Without Saints there is no Christianity

Saint. Sanctus. Agios. Svyatoy. Holy. We have journeyed through the whole drama of Christ's redemptive work, through which our very nature was hypostatically united to God, and through this union humanity is given to be united to God by grace: Theosis. We become participators in the Divine Life by grace. Even now from the right hand of God the Father the God-Man, the Theanthropos, Christ Jesus beckons to us: “Come follow me.” The journey, the life of a Christian is one of ascent from this fallen world to heavenly God-like living, an abiding in the Life. This is an ascent that begins here and now, it is an ascent of transfiguration. I have heard that the Greek word for saint, or holy one, agios, means not of this earth, not of this world. There is a subtle insinuation in much modern non-Orthodox theology: Christ has achieved everything (which is true) and now all a person has to do is mentally believe and confess Christ and His work and this brings about salvation. Salvation is primarily a complete transfer of status from “not saved” to “saved” via confession on the part of man and decree on the part of God. In some regard this passive faith brings about a slight apathy in spiritual life. Christ has achieved it all, all I have to do is believe it (and claim it)! In believing one is said to go from the total state of being condemned to the total state of having been saved. True personal transfiguration is not of primary importance, in fact it contributes very little to actual salvation. Of course there are moral standards that must be kept, but in many modern groups there is a strong impression that we, humans, cannot really live God-like lives. Theosis is impossible, and thus the whole phenomenon of saints.

The whole reality of saints, holy ones, in the Christian experience testifies against this new teaching, indeed it testifying to the fact that all of us today, in committing to be Christians, have committed ourselves to deepening our abiding in the Divine Life by grace.

I would conjecture that one reason why many western confessions do not have holy ones, saints, besides a very egalitarian take on the issue - we are all saints and there are no “special” saints - is the fact that to have men and women as examples of holy living is to challenge our current comfortable worldly standard. Our times are quickly losing any value or like for standards. Most things, from education to exercise are being dropped to a lower standard. Standards and challenge might make someone feel bad, so instead of helping people work to meet a higher measure society seeks to create environments of egalitarian “standards.” Now everyone can not be challenged and feel good about it! This is first and foremost a spiritual malady. What has been passed as Christianity in the Modern world has so lowered Christian living that now we can all be saints because there really are no saints! And if there is the off chance there are, their lives are most likely quaint mythical stories only meant to inspire (or possibly fantasy stories made up after the style of ancient legends that are intended to awe the uneducated). In other words, I do not really have to personally strive to emulate them, and thus, in the long run Christ. And so we are conveniently not spiritually challenged from the “status quo:” we can indulge our passions and be “saved” all at the same time! We can neatly pursue the obese acquisition of innumerable things, most of them unnecessary to life, to satiate our desires and attain to heaven too! We can live in comfort and easy, after all I worked hard to earn all this, and “pray to Jesus in our hearts.” Salvation is easy, anyone can be an armchair saint. The modern gospel has become: you do not have to be holy, you do not have to be ontologically not of this world (all you have to do is get a bumper sticker).

It is not pleasant to hear about fasting while our bellies are full; it is not convenient to hear about ascetical living while we live our life of ease. After all isn’t Christ suppose to make us feel good? All these examples of self-denial do not allow me to pat myself on the back and say “you are doing just fine.” Instead they say, “there is much that you have yet to do in Christ, arise work while it is day; repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Christianity is always incarnational. And the saints are those flesh and blood epistles that prove Life in Christ is real. Without saints Christianity is a philosophical teaching of the mind. Saints are special in the sense that they have applied in a concrete and serious manner the teachings and life of Christ Jesus: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). Saints are those who have applied themselves to being true humans. Most of us are simply use to living in a state that is often devoid of true holiness. Yet in truth human nature is in God, in Christ. Thus the truly human manner of living is holiness, not the “norm” of enslavement to sin that we have become sadly accustom to. We are all called to be saints, to be holy in Christ; but we have not all fully desired this with all our heart. Mankind's true vocation is to be made God-like, and the saints prove this.

A Thing Impossible

The tendency of humanity is to seek comfort and ease; due to the fall this tendency has led to a lowering of mankind's eyes from his true goal: life in Christ. Too often instead of striving for the Kingdom of God we surround ourselves with earthly pleasures and worldly ease. Moreover, modern man has become all the more fixated on instantaneous pleasure: “I want it now, easy, and my way.” This desire is then projected onto the Christian life. The search is for a spiritual experience which satisfies now, while all struggle and effort are avoided. Many seek a message that is centered around earthly enjoyment and self-satisfaction. A system that offers instant results and power. You too can be a super apostle! Yet if we are to pursue true life in the Spirit we must lay aside such ideas and desires for instantaneous results, self promotion, and worldly pleasure, which are thinly cloaked in spiritual jargon. Few want to be reminded of St. Paul's words, “We must through many tribulations enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). St. Macarius the Great echoing this councils Christians, “Most want to possess the kingdom without labors and struggles and sweat, but this is not possible … Most wish to obtain the kingdom and desire to have eternal life, but, following their own wills, they refuse to control them. They are rather more like a sower who sows vain desires. They refuse to deny themselves and still wish to receive eternal life, which is a thing impossible” (The Fifty Spiritual Homilies).

Life in the Spirit is not a way of ease. To embark upon the pursuit of God is to walk upon the narrow way: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Mat. 7:13-14). To seek authentic Christian life in the Holy Spirit is to undergo a life-long transformation. Christ Himself compares following His life-giving commandments to the building of a house (cf. Mat 7:24-27). Each process must be done with care, labor, and diligence. Each step builds upon and relies on the preceding. Progress forward is not a distinct categorical movement from one level to the next. It is, instead, an organic unity and progression; each stage is ever sustaining, feeding, and supporting the next. There is never a time when the building stops relying on the foundation: without it the whole structure would collapse. Even though one may speak of various separate parts of a structure it is understood that only as a whole do they comprise the building. So, it is with life in the Spirit. Simply because we have laid a foundation does not yet mean we have built a house.

The believer pursuing life in Christ must respond to His divine grace. St. Symeon the New Theologian says, “'Grace' is … the gift of the Holy Spirit which makes us co-participants and communicants of God.” The Holy Spirit does not enter into the temple of our body and soul uninvited. A Christian is free to refuse the gift of the Holy Spirit; this refusal may be passive or explicit. Once grace moves upon the heart the believer is called to answer, thus beginning a work of synergy. The Holy Spirit stands waiting; we must open the door and allow Him continued reign in our life. The believer builds, through grace, his heart into a temple of God.

It must be stressed that only within the Theanthropic Body of Christ, the Orthodox Church, can personal experience be true and authentic. The believer partakes of the Holy Spirit, the fulness, given to the Church (cf. Eph. 1:23) by being biologically linked to the life giving Body; it is this partaking, safeguarded in and by the Church, which communicates true personal life and experience in the Spirit to the member, the believer. Personal experience outside of the Community of the Body of Christ becomes prey to deception and delusion (prelest), indeed it becomes individual experience and thus impersonal. The modern day pursuit of “Christian” Spiritual life detached from (and many times explicitly at the sake of) life in the Body of Christ becomes a dangerous type of spiritual self diagnosis and evaluation. The base of such a desire for an individual experience of God is many times based on our own human pride and perverted self reliance. Somehow I know better than everyone else, I will decide for myself what is true, I am my own sure spiritual guide (most of the time one adds some authority for effect, the Bible and I, the Holy Spirit and I, etc). This attitude is found nowhere in the Scriptures or experience of Christians through out all time. Rather true spiritual life in the Scriptures and testimony of Holy ones reveals that true life in the Spirit is received through much sacrifice, humility, and labor (just because God gives a free gift does not mean that we are yet capable of receiving it in its fullness). True Christianity understands that mankind is not capable of acute spiritual self diagnosis, and thus a Christian is called in humility to trust the Living witness of Christ in His Church, the bearer of true and clear Spiritual diagnosis and therapy; thus our limited experiences are weighed against the eternal experience revealed by Christ and His Body. True personal faith flowers within the safeguards of the Faith of the the community, which is the Body of Christ.

St. Justin Popovich writes: “In it (the Church), God has truly blessed us with all spiritual

blessings (Eph. 1: 3); He has given us in it all the means to be holy and without blame before God (Eph. 1: 4); He has adopted us in it through His only-begotten Son (Eph. 1: 5-8); He has revealed to us in it the eternal mystery of His will (Eph. 1: 9); He has united time and eternity in it (Eph 1: 10); He has made it possible in the Church for all beings and all matter to enter Christ, the Spirit and the Trinity (Eph. 1: 13-18). For all these reasons the Church constitutes the greatest and holiest mystery of God in all the worlds.”

In an age when there are thousands of voices shouting that Christ is in the dessert or inner room ready to give you your hearts desires (passions), and that one can instantly and easily attain the spiritual life, and receive the Holy Spirit in a lickety-split manner, pouring out seemingly great power with great ease, Orthodox Christians must be aware of the ancient and living teaching on life in the Spirit and refuse to believe these christs. True life in Christ is good and light, it is the tribulation of the Cross in this life, a losing and death of the self with all its desire for the easy way and self evaluation and reliance. Yet in following this path of seeming death (at which the fallen self revolts) one finds in reality resurrection and ascension with Christ in “Spirit and in Truth” to the right hand of God the Father. True Christian life in the Spirit is a thing impossible unless we are willing to die in Christ. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:24). 

True Christianity is an Apocalyptic Vision

“Little children, it is the last time” (1Jn. 2:18). True Christianity is a pronouncement of the end; not an end unto death but an end unto never ending Life. What then is ending? The corrupt system of sin and death that is proliferated and energized through human rebellion against truth in Christ Jesus. Christ our Lord came to put an end to this tyranny of destruction. The good creation that God Himself called into existence from nothing languishes under the evil yoke of sin that mankind has willingly subjected himself and creation to through rebellion and self-exaltation (cf. Rom 8:19-22). But not without hope, it awaits the refashioning of all things at the end, the restoration of incorruption and the victory of Life and Truth. Yet St. John the Theologian proclaims, “The world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 Jn 2:17). The world, the system of rebellion against God, is passing away, it is ending, it is its last time. And its death throes are visible in rippling effects which are growing with every passing day. The world is passing because, as a system, it has rejected Christ. Only Christ is Eternal. Christ announces to the world: I have come (the first time) not to condemn but to save (Jn. 3:17, 12:31); I have come to bring you from death to life, so that you shall not perish (Jn 6:33,51); I am the light of the world (Jn 9:5); cease your rebellion and be healed. Essentially Christ announces: I have come to bring an end to the darkness and death that have bound you. The tragedy is:“Light came into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (Jn. 3:19). The world system was - and is - too in love with its own darkness and bondage, it fears the freedom proclaimed by Christ Jesus. What would we do without the bonds we have grown so use too, indeed that we have grown to love? Fear then turns to hatred, for the love of bondage can be nothing but hatred. The world system has turned against the very One Who has come to heal, save, and bring life to all. Thus our Lord Jesus said, “The world … hates Me” (Jn 7:7, 15:28), “I am not of this world” (Jn. 8:23), and He tells His disciples that the world will rejoice in His seeming destruction (cf. Jn. 16:20). Christ proclaimed the end of death and darkness and the beginning of Life and Light. He ratified this freedom with His own Blood, destroying death and sin, rising on the third day as the Victorious King. “Remembering the saving commandments, and all those things that have come to pass for us: the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and the second glorious coming again”, in truth these are the events of the eschaton.

True Christianity is mandated with the same dramatic eschatological proclamation. For all those who have been truly born from above through water and in Spirit (Jn 3: 5) have begun to put on Christ (Gal 3:27, Rom 13:14), to acquire the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), and thereby crucifying the flesh and its lusts (Gal. 5:24). The Body of Christ, the fulness of Him who fills all things (Eph. 1:23), continues Christ's proclamation to the world: Come, abandon death and darkness, throw off the totalitarian dictates of sin and the devil, they are passing away into the never ending destruction of Gehenna. Christ has come to set you free. But Christ Jesus soberly warns his Church, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of this world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of this world, therefore the world hates you ... If they kept My words, they will keep yours also” (Jn 15:18-20). The Theologian instructs, “Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life” (1 Jn 3:13-14). It is a difficult thing to endure hatred. But there seems to be only two general responses (most of all according to St. John) to this proclamation of end: Hatred or love, rejection or acceptance. Thus the world that continues in darkness seeks to stop up the mouths of those proclaiming its end.

True Christianity in its essence is eschatological. Indeed it must be. Christ calls His followers out of the world, which insists on grasping relentlessly to its bonds. Why? Because these bonds will destroy true Life, they will burden the soul and keep it in bondage to death. “Where your treasure is there your heart shall be also,” Christ the Lord reveals (Mat. 6:21). From the very beginning of this proclamation of the end, the consciousness of the Church has been that She is no longer part of this phantom reality of the world. She has become the ambassador of the World without end. Thus She warns those who call Her their home and mother, “Many lose their true home because they have greater love for the road that leads them there. Let us not love the road rather than our home, in case we should lose our eternal home … Let us keep to this principle, therefore, that we should live as travelers and pilgrims on the road … free of lusts and earthly desires, but let us fill our mind with heavenly and spiritual forms” (St. Columbanus). St. Peter calls us to remember, “Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul” (1 Pet. 2:11). Elder Sophrony warns, "The tragedy of our times lies in our almost complete unawareness, or unmindfulness, that there are two kingdoms, the temporal and the eternal. We would build the Kingdom of heaven on earth, rejecting all idea of resurrection or eternity." Normalizing and acceptance of sin reveals a complete lack of true love, it betrays a cancer like infiltration by this world system. When Christianity becomes an integral institution of this fallen world something is dreadfully wrong. When it emulates the fashions and mentalities of mutable fallenness as standards of governing principles it has completely failed and lost its way. Indeed it is no longer by any means Christian. Not that the Church can ever be corrupted in Her essence, there She will remain pure and spotless to the end, and we as believers are called to enter into and conform our lives to that realm of purity. But those who would call themselves Christians and yet refuse to heed the pure call of Christ in the bosom of the Church are but building permanent structures on the road; and shall share in its destiny. When eschatological vision fails, Christianity becomes a hallow ringing of nicety, an empty gonging of ritual, a sterile structure, it becomes temporal institution using an eternal message for passing gain. Then every woe spoken by Christ to the pharisees aptly applies in fulness (cf. Mat 23:13-36). Therefore it is written, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of this world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 5:4).

True Christianity is always an apocalyptic vision of the eschaton. Thus the book of the age is the book known as Revelation, or the Apocalypse. It is the record of this vision of the Church. The revelation of the struggle of this dying age with the coming Eternal One. It is the great and final Exodus, the last journey of the Children of God from the midst of Egypt and Babylon, which was inaugurated by Christ Himself and will be consummated by Him. “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord” (2 Cor. 6:17). St. Ignatius of Antioch radically councils, “Do not talk about Jesus Christ while you desire the world.” It may be that one of the reasons the book of Revelation is not read liturgically in the Church is because the Church Herself is the book of Revelation. In Her, as in Her Bridegroom, the proclamation of the end continues as the existent reality. Thus we see reflected in the very structure of the Church and Her worship the Apocalypse. The Church is not simply a reflection of the coming age, She is the unfolding revelation and reality of that eternal age in this withering one. The message is clear: this world is ending and those who cling to it will share the same fate. Thus all believers are constantly reminded by every means possible to lift their hearts and eyes unto the heavens, and by doing so afford the world the only true hope and help possible. This vital eschatological experience must never cease to be the heart of the true Christian proclamation to the world, could it ever truly not be? If those claiming Christ lose this message they simply become members of this world system but with "Jesus" tags, salt which has become insipid. Those who are Christians are throwing off this world and its hegemony of lusts and passions, they have left behind this decrepit land of bondage and have transferred their “citizenship (to) heaven, from which we also eagerly await the Savior, the Lord Jesus” (Phil. 3:20). Yet Christ extends His mercy to all, compassionately delaying the culmination of the end so that humanity may repent (cf. 1 Pet. 3:1-9). He has not left the world without testimony, nor will He until that great and Final Day. Therefore the Church longs for Her Savior, and Her unending cry is the culmination of the age, the exclamation of the end, the eschaton: “And the Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the waters of life freely … Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:17, 20).

Superficial faith

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"Why do some people, well educated and baptized as Christians, fall away from Christianity and give themselves over to philosophy and pedantic theories, pretending that these are truer than Christianity? They do so for two principle reasons: either because of a totally superficial understanding of Christianity or because of sin. A superficial understanding of Christianity rejects it, and sin flees from Christ as does a criminal from the judge. Superficial and sinful Christians were as often enraged and infuriated with Christianity as the pagans. The superficial and culpable find it is more comfortable for them to bathe in the shallow puddle of human thoughts than in the perilous depths of Christ. For those who sincerely follow Christ, He constantly calls them to a greater and greater depth, as He once said to the Apostle Peter: Launch out into the deep (Lk. 5:4). St Mark the Ascetic writes that the Law of God is understood in accordance with the fulfillment of the commandments of God: 'Ignorance compels a person to speak in opposition to that which is beneficial, and insolence multiplies vice.'"

Church, Truth, and other currently unpopular words

By St. Hilarion (Troitsky) the New Hieromartyr

"The truth of the Church was greatly distorted in the West after Rome had fallen away from the Church. In the West, God's kingdom began to be viewed more as an earthly kingdom. Latinism obscured the Christian concept of the Church in the consciousness of its members with its legalistic account of good deeds, its mercenary relationship to God and its falsification of salvation. Latinism gave birth to a legitimate, although very insubordinate, offspring in the form of Protestantism. Protestantism was created from the soil of humanism which was not a religious phenomenon; on the contrary, all its leading ideas are purely earthly, human. It created respect for man in his natural condition. Protestantism, having carried over the basis of humanism into the religious field, was not a protest of genuine ancient Church Christian consciousness against those forms and norms which were created by medieval Papism, as Protestant theologians are often inclined to claim. Far from it; Protestantism was a protest on the very same plane. It did not re-establish ancient Christianity, it only replaced one distortion of Christianity with another, and the new falsehood was much worse than the first. Protestantism became the last word in Papism, and brought it to its logical conclusion. Truth and salvation are bestowed upon love, i.e., the Church - such is Church consciousness.

Latinism, having fallen away from the Church, changed this consciousness and proclaimed: truth is given to the separate person of the Pope, and the Pope manages the salvation of all. Protestantism only objected: Why is truth given to the Pope alone? - and added: truth and salvation are open to each separate individual, independently of the Church. Every individual was thus promoted to the rank of infallible Pope. Protestantism placed a papal tiara on every German professor and, with its countless number of popes, completely destroyed the concept of the Church, substituting faith with the reason of each separate personality. It substituted salvation in the Church with a dreamy confidence in salvation through Christ in egoistic isolation from the Church. In practice, of course, Protestants departed from the very beginning and by roundabout ways, by contraband, so to speak, introduced some of the elements of the dogma about the Church, having recognized some authorities, although only in the area of dogma. Being a religious anarchy, pure Protestantism, like all anarchies, turned out to be completely impossible, and by that, testified before us to the indisputable truth that the human soul is Church-prone by nature. Still, the theoretical side of Protestantism appealed to human self-love and self-will of all varieties, for self-love and self-will received a sort of sanctification and blessing from Protestantism. This fact is revealed today in the endless dividing and factionalism of Protestantism itself. It is Protestantism that openly proclaimed the greatest lie of all: that one can be a Christian while denying the Church.

Nevertheless, by tying its members by some obligatory authorities and church laws, Protestantism entangles itself in a hopeless contradiction: having itself separated the individual from the Church, it nevertheless places limits on that freedom. From this stems the constant mutiny of Protestants against those few and pitiful remnants of Church consciousness which are still preserved by the official representatives of their denominations … It is easy to understand that Protestantism corresponds to the almost completely pagan outlook generally approved in the West. There, where the cult of individualism blossoms luxuriantly, finding prophets in fashionable philosophy and singers in the belles-lettres, Christ's ideal of the Church can, of course have no place; for it negates self-love and self-will in people and demands love from them all … Even independently of Protestantism, however, many now come to the denial of the Church, assimilating, in general, the western European attitude which developed outside the Church and which is completely alien and even hostile to the spirit of the Church … love is forced out by pride and self-love (which is called "noble" - although the holy fathers of the Church speak of self-love and pride only in connection with the devil), when self-denial is substituted by self-assertion and meek obedience is replaced by proud self-will, then a dense fog shrouds the truth of the Church, which is inseparably linked with directly opposite ideals … Thus there is nothing easier than to re-interpret Christ's teaching according to one's personal taste and to invent "Christianity," passing off, under this name, the dreams of one's heart and the images of one's own idle fantasy. The sacred books of the New Testament were written by practical, unscholarly apostles. Throughout the centuries there have been "correctors of the Apostles," as Saint Irenaeus of Lyons calls them, ones who considered themselves higher than the Apostles, those "Galilean fishermen." Does it become a highly educated European of the twentieth century to accept on faith all that is said by some "fishermen"? So many free themselves from the authority of the Apostles and desire to interpret Christ's teaching while being guided only by their personal whims.

One can marvel greatly at how far people go in their "interpretation" of Christianity. Whatever they might desire, they immediately find in the Gospel. It would appear that it is possible to cover one's every idle dream and even ill intentioned thought by means of the Gospel's authority. No, the faith of Christ becomes clear and definite for man only when he unhypocritically believes in the Church; only then are the pearls of this faith clear, only then does the faith remain free from the pile of dirty rubbish of all possible, self-willed opinions and judgments. The Apostle Paul had already spoken of this when he called the Church of the living God the pillar and ground of the truth (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15)."

Excerpted from "'Christianity' or the Church?"

Living in Peace and Rest

Christ Jesus says, “Come to me, all ye who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart; and ye shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is good and my burden light” (Mat. 11:28-30). Further the Apostle Paul calls to us, “Let us fear then, lest perhaps, being left a promise to enter His rest, any of you seem to have come short of it … He said somewhere concerning the seventh day thus; 'And God rested from all His works on the seventh day ... there remaineth a sabbath-keeping to the people of God. For he who entered into His rest, he also did rest from his works, even as God did from His own. Let us give diligence then to enter into the rest, lest anyone should fall into the same example of disobedience” (Heb 4:1,4,9-11).

True rest and peace according to the Scriptures and the Saints is participation, by grace, in the very life of God. As God rested on the seventh day, so now the Christian is called to cease from his own work and enter into the rest of God. This participation begins at the moment of baptism and a Christian is called to deepen and expand it as he progresses in Christ. St. Symeon the New Theologian says, “God is light … He is the supreme light, the repose of all contemplation for those who have attained it.” Rest is an attaining to the Light of God; it is the vision of God. St. Augustine tells us, “The reward of virtue shall be God Himself, the Author of virtue; and He promised Himself … For thus too is that to be rightly understood which the Apostle says:'That God may be all in all.' He Himself will be the end of our desires. He shall be seen without end. He shall be loved without surfeit. He shall be praised without weariness … There we shall rest and we shall behold, we shall behold and we shall love, we shall love and we shall praise. This is what shall be in the end without end.”

True rest is beholding God, the unveiling of our eyes; it is the transformation of our being, as St. Paul says, “We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18). Godly rest is transformation by participation. This beholding is not the looking of one person outside himself to another, for not only does the soul “behold the glory of God, but from it also receives a certain splendor” as St. John Chrysostom reveals. The righteous one beholds and is ever beheld by the Lord, as St. John of Damascus says, “those who have performed good actions will shine like the sun … with our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing Him forever and being ever in His sight.” The true vision of God by the soul signifies a union by grace. St Symeon the New Theologian says of God, “Your divine glory is seen by us as pure light, a gentle light. It is revealed as light, it unites itself with us as light.” The soul that beholds God possesses God in himself, as St. Gregory Palamas says, “To him who mysteriously possesses and sees light, he knows and possesses God in himself … he is never separated from eternal glory.” Rest is union, it is a foretaste of that complete union that will happen at the general resurrection. It is a union that must have been entered upon while in the body. It is the ceasing of the works of the flesh, the perfection and completion of the embarking of the new creation that was energized in a man while sojourning in the flesh. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). This is the Life given to those who are willing to lose their life in the flesh, as Christ the Lord spoke, “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Mat 16:25).

If in this life Christ is taking form in us then He “assuredly transforms us, re-creates us, and changes us into the image of the Godhead,” teaches St. Symeon. Rest is the believer entering into God, and God entering into him. St. Symeon the New Theologian again says, “He (Christ, my note) mingles with the soul but does not blend with it. The One who is pure essence is entirely united with the essence of the soul … How, I cannot tell. The two become one. The soul is united with its Creator and the Creator is in the soul, totally with the soul alone.” This is eternal life, to be in God and have God abiding in us.

Those who choose to live without Christ, dwell without Christ. By willful sin they willfully cast themselves from life. Having hardened their souls through love for sin they cannot be penetrated and illumined by Christ. St. Nicholai Velimirovich tells us, “A heart filled with evil is harder than granite. A mind darkened by sin cannot be illuminated by all the light of heaven.” God is all around them, but not the one place He desires most to be - inside them, in the heart.  

The goal of the Christian life is to know the Lord, One God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is not something that will happen only in the future, but is a process which must be embarked upon now. It is here and now that we may fall down in repentance before the Creator of all things. It is right here and now that we may abide in that life which Christ the Lord spoke of, “I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly” (Jn 10:10). Thus, dwelling in the grace of God (by the grace of God) a Christian may have faith, “for we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (1 Cor. 5:1). If our life is hidden in Christ we will dwell in Christ, and abiding in Him we will remain in that peace which pass understanding and is truly not of this world.

On Sorrow and Affliction in the Christian life

By St. Dimitry of Rostov

"Observe a physician of the body, what does he do with the sick? Sometimes he prescribes bitter medicine; sometimes he must burn and cut malady away, he uses therapy to reveal the root cause of the pain. All this is done, of course, for healing and not for sickness, for life and not for death. The sick person may complain and groan, not wanting to receive bitter medicine, but when he becomes healthy he is very thankful to the physician. And so, the Lord, the Physician of our souls, seeing our putrid sinful wounds offers the needed method of healing. He burns away through misfortunes, He cuts away with unexpected grief, He gives us to drink tears of affliction; all this is done only for our healing, so as to bring us to life and restoration, as David said, “The Lord chastened me strictly, but He has not given me over to death” (Ps. 117:18).¹ In the time of chastisement He is more good, rather than fierce, more compassionate, rather than angry; even though He pours wine on our wounds and cruel sorrows, it is never without oil;² we are struck, but not without compassion, we pass through embitterment, but not without mercy and comfort.³

It is very necessary for us to be chastened, without which it is impossible to be healed of our spiritual festers. We must receive chastisement not with sorrow or grumbling but with thankfulness, with patience, and great courage of soul.⁴ Truly, in the midst of sorrows our human nature is inclined to grumble, complain, and break down in exhaustion; but, O lover Christ, do not break down, do not become faint of soul, take courage and your heart will be strengthened. Pray this prayer of St. John Chrysostom, “Lord, give unto me courage of soul!” O Christian with thankfulness speak in this way, “Blessed is God, for I know that I endure less than I deserve.” Remember your many shortcomings; do not refuse to endure the treatment, because after enduring you will bless God Who has healed you. “Blessed is the man who endures temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to them that love Him” (James 1:12), says the apostle. Do not be like an impatient person when some unpleasant thing happens, not in line with the wishes of his heart, he jumps on everyone with grumbling; such a one thinks everyone is guilty but him. You must never weaken; nail yourself to the cross of patience and courage.

Speak in this manner, “I'm ready to bear trials, only give me the strength.” Listen to what the apostle says, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man, but God is faithful, Who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13). God allows sorrows for those He loves, according to what they can bear; He gives patience in the midst of sorrows to those who hope on Him. And so, cast your sadness upon the Lord, trust in Him, and He will protect your soul. Every persecution, embitterment, offense, abasement – all these are normal and bring salvation for the one who loves God. Our Mighty God soon turns weeping and crying into comfort and rejoicing. When a child is in the midst of learning he may be sorrowful and perplexed, but when he has completed it he is very joyful. Patiently endure and be expecting God's mercy early, later and at every hour. Listen to the words of the apostle, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations” (James 1:2).

So, in what should you rejoice? Rejoice in the fact that these things are bringing you benefit. Take for instance flax, until it undergoes the threshing process, until it is beaten and broken down with the scutching blade, it remains unfit for making rope or fabric; so it is with a soul that has not been ground, if it has not been softened by tribulations it cannot come to a knowledge of its own unworthiness. Gold and silver must be refined so as to be purged of impurities, likewise the soul is refined by everything that God allows; it comes to a knowledge of itself and its weakness, it learns humility and in this way is brought into the blessing of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is only “through much tribulation that we enter into the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22); heavenly crowns are given to those who endure evil in temptations. Who is the one worthy of eternal glory? Is it not the one who suffers though affliction, according to the apostle's words, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). Endure then, O lover of God, that you may be called a beloved son of God. And when sadness and sorrow visit you, never doubt that you are one of God's beloved children.

Also, keep in mind that it is not always because of sin that evil circumstances befall us. Many righteous ones, for the benefit of their souls and for the testing of their faith and righteousness patiently endured much evil. Call to mind Job and Tobit the righteous God-pleasers. Who among the saints lived their life without sorrows, grief and sufferings? They sinned very little, but endured much. They were persecuted, treated with dishonor, and tortured, and still they rejoiced in the Lord; but you, O Christian, faint of soul, when you encounter a little misfortune become perplexed and sorrowful beyond reason. Truly, you do not desire to be turned away alone from the host of God's chosen ones, because you refused to endure those things that came upon you? Remember there is no unending pain, no sorrow that does not pass, therefore, have undoubting hope that in the end the strong Lord will turn your passing sadness into eternal joy."

Translated from Russian by Fr. Zechariah Lynch

1My own direct translation of the text, so as to stay more consistent with St. Dimitry's words. Ps. 118:24, MT

2Cf. Lk. 10:25ff. In ancient times wine was used as a disinfectant for wounds, the alcohol would cause a burning sensation. Oil was applied to sooth and coat the wound and help enhance natural healing properties.

“Heal, O Savior, the corruption of my debased soul, O only Physician. Apply the compress to me, and the oil and wine – works of repentance, compunction and tears.” Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, First Wednesday of Great Lent, Song 8.

3“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:5-6, Prov. 3:11-12)

4 Великодушие literally “greatness of soul”