Thus, names have been given to seven of the higher angels, corresponding to the words of the Apostle John the Theologian in the Apocalypse: "Grace be unto you, and peace from Him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven spirits which are before His throne" (Apoc. 1:4).

What, finally, is the purpose of the beings of the spiritual world? It is evident that they were ordained by God to be the most perfect reflections of His grandeur and glory, with inseparable participation in His blessedness. If it has been said concerning the visible heavens that "the heavens declare the glory of God," then all the more is this the aim of the spiritual heavens. This is why St. Gregory the Theologian calls them "reflections of the perfect Light," or secondary lights.

The angels in the ranks which are close to the human race are presented in Sacred Scripture as heralds of God's will, guiders of men, and servants of their salvation. The Apostle Paul writes, "Are not they all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" (Heb. 1:14).

Not only do angels hymn the glory of God, but they also serve Him in the works of His providence for the material and sensible world. Of this service the Holy Fathers frequently speak: "Some of them stand before the great God; others, by their cooperation, uphold the whole world" (St. Gregory the Theologian, "Mystical Hymns," Homily 6). The angels "are appointed for the governance of the elements and the heavens, the world and everything that is in it" (Athenagoras). "Different individuals of them embrace different parts of the world, or are appointed over different districts of the universe, as He knoweth Who ordered and distributed it all; combining all things in one, solely with a view to the consent of the Creator of all things" (St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 28; Eerdmans tr., p. 300).

In some Church writers there is to be found the opinion that special angels are placed over separate aspects of the kingdom of nature — the inorganic, the organic, and the animal (Origen, Blessed Augustine). The latter opinion has its source in the Apocalypse, where mention is made of angels who, in accordance with God's will, are in charge of certain earthly elements. The Seer of mysteries, St. John, writes, in the 16th chapter, verse 5, of the Apocalypse, "And I heard the angel of the waters say;" in Apocalypse 7:1 he says, "I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree," and in Apocalypse 14:18, "And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire, and he cried out." In the vision of the Prophet Daniel there are angels to whom God has entrusted the care of the fate of the peoples and kingdoms which exist upon the earth (Daniel ch. 10, 11, and 12).

The Orthodox Church believes that every man has his own guardian angel, if he has not put him away from himself by an impious life. The Lord Jesus Christ has said: "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, that their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 18:10).

In the ladder of the earthly creation, man is placed on the highest rung, and in relationship to all earthly beings he occupies the reigning position. Being earthly, according to his gifts he approaches the heavenly beings, for he is "a little lower than the angels" (Ps. 8:5). And the Prophet Moses depicts man's origin in this way: "After all the creatures of the earth had been created, And God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air … and over all the earth … So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him" (Gen. 1:26-27).

1. In itself, the counsel of God, which is not indicated at the creation of the other creatures of the earth, clearly speaks of the fact that man was to be a special creation, distinct from the others, the highest, most perfect on earth, having also a higher purpose in the world.

2. The concept of man's high purpose and his special significance is emphasized yet more in the fact that the counsel of God ordained that man be created "in the image and likeness of God," and that in fact he was created in God's image. Every image necessarily presupposes a similarity with its archetype; consequently, the presence of God's image in man testifies to a reflection of the very attributes of God in man's spiritual nature.

3. Finally, certain details of man's creation which are given in the second chapter of Genesis emphasize once more a special preeminence of human nature. To be precise, it is said there: "And God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7). Two actions, or two aspects of action, are distinguished here, and they may be understood as simultaneous: the formation of the body, and the giving of life to it. St. John Damascene notes: "The body and the soul were formed at the same time, not one before and the other afterwards, as the ravings of Origen would have it" (Exact Exposition, Bk. 2, ch. 12, "On Man"). According to the description of the book of Genesis, God created the body of man from already existing earthly elements, and He created it in a very special fashion: not by His command or word alone, as was done in the creation of the other creatures, but by His own direct action. This shows that man, even in his bodily organization, is a being surpassing all other creatures from the very beginning of his existence. Further, it is said that God breathed into his face the breath of life and the man became a living soul. As one who has received the breath of life, in this figurative expression, from the mouth of God Himself, man is thus a living, organic union of the earthly and the heavenly, the material and the spiritual.

4. From this follows the exalted view of the significance of the human body as is set forth generally in the Sacred Scripture. The body must serve as the companion, organ, and even fellow laborer of the soul. It depends on the soul itself whether to lower itself to such an extent that it becomes the slave of the body, or, being guided by an enlightened spirit, to make the body its obedient executor and fellow-laborer. Depending upon the soul, the body can be a vessel of sinful impurity and foulness, or it can become a temple of God, participating with the soul in the glorification of God. This is taught in Sacred Scripture (Rom. 13:14; Gal. 3:3; 1 Cor. 9:27; Gal. 5:24; Jude 7-9; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 1 Cor. 6:20). Even with the death of the body, the bond of the soul with the body is not cut off forever. The time will come when the bodies of men will arise in a renewed form and will again be united forever with their souls, in order to receive a part in eternal blessedness or torment, corresponding to the good or evil deeds performed by men with the participation of the body in the course of earthly life (2 Cor. 5:10).

An even more exalted view is instilled in us by the word of God regarding the nature of the soul. At the creation of the soul, God took nothing of it from the earth, but imparted it to man solely by His creative inbreathing. This clearly shows that, in the conception of the word of God, the human soul is an essence completely separate from the body and from everything material and composed of elements, having a nature not earthly, but above the world, heavenly. The high pre-eminence of man's soul compared to everything earthly was expressed by the Lord Jesus Christ in the words: "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26). The Lord instructed His disciples: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul" (Matt. 10:28).

Concerning the exalted dignity of the soul, St. Gregory the Theologian expresses himself thus: "The soul is the breath of God, and while being heavenly, it endures being mixed with what is of the dust. It is a light enclosed in a cave, but still it is divine and inextinguishable … The Word spoke, and having taken a part of the newly-created earth, with His immortal hands formed my image and imparted to it His life; because He sent into it the spirit, which is a ray of the invisible Divinity" (Homily 7, "On the Soul").

Nevertheless, one cannot make such exalted figurative expressions of the Holy Fathers into a foundation for teaching that the soul is "divine" in the full sense of the word, and that consequently, it had an eternal existence of its own before its incarnation in earthly man, in Adam. (This view is found in those contemporary theological philosophical currents which follow V.S. Soloviev). The very statement that the soul is of heavenly origin does not mean that the soul is divine in essence. "He breathed the breath of life" (Gen. 2:7) is an anthropomorphic expression, and there is no basis for understanding it as meaning that he gave something of His Divine substance. After all, man's breathing is not an "outbreathing" of the elements of human nature itself, nor even of its physical essence. Likewise, from the Biblical expression one cannot draw the conclusion that the soul proceeded from the Essence of God nor is an element of the Divinity. Chrysostom writes, "Certain senseless ones, being drawn away by their own conceptions, without thinking of anything in a God-befitting manner, and without paying any attention to the adaptation of the expressions (of Scripture), dare to say that the soul has proceeded from the Essence of God. O frenzy! O folly! How many paths of perdition has the devil opened up for those who wish to serve him! In order to understand this, behold the opposite ways in which these people go: some, seizing on the phrase, "He breathed," say that souls proceed from the Essence of God; others, on the contrary, affirm that souls are converted into the essence of the lowest irrational creatures. What can be worse than such folly?" (Commentary on the Book of Genesis).

That St. Gregory the Theologian spoke of the divinity of the soul not in the strict sense of the word is evident from another homily of his: "The nature of God and the nature of man are not identical; or, to speak more generally, the nature of the Divine and the nature of the earthly are not identical. In the Divine nature, both existence itself and everything in It which has existence are unchangeable and immortal; for, in that which is constant, everything is constant. But what is true of our nature? It flows, is corrupted, and undergoes change after change" (Homily 19, "On Julian").

We have already spoken in the chapter on the Attributes of God (on God as Spirit) of the question as to how one should understand anthropomorphic expressions about God. Here let us only cite the argument of Blessed Theodoret: "When we hear in the account of Moses that God took dust from the earth and formed man, and we seek out the meaning of this utterance, we discover in it the special good disposition of God towards the human race. For the great prophet notes, in his description of the creation, that God created all the other creatures by His word, while man He created with His own hands. But just as we understand by "word" not a commandment, but the will alone, so also, in the formation of the body, (we should understand) not the action of hands, but the greatest attentiveness to this work. For in the same way that now, by His will, the fruit is generated in a mother's womb, and nature follows the laws which He gave to it from the very beginning — so also then, by His will the human body was formed from the earth, and dust became flesh." In another passage Blessed Theodoret expresses himself in a general way: "We do not say that the Divinity has hands . . . but we affirm that every one of these expressions indicates a greater care on God's part for man than for the other creatures" (quoted in the Dogmatic Theology of Metr. Macarius, Vol. I, p. 430-431).

The ancient Fathers and teachers of the Church, strictly following the Sacred Scripture in the teaching on the independence of the soul and its value in itself, explained and revealed the distinctness of the soul from the body in order to refute the materialistic opinion that the soul is only an expression of the harmony of the members of the body, or is a result of the body's physical activity, and that it does not have its own particular spiritual substance or nature. Appealing to simple observation, the Church Fathers show:

a. that it is characteristic of the soul to govern the strivings of the body, and characteristic of the body to accept this governance (Athenagoras and others).

b. that the body is, as it were, a tool or instrument of an artist, while the soul is the artist (Sts. Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Jerusalem, and others).

c. that the soul is not unconditionally subject to the impulses of the body; it is even capable of entering into warfare with the strivings of the body as with something foreign and hostile to it, and is able to gain a victory over it, thus showing that it is not the same thing as the body but is an invisible essence, is of a different nature, surpassing every bodily nature (Origen).

d. that it is intangible and ungraspable, and is neither blood, nor air, nor fire, but a self-moving principle (Lactantius).

e. that the soul is a power which brings all the members of the organism into full harmony and full unity (Sts. Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great).

f. that the soul possesses reason, self-awareness, and free will (Origen and others).

g. that man, while he is in the body on earth, mentally thinks of that which is heavenly and beholds it; being mortal in his body, he reasons about immortality and often, out of love for virtue, he draws upon himself suffering and death; having a body which is temporal, with his mind he contemplates the eternal and strives towards it, disdaining that which is under his feet. The body itself would never have imagined such things (St. Athanasius the Great).

h. that speaking of the very nature of the soul, the Fathers and teachers of the Church point to the simplicity and immateriality of the soul, as opposed to the complexity and material crudeness of the body; they indicate its invisibility and complete absence of form, and in general to the fact that it is not subject to any of the measurements (space, weight, etc.) to which the body is subject (Origen and others).

With regard to the fact that the conditions of the body are reflected in the activities of the soul, and that these conditions can weaken and even corrupt the soul — for example, during illness, old age, or drunkenness — the Fathers of the Church often compare the body to an instrument used in steering. The different degrees of the soul's manifestation in the body testify only to the instability of the instrument — the body. Those conditions of the body which are unfavorable for the manifestation of the soul may be compared to a sudden storm at sea which hinders the pilot from manifesting his art but does not prove that he is absent. As another example, one might take an untuned harp, from which even the most skilled musicians cannot bring forth harmonious sounds (Lactantius). So also, poor horses give no opportunity for a horseman to demonstrate his skill (Blessed Theodoret).

Certain ancient Fathers (Sts. Ambrose, Pope Gregory the Great, John Damascene), while acknowledging the spirituality of the soul as distinct from the body, at the same time also ascribe a certain comparative corporality or materiality to the soul. By this supposed attribute of the soul they had in mind to distinguish the spirituality of the human soul, as also the spirituality of angels, from the most pure spirituality of God, in comparison with which everything must seem material and crude.

How the soul of each individual man originates is not fully revealed in the word of God; it is "a mystery known to God alone" (St. Cyril of Alexandria), and the Church does not give us a strictly defined teaching on this subject. She decisively rejected only Origen's view, which had been inherited from the philosophy of Plato, concerning the pre-existence of souls, according to which souls come to earth from a higher world. This teaching of Origen and the Origenists was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council.

However, this conciliar decree did not establish whether the soul is created from the souls of a man's parents and only in this general sense constitutes a new creation of God, or whether each soul is created immediately and separately by God, being joined at a definite moment to the body which is being or has been formed. In the view of certain Fathers of the Church (Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian, Theodoret), each soul is created separately by God, and some of them refer its union with the body to the fortieth day after the body's formation. (Roman Catholic theology is decisively inclined toward the view that each soul is separately created; this view has been set forth dogmatically in several papal bulls, and Pope Alexander VII linked with this view the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin Mary.)

In the view of other teachers and Fathers of the Church (Tertullian, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Macarius the Great, Anastasius the Presbyter), both soul and body receive their beginning simultaneously and mature together; the soul proceeds from the souls of the parents just as the body proceeds from the bodies of the parents. In this way "creation" is understood here in a broad sense as the participation of the creative power of God which is present and essential everywhere, for every kind of life. The foundation of this view is the fact that in the person of our forefather Adam, God created the human race: "He hath made of one blood all nations of men" (Acts 17:26). From this it follows that in Adam the soul and body of every man was given in potentiality. But God's decree is brought into reality in such a way that God holds all things in His hand: "He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things" (Acts 17:25). God, having created, "continues to create."

St. Gregory the Theologian says, "Just as the body, which was originally formed in us of dust, became subsequently the current of human bodies as has not been cut off from the first-formed root, in one man including others — so also the soul, being inbreathed by God, from that time comes together into the formed composition of man, being born anew, and from the original seed (St. Gregory evidently means here a spiritual seed) being imparted to many and always preserving a constant form in mortal members … Just as the breath in a musical pipe produces sounds depending upon the width of the pipe, so also the soul, appearing powerless in an infirm body, becomes manifest as the body is strengthened and reveals then all its intelligence" (Homily 7, "On the Soul"). St. Gregory of Nyssa has the same view.

In his diary, St. John of Kronstadt has this observation: "What are human souls? They are all one and the same soul, one and the same breathing of God, which God breathed into Adam, which from Adam until now is disseminated to the whole human race. Therefore all men are the same as one man, or one tree of humanity. From this there follows the most natural commandment, founded upon the unity of our nature: ‘Thou shall love the Lord thy God (thy Prototype, thy Father) with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; and thy neighbor (for who is closer to me than a man who is like me and of the same blood with me?) as thyself’ (Luke 10:27). There is a natural need to fulfill these commandments" (My Life in Christ).

Faith in the immortality of the soul is inseparable from religion in general and, all the more, comprises one of the fundamental objects of the Christian Faith.

Nor is this idea foreign to the Old Testament. It is expressed in the words of Ecclesiastes: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God Who gave it" (Eccl. 12:7). The whole account in the third chapter of Genesis — from the words of God's warning: "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eat thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:17) — is the answer to the question of the appearance of death in the world, and thus it is in itself an expression of the idea of immortality. The idea that man was foreordained to immortality, that immortality is possible, is contained in the words of Eve: "Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of Paradise, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die" (Gen. 3:3). The same thought is expressed by the Psalmist in the words of the Lord: "I said Ye are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High. But like men ye die and like one of the rulers do ye fall" (Ps. 81:6-7).

One must emphasize the fact that the idea of immortality is present without any doubt in the Old Testament, because there exists an opinion that denies that the Jews had faith in the immortality of the soul. In the accounts of Moses there are indications of faith in the immortality of the soul. Concerning Enoch, Moses remarks that "he was not; for God took him" — that is, he went to God without undergoing death (Gen. 5:24). From the Biblical expressions concerning the deaths of Abraham (Gen. 25:8), Aaron and Moses (Deut. 32:50), "and he was gathered to his people," it is illogical to understand that this means they were placed in the same grave or place, or even in the same land with their people, since each of these Old Testament righteous ones died not in the land of his ancestors but in the new territory of their resettlement (Abraham) or their wandering (Aaron and Moses). Patriarch Jacob, having received news that his son had been torn to pieces by beasts, says, "I will go down into hades unto my son, mourning" (Gen. 37:35, Septuagint). "Hades" here clearly means not the tomb, but the place where the soul dwells. This condition of the soul after death was expressed in the Old Testament as a descent into the underworld; that is, as a joyless condition in a region where even the praise of the Lord is not heard. This is expressed in a number of passages in the book of Job and in the Psalms.

But already in the Old Testament, and especially as the coming of the Savior approaches, there is heard a hope that the souls of righteous men will escape this joyless condition. For example, in the Wisdom of Solomon we find: "The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them … The righteous live forever, and their reward is with the Lord" (3:2; 5:15). The hope of the future deliverance from hades of the souls of the righteous is more clearly and distinctly expressed in the words of the Psalmist: "My flesh shall dwell in hope, for thou wilt not abandon my soul in hades, nor wilt thou suffer Thy holy one to see corruption" (Ps. 15:9-10; see also Psalm 48:16).

The Lord Jesus Christ often pointed to the immortality of the soul as the foundation of pious life, and He accused the Sadducees, who denied immortality. In His farewell conversation with His disciples the Lord told them that He was going to prepare a place for them so that they might be where He Himself would be (John 14:2-3). And to the thief He said, "Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43).

In the New Testament, generally speaking, the truth of the immortality of the soul is the object of a more complete revelation, making up one of the fundamental parts of Christian faith itself. This truth inspires a Christian, filling his soul with the joyful hope of eternal life in the Kingdom of the Son of God. St. Paul writes, "For to me to die is gain … having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ (Phil. 1:21, 23). For we know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven" (2 Cor. 5:1-2).

It goes without saying that the holy Fathers and teachers of the Church have unanimously preached the immortality of the soul, with this distinction only: that some acknowledge the soul as being immortal by nature, while others — the majority — say that it is immortal by the grace of God. "God wishes that the soul might live" (St. Justin Martyr); "the soul is immortal by the grace of God Who makes it immortal" (St. Cyril of Jerusalem and others). The Holy Fathers by this emphasize the difference between the immortality of man and the immortality of God, Who is immortal by the very essence of His nature and therefore "Who only hath immortality," according to the Scripture (1 Tim. 6:16).

Observation shows that faith in the immortality of the soul has always been inwardly inseparable from faith in God, to such an extent that the degree of the former is determined by the degree of the latter. The more lively is one's faith in God, the more firm and undoubting is his faith in the immortality of the soul. And, on the contrary, the weaker and more lifeless is one's belief in God, the greater the wavering and doubt one brings to the truth of the immortality of the soul. One who completely loses or stifles faith in God within himself usually ceases to believe in the immortality of the soul or the future life at all. This is surely understandable. A man receives the power of faith from the very Source of life, and if he cuts off his tie with this Source, he loses this stream of living power. Then no rational proofs or persuasions will be able to pour the power of faith into him.

One might also make the opposite conclusion. In those confessions and world views — even though they might be Christian — where the power of faith in the active existence of the soul beyond the grave has grown dim, where there is no prayerful remembrance of the dead, Christian faith itself is in a condition of decline. One who believes in God and acknowledges God's love cannot allow the thought that his Heavenly Father might wish to completely cut off his life and deprive him of the bond with Himself, just as a child who loves his mother and is loved by her in turn does not believe that she would not wish him to have life.

One may rightly say that in the Orthodox Eastern Church the acknowledgment of the immortality of the soul occupies a fitting central place in the system of teaching and in the life of the Church. The spirit of the Church typicon, the content of the Divine services and separate prayers, all support and animate in the faithful this awareness, this belief in a life beyond the grave for the souls of our close ones who have died, as well as a belief in our own personal immortality. This belief sheds a bright ray on the whole life's work of an Orthodox Christian.

The spiritual principle in man which is opposed to the body is designated in Sacred Scripture by two terms which are almost equal in significance: "spirit" and "soul." The use of the word "spirit" in place of "soul," or both terms used in exactly the same meaning, is encountered especially in the Apostle Paul. This is made evident, for example, by placing the two following texts side by side: "Glorify God in your body and in your soul, which are God's" (1 Cor. 6:20); and "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit" (2 Cor. 7:1).

In addition, there are two passages in the writings of this Apostle where soul and spirit are mentioned side by side, and this gives occasion to ask the question: Is the Apostle not indicating that, besides the soul, there is also a "spirit" that is an essential part of human nature? Likewise, in the writings of certain Holy Fathers, particularly in the ascetic writings, a distinction is made between soul and spirit. The first passage in the Apostle Paul is in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4:12). Another passage from the same Apostle is in the Epistle to the Thessalonians: "Your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thes. 5:23). It is not difficult, however, to see that in the first passage the spirit is to be understood not as a substance that is separate and independent from the soul, but only as the inward and most hidden side of the soul. Here the relation of soul and spirit is made parallel to the relationship between the members of the body and the brain, and just as the brain is the inward part of the same bodily nature, or is a content as compared to its container, so also the spirit is evidently considered by the Apostle as the hidden part of the soul of a man.

In the second passage, by "spirit" is evidently meant that special higher harmony of the hidden part of the soul which is formed through the grace of the Holy Spirit in a Christian: the "spirit" of which the Apostle says elsewhere, "quench not the spirit" (1 Thes. 5:19), and "fervent in spirit" (Rom. 12:11). Thus, the Apostle is not thinking here of all men in general, but only of Christians or believers. In this sense the Apostle contrasts the "spiritual" man with the "natural" or fleshly man (1 Cor. 2:14-15). The spiritual man possesses a soul, but being reborn, he cultivates in himself the seeds of grace; he grows and brings forth fruits of the spirit. However, by carelessness towards his spiritual life he may descend to the level of the fleshly or natural man: "Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal. 3:3). Therefore, there are no grounds for supposing that the thinking of the Apostle Paul is not in agreement with the teaching that the nature of man consists of two parts.

This same idea of the spirit as the higher, grace-given form of the life of the human soul is evidently what was meant by those Christian teachers and Fathers of the Church in the first centuries who distinguished in man a spirit as well as a soul. This distinction is found in St. Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephraim the Syrian, and likewise in later writers and ascetics. However, a significant majority of the Fathers and teachers of the Church directly acknowledge that man's nature has two parts: body and soul (Sts. Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Blessed Augustine, St. John Damascene). Blessed Theodoret writes: "According to the teaching of Apollinarius (the heretic) there are three composite parts in a man: the body, the animal soul, and the rational soul, which he calls the mind. But the Divine Scripture acknowledges only one soul, not two, and this is clearly indicated by the history of the creation of the first man. God, having formed the body from the dust and breathed a soul into it, showed in this wise that there are two natures in man, and not three."

The sacred writer of the account of man's creation relates, "And God said: Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness … So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them" (Gen. 1:26-27).

In what does the image of God in us consist? The Church's teaching tells us only that in general man was created "in the image," but precisely what part of our nature manifests this image is not indicated. The Fathers and teachers of the Church have answered this question in various ways: some see it (the image) in reason, others in free will, still others in immortality. If one brings together their ideas, one obtains a complete conception of what the image of God in man is, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers.

First of all, the image of God may be seen only in the soul, not in the body. According to His nature, God is most pure Spirit, not clothed in any kind of body and not a partaker of any kind of materiality. Therefore the image of God can refer only to the immaterial soul — many Fathers of the Church have considered it necessary to give this warning.

Man bears the image of God in the higher qualities of the soul, especially in the soul's immortality, in its freedom of will, its reason, and in its capability for pure love without thought of gain.

1. The eternal God gave immortality of soul to man, even though the soul is immortal not by nature but only by the goodness of God.
2. God is completely free in His actions, and He gave to man free will and the ability to act freely within certain boundaries.
3. God is most wise, and He has given man a reason which is capable of being not limited only to earthly, animal needs and to the visible side of things, but is capable of penetrating to their depths, of recognizing and explaining their inward meaning. Man's reason is able to rise to the level of that which is invisible and of striving in thought towards the very Source of all that exists — God. Man's reason makes his will conscious and authentically free, because it can choose that which corresponds to man's highest dignity rather than that to which his lower nature inclines him.
4. God created man in His goodness and He has never left him nor ever will leave him without His love. Man, having received his soul from the breathing of God, strives towards his first Principle, God, as towards something akin to himself, seeking and thirsting for union with Him. This is specifically shown in the straight and upright posture of his body, and his gaze, which turns up towards heaven. Thus, this striving towards and love for God expresses the image of God in man.

In summary, one may say that all of the good and noble qualities and capabilities of the soul are an expression of the image of God in man.

Is there a distinction between the "image" and the "likeness" of God? The majority of the Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church reply that there is. They see the image of God in the very nature of the soul, and the likeness in the moral perfecting of man in virtue and sanctity, in the acquirement of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, we receive the image of God from God together with existence, but the likeness we must acquire ourselves, having received the possibility of doing this from God.

To become "in the likeness" depends upon our will; it is acquired in accordance with our own activity. Therefore, concerning the "counsel" of God it is said: "Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness" (Gen. 1:26), but with regard to the very act of creation it is said: "God created man in His own image" (Gen. 1:27). About this St. Gregory of Nyssa reasons, "By God's ‘counsel,’ we were given the potential to be ‘in His likeness.’"

Having raised man above all the earthly world, having given him reason and freedom, having adorned him with His own image, the Creator thus indicated to man his especially high purpose. God and the spiritual world lie before man's spiritual gaze; before his bodily gaze lies the material world.

a. The first purpose of man is the glory of God. Man is called to remain faithful to his bond with God, to strive towards Him with his soul, to acknowledge Him as his Creator, to glorify Him, to rejoice in union with Him, to live in Him. "He filled them with knowledge and understanding," says the most wise son of Sirach with regard to the gifts God has given to man. "He set His eye upon their hearts to show them the majesty of His works. And they will praise His holy name, to proclaim the grandeur of His works" (Sirach 17:6-10). For if all of creation is called, according to its ability, to glorify the Creator (as is stated, for example, in Psalm 148), then of course man, as the very crown of creation, is all the more intended to be the conscious, rational, constant, and most perfect instrument of the glory of God on earth.

b. For this purpose, man should be worthy of his Prototype. In other words, he is called to perfect himself, to guard his likeness to God, to restore and strengthen it. He is called to develop and perfect his moral powers by means of good deeds. This requires that a man take care for his own good, and his true good lies in blessedness in God. Therefore one must say that blessedness in God is the aim of man's existence.

c. Man's immediate physical gaze is directed to the world. Man has been placed as the crown of earthly creation and the king of nature, as is shown in the first chapter of the book of Genesis. In what way should this be manifested? Metropolitan Macarius speaks of it thus in his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: "As the image of God, the son and inheritor in the house of the Heavenly Father, man has been placed as a kind of intermediary between the Creator and the earthly creation: in particular he has been foreordained to be a prophet for it, proclaiming the will of God in the world in word and deed; he is to be its chief priest, in order to offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God on behalf of all those born of earth, thus bringing down upon earth the blessings of heaven; he is to be head and king so that by concentrating the aims of all existing visible creatures in himself, he might through himself unite all things with God, and thus keep the whole chain of earthly creatures in a harmonious bond and order."

Thus was the first man created, capable of fulfilling his purpose and of doing so freely, voluntarily, joyfully, according to the attraction of his soul, and not by compulsion. The idea of man's royal position on earth causes the Psalmist to praise the Creator ecstatically, "O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is Thy Name in all the earth! For Thy magnificence is lifted high above the heavens … For I will behold the heavens, the works of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast founded. What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest Him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, with glory and honor hast Thou crowned him, and Thou hast set him over the works of Thy hands … O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is Thy Name in all the earth!" (Ps. 8:1, 3-5, 8).

The Apostle instructs, "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen . . . even His eternal power and Godhead" (Rom. 1:20). That is, the invisible things of God are seen through beholding the creation. In all epochs of human history, the best minds, reflecting deeply on the world, have paused with astonishment before the majesty, harmony, beauty and rationality of the order of the world, and have been raised up from this to reverent thoughts of the goodness, majesty and wisdom of the Creator. St. Basil the Great, in his homilies on the six days (Hexaemeron), examines the first words of the book of Genesis. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" — and then calls on his hearers: "Let us glorify the superb Artist Who created the world most wisely and skillfully; and from the beauty of that which is visible, let us understand Him Who surpasses all in beauty: from the majesty of these sensible and limited bodies let us make a conclusion regarding Him Who is endless, Who surpasses every majesty, and in the multitude of His power surpasses every understanding." And then, going to the second homily, as it were pausing in hopelessness at penetrating further into the depths of creation, he utters these words: "If the entrance to the holy is such, and the entryway of the temple is so praiseworthy and majestic … then what is to be said of the Holy of Holies? And who is worthy to enter into the Holy Place? Who will stretch forth his gaze to that which is hidden?"

"My father worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5:17). In these words of the Lord Jesus Christ is contained the truth of God's constant care and providing for the world. Although God rested on the seventh day from all His works (Gen. 2:2,3), He did not abandon the world. God "giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ... In Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:25,28). The power of God keeps the world in existence and participates in all the activities of the created powers. The constancy of the so-called "laws of nature" is an activity of the living will of God; by themselves these "laws" would be powerless and ineffective.

The Providence of God embraces everything in the world. God provides not only for the great and the immense, but also for the small and apparently insignificant; not only over the heaven and the earth, angels and men, but also over the smallest creatures, birds, grasses, flowers, trees. The whole of Sacred Scripture is filled with the thought of God's unwearying providential activity.

By God's good will the universe stands, and the whole immense space of the world. God fills the heavens and the earth (Jer. 23:24); "when Thou turnest away Thy face, everything is troubled" (Ps. 103:30).

By God's Providence the world of vegetation lives on the earth: "God covereth heaven with clouds, Who prepareth rain for the earth, Who maketh grass to grow on the mountains, and green herb for the service of man" (Ps. 146:8-9). Nor does He leave without His care the lilies of the field, adorning them and other flowers with a beauty which astonishes us (Matt. 6:29).

The Providence of God extends to the whole of the animal kingdom: "The eyes of all look to Thee with hope and Thou givest them their food in due season. Thou openest Thy hand and fillest every living thing with Thy blessing" (Ps. 144:16-17). God cares even for the smallest bird: "One of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father" (Matt. 10:29).

But it is man who is the chief object of God's Fatherly Providence on earth. God knows the thoughts of each man (Ps. 138:2), his feelings (Ps. 7:9), even his sighs (Ps. 37:9). He provides what is needful even before He is asked (Matt. 6:32) and bends His ear to the supplication of those who ask (Ps. 85:1), fulfilling what is asked if only the request comes from a sincere and living faith (Matt. 17:20) and is for the good of the one who asks and helps one's search for the Kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33). God directs the steps of the man who does not know his own way (Prov. 20:24). He makes poor and enriches, He brings down and raises up, He causes wounds and Himself binds them up, He strikes and heals (Job 5:18). Loving the righteous, He spares sinners also: "Not unto the end will He be angered, neither unto eternity will He be wroth" (Ps. 102:8). He is longsuffering, in order by means of His goodness to lead sinners to repentance (Rom. 2:4). This all-embracing, ceaseless activity of God in the world is expressed in the Symbol of Faith when we call God "Almighty."

As for the seeming injustices of life, when we see virtuous men suffer while the impious are prosperous, Chrysostom exhorts us in the following words: "If the Kingdom of Heaven is open to us and a reward is shown to us in the future life, then it is not worth investigating why the righteous endure sorrows here while the evil live in comfort. If a reward is waiting there for everyone, according to their just deserts, why should we be disturbed by present events, whether they are fortunate or unfortunate? By these misfortunes God exercises those who are submissive to Him as manful warriors; and the weaker, negligent ones, and those unable to bear anything difficult, He exhorts ahead of time to perform good deeds" ("To Stagirius the Ascetic, " Homily I, 8, in his Collected Works in Russian, vol. I, pt. 1, p. 184). In fact, we ourselves often see that the best teachers and upbringers are the experiences and misfortunes which men undergo.

In essence, God's Providence over the world is a ceaseless and inseparable activity, even though our limited minds receive this activity of God in the varied and changing world under different forms and appearances. The activity of God's Providence is not, so to speak, an interference in the course of the life given to the world at its creation; it is not a series of private intrusions of God's will into the life of the world. The life of the world is constantly in God's right hand: "The world could not stand for an instant if God were to remove His Providence from it" (Bl. Augustine). "The almighty and most holy Word of the Father, being in the midst of all things and manifesting everywhere His powers, illuminating all things visible and invisible, embraces and contains everything in Himself, so that nothing is without participation in His power; but everything and in everything, every creature separately and all creatures together, He gives life and preserves" (St. Athanasius the Great, "Against the Pagans, " ch. 42).

In this regard one must note yet another aspect which causes man to pause in reverent astonishment. This is the fact that, while the Creator contains everything in His right hand, from the very day of creation He gave to all organic beings, and even to the vegetable kingdom, a freedom of growth and development, the use of their own powers and of the surrounding environment, each in its own measure and according to its nature and organization. Even greater freedom did the Creator give to man, His rational and morally responsible creation — the highest creation on earth. With this variety of strivings — natural, instinctive, and in the rational world also morally free — God's Providence comes together in such a way that all of them are held in themselves and are directed in accordance with the general providential plan. All of the imperfections, sufferings, and diseases which proceed from the collision of these separate strivings in the world, are corrected and healed by God's goodness. This goodness calms hostility and directs the life of the whole world towards the good goal which has been established for it from above. Further, to the rational creatures of God, this goodness opens up the way to the ceaseless glorification of God.

No matter how much humanity violates its purpose in the world, no matter how much it falls, no matter how much the masses of mankind, led by their evil leaders, are inclined to renounce the commandments of God and God Himself, as we see at the present time — the history of the world will still culminate in the attainment of the goal established for it by God's Providence: the triumph of God's righteousness, following which there will be the Kingdom of Glory, when "God will be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28).

Beholding the majesty, wisdom and goodness of God in the world, the Apostle Paul cries out: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! … For Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counselor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things: to Whom be glory for ever, Amen" (Rom. 11:33-36).

Having created man, the Creator did not leave the first-created ones without His Providence. The grace of God dwelt constantly in our first ancestors and, in the expression of the Holy Fathers, served as a kind of heavenly clothing for them. They had a perfect feeling of closeness to God, God Himself was their first Instructor and Teacher and vouchsafed His immediate revelations to them. Appearing to them, He conversed with them and revealed His will to them.

Chapters two and three of the book of Genesis depict for us the life of the first people. God placed Adam and Eve in Paradise, the Garden of Eden, the "Paradise of delight," where there grew every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food, commanding them to dress and keep it. The Garden of Eden was such a splendid place that the first people must have been involuntarily aroused to a feeling of joy and their minds raised to the most perfect Artist of the world. Labor itself must have facilitated the development both of their physical and spiritual powers.

As the writer of Genesis informs us, God brought all living creatures to man so that he might name them. It is clear that on the one hand this gave man the opportunity to become acquainted with the wealth and variety of the animal kingdom, and, on the other, facilitated the development of his mental capabilities, giving him a more complete knowledge of himself by comparison with the world which lay before his eyes, and an awareness of his royal superiority over all the other creatures of earth.

Understandably, the original condition of the first people was one of spiritual childhood and simplicity joined to moral purity. But this condition contained the opportunity for a speedy and harmonious development and growth of all man's powers, directed towards a moral likeness to God and the most intimate union with Him.

Man's mind was pure, bright, and sound. But at the same time it was a mind limited and untested by the experience of life, as was revealed at the time of the fall into sin. Man's mind had yet to develop and be perfected.

Morally, the first-created man was pure and innocent. The words, "They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed" (Gen. 2:25), is interpreted by St. John Damascene as "the pinnacle of dispassion." However, one should not understand this purity of the first people as meaning that from the very beginning they already possessed all virtues and were not in need of perfection. No, Adam and Eve, although they came from the hands of the Creator pure and innocent, had yet to be confirmed in the good and grow spiritually, with the help of God, by means of their own actions. "Man," as St. Irenaeus expresses it, "having received existence, was to grow and mature, then become strong, and, reaching full maturity should be glorified and, being glorified, should be vouchsafed to see God."

Man came from the hands of the Creator faultless also in body. His body, so remarkable in its organization, without any doubt received no inward or outward defects from the Creator. It possessed faculties which were fresh and uncorrupted. It had in itself not the least disorder and was able to be free of diseases and sufferings. Indeed, diseases and sufferings are presented in the book of Genesis as the consequences of our first ancestors' fall and as chastisements for sin. Additionally, the Book of Genesis gives a mystical indication of the Tree of Life, the tasting of which was accessible to the first ancestors before the fall into sin and preserved them from physical death. Death was not a necessity for man: "God created man neither completely mortal nor immortal, but capable of both the one and the other" (Theophilus of Antioch; see in Bishop Sylvester, An Essay in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. 3, p. 379).

But no matter how perfect the natural powers of man were, as a limited creature he required even then constant strengthening from the Source of all life, from God, just as do all created beings. Appropriate means for man's strengthening on the path of good were needed. Such an elementary means was the commandment not to taste of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was a commandment of obedience. Free obedience is the path to moral advancement. Where there is voluntary obedience there is (a) the cutting off of the way to self-esteem, (b) respect and trust for that which is above us, and (c) continence. Obedience acts beneficially upon the mind, humbling its pride; upon the feelings, limiting self-love; and upon the will, directing the freedom of man towards the good. The grace of God cooperates and strengthens one on this path. This was the path which lay before the first people, our first ancestors.

"God made man sinless and endowed with freedom of will. By being sinless I do not mean being incapable of sinning, for only the Divinity is incapable of sinning, but having the tendency to sin not in his nature but, rather, in his power of choice — that is to say, having the power to persevere and progress in good with the help of Divine grace, as well as having the power to turn from virtue and fall into vice" (St. John Damascene, Exact Exposition, II, 12; Engl. tr., p. 235).

In general, it is difficult if not impossible for contemporary man to imagine man's true condition in Paradise, a condition that joined together moral purity, clarity of mind, the perfection of first-created nature, and nearness to God, with a general spiritual childlikeness. But in any case it must be noticed that the traditions of all peoples speak of precisely such a condition, which the poets call the "golden age" of mankind (the traditions of the Chinese, the Indians, the Persians, the Greeks, and others). The great minds of pagan antiquity expressed the certainty that the ancients were more pure and moral than later men (Socrates); that the most ancient religious traditions and conceptions were more perfect than the later pagan conceptions, because the first men were nearer to God and knew Him as their Creator and Father (Plato and Cicero).

Evil and Misfortune. "Evil," in our ordinary use of words, is the name of two kinds of manifestations. We often understand by this word anything in general which evokes misfortune and causes suffering. But in a more precise, direct sense, evil is a name for negative manifestations of the moral order which proceed from the evil direction of the will and a violation of God's laws.

It is clear that misfortunes in the physical world — for example, earthquakes, storms, floods, landslides, and so on — are in themselves neither good nor evil. In the general world system they are what shadows are to bright colors in the art of painters, what crude sounds are to soft sounds in music, and so forth. This is the way in which holy Fathers such as Blessed Augustine and St. Gregory the Theologian treat these manifestations. One cannot deny that such manifestations of the elements are often the cause of misfortunes and sufferings for sensible creatures and for man; but one can only bow down in reverence before the all-wise order of the world, where the endlessly various and mutually opposed strivings on the part of blind elemental powers and organic creatures, which collide with each other at every moment, are in mutual agreement and are brought into harmony, becoming a source of constant development and renewal in the world.

Suffering and Sin. To a certain extent, the unpleasant, shadowy sides of our human life make us value and sense more highly the joyful sides of life. But the word of God itself tells us that difficult sufferings, sorrows, and afflictions cannot be acknowledged as manifestations that are completely in accordance with law and therefore normal; rather, they are a deviation from the norm. The sufferings of the human race began with the appearance of moral evil and are the consequences of sin, which entered into our life at that time. Of this the first pages of the Bible testify, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy sighing; in pain thou shalt bring forth children" (the words addressed to Eve after the fall into sin); "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life" (the words spoken to Adam; Gen. 3:16-17). Sufferings are given to man as a means of chastisement, enlightenment and corruption. According to St. Basil the Great, sufferings and death itself "cut off the growth of sin." Numerous examples of the awareness of the tie between suffering and sin as a result of its cause are given to us in the word of God: "Lay hold of chastisement, lest at any time the Lord be angry (Ps. 2:12); it is good for me that Thou hast humbled me, that I might learn Thy statutes" (Ps. 118:71). Careful observation itself shows that the causes of diseases and sufferings, in the overwhelming majority of cases, are men themselves, who have created artificial and abnormal conditions for their existence, introducing a cruel mutual warfare while chasing after their own egotistic physical well-being; and sometimes these things are the direct result of a certain demonic attitude — pride, revenge, and malice.

As the word of God instructs us, the consequences of moral evil spread from people to the animal world and to the whole of creation: "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," the Apostle Paul writes, and he further explains: "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected it in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. 8:22, 20-21).

The Essence of Moral Evil. The holy Fathers indicate that evil is not some kind of essence which has any actual independent existence, like the elements and powers of the world which were created by God. Evil is only a deviation of living beings from that original condition in which the Creator placed them, into a condition which is opposed to this. Therefore, it is not God Who is the cause of moral evil; rather, it proceeds from creatures themselves, for they have deviated from the agreement of their will with the will of God. The essence of evil consists in the violation of God's will, the commandments of God, and the moral law which is written in the human conscience. This violation is called sin.

The Origin of Evil. But from whence did moral evil arise? God created the world pure, perfect, free from evil. Evil entered the world as a consequence of the fall, which occurred, according to the word of God, originally in the world of fleshless spirits, and then in the human race, and was reflected in the whole of living nature.

According to the testimony of the word of God, the origin of sin comes from the devil: "He that committeth sin is of the devil — for the devil sinneth from the beginning" (1 John 3:8). The word "devil" means "slanderer." Bringing together the evidence of Sacred Scripture, we see that the devil is one of the rational spirits or angels who deviated into the path of evil. Possessing, like all rational creatures, the freedom which was given him for becoming perfect in the good, he "abode not in the truth" and fell away from God. The Savior said of him, "He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). He drew the other angels after himself into the fall. In the epistles of the Apostle Jude and the Apostle Peter, we read of the angels "which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation" (Jude, v. 6; compare with 2 Peter 2:4).

What was the cause of the fall in the angelic world? From this same Divine Revelation we can conclude that the reason was pride: "the beginning of sin is pride," says the son of Sirach (Sir. 10:13). The Apostle Paul, warning the Apostle Timothy against making bishops of those who are newly converted, adds, "Lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil" (1 Tim. 3:6).

The evil spirits are mentioned in only a few passages in the Old Testament Revelation. We read of the "serpent," the tempter of the first people, in the third chapter of the book of Genesis. The activities of "satan" in the life of the righteous Job are related in the first chapter of the book of Job. In First Kings it is said concerning Saul that an evil spirit troubled him after the Spirit of the Lord departed from him (1 Kings 15:14 — 1 Sam. In KJ). In First Paralipomenon (Chronicles), chapter 21, we read that when the thought came to King David to make a census of the people, it was because "satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel." In the book of the Prophet Zacharias it is said, concerning his vision of the chief priest Joshua, that Joshua resisted "the devil" ("satan" in KJ; Zacha. 3:1). In the book of the Wisdom of Solomon it is said that "through the devil's envy death entered the world" (Wis. 2:24). Likewise in Deuteronomy 32:17 it is said: "they sacrificed unto devils, not to God;" and in Psalm 105:35: "And they sacrificed … unto demons."

An incomparably more complete representation of the activity of satan and his angels is contained in the New Testament Revelation. From it we know that satan and the evil spirits are constantly attracting people to evil. Satan dared to tempt the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the desert. Evil spirits rush into the souls and even into the bodies of men; of this there is the testimony of many events in the Gospel and of the teachings of the Savior. Concerning the habitation of evil spirits in men, we know from the numerous healings by the Savior of the demon-possessed. Evil spirits, as it were, spy on the carelessness of man so as to attract him to evil. "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out, and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first" (Matt. 12:43-45). With regard to the healing of the bent woman, the Savior said to the ruler of the synagogue, "And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom satan hath bound, to there eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" (Luke 13:16).

The Sacred Scripture calls evil spirits "unclean spirits," "spirits of evil," "devils," "demons," "angels of the devil," and "angels of satan." Their chief, the devil, is also called the "tempter," "satan," "Beelzebub," "Belial," the "prince of devils," and other names like "Lucifer" (the morning star).

Taking the form of a serpent, the devil was the tempter and the cause of the fall into sin of the first people, as is related in the third chapter of the book of Genesis. In the Apocalypse he is called the "great dragon, that old serpent" (Apoc. 12:9).

The devil and his angels are deprived of remaining in the heavenly dwellings of light. "I beheld satan as lightning fall from heaven, said the Lord to His disciples" (Luke 10:18). Being cast down from the world above, the devil and his servants act in the world under the heaven, among men on earth, and they have taken into their possession, as it were, hell and the underworld. The Apostle calls them "principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world" (Eph. 6:12). The devil is "the prince of the power of the air" (Eph. 2:2), and his servants, the fallen angels, are "the spirits of wickedness under the heaven" (Eph. 6:12).

The Creator imparted to man three great gifts at his creation: freedom, reason, and love. These gifts are indispensable for the spiritual growth and blessedness of man. But where there is freedom there is the possibility of wavering in one's choice; thus, temptation is possible. The temptation for reason is to grow proud in mind; that instead of acknowledging the wisdom and goodness of God, to seek the knowledge of good and evil outside of God; to desire oneself to be a "god." The temptation for the feeling of love is: in place of love for God and one's neighbor, to love oneself and everything that satisfies the lower desires and gives temporary enjoyment. This possibility of temptation and fall stood before mankind, and the first man did not stand firm against it.

Let us make note here of St. John of Kronstadt's reflection on this subject. He writes, "Why did God allow the fall of man, his beloved creation and the crown of all the earthly creatures? To this question one must reply thus: If man is not to be allowed to fall, then he cannot be created in the image and likeness of God; he cannot be granted free will, which is an inseparable feature of the image of God, but he would have to be subject to the law of necessity, like the soulless creations — the sky, the sun, stars, the circle of the earth, and all the elements, or like the irrational animals. But then there would have been no king over the creatures of the earth, no rational hymnsinger of God's goodness, wisdom, creative almightiness, and Providence. Then man would have had no way to show his faithfulness and devotion to the Creator, his self-sacrificing love. Then there would have been no exploits in battle, no merits and no incorruptible crowns for victory; there would have been no eternal blessedness, which is the reward for faithfulness and devotion to God, and no eternal repose after the labors and struggles of our earthly pilgrimage."

The writer of Genesis does not tell us whether our first ancestors lived for a long time in the blessed life of Paradise. Speaking of their fall, he indicates that they did not come to the temptation of themselves, but were led to it by the tempter.

"Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman: Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of Paradise? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of Paradise, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of Paradise, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman: Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat" (Gen. 3:1-6).

The Christian Church has always understood the serpent, the tempter, to be the devil, who took the form of a serpent as corresponding best to his sneaky, cunning, and poisonous character. The clear words of our Lord Himself about the devil confirm this interpretation: "He was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). In the Apocalypse of John the Theologian, he is called "the great dragon, that old serpent" (Apoc. 12:9). In the book of the Wisdom of Solomon it says, "Through the devil's envy death entered the world" (Wis. 2:24).

The transgression of our first ancestors was this: Having been tempted by the serpent, they violated the direct commandment of God not to eat of the forbidden tree. The fulfillment of this commandment would have shown obedience to God and trust in His words, as well as humility and continence — a summing up of the simple and natural virtues. The eating of the forbidden fruit immediately drew after itself the whole sum of lamentable moral and physical consequences.

The eating of the fruit was only the beginning of moral deviation, the first push; but it was so poisonous and ruinous that it was already impossible to return to the previous sanctity and righteousness. On the contrary, there was revealed an inclination to travel farther on the path of apostasy from God. This is seen in the fact that they immediately noticed their nakedness and, hearing the voice of God in Paradise, they hid from Him and, by justifying themselves, only increased their guilt. In Adam's replies to God we see from the beginning his desire to flee from God's sight and an attempt to hide his guilt, the untruth in his saying that he had hidden from God only because he was naked, and then the attempt at self-justification and the desire to transfer his guilt to another, his wife. Blessed Augustine says, "Here was pride, because man desired to be more under his own authority than under God's; and a mockery of what is holy, because he did not believe God; and murder, because he subjected himself to death; and spiritual adultery, because the immaculateness of the human soul was defiled through the persuasion of the serpent; and theft, because they made use of the forbidden tree; and the love of acquisition, because he desired more than was necessary to satisfy himself."

Thus, with the first transgression of the commandment, the principle of sin immediately entered into man — "the law of sin" (nomos tis amartias). It struck the very nature of man and quickly began to root itself in him and develop. Of this sinful principle which entered human nature, the Apostle Paul wrote, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not … For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Rom. 7:18, 22-23). The sinful inclinations in man have taken the reigning position; man has become "the servant of sin" (Rom. 6:7). Both the mind and the feelings have become darkened in him, and therefore his moral freedom often does not incline towards the good, but towards evil. Lust and pride have appeared in the depths of man's impulses to activity in life. Of this we read in 1 John 2:15-16, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world ... For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." The lust of the flesh is a weakening of the authority of the spirit over the body, a subjection of it to the lower, fleshly desires; the lust of the eyes means the false idols and attachments, greed and hunger for the world, envy; and pride is self-esteem, egoism, self-exaltation, a despising of others who are weaker, love of self, and vainglory.

Contemporary psychological observations also lead investigators to the conclusion that lust and pride (the thirst for being better than others) are the chief levers of the strivings of contemporary fallen mankind, even when they are deeply hidden in the soul and are not completely conscious.

The physical consequences of the fall are diseases, hard labor, and death. These were the natural result of the moral fall, the falling away from communion with God, man's departure from God. Man became subject to the corrupt elements of the world, in which dissolution and death are active. Nourishment from the Source of Life and from the constant renewal of all of one's powers became weak in men. Our Lord Jesus Christ indicated the dependence of illnesses on sin when he healed the paralytic, saying to him, "Behold thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee" (John 5:14).

With sin, death entered into the human race. Man was created immortal in his soul, and he could have remained immortal also in body if he had not fallen away from God. The Wisdom of Solomon says, "God did not make death" (Wis. 1:13). Man's body, as was well expressed by Blessed Augustine, does not possess "the impossibility of dying," but it did possess "the possibility of not dying," which it has now lost. The writer of Genesis informs us that this "possibility of not dying" was maintained in Paradise by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life, of which our first ancestors were deprived after they were banished from Paradise. "As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom. 5:12). The Apostle calls death the "wages"; that is, the payment or reward for sin: "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23).

Physical misfortunes are not only a consequence of sin; at the same time they are chastisements from God, as was revealed in the words of God to our first parents when they were banished from Paradise. It is clear that these chastisements are given as a means of preventing man from a further and final fall.

Concerning the meaning of labors and diseases in fallen man, St. Cyril of Alexandria says that man, "having received as his lot an exhausting fast and sorrows, was given over to illnesses, sufferings, and the other bitter things of life as to a kind of bridle. Because he did not sensibly restrain himself in that life which was free of labors and sorrows, he is given over to misfortunes so that by sufferings he might heal in himself the disease which came upon him in the midst of blessedness" ("On the Incarnation of the Lord").

Of death, this same Holy Father says, "By death the Giver of the Law stopped the spread of sin, and in the very chastisement reveals His love for mankind inasmuch as He, in giving the commandment, joined death to the transgression of it, and inasmuch as the criminal thus fell under this chastisement, so He arranged that the chastisement itself might serve for salvation. For death dissolves this animal nature of ours and thus, on the one hand, stops the activity of evil, and on the other delivers a man from illnesses, frees him from labors, puts an end to his sorrows and cares, and stops his bodily sufferings. With such a love for mankind has the Judge mixed the chastisement" (the same Homily).

However, the final and most important consequence of sin was not illness and physical death, but the loss of Paradise. This loss of Paradise is the same thing as the loss of the Kingdom of God. In Adam all mankind was deprived of the future blessedness which stood before it, the blessedness which Adam and Eve had partially tasted in Paradise. In place of the prospect of life eternal, mankind beheld death, and behind it hell, darkness, and rejection by God. Therefore, the sacred books of the Old Testament are filled with dark thoughts concerning existence beyond the grave: "For in death there is none that is mindful of Thee, and in hades who will confess Thee?" (Ps.6:6). This is not a denial of immortality, but a reflection of the hopeless darkness beyond the grave. Such awareness and sorrow were eased only by the hope of future deliverance through the coming of the Savior: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though my skin hath been destroyed, yet in my flesh shall I see God" (Job 19:25-26). "Therefore did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad; moreover, my flesh shall dwell in hope. For Thou wilt not abandon my soul in hades, nor wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption" (Ps. 15:9-10).

After man's fall into sin, God did not reject man the sinner. He took away from him neither His image, which distinguished him from the animal world; nor the freedom of his will; nor his reason, by which man was capable of understanding spiritual principles; nor his other capabilities. God acted towards him as does a physician and educator: He covered his nakedness with clothing, moderated his self-esteem and pride, his fleshly desires and passions, by means of healing measures — labor and diseases — giving to them an educational significance. We ourselves can see the educational effect of labor, and the cleansing effect of disease on the soul. God subjected man to physical death so as not to hand him over to final spiritual death — that is, so that the sinful principle in him might not develop to the extreme, so that he might not become like satan.

However, this natural bridle of suffering and death does not uproot the very source of evil. It only restrains the development of evil. It was most necessary for mankind to have a supernatural power and help which might perform an inward reversal within him and give to man the possibility to turn away from a gradually deepening descent towards victory over sin and towards a gradual ascent to God. God's Providence foresaw the future fall of man's free will which had not become strong. Foreseeing the fall, He prearranged an arising. Adam's fall into sin was not an absolute perdition for mankind. The power which was to give rebirth, according to God's pre-eternal determination, was the descent to earth of the Son of God.

By original sin is meant the sin of Adam, which was transmitted to his descendants and weighs upon them. The doctrine of original sin has great significance in the Christian world-view, because upon it rests a whole series of other dogmas.

The word of God teaches us that through Adam "all have sinned": "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom. 5:12). "For who will be clean of defilement? No one, if he have lived even a single day upon earth" (Job 14:4-5, Septuagint). "For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bear me" (Ps. 50:5); "the seed of corruption is in me" (Evening Prayers).

The common faith of the ancient Christian Church in the existence of original sin may be seen in the Church's ancient custom of baptizing infants. The Local Council of Carthage in 252, composed of 66 bishops under the presidency of St. Cyprian, decreed the following against heretics: "Not to forbid (the baptism) of an infant who, scarcely born, has sinned in nothing apart from that which proceeds from the flesh of Adam. He has received the contagion of the ancient death through his very birth, and he comes, therefore, the more easily to the reception of the remission of sins in that it is not his own but the sins of another that are remitted." (The same thing is stated in Canon 110 of the "African Code," approved by 217 bishops at Carthage in 419 and ratified by the Council in Trullo (692) and the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787). Canon 110 ends: "On account of this rule of faith even infants, who could have committed as yet no sin themselves, therefore are truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that what in them is the result of generation may be cleansed by regeneration" (The Seven Ecumenical Councils, Eerdmans ed., p. 497).)

This is the way in which the "Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs" defines the result of the fall into sin: "Fallen through the transgression, man became like the irrational creatures. That is, he became darkened and was deprived of perfection and dispassion. But he was not deprived of the nature and power which he had received from the All-good God. For had he been so deprived, he would have become irrational, and thus not a man. But he preserved that nature with which he had been created, and the free, living and active natural power, so that, according to nature, he might choose and do the good, and flee and turn away from evil" ("Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs," paragraph 14).

In the history of the ancient Christian Church, Pelagius and his followers denied the inheritance of sin (the heresy of Pelagianism). Pelagius affirmed that every man only repeats the sin of Adam, performing anew his own personal fall into sin, and following the example of Adam because of his own weak will. However, his nature remains the same as when it was created, innocent and pure, the same as that of the first-created Adam. Moreover, disease and death are characteristic of this nature from the creation, and are not the consequences of original sin.

Blessed Augustine stepped out against Pelagius with great power and proof. He cited (a) testimonies from Divine Revelation concerning original sin, (b) the teaching of the ancient shepherds of the Church, (c) the ancient custom of baptizing infants, and (d) the sufferings and misfortunes of men, including infants, which are a consequence of the universal and inherited sinfulness of men. However, Augustine did not escape the opposite extreme, setting forth the idea that in fallen man any independent freedom to do good has been completely annihilated, unless grace comes to his aid.

Out of this dispute in the West there subsequently were formed two tendencies, one of which was followed by Roman Catholicism, and the other by Protestantism. Roman Catholic theologians consider that the consequence of the fall was the removal from men of a supernatural gift of God's grace, after which man remained in his "natural" condition, his nature not harmed but only brought into disorder because flesh, the bodily side, has come to dominate over the spiritual side. Original sin, in this view, consists of the fact that the guilt before God of Adam and Eve has passed to all men.

The other tendency in the West sees in original sin the complete perversion of human nature and its corruption to its very depths, to its very foundations (the view accepted by Luther and Calvin). As for the newer sects of Protestantism, reacting in their turn against the extremes of Luther, they have gone as far as the complete denial of original, inherited sin.

Among the shepherds of the Eastern Church there have been no doubts concerning either the teaching of the inherited ancestral sin in general, or the consequences of this sin for fallen human nature in particular.

Orthodox theology does not accept the extreme points of Blessed Augustine's teaching; but equally foreign to it is the (later) Roman Catholic point of view, which has a very legalistic, formal character. The foundation of the Roman Catholic teaching lies in (a) an understanding of the sin of Adam as an infinitely great offense against God; (b) after this offense there followed the wrath of God; (c) the wrath of God was expressed in the removal of the supernatural gifts of God's grace; and (d) the removal of grace drew after itself the submission of the spiritual principle to the fleshly principle, and a falling deeper into sin and death. From this comes a particular view of the redemption performed by the Son of God: In order to restore the order which had been violated, it was necessary first of all to give satisfaction for the offense given to God, and by this means to remove the guilt of mankind and the punishment that weighs upon him.

The consequences of ancestral sin are accepted by Orthodox theology differently.

After his first fall, man himself departed in soul from God and became unreceptive to the grace of God which was opened to him; he ceased to listen to the divine voice addressed to him, and this led to the further deepening of sin in him.

However, God has never deprived mankind of His mercy, help, grace, and especially His chosen people; and from this people there came forth great righteous men such as Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and the later prophets. The Apostle Paul, in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, lists a whole choir of Old Testament righteous ones, saying that they are those "of whom the world was not worthy" (Heb. 11:38). All of them were perfected not without a gift from above, not without the grace of God. The book of Acts cites the words of the first martyr, Stephen, where he says of David that he "found favor (grace) before God, and desired to find a tabernacle of the God of Jacob" (Acts 7:46); that is, to build a Temple for Him. The greatest of the prophets, St. John the Forerunner, was "filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15). But the Old Testament righteous ones could not escape the general lot of fallen mankind after death, remaining in the darkness of hell, until the founding of the Heavenly Church; that is, until the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ destroyed the gates of hell and opened the way into the Kingdom of Heaven.

One must not see the essence of sin — including original sin — only in the dominance of the fleshly over the spiritual, as Roman Catholic theology teaches. Many sinful inclinations, even very serious ones, have to do with qualities of a spiritual order, such as pride, which, according to the words of the Apostle, is the source, together with lust, of the general sinfulness of the world (1 John 2:15-16). Sin is also present in evil spirits who have no flesh at all. In Sacred Scripture the word "flesh" signifies a condition of not being reborn, a condition opposed to being reborn in Christ "That which it born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). Of course, this is not to deny that a whole series of passions and sinful inclinations originate in bodily nature, which Sacred Scripture also shows (Romans, ch. 7).

Thus, original sin is understood by Orthodox theology as a sinful inclination which has entered into mankind and become its spiritual disease.

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"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in His beloved Son: In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, wherein He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself: That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth" (Eph. 1:3-10).

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

"But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ" (Eph. 2:4-5).

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins... We love Him, because He first loved us" (1 John 4:10-19).

God, in foreknowledge of the fall of man, foreordained the salvation of men, even "before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4). The word of God calls the Saviour the Lamb of God "foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:20).

"When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. 4:4-5).

In what consists this "fullness of time" which was ordained for the work of redemption? In the verses which precede the quoted words of the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians, the Apostle speaks of the time before the coming of the Saviour as being "when we were children" (Gal. 4:3). Thus, he calls the period of the Old Testament "childhood," the time of upbringing, the guidance of children under the law of Moses; while the coming of the Saviour is the end of "childhood."

We can understand the significance of this preparatory period if we are guided by the parable of the Prodigal Son. The father sorrowed over the departure from his house of his beloved son. However, not violating the dignity and freedom of his son, he waited until the son, having experienced the bitterness of evil and recalled the goodness of life in his father’s house, himself became homesick for the father’s house and opened his soul for the father’s love. Thus it was with the human race also. "My soul thirsteth after Thee like a waterless land" (Ps. 142:6) could have been said by the best part of mankind; it had become a "thirsty land," having tasted to the dregs the bitterness of estrangement from God.

The Lord did not abandon men, did not turn utterly away, but from the moment of the fall into sin led them toward the future salvation.

1. Having cut off the criminality of the original mankind by means of the Flood, the Lord chose first from the descendants of Noah, who had been saved from the Flood, a single race for the preservation of piety and faith in the one true God, and likewise of faith in the coming Saviour. This was the race of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then the whole Hebrew people. In His care for His chosen people, God led them out of slavery, preserved them in the desert, settled them in a land flowing with milk and honey; He made covenants: the covenant of circumcision and the covenant of the law of Sinai; He sent them judges, prophets, warned them, chastised them, and again had mercy, leading them out of the Babylonian captivity; and finally, from their midst He prepared a chosen one, who became the Mother of the Son of God.

The choosenness of the Hebrew people was confirmed by the Lord Jesus Christ when He said to the Samaritan woman that "salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22). The writings of the Apostles testify abundantly to the same thing: The speech of the first martyr Stephen and the Apostle Peter in the Book of Acts, the Epistles of the Apostle Paul to the Romans and Galatians, and other places in Sacred Scripture.

2. Further, preparation for the reception of the Saviour consisted of a) the comforting promises of God and b) the prophecies of the prophets concerning His coming.

a) The promises of God began in Paradise. The words of the Lord to the serpent concerning "the Seed of the woman" possess a mystical significance: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. 3:15). The promise given here concerning the Seed of the woman became even clearer for the chosen ones of faith with the increase of prophecies about the Saviour Who Himself would endure suffering from the violence of the devil (Ps. 21), and strike him down: "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him" (Apoc. 12:9).

Further, there was the promise to Abraham: "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22:18) — a promise repeated to Isaac and Jacob (Gen. 26:4; 28:14). Its authentic significance was also gradually revealed to the Jews, during the period of their captivities and other misfortunes, as the promise of a Saviour of the world.

b) Prophecies: the blessing of Judah. The Patriarch Jacob, in blessing one of his sons just before his death, uttered an even more definite prophecy concerning the Saviour: "A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a prince from his loins, until there come the thing stored up for him (in the Hebrew: until there come a reconciler); and he is the expectation of nations (Gen. 49:10, Septuagint). In other words, the authority of the tribe of Judah shall not cease until the Reconciler, the hope of the nations, comes; and consequently, the termination of the authority of the tribe of Judah will be a clear sign of the coming of the Saviour. The ancient Jewish teachers saw in the "Reconciler" the awaited Messiah, to whom they applied this name (in Hebrew Shiloh, the Reconciler).

Another prophecy consists of the words of Moses to his people: "Thy Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken" (Deut. 18:15). After Moses there were many great prophets among the Hebrews, but to none of them were the words of Moses referred. And the same Book of Deuteronomy testifies of the time close to Moses; "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses" (Deut. 34:10). The Lord Jesus Christ Himself referred the words of Moses to Himself. "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me for he wrote of Me" (John 5:46).

Then came numerous prophecies in the form of prefigurations in the Psalms, of which the most expressive is Psalm 21, which the ancient rabbis recognized as a hymn of the Messiah. It includes a depiction of the severe and tormenting sufferings which the Saviour bore upon the Cross: "O God my God, attend to me; why hast Thou forsaken me… All that look upon me have laughed me to scorn; they have spoken with their lips and have wagged their heads: He hoped in the Lord; let Him deliver him… I have been poured out like water, and scattered are all my bones... They have parted my garments amongst themselves, and for my vesture have they cast lots..." Near the end of the Psalm are these words which concern the triumph of the Church: "In the great church will I confess Thee... The poor shall eat and be filled... Their hearts shall live for ever and ever."

A number of other Psalms also contain such prophecies or prefigurations. Some of these proclaim the sufferings of the Saviour (Pss. 39, 68, 108, 40, 15, 8), while others proclaim His glory (Pss. 2, 109, 44, 67, 117, 96, 94).

Finally, closer to the end of the Old Testament period, numerous prophecies appear in the books of the so-called major and minor prophets, and these ever more clearly reveal the imminent coming of the Son of God. They speak of the forerunner of the Lord, of the time, place, and conditions of the Saviour’s birth, of His spiritual-bodily image (His meekness, humility and other features), of the events preceding the betrayal of the Lord, of His sufferings and Resurrection, of the descent of the Holy Spirit, of the character of the New Testament, and of other aspects of the Lord’s coming.

Among these prophecies a special place belongs to the fifty-third chapter of the prophet Isaiah, which gives an image of the Saviour’s sufferings on the Cross. Here is how Isaiah prefigures the redeeming sufferings of the Messiah, Christ:

In the Prophet Daniel we read the revelation given to him by the Archangel Gabriel concerning the seventy weeks (490 years) — the period of time from the decree for the restoration of Jerusalem before Christ, until His death and the cessation of the Old Testament, that is, the cessation of sacrifices in the Temple of Jerusalem (Daniel 9:24-27).

These promises and prophecies, first of all, gave support to the chosen people, especially during the difficult periods of its life; they gave support to its firmness, faith, and hope. Secondly, they prepared the people so that they would be able to recognize by these prophecies that the time of the promise was near, and that they might recognize the Saviour Himself in the form given Him by the prophets.

Thanks to these prophecies, as the time of the Saviour’s coming neared, the expectation of Him was intense and vigilant among pious Jews. We see this in the Gospels. This is revealed in the expectation of Symeon the God-receiver, to whom it was declared that he would not see death until he had beheld Christ the Lord (Luke 2:26). It is revealed in the reply of the Samaritan woman to the Saviour: "I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ: when He is come, He will tell us all things" (John 4:25). It is revealed in the questions of the Jews who came to John the Baptist: "Art thou the Christ?" (John 1:20-25); in the words addressed by Andrew, the first-called Apostle, after his first meeting with Christ, to his brother Simon: "We have found the Messiah" (John 1:41), and likewise in the similar words of Philip to Nathaniel in the evangelist’s account of their calling to the apostleship (John 1:44-45). Another testimony to it is the people’s attitude at the time of the Lord’s entrance into Jerusalem.

3. To what has been said above must be added the fact that it was not only the Jews who were being prepared for the reception of the Saviour, but also the whole world, although to a lesser degree.

Even in the pagan world there were preserved — even though in a distorted form — traditions concerning the origin and originally blessed condition of mankind (the Golden Age), concerning the fall of our first ancestors in Paradise, concerning the Flood as a consequence of man’s corruption, and -- most important of all — the tradition of a coming Redeemer of the human race and the expectation of His coming, as may be seen in the works of Plato, Plutarch, Virgil, Ovid, Strabo, and likewise in the history of the religions of the ancient world (for example, the prediction of the sibyls (The sybils were pagan seeresses whose oracles and predictions were highly regarded in pagan Rome. These oracles referred for the most part to the destiny of peoples, kingdoms, and rulers, and some of them hinted at the coming of Christ.), of which we read in Cicero and Virgil).

The pagans found themselves in contact with the chosen people by means of mutual visits, sea voyages, wars, the captivities of the Jews (especially the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities), and trade, and thanks to the dispersion of the Jews into the various countries of the three parts of the old world towards the end of the Old Testament period. Under these conditions, the light of faith in the One God and hope in a Redeemer could be spread to other peoples also.

Over two centuries prior to Christ’s Nativity, a translation of the sacred books of the Hebrews had been made into Greek, and many pagan scholars, writers, and educated people in general made use of it; there are various testimonies of this, particularly among the ancient Christian writers.

From the Sacred Scripture we know that apart from the chosen people there were other people also who had preserved faith in the One God, and were on the way to the acceptance of piety. We learn of this in the account of Melchisedek in the book of Genesis (Gen. 14:18), in the history of Job, in the account of the father-in-law of Moses, Jethro of Midian (Exodus 18), in the account of Balaam, who prophecied concerning the Messiah: "I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh" (Num. 24:17), and in the repentance of the Ninevites after the preaching of Jonah. The readiness of many of the best people in the pagan world for the reception of the good news of the Saviour is also attested to by the fact that by the preaching of the Apostles the Church of Christ was quickly planted in every country of the pagan world, and that Christ Himself sometimes encountered in the pagans such faith as He did not find in the Jews themselves.

"But when the fullness of the time was come" (Gal.4:4), or, in other words:

• when the human race, following after Adam, had tasted in full measure, spiritually speaking, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and had come to know in experience the sweetness of doing good and the bitterness of evil doing;
• when for the most part mankind had reached an extreme degree of impiety and corruption;
• when the best, although smallest, part of humanity had an especially great thirst, longing, and desire to see the promised Redeemer, Reconciler, Saviour, Messiah;
• when, finally, by God’s will, the political conditions were ready because the whole of the civilized part of humanity had been united under the authority of Rome-something which strongly favored the spreading of faith and the Church of Christ;
• then the promised and expected Son of God came to earth.

Thus does the Evangelist John announce the glad tidings and theologize in the first lines of his Gospel. The Orthodox Church places this account at the head of all the Gospel readings, offering it to us at the Divine Liturgy on the day of holy Pascha, and beginning the yearly cycle of readings from the Gospel with this one.

"Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16). The unutterable, unknowable, invisible, unattainable God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became man in the form of the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and dwelt among men on earth.

The preaching of the God-Manhood of the incarnate Son of God constitutes the content of the words of the Saviour Himself, the content of the whole message of good tidings announced by the Apostles, the essence of the four Gospels and all of the Apostolic writings, the foundation of Christianity, and the foundation of the teaching of the Church.

The good tidings of the Gospel are the good tidings of the incarnate Son of God who became man, having come down from heaven to earth.

Faith in Jesus Christ — that He is the Son of God — is the firm foundation or rock of the Church, according to the Lord’s own words: "Upon this rock I will build my Church" (Matt. 16:18).

With these good tidings the Apostle Mark begins his account: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark 1:1).

With this same truth of faith the Evangelist John concludes the main text of his Gospel "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name" (John 20:31); that is, the preaching of the Divinity of Jesus Christ was the aim of the whole Gospel.

"That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35) — the Archangel Gabriel addressed the Virgin Mary.

At the Baptism of the Saviour these words were heard "This is My beloved Son"; the same thing was repeated at the Lord’s Transfiguration (Matt. 3:17, 17:5).

Simon confessed, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16), and this confession served for the promise that the Church of Christ would be built upon the rock of this confession.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself testified that He is the Son of God the Father: "All things are delivered unto Me of My Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him" (Matt. 11:27). Here Christ speaks of Himself as the only Son of the only God the Father.

In order that the words, "the Son of God," might not be understood in a metaphorical or conditional sense, the Sacred Scripture joins to them the expression, "Only-begotten" — that is, the Only one begotten of the Father: "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth" (John 1:14, 1:18).

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

Likewise, the Sacred Scripture uses the word "true," calling Christ the True Son of the True God: "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life" (1 John 5:20).

Similarly, the word "His own" is used in connection with the Son of God: "He Who did not spare His own (in the Greek, idion) Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:32)

The Only-begotten Son of God is True God even while in human flesh: "Whose (that is, the Israelites) are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen" (Rom. 9:5).

Thus, all the fullness of Divinity remains in the human form of Christ: "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9).

The first Ecumenical Council of Nicea was convoked for the confirmation of this truth in the clear awareness of all Christians, as the foundation of the Christian faith, and for this purpose it composed the Symbol of Faith (the Creed) of the Ecumenical Church.

Being perfect God, Christ the Saviour is at the same time also perfect Man.

As Man, Christ was born when for Mary, His mother, "the days were accomplished that she should be delivered" (Luke 2:6). He gradually "grew, and waxed strong in spirit" (Luke 2:40). As Mary’s son, He "was subject unto her and her spouse" (Luke 2:51). As Man, He was baptized of John in the Jordan; He went about the cities and villages with the preaching of salvation; not once before His Resurrection did he encounter a need to prove His humanity to anyone. He experienced hunger and thirst, the need for rest and sleep, and He suffered painful feelings and physical sufferings.

Living the physical life natural to a man, the Lord also lived the life of the soul as a man. He strengthened His spiritual powers with fasting and prayer. He experienced human feelings: joy, anger, sorrow; He expressed them outwardly: "He was troubled in spirit" (John 13:21), and showed dissatisfaction -- shedding tears, for example, at the death of Lazarus. The Gospels reveal to us a powerful spiritual battle in the garden of Gethsemane on the night before He was taken under guard: "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Matt. 26:38) — thus did the Lord describe the state of His soul to His disciples.

The rational, conscious human will of Jesus Christ unfailingly placed all human strivings in submission to the Divine will in Himself. A strikingly evident image of this is given in the Passion of the Lord, which began in the garden of Gethsemane: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt" (Matt. 26:39). "Not my will, but Thine, be done" (Luke 22:42).

Concerning the truth of the Saviour’s fully human nature, the Holy Fathers of the Church speak thus: "If the nature which He received had not had a human mind, then the one who entered into battle with the devil was God Himself; and it was therefore God who gained the victory. But if God was victorious, then I, who did not participate in this victory at all, do not receive any benefit from it. Therefore I cannot rejoice over it, for I would then be boasting of someone else’s trophies" (St. Cyril of Alexandria). "If the becoming man was a phantom, then salvation is a dream" (St. Cyril of Jerusalem). Other holy Fathers expressed themselves similarly.

The Church has always strictly guarded the correct teaching of the two natures of the Lord Jesus Christ, seeing in this an indispensable condition of faith, without which salvation is impossible.

The errors with regard to this teaching have been various, but they may be reduced to two groups: In one, we see the denial or lessening of the Divinity of Jesus Christ; in the other we see a denial or lessening of His Humanity.

A. As was already mentioned in the chapter on the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the spirit of the Jewish disbelief in the Divinity of Christ, the denial of His Divinity, was reflected in the Apostolic age in the heresy of Ebion, from whom these heretics received the name of Ebionites. A similiar teaching was spread in the third century by Paul of Samosata, who was denounced by two councils of Antioch. Slightly different was the false teaching of Arius and the various Arian currents in the 4th century. They thought that Christ was not a simple man, but the Son of God, created rather than begotten, and the most perfect of all the created spirits. The heresy of Arius was condemned at the First Ecumenical Council in 325, and Arianism was refuted in detail by the most renowned Fathers of the Church during the course of the 4^th and 5^th centuries.

In the 5^th century there arose the heresy of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which was supported by Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople. They acknowledged the Lord Jesus Christ to be only the "bearer" of the Divine principle, and therefore they ascribed to the Most Holy Virgin the title of Christotokos (Birthgiver of Christ), but not Theotokos (Birthgiver of God). According to Nestorius, Jesus Christ united within Himself two natures and two different persons, Divine and human, which touched each other but were separate; and after His birth He was Man, but not God. St. Cyril of Alexandria stepped forward as the chief accuser of Nestorius. Nestorianism was accused and condemned by the Third Ecumenical Council (431).

B. The other group erred in denying or lessening the humanity of Jesus Christ. The first heretics of this sort were the Docetists, who acknowledged the flesh and matter to be an evil principle with which God could not be joined; therefore, they considered that Christ’s flesh was only pretended or "seeming" (Greek dokeo, "to seem").

At the time of the Ecumenical Councils Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, taught incorrectly concerning the humanity of the Saviour. Although he acknowledged the reality of the Incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ, he affirmed that His humanity was incomplete: affirming the tripartite composition of human nature, he taught that Christ had a human soul and body, but that His spirit (or "mind") was not human but Divine, and that this comprised the Saviour’s Divine nature, which abandoned Him at the moment of His sufferings on the Cross.

Refuting these opinions, the Holy Fathers explained that it is the free human spirit that comprises the basic essence of man. It is this which, possessing freedom, was subjected to the fall and, being defeated, was in need of salvation. Therefore the Saviour, in order to restore fallen man, Himself possessed this essential part of human nature; or, to speak more precisely, He possessed not only the lower but also the higher side of the human soul.

In the 5^th century there was another heresy which lessened the humanity of Christ: that of the Monophysites: It arose among the monks of Alexandria and was the opposite of and a reaction against Nestorianism, which had lessened the Saviour’s Divine nature. The Monophysites considered that in Jesus Christ the principle of the flesh had been swallowed up by the spiritual principle, the human by the Divine, and therefore they acknowledged in Christ only one nature. Monophysitism, also called the heresy of Eutyches, was rejected at the Fourth Ecumenical Council, that of Chalcedon (451).

An offspring of the rejected heresy of the Monophysites was the teaching of the Monothelites (from the Greek thelima, "desire" or "will"), who set forth the idea that in Christ there is only one will. Starting from a fear that acknowledging a human will in Christ would permit the idea of two persons in Him, the Monothelites acknowledged only one Divine will in Christ. But, as the Fathers of the Church have explained, such a teaching abolished the whole labor for the salvation of mankind by Christ, since this consisted of the free subjection of the human will to the Divine will: "Not thy will, but Thine, be done," the Lord prayed. This error was rejected by the Sixth Ecumenical Council (681).

Both of these kinds of error, which died out in the history of the ancient Church, continue to find refuge for themselves partly in a hidden form but in part openly in the Protestantism of the last centuries. Protestantism, therefore, to a large extent refuses to recognize the dogmatic decrees of the Ecumenical Councils.

At three Ecumenical Councils — the Third (of Ephesus, against Nestorius), the Fourth (of Chalcedon, against Eutyches), and the Sixth (the third one of Constantinople, against the Monothelites) — the Church revealed the dogma of the one Hypostasis of the Lord Jesus Christ in two Natures, Divine and Human, and with two wills, the Divine will and the human will, which was entirely in subjection to the former.

The Third Ecumenical Council, that of Ephesus in 431, approved the exposition of faith of St. Cyril of Alexandria concerning the fact that "the Divinity and Humanity composed a single Hypostasis of the Lord Jesus Christ by means of the unutterable and inexplicable union of these distinct natures in one."

The Fourth Ecumenical Council, that of Chalcedon in 451, putting an end to Monophysitism, precisely formulated the manner of the union of the two Natures in the one Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, acknowledging the very essence of this union to be mystical and inexplicable. The definition of the Council of Chalcedon reads as follows:

"Following the Holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same (Person), that He is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and (human) body, one in Essence with the Father as touching His Godhead, and one in essence with us as touching His manhood; made in all things like unto us, as touching sin only excepted; begotten of His Father before the world according to His Godhead, but in the last days for us men and for our salvation born of the Virgin Mary the Theotokos, according to His manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son, must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably... not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets of old time have spoken concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us" (Eerdmans, Seven Ecumenical Councils, pp. 264-265).

The manner of this union of the natures is expressed in the Chalcedonian definition in the words: "Unconfusedly and immutably." The Divine and Human Natures in Christ do not mingle and are not converted one into the other.

"Indivisibly, inseparably." Both natures are forever united, not forming two persons which are only morally united, as Nestorius taught. They are inseparable from the moment of conception (that is, the man was not formed first, and then God was united to him; but God the Word, descending into the womb of Mary the Virgin, formed a living human flesh for Himself). These natures were also inseparable at the time of the Saviour’s sufferings on the Cross, at the moment of death, at the Resurrection and after the Ascension, and unto the ages of ages. In His deified flesh the Lord Jesus Christ will also come at His Second Coming.

Finally, the Sixth Ecumenical Council, in the year 681 (the third Council of Constantinople), decreed that there be confessed two wills in Christ and two operations: "Two natural wills not contrary the one to the other. . . but His human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to His Divine and omnipotent will" (from the "Definition of Faith" of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, Eerdmans, Seven Ecumenical Councils, p. 345).

The human nature — or, in the terminology of the Holy Fathers, the "flesh of the Lord" — united with the Godhead, was enriched by Divine powers without losing anything of its own attributes, and became a participant of the Divine dignity but not of the Divine nature. The flesh, being deified, was not destroyed, "but continued in its own state and nature," as the Sixth Ecumenical Council expressed it (loc. cit.).

Corresponding to this, the human will in Christ was not changed into the Divine will and was not destroyed, but remained whole and operative. The Lord completely subjected it to the Divine will, which in Him is one with the will of the Father: "I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me" (John 6:38).

In his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, St. John Damascene speaks thus of the union of the two natures in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ: "Just as we confess that the Incarnation was brought about without transformation or change, so also do we hold that the deification of the flesh was brought about. For the Word neither overstepped the bounds of His own Divinity nor the Divine prerogatives belonging to it just because He was made flesh, and when the flesh was made Divine it certainly did not change its own nature or its natural properties. For even after the union the natures remained unmingled and their properties unimpaired. Moreover, by reason of its most unalloyed union with the Word, that is to say, the hypostatic union, the Lord’s flesh was enriched with the Divine operations but in no way suffered any impairment of its natural properties. For not by its own operation does the flesh do Divine works, but by the Word united to it, and through it the Word shows His own operation. Thus, the steel which has been heated burns, not because it has a naturally acquired power of burning, but because it has acquired it from its union with the fire" (Exact Exposition, 3, 17; Engl. tr., p. 316-317). The union of the two natures in Christ is defined by St. John Damascene as "mutually immanent" (Exact Exposition, 111, 7, p. 284).

Concerning the manner of the union of the two natures in Christ, one must of course have in mind that the Councils and Church Fathers had only one aim: to defend the faith from the errors of heretics. They did not strive to reveal entirely the very essence of this union, that is, the mystical transfiguration of human nature in Christ, concerning which we confess that in His human flesh Christ sits at the right hand of God the Father, that in this flesh He will come with glory to judge the world and His Kingdom will have no end, and that believers receive communion of His life-giving Flesh and Blood in all times throughout the whole world.

The Fifth Ecumenical Council condemned the false teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which stated that the Lord Jesus Christ was not deprived of inward temptations and the battle with passions. If the word of God says that the Son of God came: "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3), it is thereby expressing the idea that this flesh was true human flesh, but not sinful flesh; rather, it was completely pure of every sin and corruption, both of the ancestral sin and of voluntary sin. In His earthly life, the Lord was free of any sinful desire, of every inward temptation; for the human nature in Him does not exist separately, but is united hypostatically to the Divinity.

With the union in Christ the God-man of two natures, there remains in Him one Person, one Personality, one Hypostasis. This is important to know because in general oneness of consciousness and self-awareness is dependent on oneness of personality. In the confession of faith of the Council of Chalcedon we read: "Not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten God the Word…" The Divine Hypostasis is inseparable in a single Hypostasis of the Word. This truth is expressed in the first chapter of the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" and further: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:1,14). On this foundation, in some passages of Sacred Scripture human attributes are indicated as belonging to Christ as God, and Divine attributes are indicated as belonging to the same Christ as man. Thus, for example, in 1 Cor. 2:8 it is said: "Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." Here the Lord of glory — God — is called crucified, for the "King of Glory" is God, as we read in Psalm 23:10: "Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of Glory." The truth of the unity of the Hypostasis of Christ as a Divine Hypostasis is explained by St. John Damascene in the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book 3, Chapters 7 and 8).

To the Lord Jesus Christ as to one person, as the God-man it is fitting to give a single inseparable worship, both according to Divinity and according to Humanity, precisely because both natures are inseparably united in Him. The decree of the Fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (the Ninth Canon against Heretics) reads: "If anyone shall take the expression, Christ ought to be worshipped in His two natures, in the sense that he wishes to introduce thus two adorations, the one in special relation to God the Word and the other as pertaining to the Man… and does not venerate, by one adoration, God the Word made man, together with His flesh, as the Holy Church has taught from the beginning: let him be anathema" (Eerdmans, Seven Ecumenical Councils, p. 314).

In connection with this decree of the Council it may be seen how out of harmony with the spirit and practice of the Church is the cult of the "sacred heart of Jesus" which has been introduced into the Roman Catholic Church. Although the above-cited decree of the Fifth Ecumenical Council touches only on the separate worship of the Divinity and the Humanity of the Saviour, it still indirectly tells us that in general the veneration and worship of Christ should be directed to Him as a whole and not to parts of His Being; it must be one. Even if by "heart" we should understand the Saviour’s love itself, still neither in the Old Testament nor in the New was there ever a custom to worship separately the love of God, or His wisdom, His creative or providential power, or His sanctity. All the more must one say this concerning the parts of His bodily nature. There is something unnatural in the separation of the heart from the general bodily nature of the Lord for the purpose of prayer, contrition and worship before Him. Even in the ordinary relationships of life, no matter how much a man might be attached to another — for example, a mother to a child — he would never refer his attachment to the heart of the beloved person, but will refer it to the given person as a whole.

Two dogmas concerning the Mother of God are bound up, in closest fashion, with the dogma of God the Word’s becoming man. They are: a) Her Ever-virginity, and b) Her name of Theotokos. They proceed immediately from the dogma of the unity of the Hypostasis of the Lord from the moment of His Incarnation — the Divine Hypostasis.

The birth of the Lord Jesus Christ from a Virgin is testified to directly and deliberately by two Evangelists, Matthew and Luke. This dogma was entered into the Symbol of Faith of the First Ecumenical Council, where we read: Who for the sake of its men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man. The Ever-virginity of the Mother of God is testified to by Her own words, handed down in the Gospel, where she expressed awareness of the immeasurable majesty and height of Her chosenness: "My soul doth magnify the Lord... For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed... For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His Name" (Luke 1:46-49).

The Most Holy Virgin preserved in her memory and in her heart both the announcement of the Archangel Gabriel and the inspired words of righteous Elizabeth when she was visited by Mary: "And whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to Me?" (Luke 1:43); both the prophecy of the righteous Symeon on meeting the Infant Jesus in the Temple, and the prophecy of the righteous Anna on the same day (Luke 2:25-38). In connection with the account of the shepherds of Bethlehem concerning the words of the angels to them, and of the singing of the angels, the Evangelist adds: "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). The same Evangelist, having told of the conversation of the Divine Mother with the twelve year-old Jesus after their visit to Jerusalem on the Feast of Pascha, ends his account with the words: "But His mother kept all these sayings in her heart" (Luke 2:51). The Evangelists speak also of the understanding of the majesty of her service in the world by the righteous Joseph, her espoused husband, whose actions were many times guided by an angel.

When the heretics and simple blasphemers refuse to acknowledge the Ever-virginity of the Mother of God on the grounds that the Evangelists mention the "brothers and sisters of Jesus," they are refuted by the following facts from the Gospel:

a) In the Gospels there are named four "brothers" (James, Joses, Simon, and Jude), and there are also mentioned the "sisters" of Jesus — no fewer than three, as is evident in the words: and "His sisters; are they not ALL with us?" (Matt. 13:56)

b) On the other hand, in the account of the journey to Jerusalem of the twelve-year-old boy Jesus, where there is mention of the "kinsfolk and acquaintances" (Luke 2:44) in the midst of whom they were seeking Jesus, and where it is likewise mentioned that Mary and Joseph every year journeyed from faraway Galilee to Jerusalem, no reason is given to think that there were present other younger children with Mary: it was thus that the first twelve years of the Lord’s earthly life proceeded.

c) When, about twenty years after the above-mentioned journey, Mary stood at the cross of the Lord, she was alone, and she was entrusted by her Divine Son to His disciple John; and "From that hour that disciple took her unto his own home" (John 19:27). Evidently, as the ancient Christians also understood it, the Evangelists speak either of "half" brothers and sisters or of cousins (The generally accepted Orthodox tradition is that the "brothers" and "sisters" of the Lord are the children of Joseph by an earlier marriage. See Archbishop John Maximovitch, The Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God, St. Herman Brotherhood, Platina, Ca., 1978, p. 24.).

With the dogma of the Son of God’s becoming man is closely bound up the naming of the Most Holy Virgin Mary as Theotokos (Birthgiver of God). By this name the Church confirms its faith that God the Word became Man truly and not merely in appearance; a faith that, in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God was joined to Man from the very instant of His conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and that He, being perfect Man, is also perfect God.

At the same time the name of Theotokos is the highest name that exalts or glorifies the Virgin Mary.

The name "Theotokos" has a direct foundation in Sacred Scripture. The Apostle Paul writes: a) "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman" (Gal. 4:4). Here is expressed the truth that a woman gave birth to the Son of God; b) "God was manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16): the flesh was woven for God the Word by the Most Holy Virgin Mary.

At the meeting of the Virgin Mary, after the Annunciation, with the righteous Elizabeth, "Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she spake out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me? And blessed is she that believed for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord" (Luke 1:41-44). Thus Elizabeth, being filled with the Holy Spirit, calls Mary the Mother of the Lord, the God of Heaven; it is precisely the God of Heaven that she is here calling "Lord," as is clear from her further words: "She that believed… those things which were told her from the Lord" — the Lord God.

Concerning the birth of God from a virgin the Old Testament Scriptures speak: The Prophet Ezekiel writes of his vision: "Then said the Lord unto me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut" (Ezek. 44:2).

The Prophet Isaiah prophesies: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel, which is to say: God is with us ... For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Messenger of great counsel, Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, Potentate, The Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come" (Is. 7:14, and 9:6 Septuagint).

In the first centuries of the Church of Christ the truth of God the Word’s becoming man and His birth of the Virgin Mary was the catholic faith. Therefore, the Apostolic Fathers expressed themselves thus: "Our God Jesus Christ was in the womb of Mary;" "God took flesh of the Virgin Mary" (St. Ignatius the God-bearer, St. Irenaeus). Exactly the same expressions were used by Sts. Dionysius and Alexander of Alexandria (3^rd and 4^th centuries). The Fathers of the fourth century, Sts. Athanasius, Ephraim the Syrian, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Gregory of Nyssa, called the Most Holy Virgin the Theotokos.

In the fifth century, because of the heresy of Nestorius, the Church triumphantly confessed the Most Holy Virgin Mary to be Mother of God at the Third Ecumenical Council, accepting and confirming the following words of St. Cyril of Alexandria: "If anyone will not confess that Immanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is Theotokos, inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh: let him be anathema" (Eerdmans Seven Ecumenical Councils, p. 206).

Blessed Theodoret also, who previously had been on friendly terms with Nestorius, when later condemning his stubbornness in heresy wrote: "The first stage in these new teachings of Nestorius was the opinion that the Holy Virgin, from whom God the Word took flesh and was born in the flesh, should not be acknowledged as Theotokos but only as Christotokos; whereas the ancient and most ancient proclaimers of the true Faith, in accordance with the Apostolic Tradition, had taught that the Mother of the Lord should be named and confessed to be Theotokos."

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed by a Bull of Pope Pius IX in 1854. The definition of this dogma says that the Most Holy Virgin Mary at the moment of her conception was cleansed of ancestral sin. In essence this is a direct deduction from the Roman teaching on original sin. According to the Roman teaching, the burden of the sin of our first ancestors consists in the removal from mankind of a supernatural gift of grace. But here there arose a theological question: if mankind had been deprived of the gifts of grace, then how is one to understand the words of the Archangel addressed to Mary: "Rejoice, thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art thou among women . . . Thou hast found grace with God?" One could only conclude that the Most Holy Virgin Mary had been removed from the general law of the "deprivation of grace" and of the guilt of the sin of Adam. And since her life was holy from her birth, consequently she received, in the form of an exception, a supernatural gift, a grace of sanctity, even before her birth, that is, at her conception. Such a deduction was made by the Latin theologians. They called this removal a "privilege" of the Mother of God. One must note that the acknowledgement of this dogma was preceded in the West by a long period of theological dispute, which lasted from the 12th century, when this teaching appeared, until the 17^th century, when it was spread by Jesuits in the Roman Catholic world (Further on the Immaculate Conception, see Archbishop John, The Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God, pp. 35-47).

In 1950, the so-called Jubilee Year, the Roman Pope Pius XII triumphantly proclaimed a second dogma, the dogma of the Assumption of the Mother of God with her body into heaven. Dogmatically this teaching was deduced in Roman theology from the Roman dogma of the Immaculate Conception and is a further logical deduction from the Roman teaching on original sin. If the Mother of God was removed from the general law of original sin, this means that she was given from her very conception supernatural gifts: righteousness and immortality, such as our first ancestors had before their fall into sin, and she should not have been subject to the law of bodily death. Therefore, if the Mother of God died, then, in the view of the Roman theologians, she accepted death voluntarily so as to emulate her Son; but death had no dominion over her.

The declaration of both dogmas corresponds to the Roman theory of the "development of dogmas." The Orthodox Church does not accept the Latin system of arguments concerning original sin. In particular, the Orthodox Church, confessing the perfect personal immaculateness and perfect sanctity of the Mother of God, whom the Lord Jesus Christ by His birth from her made to be more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim — has not seen and does not see any grounds for the establishment of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the sense of the Roman Catholic interpretation, although it does venerate the conception of the Mother of God, as it does also the conception of the holy Prophet and Forerunner John.

On the one hand, we see that God did not deprive mankind, even after its fall, of His grace-giving gifts, as for example, the words of the 50^th Psalm indicate: "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me... With Thy governing Spirit establish me;" or the words of Psalm 70: "On Thee have I been made fast from the womb; from my mother’s womb Thou art my protector."

On the other hand, in accordance with the teaching of Sacred Scripture, in Adam all mankind tasted the forbidden fruit. Only the God-man Christ begins with Himself the new mankind, freed by Him from the sin of Adam. Therefore, He is called the "Firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29), that is: the First in the new human race; He is the "new Adam." The Most Holy Virgin was born as subject to the sin of Adam together with all mankind, and with him she shared the need for redemption (the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, Par. 6). The pure and immaculate life of the Virgin Mary up to the Annunciation by the Archangel, her freedom from personal sins, was the fruit of the union of her spiritual labor upon herself and the abundance of grace that was poured out upon her. "Thou hast found grace with God," the Archangel said to her in his greeting: "thou hast found," that is, attained, acquired, earned. The Most Holy Virgin Mary was prepared by the best part of mankind as a worthy vessel for the descent of God the Word to earth. The coming down of the Holy Spirit ("the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee") totally sanctified the womb of the Virgin Mary for the reception of God the Word.

One must acknowledge that the very principle of a preliminary "privilege" is somehow not in harmony with Christian concepts, for "there is no respect of persons with God" (Rom. 2:11).

As for the tradition concerning the assumption of the body of the Mother of God: the belief in the assumption of her body after its burial does exist in the Orthodox Church. It is expressed in the content of the service for the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, and also in the Confession of the Jerusalem Council of the Eastern Patriarchs in 1672. St. John Damascene in his second homily on the Dormition relates that once the Empress Pulcheria (5th century), who had built a church in Constantinople, asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Juvenalius, a participant in the Council of Chalcedon, for relics of the Most Holy Virgin Mary to place in the church. Juvenalius replied that, in accordance with ancient tradition, the body of the Mother of God had been taken to heaven, and he joined to this reply the well-known account of how the Apostles had been assembled in miraculous fashion for the burial of the Mother of God, how after the arrival of the Apostle Thomas her grave had been opened and her body was not there, and how it had been revealed to the Apostles that her body had ascended to heaven. Written church testimonies on this subject date in general to a relatively late period (not earlier than the 6^th century), and the Orthodox Church, with all its respect for them, does not ascribe to them the significance of a dogmatic source. The Church, accepting the tradition of the ascension of the body of the Mother of God, has not regarded and does not regard this pious tradition as one of the fundamental truths or dogmas of the Christian faith.

In a way similar to the veneration of the "Sacred Heart" of Jesus, there has been established by the Roman Church the cult of the "immaculate heart of the Most Holy Virgin," which has received a universal dissemination. In essence one can say of it the same thing that was said above about the veneration of the heart of Jesus.

The dogma of salvation in Christ is the central dogma of Christianity, the heart of our Christian faith. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Redeemer and Saviour of the human race. All the preceding history of mankind up to the Incarnation of the Son of God, in the clear image given both in the Old Testament and the New Testament Scriptures, is a preparation for the coming of the Saviour. All the following history of mankind, after the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord, is the actualization of the salvation which had been accomplished: the reception and assimilation of it by the faithful. The culmination of the great work of salvation is bound up with the end of the world. The Cross and the Resurrection of Christ stand at the very center of human history.

Neither descriptions nor enumerations can take in the majesty, breadth, power, and significance of the earthly ministry of Christ; there is no measuring-stick for the all-surpassing wealth of God’s love, manifest in His mercy for the fallen and for sinners in miracles, in healings, and finally, in His innocent sacrificial death, with prayer for His crucifiers. Christ took upon Himself the sins of the entire world; He received in Himself the guilt of all men. He is the Lamb slaughtered for the world. Are we capable of embracing in our thoughts and expressing in our usual, everyday conceptions and words all the economy of our salvation? We have no words for heavenly mysteries.

"We faithful, speaking of things that pertain to God, touch upon an ineffable mystery, the Crucifixion, that mind cannot comprehend, and the Resurrection that is beyond description: for today death and hell are despoiled, while mankind is clothed in incorruption" (Sedalion after the second kathisma, Sunday Matins, Tone 3).

However, as we see from the writings of the Apostles, the very truth of salvation, the truth of this mystery, was for the Apostles themselves entirely clear in its undoubtedness and allembracingness. Upon it they based all their instruction, by means of it they explain events in the life of mankind, they place it as the foundation of the life of the Church and the future fate of the whole world. They constantly proclaim the good news of salvation in the most varied expressions, without detailed explanations, as a self-evident truth. They write: "Christ saved us;" "you are redeemed from the curse of the law;" "Christ has justified us;" "you are bought at a dear price;" Christ "has covered our sins;" He is a "propitiation for our sins;" by Him we have been "reconciled with God;" He is "the sole Chief Priest;" "He has torn up the handwriting against us and nailed it to the Cross;" He "was made a curse for us;" we have peace with God "by the death of His Son;" we have been "sanctified by His blood;" we have been "resurrected together with Christ." In such expressions, chosen here at random, the Apostles have contained a truth which in its very essence surpasses human understanding, but which is clear for them in its meaning and in its consequences. In a simple and accessible way this truth has penetrated from their lips into the hearts of the faithful so that they all might know what is "the economy of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, Who created all things by Jesus Christ" (Eph. 3:9). Let us, therefore, examine the teaching of the Apostles.

In the preaching of the Apostles, especially worthy of attention is the fact that they precisely teach us to distinguish between the truth of the salvation of mankind as a whole, which has already been accomplished, and another truth — the necessity for a personal reception and assimilation of the gift of salvation on the part of each of the faithful, and the fact that this latter salvation depends upon each one himself. "Ye are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God," writes the Apostle Paul (Eph. 2:8); but he also teaches, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12).

Man’s salvation consists in the acquirement of eternal life in God, in the Kingdom of Heaven. "But nothing unclean can enter the Kingdom of God" (cf. Eph. 5:5; Apoc. 21:27). God is Light, and there is no darkness in Him, and those who enter the Kingdom of God must themselves be sons of the Light. Therefore, entrance into it necessarily requires purity of soul, a garment of "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14).

The Son of God came into the world in order a) to open the path to mankind in its entirety for the personal salvation of each of us; and in order by this means b) to direct the hearts of men to the search, to the thirst for the Kingdom of God, and "to give help, to give power on this path of salvation for the acquirement of personal spiritual purity and sanctity." The first of these has been accomplished by Christ entirely. The second depends upon ourselves, although it is accomplished by the activity of the grace of Christ in the Holy Spirit.

In the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and in particular in the psalms of David, the chosen Hebrew people, as the representative of all mankind, is presented as "the planting of God," as the vineyard of God (see Isaiah 5:7, 61:3). The image of a garden, having the same meaning, is given also in the Gospel. A vineyard or garden must bear fruits. Preserving and guarding His planting, the Lord expects fruits from it. But what should be done with a fruit garden when it bears no fruits, and, what is more, is infected with a disease? Should it be looked after if it does not justify its purpose?

"The axe is laid unto the root of the trees; therefore, every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Matt. 3:10). Thus did St. John the Forerunner warn and accuse the people before the coming of the Lord.

The Lord speaks of the same thing, and gives to His disciples the parable of the fig tree.

Like this fig tree, the human race was fruitless. Once already it had been exterminated by the flood. Now it would have been doomed — it would have doomed itself — to the loss of eternal life, to the general loss of the Kingdom of God, because it had lost all value as not having fulfilled its purpose and as drowning in evil.

Mankind, in the person of its best representatives, acknowledged its unfulfilled debt, the heavy debt of numerous preceding generations and of its own age. It was a debtor unable to pay. This feeling of guilt in its purest form was present in the Jewish people. Mankind tried to erase its sins by means of sacrifices, which expressed the giving over to God of the best part of what was in man’s possession, in the possession of his family, as a gift to God But these sacrifices were not capable of morally regenerating men.

Let us quote here the words of the holy righteous Fr. John of Kronstadt, from his sermon on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord: "Let us enter into the meaning of the mystery of the Cross . . . The world, that is, the human race, would have been given over to eternal death, to eternal torments, according to the unchanging, most strict justice of God, if the Son of God had not become, out of His limitless goodness, a voluntary Intermediary and Redeemer of mankind, which was criminal, defiled and corrupted by sin. For, by the deception of the serpent, the murderer of men, it was cast down into a frightful abyss of lawlessness and perdition . . . However, so that men might be capable of this reconciliation and redemption from above, it was necessary for the Son of God to descend into the world, to take upon Himself a human soul and body, and become the God-Man, in order that in His own Person, in His human nature, He might fulfill all the righteousness of God which had been brazenly violated by all manner of human unrighteousness; in order that He might fulfill the whole law of God, even to the least iota, and become the greatest of righteous men for the whole of unrighteous mankind, and teach mankind righteousness with repentance for all its unrighteousness and show forth the fruits of repentance. This He fulfilled, not being guilty of a single sin, and was the only perfect man, in hypostatical union with the Divinity" (Sermon on the Feast of the Exaltation: "The Meaning of the Mystery of the Cross").

How was the general justification of human existence accomplished, and in what did it consist? It was accomplished by the Incarnation of God, together with all the further events in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. The light of Sanctity shone forth upon the earth. In the person of the Immaculate, Most Pure Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, all mankind was sanctified. By the steps of the Saviour, by His baptism in the Jordan, by His life on earth, the very nature of the earth was sanctified. The Gospel teaching and the deeds of mercy of Jesus Christ kindled love and faith in the hearts of the disciples of Christ, to such an extent that they "left everything" and followed after Him. And, above all this, in His voluntary death on the Cross, there is a manifestation, "surpassing the understanding," of the heights of the love of Christ, concerning which the Apostle Paul reasons thus:

And the Apostle concludes his thought with this: By this means was accomplished the fact that "when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (Rom. 5:10); "by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life" (Rom. 5:18). This is why the Apostle Paul in his Divinely-inspired writings so often joins together, as if identifying them, even using them interchangeably, the words "we are saved by the love of Christ" with the words "we are saved by the Cross, or by the death, or by the righteousness of Christ," since in all of this there is expressed the active, merciful, compassionate, man-loving self-sacrificing sacrificial love of God.

1. This general economy of the salvation of the world is presented in the Sacred Scripture of the New Testament in various words similar in significance, as for example: justification, reconciliation, redemption, propitiation, forgiveness, deliverance.

Here are some texts relating to this general economy:

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

"And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2).

"Christ died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:15).

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave Himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2:5-6).

"Trust in the living God, Who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe" (1 Tim. 4:10).

2. In addition to the broad significance of the salvation of the world here indicated, the death of Christ and His subsequent descent into hades (1 Peter 3:19-20, 4:6; Eph. 4:8-10) signify in a narrower sense the deliverance from hades of the souls of the reposed first ancestors, prophets, and righteous ones of the pre-Christian world; and thus they express the special significance of the Cross of the Lord for the Old Testament world, a significance which comes from the death of Christ accomplished upon it: "for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament" (Heb. 9:15). In accordance with this, our Orthodox hymns for Sunday also sing of the mystical truth of the victory over hades and the deliverance of souls from it: "Today Adam dances for joy and Eve rejoices, and with them the prophets and Patriarchs unceasingly sing of the divine triumph of Thy power" (Sunday Kontakion, Tone Three).

3. The deliverance from hades testifies also to the lifting of the curses which were placed in the Old Testament: a) the curses in the third chapter of the book of Genesis, which were joined to the deprivation of life in Paradise of Adam and Eve and their descendants; and then b) the curses placed by Moses, in the book of Deuteronomy (ch. 28), for the stubborn non-fulfillment of the laws given through him.

The transition from the idea of the general economy of God to the call for the personal salvation of men is clearly expressed in the following words of Apostle Paul: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation . . . We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:19-20).

The personal salvation of man is expressed in Sacred Scripture usually in the same terminology, in the same words, as is the salvation of the world in the broad sense of the word ("justification," "redemption," "reconciliation"), as we see in the text we have cited above. Only the words are applied here in a narrower significance. Here the Apostles already have in mind men who have come to believe in Christ and have received Holy Baptism. The common phrases used to express both kinds of salvation may be seen in the following examples:

"Christ according to His mercy saved us, by the washing of regeneration (in baptism), and renewing of the Holy Spirit... that being justified by His grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:5-7).

"Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption" (that is to say, the day of baptism and the receiving of the seal of the Holy Spirit; Eph. 4:30).

But the chief place among all such expressions with relation to Christians is the conception of "resurrection in Christ." The mystery of baptism is a personal resurrection in Christ: "Ye are risen with Him" (Col. 2:12).

The Apostle Peter writes in his First Catholic Epistle: "Baptism doth also now save us... by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21). The very preaching of the Apostle is, in its essence, the preaching of the Resurrection of Christ.

Baptism by water is called in the Apostolic Scriptures likewise a "new birth, adoption, sanctification. But ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus" (1 Cor. 6:11). "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27).

From this it is clear that in the mystery of redemption the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord are inseparable. In the consciousness of the Church this truth is expressed in full measure in the Paschal hymns, which confess the power of the Resurrection of Christ not only for the personal salvation of the Christian, but also in the final, complete justification of the world: "Passover of incorruption, salvation of the world" (Exapostilarion of Pascha). By the Cross has been accomplished the cleansing of the sins of the world, the reconciliation with God; by the Resurrection new life has been brought into the world.

The totality of the consequences of the Cross and Resurrection are usually expressed by the Apostles, and therefore in theological terminology also, by the single concept of "redemption," which literally signifies a "ransom," an offering of payment. This conception is sufficiently vivid and lively that it has been accessible to the understanding of people even of the lowest rank of society. But this vividness in itself has inspired attempts to ask further questions which do not relate to the essence of salvation, inasmuch as this term has only a symbolical, allegorical significance. Therefore, St. Gregory the Theologian puts off these further questions and establishes the essence of the present expression in the following reflection:

In this theological reflection of St. Gregory the Theologian, the idea which appears in the First Catholic Epistle of the Apostle Peter is given complete expression: "Ye were not redeemed with vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:18-20).

For a theological definition of the concept of "redemption," a philological examination of the Greek words which correspond to this concept has great importance.

In the Greek text of the New Testament Scriptures, this concept is expressed by two words, and each of them has a significant shade of meaning. The first of them lytro-o, means "to buy off," "ransom." In those times the world knew three forms of ransoming people, namely (according to Greek dictionaries), 1) ransoming from captivity, 2) ransoming from prison, for example, for debts, 3) ransoming from slavery. In the Christian meaning, the Apostles use this term to express the moment in the accomplishment of our salvation that is joined to the Cross of Christ, that is, the deliverance from the sinful world, from the power of the devil, the liberation from the curses, the liberation of the righteous from the bonds of hades. These are the same three forms of "ransoming:" ransoming from the captivity of sin, ransoming from hades, ransoming from slavery to the devil.

The second verb, agorazo, signifies "to buy for oneself," "to buy at the marketplace" (agora means "marketplace"). The image utilized in this term refers only to believers, to Christians. Here it has an especially rich significance. This verb is encountered three times in the writings of the Apostles, namely:

"What! Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price" (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

"Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men" (1 Cor. 7:23).

The hymn in heaven to the Lamb: "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood" (Apoc. 5:9).

In all three places this verb signifies that Christ has acquired us for Himself so that we might belong to Him entirely, as bought slaves belong to their Master. It remains for us to reflect upon the depth of this image, which was placed in the word by the Apostles themselves.

On the one hand, the name "slaves" of Christ signifies a complete, unconditional giving over of oneself into obedience to Him Who has redeemed us all. Such precisely did the Apostles feel themselves to be. It is sufficient to read the first verses of a number of the Epistles of the Apostles. In the first words they call themselves the slaves (or servants) of Christ: "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ" (2 Peter); "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James" (Jude); "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle" (Romans); "Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ" (Philipians). Such a self-awareness should be present, according to the teaching of the Apostles, in all believers. The Holy Church in precisely the same way at all times has called and does call the members of the Church in the language of the Divine Services, "slaves (servants) of God."

But there is another side. The Saviour addresses His disciples in His farewell conversation with them: "Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you" (John 15:14); and in the same place He calls them "My children" (John 13:33); "as the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you" (John 15:9). And the Apostles teach: "Ye have received the spirit of adoption" (Rom. 8:15); "We are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:16-17). And the Holy Apostle John, he who lay upon the breast of Christ, cries out in inspiration: "Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).

He Who sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of the One (God); therefore Christ calls those who have been sanctified His brothers. Most important, He is the "captain of our salvation" (Heb. 2:10); He is the High Priest of the New Testament. "Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted" (Heb. 2:17-18). Of Him we ask forgiveness of our sins; for the Heavenly Father does not judge anyone, but has given judgment over entirely to the Son, that all might worship the Son as they worship the Father. The Son Himself proclaimed before His Ascension: "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:18). This is why almost all our prayers-whether for ourselves, for our fathers and brethren, for the living and the dead — we offer to the Son of God. We are in the house of God, we are the house of Christ. Therefore for us it is easy, joyful, and saving to have communion with all the heavenly members of this house: with the Most Holy Theotokos, with the Apostles, the Prophets, the Martyrs, the Hierarchs, and the monastic Saints — a single church of heaven and earth! It is for this that we have been bought by Christ.

So great are the consequences of the Sacrifice of Christ which was offered on the Cross and signed by the Resurrection of Christ! This is the meaning of the new song before the Lamb at His throne, which was given in the Apocalypse to the Apostle John the Theologian: "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood" (Apoc. 5:9). We have been purchased for God.

Therefore, let not the sorrowful spiritual condition of the world which we observe confuse us. We know that the salvation of the children of the Church, the slaves of Christ, is being accomplished. And the salvation of the world, in the broad, eschatological meaning of the word, has already been accomplished. But, as the Apostle Paul instructs us, "We are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it" (Rom. 8:24-25). The spiritual forces in the world may be hidden, but they are not extinguished. The heavenly-earthly body of the Church of Christ grows and draws the world near to the mystical day of the triumphant and glorious open manifestation of the Son of Man, the Son of God, when, after the great and righteous General Judgment, the renewal and transfiguration of the world will be revealed, and He Who sits on the throne will say, "Behold, I make all things new" (Apoc. 21:5). And there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Amen.

The interpretation of the truth of the Redemption was greatly complicated thanks to the direction which was given to it in the Western theology of the Middle Ages. The figurative expressions of the Apostles were accepted in medieval Roman Catholic theology in their literal and overly-narrow sense, and the work of redemption was interpreted as a "satisfaction" — more precisely, a satisfaction for offending God, and even more precisely, "the satisfaction of God (God in the Holy Trinity) for the offense caused to Him by the sin of Adam." It is easy to see that the foundation of such a view is the special Latin teaching on original sin: that man in the transgression of Adam "infinitely offended" God and evoked God’s wrath; therefore, it was required that God be offered complete satisfaction in order that the guilt might be removed and God might be appeased; this was done by the Saviour when He accepted death on the Cross: the Saviour offered an infinitely complete satisfaction.

This one-sided interpretation of Redemption became the reigning one in Latin theology and it has remained so up to the present time. In Protestantism it evoked the opposite reaction, which led in the later sects to the almost complete denial of the dogma of Redemption and to the acknowledgement of no more than a moral or instructive significance for Christ’s life and His death on the Cross.

The term "satisfaction" has been used in Russian Orthodox theology, but in a changed form: "the satisfaction of God’s righteousness." The expression "to satisfy the righteousness of God," one must acknowledge, is not entirely foreign to the New Testament, as may be seen from the words of the Saviour Himself. "Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness" (Matt. 3:15). An expression which is close in meaning to the present term, but which is more complete and is authentically Biblical, and gives a basis for the Orthodox understanding of the work of Redemption, is the word "propitiation," which we read in the First Epistle of John: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). "Propitiation" is a direct translation of the Greek word ilasmos. The same use of the word is to be found in 1 John 2:2, and in St. Paul's epistle to the Hebrews 2:17, where it is translated as "reconciliation" in the King James Version).

The systems of dogmatic theology, following the ancient custom, in order to gain a fuller illumination of the whole work of salvation accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, view it most often from three aspects, namely as: a) the High Priestly ministry of the Lord, b) His Prophetic ministry, and c) His Royal ministry. These three aspects are called the triple ministry of the Lord.

The common feature of the three ministries, the Prophetic, the High Priestly, and the Royal, is that in the Old Testament the calling to these three ministries was accompanied by anointing with oil, and those who worthily passed through these ministries were strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The very name "Christ" signifies "Anointed One" (The name "Jesus" signifies "Saviour"). The Lord Himself referred to Himself the words of the Prophet Isaiah when He read them in the Synagogue at Nazareth. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19).

The Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Lamb of God Who is offered as a sacrifice for the life of the world; He is at the same time also He Who offers, the Performer of the sacrifice, the High Priest. Christ is "He Who offereth and is offered; that accepteth and is distributed" (the secret prayer at the Cherubic Hymn in the Liturgy). He Himself is offered as a sacrifice, and He Himself also offers the sacrifice. He Himself both receives it and distributes it to those who come.

The Lord expressed His High-Priestly ministry on earth in its highest degree in the prayer to His Father which is called "the High-priestly prayer," which was pronounced after the farewell conversation with His disciples in the night when He was taken by the soldiers, and likewise in the prayer in solitude in the garden of Gethsemane: "For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word" (John 17:19-20).

The Apostle Paul interprets the High-Priestly ministry of Christ in his Epistle to the Hebrews (chapters five to ten). He juxtaposes the High-Priestly ministry of Christ with the ministry of the Old Testament high priests and shows that the priesthood of Christ incomparably surpasses it:

There were many high priests according to the order of Aaron, since death did not allow there to be only one. But this One, according to the order of Melchisedek, as remaining eternally, has a priesthood that does not pass away (Heb. 7:23-24).

Those high priests had to offer sacrifice constantly; but Christ performed the sacrifice once, offering Himself as the sacrifice (Heb. 7:27).

Those high priests themselves were clothed with infirmity; but this High Priest is perfect forevermore (Heb. 7:28).

Those were priests of the earthly tabernacle made by hands; but this One is the sacred Performer of the eternal tabernacle not made with hands (Heb. 9:24).

Those high priests entered into the holy place with the blood of calves and goats; but this One with His own blood entered once into the holy place and obtained an eternal redemption (Heb. 9:12).

They were priests of the Old Testament; whereas this One is Priest of the New Testament (Heb. 8:6).

The evangelistic, or instructive, or prophetic ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was expressed in the fact that He proclaimed to men, in all the fullness and clarity accessible to them, the will of the heavenly Father, for the salvation of the world, and granted to them the new, more perfect law of faith and piety which serves for the purpose of the salvation of the whole human race. This ministry was performed immediately by the Lord Himself and through His disciples, who, in accordance with His commandment, proclaimed the good news to all peoples and handed it down to the Church in all times.

The Lord proclaimed the good news of 1) the teaching of faith, and 2) the teaching of life and piety.

The evangelical teaching of faith is the teaching:

a) concerning God, our All-Good Father, to Whom we are taught to appeal with the cry of a son: "Our Father." Concerning this revelation to men of the new, more perfect understanding of God, the Saviour speaks in the prayer before His sufferings: "I have manifested Thy name unto men, and, I have declared unto them Thy name" (John 17:6, 26);

b) concerning the coming of the Word into the world — the coming of the Only-Begotten Son of God — for the salvation of men and their reunion with God;

c) concerning the Holy Spirit, our Comforter and Sanctifier,

d) concerning the nature and purpose of man; concerning sin, repentance, the means of salvation, sanctification and rebirth;

e) concerning the Kingdom of God and the New Testament Church; concerning the final General judgment and the final fate of the world and man.

The evangelical teaching of life and piety is the high commandment of love to God and neighbor, which is presented much more fully and elevatedly than in the Old Testament, and inspires one to the full devotion to God of a son. Many private commandments of this most perfect moral law are concentrated in the Sermon on the Mount. Such, for example, are the commandments of the forgiveness of offenses and love for one’s enemies, of self-denial and humility, of true chastity, not only bodily but also spiritual, of mutual service according to the most exalted example of the Saviour Himself, and of the other things that are morally demanded of a Christian.

While the Old Testament law inspires one to fulfill the commandments chiefly for the sake of an earthly, temporal prosperity, the New Testament law inspires one to higher, eternal, spiritual goods.

The Old Testament law, however, was not abrogated by the Saviour, it was only elevated; it was given a more perfect interpretation; it was placed upon better foundations. With the coming of the New Testament, it was only the Jewish ritual law that was abrogated.

Concerning the relation of Christians to the Old Testament, the Blessed Theodoret reasons thus: "Just as mothers of just born infants give nourishment by means of the breast, and then light food, and finally, when they become children or youths, give them solid food, so also the God of all things from time to time has given men a more perfect teaching. But, despite all this, we revere also the Old Testament as a mother’s breasts, only we do not take milk from there; for the perfect have no need of a mother’s milk, although they should revere her because it was from her that they received their upbringing. So we also, although we do not any longer observe circumcision, the Sabbath, the offering of sacrifices, the sprinklings — none the less, we take from the Old Testament a different benefit: for it, in a perfect way, instructs us in piety, in faith in God, in love for neighbor, in continence, in justice, in courage, and above all presents for imitation the examples of the ancient Saints" (Blessed Theodoret, "Brief Exposition of Divine Dogmas").

The law of the Gospel is given for all times, unto the end of the age, and is not subject to being abrogated or changed.

The law of the Gospel is given for all men, and not for one people alone, as was the Old Testament law.

Therefore, the faith and teaching of the Gospel are called by the Fathers of the Church "Catholic," that is, embracing all men in all times.

C. Christ the King of the world (His royal ministry).

The Son of God, the Creator and Master of heaven and earth, the Eternal King according to Divinity, is King also according to His God-Manhood, both in His earthly ministry until His death on the Cross, and in His glorified condition after the Resurrection.

The Prophets prophesied of Him as a King, as we read in the Prophet Isaiah: "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called: Angel of Great Counsel, Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, Master, the Prince of Peace, Father of the coming age . . . of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon His Kingdom" (Is. 9:6-7).

The Royal Ministry of the Lord before His Resurrection was expressed a) in His miracles, in His authority over nature; b) in His authority over the powers of hell, concerning which there is the testimony of His numerous exorcisms of demons and of the word of the Lord: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven" (Luke 10:18); c) in His authority over death, manifested in the resurrection of the son of the widow of Nain, the daughter of Jairus, and Lazarus of the four days.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself speaks of Himself as a King before His Resurrection when He was being judged by Pilate: "My Kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36-37).

The Lord appeared in His glory to His disciples after the Resurrection when He said to them, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth" (Matt 28:18).

After His Ascension, the God-Man Christ is Head of heaven, earth, and the underworld.

In all its power, the royal might of the Lord Jesus Christ was revealed in His descent into hell and His victory over hell, His destruction of its bonds; further, in His Resurrection and victory over death; and finally, in the Ascension of Jesus Christ and the opening of the Kingdom of Heaven for all who believe in Him.

The human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, through its union with the Divinity, participated in Divine qualities and was enriched by them, in other words, it was "deified." And not only the human nature of the Lord Himself was deified: through Him and in Him our humanity also is deified, for "He also Himself likewise took part in" our flesh and blood (Heb. 2:14), united Himself in the most intimate way with the human race, and consequently united it with the Divinity. Since the Lord Jesus Christ received flesh from the Ever-Virgin Mary, the Church books very frequently call her the fount of our deification: "Through her we have been deified." We are deified likewise through worthy reception of the Body and Blood of Christ. However, one must understand the limits of the meaning of this term, since in the philosophic religious literature of recent times, beginning with Vladimir Soloviev, there is a tendency towards an incorrect broadening of the meaning of the dogma of Chalcedon. The term ‘deification’ does not mean the same thing as the term ‘God-Manhood,’ and one who is "deified" in Christ is not placed on the path to personal God-manhood. If the Church of Christ is called a Divine-Human organism, this is because the Head of the Church is Christ God, and the body of the Church is humanity reborn in Christ. In itself humanity in general, and likewise man individually, remains in that nature in which and for which it was created: for, in the person of Christ also, the human body and soul did not pass over into the Divine nature, but were only united with it, united "without confusion or change." "For there never was, nor is, nor ever will be another Christ consisting of Divinity and humanity, Who remains in Divinity and humanity, the same being perfect God and perfect Man," as teaches St. John Damascene (Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 3, chapter 3).

The Resurrection of Christ is the foundation and the crown of our Orthodox Christian Faith. The Resurrection of Christ is the first, most important, great truth, with the proclamation of which the Apostles began their preaching of the Gospel after the descent of the Holy Spirit. Just as by the death of Christ on the Cross our Redemption was accomplished, so by His Resurrection eternal life was given to us. Therefore, the Resurrection of Christ is the object of the Church’s constant triumph, its unceasing rejoicing, which reaches its summit in the Feast of the Holy Christian Pascha. "Today all creation is glad and rejoices, for Christ has risen!" (Canon of Pascha, Canticle 9). The saving fruits of the Resurrection of Christ are:

1. the victory over hell and death;
2. the blessedness of the saints in heaven and the beginning of the existence of the Heavenly Church;
3. the sending down of the Holy Spirit and the creation of the Church of Christ on earth.

Human existence after the loss of Paradise has two forms: a) the earthly, bodily life; and b) the life after death.

Earthly life ends with the death of the body. The soul preserves its existence after bodily death also, but its condition after death, according to the word of God and the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, is diverse. Until the coming to earth of the Son of God, and until His Resurrection from the dead, the souls of the dead were in a condition of rejection, being far away from God, in darkness, in hell, in the underworld (the Hebrew "Sheol," Gen. 37:35, Septuagint). To be in hell was like spiritual death, as is expressed in the words of the Old Testament Psalm, "In hades who will confess Thee?" (Ps. 6:6) In hell there were imprisoned also the souls of the Old Testament righteous ones. These righteous ones lived on earth with faith in the coming Saviour, as the Apostle Paul explains in the eleventh chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, and after death they languished in expectation of their redemption and deliverance. Thus it continued until the Resurrection of Christ, until the coming of the New Testament: "And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect" (Heb. 11:39-40). Our deliverance was also their deliverance.

Christ, after His death on the Cross, descended in His soul and in His Divinity into hell, at the same time that His body remained in the grave. He preached salvation to the captives of hell and brought up from there all the Old Testament righteous ones into the bright mansions of the Kingdom of Heaven. Concerning this raising up of the righteous ones from hell, we read in the Epistle of St. Peter: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit; by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:18-19). And in the same place we read further: "For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit" (1 Peter 4:6). St. Paul speaks of the same thing: quoting the verse of the Psalm, "When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men," the Apostle continues: "Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things" (Eph. 4:8-10).

To use the words of St. John Chrysostom, "Hell was taken captive by the Lord Who descended into it. It was laid waste, it was mocked, it was put to death, it was overthrown, it was bound" (Homily on Pascha).

With the destruction of the bolts of hell, that is, the inescapability of hell, the power of death also was annihilated. First of all, death for righteous men became only a transition from the world below to the world above, to a better life, to life in the light of the Kingdom of God; secondly, bodily death itself became only a temporary phenomenon, for by the Resurrection of Christ the way to the general Resurrection was opened to us.

"Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept" (1 Cor. 15:20). The Resurrection of Christ is the pledge of our resurrection: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive; but every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits: afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming" (1 Cor. 15:22-23). After this, death will be utterly annihilated. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (1 Cor. 15:26).

The troparion of Holy Pascha proclaims to us with special joy the victory over hell and death: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life." "Christ ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things" (Eph. 4:10).

Before His departure to the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ said to the Apostles: "In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself that where I am, there ye may be also" (John 14:2-3). The Saviour prayed to the Father, "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory which Thou hast given Me" (John 17:24). And the Apostles express the desire to depart and to be with Christ (Phil. 1:23), knowing that they have "a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1).

A depiction of the life of the Saints in heaven is given in the Apocalypse. Saint John the Theologian saw around the throne of God in the heavens "four and twenty seats" and on them elders clothed in white garments and having crowns of gold on their heads (Apoc. 4:4). He saw under the heavenly altar "the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held" (Apoc. 6:9); and yet again he saw "a great multitude... of all nations, and kindreds, and people," standing before the Throne and before the Lamb and crying out: "Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb" (Apoc. 7:9-10).

The bright mansions of the Heavenly Home sacred Scripture calls "the city of the living God," "Mount Zion," the "Heavenly Jerusalem," "the Church of the first-born written in heaven."

And thus the great Kingdom of Christ has been opened in heaven. Into it have entered the souls of all the righteous and pious people of the Old Testament, those of whom the Apostle has said, "These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise" (until the coming to earth of the Son of God and the general salvation), that they without us should not be made perfect, that is, attained the joy and blessedness of the Heavenly Church of Christ (Heb. 11:39-40). Into this Kingdom in the New Testament there entered the first ones who believed in Christ, the Apostles, first martyrs, confessors; and thus until the end of the world the heavenly Home will be filled ¾ the Jerusalem on high, the granary of God ¾ until it shall come to its perfect fulness.

St. Symeon the New Theologian teaches the following: "It was fitting that there should be born all who have been foreknown by God, and that the world which is above this world, the Church of the first-born, the heavenly Jerusalem, should be filled up; and then the fulness of the Body of Christ will be perfected, receiving in itself all those foreordained by God to be conformed to the image of His Son ¾ these are the sons of the light and the day. Such are all those foreordained and forewritten, and included in the number of the saved, and those who are to be joined and united to the Body of Christ; and there will no longer be lacking in Him a single member. Thus is it in truth, as the Apostle Paul reveals when he says: Till we all come in the unity of the faith . . . unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). When they shall be gathered together and shall comprise the full Body of Christ, then also the higher world, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the Church of the first-born, will be filled up, and the body of the Queen of God, the Church, which is the Body of Christ God, will be revealed as entirely full and perfect" (Homily 45).

According to the teaching of Sacred Scripture, the blessedness of the souls of the righteous in heaven consists of a) the repose or rest from labors; b) nonparticipation in sorrows and sufferings (Apoc. 14:13, 7:16); c) being together with and consequently being in the closest communion with the forefathers and other saints; d) mutual communion between themselves and with thousands of angels; e) standing before the Throne of the Lamb, glorifying Him and serving Him; f) communion and reigning together with Christ; g) the joyous beholding face-to-face of God Almighty.

The Lord Jesus Christ, in His conversation with His disciples before His sufferings, promised them to send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, Who would remain with them forever — the Spirit of Truth Who would instruct them in everything and remind them of all that He Himself had spoken to them, and would inform them of the future. Appearing after the Resurrection to His disciples, the Lord granted them the grace-given power of the Holy Spirit with the words, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit: Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20:22-23). And ten days after His Ascension, the Lord, in accordance with His promise, sent down the Holy Spirit upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost in the form of fiery tongues.

The descent into the world by the Holy Spirit was expressed, first of all, in the extraordinary gifts of the Apostles in the form of signs, healings, prophecies, the gift of tongues; and secondly, in all the grace-given powers which lead the faithful of Christ to spiritual perfection and to salvation.

In the Holy Spirit, in His Divine power, is given us "all things that pertain unto life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3). "These grace-given gifts are in the Holy Church which the Lord founded on earth." They comprise the means of our sanctification and salvation.

An examination of these means of salvation is the subject of a new section of Dogmatic Theology ¾ that concerning the Church of Christ.

The concept of the Church of Christ on earth. The beginning and purpose of the Church.

The Head of the Church. The close bond between the Church on earth and the Church in Heaven. Attributes of the Church. Its unity. Its sanctity. Its catholicity. The Apostolic Church. The Church hierarchy. Apostles. Bishops. Presbyters (priests). Deacons. The three degrees of the hierarchy. The councils of the Church. The uninterruptedness of the episcopate. The pastorship in the Church.

In the literal meaning of the word, the Church is the "assembly," in Greek, ekklesia, from ekkaleo, meaning "to gather." In this meaning it was used in the Old Testament also (the Hebrew kahal).

In the New Testament, this name has an incomparably deeper and more mystical meaning which is difficult to embrace in a short verbal formula. The character of the Church of Christ is best explained by the Biblical images to which the Church is likened.

The New Testament Church is the new planting of God, the garden of God, the vineyard of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, by His earthly life, His death on the Cross and His Resurrection, introduced into humanity new grace-giving powers, a new life which is capable of great fruitfulness. These powers we have in the Holy Church which is His Body. The Sacred Scripture is rich in expressive images of the Church. Here are the chief of them:

a) The image of the grapevine and its branches: "I am the true vine and My Father is the Husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit . . . Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. I am the Vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned... Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples" (John 15:1-8).

b) The image of the shepherd and the flock: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep . . . I am the door; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, and find pasture . . . I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep . . . I am the good shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of mine . . . and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd" (John 10:1-16).

c) The image of the head and the body: "The Father hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23, and other places).

d) The image of a building under construction: "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone; in Whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord; in Whom ye also are builded for a habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. 2:19-22).

e) The image of a house or family: "That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the Truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). "Christ as a Son over His own house, Whose house are we" (Heb 3:6).

To this same thing refer likewise other images from the Gospel: the fishing net, the field which has been sown, the vineyard of God. In the Fathers of the Church one often finds a comparison of the Church in the world with a ship on the sea.

The Apostle Paul, comparing the life of the Church of Christ with a marriage, or with the relationship between man and wife, concludes his thoughts with these words: "This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church" (Eph. 5:32). The life of the Church in its essence is mystical; the course of its life cannot be entirely included in any "history." The Church is completely distinct from any kind whatever of organized society on earth.

The Church of Christ received its existence with the coming to earth of the Son of God, "when the fullness of the time was come" (Gal. 4:4), and with His bringing of salvation to the world.

The beginning of its existence in its complete form and significance, with the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, was the day of Pentecost, after the Ascension of the Lord. On this day, after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, in Jerusalem there were baptized about three thousand men. And, further, the Lord each day added those being saved to the Church. From this moment, the territory of the city of Jerusalem, then of Palestine, then of the whole Roman Empire, and even the lands beyond its boundaries, began to be covered with Christian communities or churches. The name "church," which belongs to every Christian community, even of a single house or family, indicates the unity of this part with the whole, with the body of the whole Church of Christ.

Being "the body of Christ," the Church "increaseth with the increase of God" (Col. 2:19). Comparing the Church with a building, the Apostle teaches that its building is not completed, it continues: "All the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord" (Eph. 2:21). This growth is not only in the sense of the visible, quantitative increase of the Church on earth; in even greater degree, this is a spiritual growth, the perfection of the saints, the filling up of the heavenly-earthly world through sanctity. Through the Church is accomplished "the dispensation of the fulness of times" foreordained by the Father, so that "He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth" (Eph. 1:10).

In the sense of its earthly growth, the Church develops in the spheres of Divine services and the canons; it is made richer by Patristic literature; it grows in the outward forms which are necessary for its earthly conditions of existence.

The Church is our spiritual Home. As with one’s own home ¾ and even more than that — a Christian’s thoughts and actions are closely bound up with the Church. In it he must, as long as he lives on earth, work out his salvation, and make use of the grace-given means of sanctification given him by it. It prepares its children for the heavenly homeland.

As to how, by the grace of God, spiritual rebirth and spiritual growth occur in a man, in what sequence these usually occur, what hindrances must be overcome by him on the way of salvation, how he must combine his own indispensable labors with the grace-given help of God ¾ special branches of theological and spiritual learning are devoted to all these matters. These are called moral theology and ascetic theology.

Dogmatic Theology proper limits the subject of the Church to an examination of the grace-given conditions and the mystical, grace-given means furnished in the Church for the attainment of the aim of salvation in Christ.

The Saviour, in giving authority to the Apostles before His Ascension, told them very clearly that He Himself would not cease to be the invisible Shepherd and Pilot of the Church. "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (every day constantly and inseparably; Matt. 28:20). The Saviour taught that He, as the Good Shepherd, had to bring in also those sheep who were not of this fold, so that there might be one flock and One Shepherd (John 10:16). "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations" (Matt. 28:18-19). In all these words there is contained the idea that the highest Shepherd of the Church is Christ Himself. We must be aware of this so as not to forget the close bond and the inward unity of the Church on earth with the Heavenly Church.

The Lord Jesus Christ is also the Founder of the Church: "I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).

Christ is also the Foundation of the Church, its cornerstone: "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 3:11).

He also is its Head. God the Father "gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all an all" (Eph. 1:22-23). "The Head is Christ, from Whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph. 4:16). As all the members of our body comprise a full and living organism which depends upon its head, so also the Church is a spiritual organism in which there is no place where the powers of Christ do not act. It is "full of Christ" (Bishop Theophan the Recluse).

Christ is the Good Shepherd of His flock, the Church. We have the "great Shepherd of the sheep," according to the Apostle Paul (Heb. 13:20). The Lord Jesus Christ is the Chief of Shepherds. "Being examples to the flock," the Apostle Peter entreats those who have been placed as shepherds in the Church, as their co-pastor (Greek syn-presbyteros), "when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away" (1 Peter 5:1-4).

Christ Himself is the invisible Chief Bishop of the Church. The Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer, an Apostolic Father, calls the Lord the "Invisible Bishop" (Greek: episkopos aoratos).

Christ is the eternal High-Priest of His Church, as the Apostle Paul explains in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Old Testament Chief Priests "were many, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death. But this one, because He continueth forever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Heb. 7:23-25).

He is, according to the Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian, "He that is true, He that hath the key of David, He that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth and no man openeth" (Apoc. 3:7).

The truth that Christ Himself is the Head of the Church has always in lively fashion run through, and continues to run through, the self-awareness of the Church. In our daily prayers also we read, "O Jesus, Good Shepherd of Thy sheep" (The Prayer of St. Antioch in the Prayers Before Sleep of the Orthodox Prayer Book).

Chrysostom teaches in his Homilies on the Epistle to the Ephesians as follows: "In Christ, in the flesh, God placed a single head for everyone, for angels and men; that is, He gave one principle both to angels and men: to the one, Christ according to the flesh; and to the other, God the Word. Just as if someone should say about a house, that one part of it is rotten and the other part strong, and he should restore the house, that is, make it stronger, placing a stronger foundation under it; so also here, He has brought all under a single head. Only then is union possible; only then will there be that perfect bond, when everything, having a certain indispensable bond with what is above, will be brought under a single Head" (Works of St. Chrysostom in Russian, v. 11, p. 14).

The Orthodox Church of Christ refuses to recognize yet another head of the Church in the form of a "Vicar of Christ on earth," a title given in the Roman Catholic Church to the Bishop of Rome. Such a title does not correspond either to the word of God or to the universal Church consciousness and tradition; it tears away the Church on earth from immediate unity with the heavenly Church. A vicar is assigned during the absence of the one replaced; but Christ is invisibly present in His Church always.

The rejection by the ancient Church of the view of the Bishop of Rome as the Head of the Church and Vicar of Christ upon earth is expressed in the writings of those who were active in the Ecumenical Councils.

The Second Ecumenical Council of bishops, after the completion of their activities, wrote an epistle to Pope Damasus and other bishops of the Roman Church, which ended thus: "When in this way the teaching of Faith is in agreement, and Christian love is established in us, we will cease to speak the words which were condemned by the Apostle: 'I am of Paul, I am of Apollo, I am of Cephas.' And when we will all be manifest as of Christ, since Christ is not divided in us, then by God’s mercy we will preserve the Body of Christ undivided, and will boldly stand before the throne of the Lord."

The leading personality of the Third Ecumenical Council, St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his "Epistle on the Holy Symbol," which is included in the Acts of this Council, writes: "The most holy Fathers . . . who once gathered in Nicaea, composed the venerable Ecumenical Symbol (Creed). With them Christ Himself presided, for He said, 'Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them' (Matt. 18:20). For how can there be any doubt that Christ presided at this Holy and Ecumenical Council? Because there a certain basis and a firm, unvanquishable foundation was laid, and even extended to the whole universe, that is, this holy and irreproachable confession. If it is thus, then can Christ be absent, when He is the Foundation, according to the words of the most wise Paul, 'Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ'" (1 Cor. 3:11).

Blessed Theodoret, in a homily which was also placed in the Acts of the Third Ecumenical Council, addressing the heretics, the followers of Nestorius, says: "Christ is a stone of stumbling and a scandal for unbelievers, but does not put the believers to shame; a precious stone and a foundation, according to the word of Isaiah when he said that Christ is the stone which the builders rejected and which has become the cornerstone. Christ is the foundation of the Church. Christ is the stone which was taken out not with hands, and was changed into a great mountain and covered the universe, according to the prophecy of Daniel; it is for Him, with Him, and by the power of Him that we battle, and for Whose sake we are far removed from the reigning city, but are not excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven; for we have a city on high, Jerusalem, 'whose builder and maker is God' (Heb. 11:10), as the Apostle Paul says."

Concerning the rock upon which the Lord promised the Apostle Peter to found His Church, St. Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in his epistle to the clergy of Palestine after the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon writes: "When the chief and first of the Apostles Peter said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' the Lord replied, 'Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it'" (Matt. 16:17-18). On this confession the Church of God is made firm, and this Faith, given to us by the holy Apostles, the Church has kept and will keep to the end of the world."

The Apostle instructs those who have come to believe in Christ and have been joined to the Church as follows: "Ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant" (Heb. 12:22-24). We are not separated from our dead brothers in the faith by the impassable abyss of death: they are close to us in God, "for all live unto Him"(Luke 20:38).

The Church hymns this relationship in the kontakion of the feast of the Ascension of the Lord: "Having accomplished for us Thy mission and united things on earth with things in heaven, Thou didst ascend into glory, O Christ our God, being nowhere separated from those who love Thee, but remaining ever present with us and calling: I am with you and no one is against you."

Of course, there is a distinction between the Church of Christ on earth and the Church of the saints in heaven: the members of the earthly Church are not yet members of the heavenly Church.

In this connection the "Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs" (17^th century), in reply to the teaching of the Calvinists concerning the one invisible Church, thus formulates the Orthodox teaching about the Church: "We believe, as we have been instructed to believe, in what is called, and what in actual fact is, the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, which embraces all those, whoever and wherever they might be, who believe in Christ, who being now on their earthly pilgrimage have not yet come to dwell in the heavenly homeland. But we do not in the least confuse the Church in pilgrimage with the Church that has reached the homeland, just because, as certain of the heretics think, one and the other both exist, that they both comprise as it were two flocks of the single Chief Shepherd, God, and are sanctified by the one Holy Spirit. Such a confusion of them is out of place and impossible, inasmuch as one is battling and is still on the way, while the other is already celebrating its victory and has reached the Fatherland and has received the reward, something which will follow also for the whole Ecumenical Church."

And in actuality, the earth and the heavenly world are two separate forms of existence: there in heaven is bodilessness, here on earth are bodily life and physical death; there, those who have attained, here, those seeking to attain; here, faith, there, seeing the Lord face to face; here, hope, there, fulfillment.

Nonetheless, one cannot represent the existence of these two regions, the heavenly and the earthly, as completely separate. If we do not reach as far as the saints in heaven, the saints do reach as far as us. As one who has studied the whole of a science has command also over its elementary parts, just as a general who has entered into a country has command also over its borderlands; so those who have reached heaven have in their command what they have gone through, and they do not cease to be participants in the life of the militant Church on earth.

The holy Apostles, departing from this world, put off the earthly body, but have not put off the Church body. They not only were, but they also remain the foundations of the Church. The Church is built "upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone" (Eph. 2:20). Being in heaven, they continue to be in communion with believers on earth.

Such an understanding was present in ancient Patristic thought, both of East and West. Here are the words of Chrysostom:

"For the souls of the pious dead," says Blessed Augustine, "do not depart from the Church, which is the Kingdom of Christ. This is why, on the altar of the Lord, their memorial is performed in the offering of the Body of Christ . . . Why should this be done if not because the faithful even after death remain members of it [the Church]?"

The ever-memorable Russian Pastor, St. John of Kronstadt, in his "Thoughts Concerning the Church" writes: "Acknowledge that all the saints are our elder brothers in the one House of the Heavenly Father, who have departed from earth to heaven, and they are always with us in God, and they constantly teach us and guide us to eternal life by means of the church services, Mysteries, rites, instructions, and church decrees, which they have composed — as for example, those concerning the fasts and feasts, — so to speak, they serve together with us, they sing, they speak, they instruct, they help us in various temptations and sorrows. And call upon them as living with you under a single roof; glorify them, thank them, converse with them as with living people; and you will believe in the Church" (St. John of Kronstadt, "What Does It Mean to Believe in the Church? Thoughts About the Church and the Orthodox Divine Services").

The Church in its prayers to the apostles and hierarchs calls them her pillars, upon which even now the Church is established. "Thou art a pillar of the Church"; "ye are pillars of the Church"; "Thou art a good shepherd and fervent teacher, O hierarch"; "ye are the eyes of the Church of Christ"; "ye are the stars of the Church" (from various church services). In harmony with the consciousness of the Church, the saints, going to heaven, comprise, as it were, the firmament of the Church. "Ye do ever illumine the precious firmament of the Church like magnificent stars, and ye shine upon the faithful, O divine Martyrs, warriors of Christ" (from the Common Service to Martyrs). "Like brightly shining stars ye have mentally shone forth upon the firmament of the Church, and ye do illumine the whole creation" (from the Service to Hieromartyrs).

There is a foundation for such appeals to the saints in the word of God itself. In the Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian we read: "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God" (Apoc. 3:12). Thus the saints are pillars of the Church not only in the past, but in all times as well.

In this bond of the Church with the saints, and likewise in the Headship of the Church by the Lord Himself, may be seen one of the mystical sides of the Church. "By Thy Cross, O Christ, there is a single flock of angels and men; and in the one assembly heaven and earth rejoice, crying out, O Lord, glory to Thee" (Octoechos, Tone 1, Aposticha of Wednesday Matins).

The ninth Article of the Symbol of Faith indicates the four basic signs of the Church: "We believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church," These attributes are called essential, that is, those without which the Church would not be the Church.

In the Greek text the word "in One," is expressed as a numeral (en mian). Thus the Symbol of Faith confesses that the Church is one: a) it is one as viewed from within itself, not divided; b) it is one as viewed from without, that is, not having any other beside itself. Its unity consists not in the joining together of what is different in nature, but in inward agreement and unanimity. "There is one body and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Eph. 4:4-6).

Depicting the Church in parables, the Saviour speaks of one flock, of one sheepfold, of one grapevine, of one foundation stone of the Church. He gave a single teaching, a single baptism, and a single communion. The unity of the faithful in Christ comprised the subject of His High Priestly Prayer before His sufferings on the Cross; the Lord prayed "that they all may be one" (John 17:21).

The Church is one not only inwardly, but also outwardly. Outwardly its unity is manifested in the harmonious confession of faith, in the oneness of Divine services and Mysteries, in the oneness of the grace-giving hierarchy, which comes in succession from the Apostles, in the oneness of canonical order.

The Church on earth has a visible side and an invisible side. The invisible side is: that its Head is Christ; that it is animated by the Holy Spirit; that in it is performed the inward mystical life in sanctity of the more perfect of its members. However, the Church, by the nature of its members, is visible, since it is composed of men in the body; it has a visible hierarchy; it performs prayers and sacred actions visibly; it confesses openly, by means of words, the faith of Christ.

The Church does not lose its unity because side by side with the Church there exist Christian societies which do not belong to it. These societies are not in the Church, they are outside of it.

The unity of the Church is not violated because of temporary divisions of a non-dogmatic nature. Differences between Churches arise frequently out of insufficient or incorrect information. Also, sometimes a temporary breaking of communion is caused by the personal errors of individual hierarchs who stand at the head of one or another local Church; or it is caused by their violation of the canons of the Church, or by the violation of the submission of one territorial ecclesiastical group to another in accordance with anciently established tradition. Moreover, life shows us the possibility of disturbances within a local Church which hinder the normal communion of other Churches with the given local Church until the outward manifestation and triumph of the defenders of authentic Orthodox truth. Finally, the bond between Churches can sometimes be violated for a long time by political conditions, as has often happened in history (Two examples from recent church history may serve to illustrate the character of these temporary divisions. In the early 19^th century, when Greece proclaimed its independence from the Turkish Sultan, the parts of the Greek Church in Greece itself and in Turkey became outwardly divided. When the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was still under Turkish authority, was forced by the Sultan to excommunicate the "rebels" in Greece, the Orthodox in Greece refused to accept this act as having been performed under political coercion, but they did not cease to regard the Patriarch as a member of the same Orthodox Church as themselves, nor did they doubt that his non-political sacramental acts were grace-giving. This division led to the formation today of two separate local Churches (in full communion with each other): those of Greece and Constantinople.

In the 20^th century Russian Orthodox Church, a church administration was formed in 1927 by Metropolitan Sergius (the Moscow Patriarchate) on the basis of submission to the dictation of the atheist rulers. Parts of the Church in Russia (the Catacomb or True Orthodox Church) and outside (the Russian Church Outside of Russia) refuse up to now to have communion with this administration because of its political domination by Communists; but the bishops of the Church Outside of Russia (about the Catacomb Church it is more difficult to make a general statement) do not deny the grace of the Mysteries of the Moscow Patriarchate and still feel themselves to be one with its clergy and faithful who try not to collaborate with Communist aims. When Communism falls in Russia, these church bodies can once more be in communion or even be joined together, leaving to a future free council all judgments regarding the "Sergianist" period.). In such cases, the division touches only outward relations, but does not touch or violate inward spiritual unity.

The truth of the One Church is defined by the Orthodoxy of its members, and not by their quantity at one or another moment. St. Gregory the Theologian wrote concerning the Orthodox Church of Constantinople before the Second Ecumenical Council as follows:

"And where are those," says St. Gregory in another Homily, "who reproach us for our poverty and are proud of their wealth? They consider great numbers of people to be a sign of the Church, and despise the small flock. They measure the Divinity (the Saint has in mind here the Arians, who taught that the Son of God was less than the Father) and they weigh people. They place a high value on grains of sand (that is, the masses) and belittle the luminaries. They gather into their treasure-house simple stones, and disdain pearls" (St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 33, Against the Arians).

In the prayers of the Church are contained petitions for the ceasing of possible disagreements among the Churches: "Cause discords to cease in the Church; quickly destroy by the might of Thy Holy Spirit all uprisings of heresies" (Eucharistic Prayer at the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great). "We glorify Thee . . . Thou one rule in Trinity, and beg for forgiveness of sins, peace for the world, and concord for the Church . . . Grant peace and unity to Thy Church, O Thou Who lovest mankind" (Sunday Canon of Nocturne, Tone 8, Canticle 9).

The Lord Jesus Christ performed the work of His earthly ministry and death on the Cross; Christ "loved the Church... that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25-27). The Church is holy through its Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is holy, further, through the presence in it of the Holy Spirit and His grace-giving gifts, communicated in the Mysteries and other sacred rites of the Church. It is also holy through its tie with the Heavenly Church.

The very body of the Church is holy: "If the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches" (Rom. 11:16). Those who believe in Christ are "temples of God," "temples of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19). In the true Church there have always been and there always are people of the highest spiritual purity and with special gifts of grace ¾ martyrs, virgins, ascetics, holy monks and nuns, hierarchs, righteous ones, blessed ones. The Church has an uncounted choir of departed ones of all times and peoples. It has manifestations of the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, both visible and hidden from the eyes of the world.

The Church is holy by its calling, or its purpose. It is holy also by its fruits: "Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life" (Rom. 6:22), as the Apostle Paul instructs us.

The Church is holy likewise through its pure, infallible teaching of faith: The Church of the living God is, according to the word of God, "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). The Patriarchs of the Eastern Churches, concerning the infallibility of the Church in its teaching, express themselves thus: "In saying that the teaching of the Church is infallible, we do not affirm anything else than this, that it is unchanging, that it is the same as was given to it in the beginning as the teaching of God" (Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1848, par. 12).

The sanctity of the Church is not darkened by the intrusion of the world into the Church, or by the sinfulness of men. Everything sinful and worldly which intrudes into the Church’s sphere remains foreign to it and is destined to be sifted out and destroyed, like weed seeds at sowing time. The opinion that the Church consists only of righteous and holy people without sin does not agree with the direct teaching of Christ and His Apostles. The Saviour compares His Church with a field on which the wheat grows together with the tares, and again, with a net which draws out of the water both good fish and bad. In the Church there are both good servants and bad ones (Matt 18:23-35), wise virgins and foolish (Matt. 25:1-13). "We believe," states the Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, "that the members of the Catholic Church are all the faithful, and only the faithful, that is, those who undoubtingly confess the pure faith in the Saviour Christ (the faith which we have received from Christ Himself, from the Apostles, and from the Holy Ecumenical Councils), even though certain of them might have submitted to various sins . . . The Church judges them, calls them to repentance, and leads them on the path of the saving commandments. And therefore despite the fact that they are subject to sins, they remain and are acknowledged as members of the Catholic Church as long as they do not become apostates and as long as they hold to the Catholic and Orthodox Faith."

But there is a boundary, which if sinners go past it, they, like dead members, are cut off from the body of the Church, either by a visible act of the Church authority or by the invisible act of God’s judgment. Thus, those do not belong to the Church who are atheists or apostates from the Christian faith, those who are sinners characterized by a conscious stubbornness and lack of repentance for their sins, as it says in the Catechism (ninth article). Also among those who do not belong to the Church are heretics who have corrupted the fundamental dogmas of the faith; schismatics who out of self-will have separated themselves from the Church (the 33rd Canon of the Council of Laodicea forbids prayer with schismatics). St Basil the Great explains: "The ancients distinguished between heresy, schism, and an arbitrary assembly. They called heretics those who have completely cut themselves off and have become foreigners in the faith itself; they called schismatics those who have separated themselves in their opinions about certain ecclesiastical subjects and in questions which allow of treatment and healing; and they called arbitrary assemblies those gatherings composed of disobedient priests or bishops and uninstructed people."

The sanctity of the Church is irreconcilable with false teachings and heresies. Therefore the Church strictly guards the purity of the truth and herself excludes heretics from her midst.

In the Greek text of the Nicaean Constantinoplitan Symbol of Faith (the Creed), the Church is called "catholic" (in the Slavonic translation, sobornaya). What is the significance of this Greek word?

The word katholikos in ancient Greek, pre-Christian literature is encountered very rarely. However, the Christian Church from antiquity chose this word to signify one of the principal attributes of the Church, namely, to express its universal character. Even though it had at its disposal such words as kosmos (the world), or oikoumene (the inhabited earth), evidently these latter words were insufficient to express a certain new concept which is present only to the Christian consciousness. In the ancient Symbols of Faith, wherever the word "Church" appears, it is unfailingly with the definition "catholic." Thus, in the Jerusalem Symbol of Faith we read: "And in one, holy, catholic Church;" in the Symbol of Rome: "In the holy, catholic Church, the communion of the Saints;" etc. In ancient Christian literature, this term is encountered several times in St. Ignatius the God-bearer, an Apostolic Father, for example when he says, "Where Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic Church." This term is constantly to be found in the Acts of all the Ecumenical Councils. In the direct translation of the word, it signifies the highest degree of all-embracingness, wholeness, fullness (being derived from kath ola, meaning "throughout the whole").

Side by side with this term, there was also used with the meaning of "universal," the word oikoumenikos. These two terms were not mixed The Ecumenical Councils received the title Oikoumenike Synodos, from oikoumenikos, meaning from all the inhabited earth ¾ in actual fact, the land which belonged to Greco-Roman civilization.

The Church is catholic. This corresponds to the Apostolic words, "The fullness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:23). This concept indicates that the whole human race is called to salvation, and therefore all men are intended to be members of the Church of Christ, even though not all do belong to her in fact.

The Longer Orthodox Catechism, answering the question, "Why is the Church called catholic, or which is the same thing, universal?" replies: "Because she is not limited to any place, nor time, nor people, but contains true believers of all places, times and peoples" (Eastern Orthodox Books ed., p. 50).

The Church is not limited by place. It embraces in itself all people who believe in the Orthodox way, wherever they might live on the earth. On the other hand it is essential to have in mind that the Church was catholic even when it was composed of a limited number of communities, and also when, on the day of Pentecost, its bounds were not extended beyond the upper room of Zion and Jerusalem.

The Church is not limited by time: it is foreordained to bring people to faith "unto the end of the world." "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:20). The Spirit, the Comforter, "will abide with you forever" (John 14:16). The Mystery of the Eucharist will be performed until the Lord comes again to earth (1 Cor. 11:26).

The Church is not bound up with any conditions of civil order which it would consider indispensable for itself, nor with any definite language or people.

The Church is called "Apostolic" because the Apostles placed the historical beginning of the Church. They spread Christianity to the ends of the earth and almost all of them sealed their preaching with a martyr’s death The seeds of Christianity were sown in the world by their word and watered with their blood. The unquenched flame of faith in the world they lit by the power of their personal faith.

The Apostles preserved and transmitted to the Church the Christian teaching of faith and life in the form in which they had received it from their Master and Lord. Giving in themselves the example of the fulfillment of the commandments of the Gospel, they handed down to the faithful the teaching of Christ by word of mouth and in the Sacred Scriptures so that it might be preserved, confessed, and lived.

The Apostles established, according to the commandment of the Lord, the Church’s sacred rites. They placed the beginning of the performance of the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ, of baptism, and of ordination.

The Apostles established in the Church the grace-given succession of the episcopate, and through it the succession of the whole grace-given ministry of the church hierarchy, which is called to be stewards of the Mysteries of God, in accordance with 1 Cor. 4:1.

The Apostles established the beginning of the canonical structure of the Church’s life, being concerned that everything should be done decently and in order; an example of this is given in the fourteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which contains directions for the assemblies where church services are celebrated.

Everything we have said here concerns the historical aspect. But besides this there is another, inward aspect which gives to the Church an Apostolic quality. The Apostles were not only historically in the Church of Christ; they remain in it and are in it now. They were in the earthly Church, and they are now in the Heavenly Church, continuing to be in communion with believers on earth. Being the historical nucleus of the Church, they continue to be the spiritually living, although invisible, nucleus of the Church, both now and forever, in its constant existence. The Apostle John the Theologian writes: "…Declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3). These words have for us the same force as they had for the contemporaries of the Apostle: they contain an exhortation to us to be in communion with the ranks of Apostles, for the nearness of the Apostles to the Holy Trinity is greater than ours.

Thus, both for reasons of an historical character and for reasons of an inward character, the Apostles are the foundations of the Church. Therefore it is said of the Church: It is "built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone" (Eph. 2:20). The naming of the Church as "apostolic" indicates that it is established not on a single Apostle (as the Roman Church later taught), but upon all twelve; otherwise it would have to bear the name of Peter, or John, or some other. The Church as it were ahead of time warned us against thinking according to a "fleshly" principle (1 Cor. 3:4): "I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas." In the Apocalypse, concerning the city coming down from heaven it is said: "And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb" (Apoc. 21:14).

The attributes of the Church indicated in the Symbol of Faith: "one, holy, catholic and apostolic," refer to the militant Church. However, they receive their full significance with the awareness of the oneness of this Church with the Heavenly Church in the one Body of Christ: the Church is one, with a unity that is both heavenly and earthly; it is holy with a heavenly-earthly holiness; it is catholic and apostolic by its unbroken tie with the Apostles and all the saints.

The Orthodox teaching of the Church, which in itself is quite clear and rests upon Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, is to be contrasted with another concept which is widespread in the contemporary Protestant world and has penetrated even into Orthodox circles. According to this different concept, all the various existing Christian organizations, the so-called "confessions" and "sects," even though they are separated from each other, still comprise a single "invisible Church," inasmuch as each of them confesses Christ as Son of God and accepts His Gospel.

The dissemination of such a view is aided by the fact that side by side with the Orthodox Church there exists outside of her a number of Christians that exceeds by several times the number of members of the Orthodox Church. Often we can observe in this Christian world outside the Church a religious fervor and faith, a worthy moral life, a conviction — all the way to fanaticism — of one’s correctness, an organization and a broad charitable activity. What is the relation of all of them to the Church of Christ?

Of course, there is no reason to view these confessions and sects as on the same level with non-Christian religions. One cannot deny that the reading of the word of God has a beneficial influence upon everyone who seeks in it instruction and strengthening of faith, and that devout reflection on God the Creator, the Provider and Saviour, has an elevating power there among Protestants also. We cannot say that their prayers are totally fruitless if they come from a pure heart, for "in every nation he that feareth Him. . . is accepted with Him" (Acts 10:35). The Omnipresent Good Provider God is over them, and they are not deprived of God’s mercies. They help to restrain moral looseness, vices, and crimes; and they oppose the spread of atheism.

But all this does not give us grounds to consider them as belonging to the Church. Already the fact that one part of this broad Christian world outside the Church, namely the whole of Protestantism, denies the bond with the heavenly Church, that is, the veneration in prayer of the Mother of God and the saints, and likewise prayer for the dead, indicates that they themselves have destroyed the bond with the one Body of Christ which unites in itself the heavenly and the earthly. Further, it is a fact that these non-Orthodox confessions have "broken" in one form or another, directly or indirectly, with the Orthodox Church, with the Church in its historical form; they themselves have cut the bond, they have "departed" from her. Neither we nor they have the right to close our eyes to this fact. The teachings of the non-Orthodox confessions contain heresies which were decisively rejected and condemned by the Church at her Ecumenical Councils. In these numerous branches of Christianity there is no unity, either outward or inward ¾ either with the Orthodox Church of Christ or among themselves. The supra-confessional unification (the "ecumenical movement") which is now to be observed does not enter into the depths of the life of these confessions, but has an outward character. The term "invisible" can refer only to the Heavenly Church. The Church on earth, even though it has its invisible side, like a ship a part of which is hidden in the water and is invisible to the eyes, still remains visible, because it consists of people and has visible forms of organization and sacred activity.

Therefore it is quite natural to affirm that these religious organizations are societies which are "near," or "next to," or "close to," or perhaps even "adjoining" the Church, but sometimes "against" it; but they are all "outside" the one Church of Christ. Some of them have cut themselves off, others have gone far away. Some, in going away, all the same have historical ties of blood with her; others have lost all kinship, and in them the very spirit and foundations of Christianity have been distorted. None of them find themselves under the activity of the grace which is present in the Church, and especially the grace which is given in the Mysteries of the Church. They are not nourished by that mystical table which leads up along the steps of moral perfection.

The tendency in contemporary cultural society to place all confessions on one level is not limited to Christianity; on this same all-equalling level are placed also the non-Christian religions, on the grounds that they all "lead to God," and besides, taken all together, they far surpass the Christian world in the number of members who belong to them.

All of such "uniting" and "equalizing" views indicate a forgetfulness of the principle that there can be many teachings and opinions, but there is only one truth. And authentic Christian unity — unity in the Church — can be based only upon oneness of mind, and not upon differences of mind. The Church is "the pillar and ground of the Truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).

All the members of the Church of Christ comprise a single flock of God. All are equal before the judgment of God However, just as the parts of the body have different functions in the life of the organism, and as in a house building each part has its own use, so also in the Church there exist various ministries. The highest ministry in the Church as an organization is borne by the hierarchy, which is distinct from the ordinary members.

The hierarchy was established by the Lord Jesus Christ. He "gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the Body of Christ; till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:11-13).

No one in the Church can take upon himself the hierarchical ministry, but only one who is called and lawfully placed through the Mystery of Ordination. "No man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron" (Heb. 5:4). No matter how high a moral life a man might lead, he cannot fulfill the hierarchical ministry without a special consecration. It is not possible, therefore, to draw a parallel between the degree of one’s moral level and the degree of his level in the hierarchy. Here a perfect correspondence is desirable but is not always attainable.

The Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry chose from among His followers twelve disciples — the Apostles (those "sent forth") — giving to them special spiritual gifts and a special authority. Appearing to them after His Resurrection, He said to them, "As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20:21-23). These words mean that it is essential to be sent from above in order to fulfill the Apostolic ministry, as well as the pastoral ministry that follows after it. The scope of these ministries is expressed in the final words of the Lord to His disciples before His Ascension: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen" (Matt. 28:19-20). In these final words the Saviour indicates the triple ministry of the Apostles in their mission: 1) to teach, 2) to perform sacred functions (baptize), and 3) to govern ("teaching them to observe all things"). And in the words "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," He blessed the pastoral work of their successors for all times to the end of the ages, until the existence of the earthly Church itself should come to an end. The words of the Lord cited before this, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (John 20:21), testify that this authority of pastorship is inseparably united with special gifts of the grace of the Holy Spirit. The three hierarchical ministries are united in a single concept of pastorship, in accordance with the expression of the Lord Himself. "Feed My lambs … feed My sheep" (the words to the Apostle Peter in John 21:15, 17), and of the Apostles: "Feed the flock of God" (1 Peter 5:2).

The Apostles were always citing the idea of the Divine institution of the hierarchy. It was by a special rite that the Apostle Matthias was joined to the rank of the twelve in place of Judas who had fallen away (Acts 1). This rite was the choosing of worthy persons, followed by prayer and the drawing of lots. The Apostles themselves chose successors for themselves through ordination. These successors were the bishops.

The Apostle Paul writes to Timothy, "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery" (1 Tim. 4:13). And in another place the Apostle writes to him, "I put thee in remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands" (2 Tim. 1:6). To Timothy and Titus, Bishops of Ephesus and Crete, is given the right to make priests: "For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain presbyters in every city, as I had appointed thee" (Titus 1:5). Likewise they are given the right to give awards to presbyters: "Let the presbyters that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and The laborer is worthy of his reward" (1 Tim. 5:17-18). Likewise, they have the right to examine accusations against presbyters: "Against a presbyter receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses" (1 Tim. 5:19).

Thus the Apostles ¾ those precisely among them who were called to the highest ministry in the Church by the Lord Himself ¾ placed bishops as their immediate successors and continuers, and presbyters as their own helpers and as helpers of the bishops, as the "hands" of the bishops, placing the further matter of the ordination of presbyters with the Bishops.

Presbyters (literally "elders") were both in Apostolic times and in all subsequent times — and are today — the second degree of the hierarchy. The Apostles Paul and Barnabas, as the book of Acts relates, going through Lystra, Antioch and Iconium, ordained presbyters in each Church (Acts 14:23). For the resolution of the question about circumcision, an embassy was sent to Jerusalem, to the Apostles and the presbyters at Jerusalem. (Acts 15:2). At the Council of the Apostles, the presbyters occupy a place together with the Apostles (Acts 15:6).

Further, the Apostle James instructs: "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders (presbyters) of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord" (James 5:14). From the instruction of the Apostle James we see that 1) presbyters perform the Church’s sacred rites, and 2) in the early Church there could be several presbyters in each community, whereas only one bishop was appointed for a city and the region around it.

In the twenty-first chapter of the book of Acts, it is related that when the Apostle Paul returned to Jerusalem after his third Apostolic journey and visited the Apostle James, all the presbyters came, signifying that they made up a special Church rank. They repeated in the hearing of Paul the decree of the Apostolic Council concerning the noncircumcision of the pagans; but they asked him to perform the rite of his own purification, so as to avoid the reproach that he had renounced the name of Jew.

In the Apostolic writings the two names of "bishop" and "presbyter" are not always distinguished. Thus, according to the book of Acts the Apostle Paul called to himself in Miletus the "presbyters of the Church" from Ephesus (Acts 20:17), and instructing them he said, "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops (overseers), to feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28). However, from these and similar expressions one cannot conclude that in the age of the Apostles the two ranks ¾ bishop and presbyter ¾ were joined into one. This shows only that in the first century church terminology was not yet as standardized as it became later, and the word "bishop" was used in two meanings: sometimes in the special meaning of the highest hierarchical degree, and sometimes in the usual and general meaning of "overseer," in accordance with the Greek usage of that time. In our everyday terminology in Russia also, for example, the word "to inspect" is far from signifying that one necessarily has the rank of inspector (An "inspector" is the official in charge of overseeing the general good order in Orthodox seminaries.).

The third hierarchical degree in the Church is the deacons. Deacons, seven in number, were chosen by the community of Jerusalem and ordained by the Apostles, as we read in the sixth chapter of the book of Acts. Their first assignment was to help the Apostles in a practical, secondary activity: they were entrusted, to "serve tables" — to give out food, and be concerned for the widows. These seven men were later called deacons, although in the sixth chapter of Acts this name is not yet used.

From the pastoral epistles it is apparent that the deacons were appointed by bishops (1 Tim. 3:8-13). According to the book of Acts, for the ministry of deacon there were chosen people "filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom." They took part in preaching, as did St. Stephen, who sealed his preaching of Christ with his martyr’s blood; and like St. Philip, who performed the baptism of the eunuch (Acts 8:5 and 38). In the Epistle to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul sends greetings to "the bishops and deacons" (1:1), as bearers of the grace-given hierarchical ministry, helpers of the bishops.

St. Justin the Martyr writes: "Those called deacons among us give to each of those present communion of the Bread upon which has been performed the Thanksgiving (Eucharist) and of the Wine and the Water, and they carry them out to those who are absent." This means that they distributed and carried out to the believers not only food in general, but also the Eucharistic gifts. Their ministry itself, therefore, was bound up in the ancient Church, as it is now, with the Divine services and the giving of grace.

At the Council of Neo-Caesarea in 314, it was decreed that the number of deacons in a community, even in a large city, should not exceed seven, citing the passage in the book of Acts. In ancient Church literature, sometimes bishops and deacons are named without mention of presbyters, apparently in view of the fact that bishops themselves were the representatives of the communities in the cities, while the presbyters were given the ministry of the communities outside the cities.

Thus the Church hierarchy is composed of three degrees. None of the three stages can be seized solely by one’s personal desire; they are given by the Church, and the appointment to them is performed by the blessing of God through the ordination of a bishop.

All three degrees of the priesthood are indispensable for the Church. Even though a small community may have as representatives of the hierarchy only one or two of the degrees (a priest, a priest and a deacon, two priests, etc.), still, in the Church as a whole, and even in the local Church, it is essential that there be the fullness of the hierarchy. The Apostolic Father, St. Ignatius, expresses in his epistles the testimony of the ancient Church concerning this. He writes, "It is essential, as indeed you are acting, to do nothing without the bishop. Likewise obey the presbytery as apostles of Jesus Christ — our hope, in Whom may God grant that we live. And everyone should cooperate in every way with the deacons that serve the ministers of the Mysteries of Jesus Christ, for they are not ministers of food and drink, but servants of the Church of God." "All of you should revere the deacons, as a commandment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Father, and the presbyters as the assembly of God, as the choir of the Apostles. Without them there is no Church" (Ignatius the God-bearer, Epistle to the Trallians, par. 2; To the Smyrneans, par. 8).

The bishops comprise the highest rank of the hierarchy. In general, everywhere in life there is the principle of headship, and the highest degree of the hierarchy, which rules over presbyters and deacons, is dictated by the very logic of life itself. The same thing is clear from ancient church literature. The same St. Ignatius writes: "Where the Bishop is, there should the people also be, just as also where Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic Church" (Epistle to the Smyrneans, par. 8). In the expression of Tertullian, "Without bishops there is no Church" (Tertullian, "Against Marcian," part 4, ch. 5).

Among the bishops there are some who are leaders by their position, but not by their hierarchical, grace-given dignity. Thus it was also among the Apostles themselves. Although among the Apostles there were those who were specially venerated and renowned, revered as pillars (cp. Gal. 2:2, 9), still all were equal essentially, in their apostolic degree. "I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest Apostles" (2 Cor. 11:5, 12:11), the Apostle Paul declares twice, adding: "Though I be nothing." The mutual relations of the Apostles were built upon the foundation of hierarchical equality. Touching on his journey to Jerusalem to meet the most renowned Apostles, James, Peter and John, the Apostle Paul explains that he went "by revelation," testing himself by the catholic consciousness of the Apostles, but not by the personal view of any one among the most renowned. "But of those who seemed to be somewhat (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me; God accepteth no man’s person)" (Gal. 2:6). As for separate persons, the Apostle Paul writes: "When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed for his attitude to the uncircumcised Christians" (Gal. 2:11). The same mutual relations according to the principle of hierarchical grace-given equality remain forever in the Church among the successors of the Apostles -- the bishops.

When among the Apostles there appeared a need to appeal to a higher authoritative voice or judgment — this was in connection with the important misunderstandings that arose in Antioch with regard to the application of the ritual law of Moses ¾ the Apostles gathered in a Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15), and the decrees of this Council were acknowledged as obligatory for the whole Church (Acts 16:4). By this the Apostles gave an example of the conciliar resolution of the most important questions in the Church for all times.

Thus the highest organ of authority in the Church, and the highest authority in general, is a council of bishops: for a local Church it is a council of its local bishops, and for the Ecumenical Church, a council of the bishops of the whole Church.

The succession from the Apostles and the uninterruptedness of the episcopacy comprise one of the essential sides of the Church. And, on the contrary: the absence of the succession of the episcopacy in one or another Christian denomination deprives it of an attribute of the true Church, even if in it there is present an undistorted dogmatic teaching. Such an understanding was present in the Church from its beginning. From the Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea we know that all the local ancient Christian Churches preserved lists of their bishops in their uninterrupted succession.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons writes: "We can enumerate those who were appointed as bishops in the Churches by the Apostles, and their successors, even to our time." And, in fact, he enumerates in order the succession of the bishops of the Roman Church almost to the end of the second century (Against Heresies, pt. 3, ch. 3).

The same view of the importance of the succession is expressed by Tertullian. He wrote concerning the heretics of his time: "Let them show the beginnings of their churches, and reveal the series of their bishops who might continue in succession so that their first bishop might have as his cause or predecessor one of the Apostles or an Apostolic Father who was for a long time with the Apostles. For the Apostolic Churches keep the lists (of bishops) precisely in this way. The Church of Smyrna, for example, presents Polycarp, who was appointed by John; the Roman Church presents Clement, who was ordained by Peter; and likewise the other Churches also point to those men whom, as being raised to the episcopacy by the Apostles themselves, they had as their own sprouts from the Apostolic seed" (Tertullian, "Concerning the Prescriptions" against the heretics).

"Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God... With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment. . . But He that judgeth me is the Lord" (1 Cor. 4:1-4).

"The elders (presbyters) which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being examples to the flock" (1 Peter 5:1-3)

"Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God- whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation (life)" (Hebrews 13:7).

"Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as that they must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you" (Hebrews 13:17).

The life of the Church in the Holy Spirit. The new life. The Divine grace. The providence of God and grace. The Mysteries or Sacraments. Baptism. The meaning of the Mystery. The means of the performance of the mystery. The indispensability of Baptism. Baptism: the door to the reception of other gifts. Chrismation. The original means of the performance of this mystery. Chrism and sanctification. The Eucharist. The Saviour’s words on this mystery. The establishment of the mystery and its performance in apostolic times. The changing of the bread and wine in the mystery of the Eucharist. The manner in which the Jesus Christ remains in the Holy Gifts. The Eucharist and the Cross. The significance of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. Conclusions of a liturgical character. The necessity of Communion. Repentance. The institution of the mystery. Epitimia (penance). The Roman Catholic view. Priesthood. The essence and effectuating words of the mystery. The celibacy of Bishops. Marriage. The significance of the mystery. The central moment of the mystery. Marriage as a divine institution. The indissolubility of marriage. Holy Unction. The essence of the mystery. The divine institution of the mystery. Unction among Protestants and Roman Catholics.

The Church is surrounded by the sinful, unenlightened world; however, it itself is a new creation, and it creates a new life. And every member of it is called to receive and to create in himself this new life. This new life should be preceded by a break on the part of the future member of the Church with the life of "the world." However, when one speaks of the break with "the world," this does not mean to go away totally from life on earth, from the midst of the rest of mankind, which is often unbelieving and corrupt; for then, writes the Apostle Paul, "must ye needs go out of the world" (1 Cor. 5:10). However, in order to enter the Church one must depart from the power of the devil and become in this sinful world "strangers and pilgrims" (1 Peter 2:11). One must place a decisive boundary between oneself and "the world," and for this one must openly and straightforwardly renounce the devil; for one cannot serve two masters. One must cleanse in oneself the old leaven, so as to be a new dough (1 Cor. 5:7).

Therefore, from the deepest Christian antiquity the moment of entrance into the Church has been preceded by a special "renunciation of the devil," after which there follows further the baptism with the cleansing away of sinful defilement. Concerning this we read in detail in the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. In these Homilies to the Catechumens we see that the "prayers of exorcism," signifying the banishment of the devil, which are in the present Orthodox service of baptism, and the very "renunciation of satan" by the person coming for baptism, are very near in content to the ancient Christian rite. After this there is opened the entrance into the Kingdom of grace, the birth into a new life "by water and the Spirit," concerning which the Saviour taught in the conversation with Nicodemus (John 3:5-6).

As to how the growth in this new life subsequently occurs, we know this also from the words of the Saviour Himself. "So is the Kingdom