”THEOSIS” IN SAINT SILOUAN THE ATHONITE
AND STARETS SOPHRONY OF ESSEX
by Christopher Veniamin
AND STARETS SOPHRONY OF ESSEX
by Christopher Veniamin
About elder Sophrony of Essex here
”Coming into contact with Father
Sophrony was always an event of a most especial kind. His monastics,
first and foremost, but also those who made up his wider spiritual
family, ”lived,” as Father Zacharias put it, ”in an abundance of the
word of God.”
As a young boy, I had the blessing of
serving each Sunday in the altar of the Monastery of Saint John the
Baptist, Essex, England. One day when I was still a lad of only fifteen
or sixteen years of age, following the Divine Liturgy, and whilst
standing in the Prothesis of All Saints Church, Father Sophrony asked
me why I was looking so thoughtful. Embarrassed that I was preoccupied
with such mundane matters, I had to confess that school examinations
were on the horizon, and that I wanted to do well in them. To my
surprise, however, Father Sophrony did not belittle my worldly anxiety,
but gently nodded his head, and agreed that it was indeed important to
do well in examinations, and that to do so required much toil and
sacrifice. But then he also added, as though to a friend, that ”in this world there is nothing more difficult than to be saved.”
The force of the truth of these words
struck deep in my heart. We often encounter, in ourselves and in
others, the attitude which suggests that Salvation is something that we
can leave until later; once, that is, we have taken care of more
pressing matters. Father Sophrony’s perspective was quite different,
however. By pointing to the incomparable difficulty of attaining to
Salvation, he was clearly placing it at the very top of our list of
urgent priorities. And when one pauses to consider all the great
achievements of mankind, past and present, whether they be of a
scientific or literary character, in the world of politics or finance
or physical endeavour. Father Sophrony’s words seem bold and even
provocative - ”a hard saying” (John 6:60) - but nevertheless
fundamentally quite true.
Upon later reflection, I realized that
the reason why Father Sophrony’s words rang so true that day is because
of the wealth of meaning which Salvation has for us in the Orthodox
Church. By others, Salvation is often understood simply in terms of
”deliverance from sin and its consequences and admission to heaven,” in
terms of escaping damnation, that is, and reaching a safe place where
we can no longer be tormented by the enemy. According to the Fathers of
the Church, however, Salvation is not so prosaic a matter, for it
involves the ”theosis” (the deification or divinization) of the entire
human person in Christ; it involves, that is, becoming like unto Christ
to the point of identity with Him; it involves acquiring the mind of
Christ (as Saint Paul affirms in the second chapter of the First
Epistle to the Corinthians, verse sixteen), and indeed it signifies the
sharing in His very Life.
In our brief and humble examination of the content and meaning of theosis or deification in Saint Silouan
and Staretz Sophrony, I should like to focus on three main areas: 1.
Christ as the measure of our deification, 2. Love for enemies as the
measure of our likeness to Christ, and 3. Holy Relics as a witness to
the love of Christ in us.
1. Christ as the Measure of Our Deification
Christ is the measure of all things, both divine and human. Since the divine Ascension, our human nature has been raised up to the right hand of God the Father. As Father Sophrony points out, in His divine Person, the Son and Word of God was of course always seated on the right hand of the Father, being con-substantial with Him. The divine purpose for the human race, however, is seen in the union of our human nature to the divine Person of Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, in its being raised to the right hand of the Father.
St Paul, the great Apostle of the Word
of God made flesh, identifies the divine purpose of the Incarnation
with our adoption as sons of God: ”But 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. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the
Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore
thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ” (Gal. 4:4-7).
In Christ Jesus, therefore, we encounter
both true and perfect God and true and perfect man. In other words, we
see in Him not only the great God and Saviour (Tit. 2:13), but also
what or who we have been called to become - sons and heirs of God the
Father. St Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, in refuting the heresy of the
Gnostics of the second century, described the divine purpose succinctly
thus: ”[I]f the Word is made man, it is that men might become gods” (1).
And the champion of Nicene Orthodoxy, Athanasius the Great, writing in
the fourth century, reaffirms the Biblical and Irenaean position: ”God
became human,” he says, ”that we might be made gods” (autos gar
enenthrop-esen, ina emeis theopoiethomen) (2).
”God became human that we might be made
gods.” What a daring statement! But what exactly does it mean for us to
become gods? Can we created mortals become uncreated and immortal? Is
this not an impossibility? An impiety? Or even a blasphemy? In what,
then, does our becoming gods, our deification or divinization - our
theosis - consist?
As Archimandrite Sophrony explains in
his spiritual autobiography. We Shall See Him As He Is:”Christ
manifested the perfection of the Divine image in man and the
possibility for our nature of assimilating the fullness of divinization
to the very extent that, after His ascension. He placed our nature ‘on
the right hand of the Father”’ (3).
Note here that the expression ”on the right hand of the Father” (ek
dexion tou Patros) denotes nothing less than equality with the Father.
Thus, since the time of the divine Ascension of Christ, our human
nature has been deified in Him, and raised up to the right hand of God
the Father. Significantly, however, Archimandrite Sophrony also adds
the following: ”But even in Him our nature did not become one with the
Essence of the Uncreated God. In Christ, incarnate Son of the Father,
we contemplate God’s pre-eternal idea of man” (4).
So, in Christ Jesus we find man’s
rightful place, ”on the right hand of the Father,” sharing in the
divine Life; but, as with the two natures in Christ, man has been
called to be united with God without mixture or confusion of any kind,
that is to say, we never cease to be His creatures, since He alone is
Uncreated. This fundamental distinction is of inestimable significance
in Patristic theology. Nevertheless, in the union of our human nature
to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, we also see what in
theological terminology is called the communicatio idiomatum, that is,
the exchange of natural properties belonging to each of Christ’s two
natures. This may also be described in terms of the interpenetration of
the natural energy of each of the two natures in Christ in the other.
As a simple illustration of this we have
the Gospel narrative of the Transfiguration in Luke 9:28, where we
first see Christ praying, performing, that is, an act which is proper
to His human but not to His divine nature; while moments later, we find
His humanity sharing in, indeed resplendent with. His divine glory,
which is proper only to the divine nature. Saint Cyril of Alexandria
describes the scene in this way: ”The blessed disciples slept for a
short while, as Christ gave Himself to prayer. For He voluntarily
fulfilled His human obligations (ta anthropina). Later, on waking they
became beholders (theoroi) of His most holy and wondrous change” (5).
Staretz Sophrony points out that the
union of the human nature in Christ is of course hypostatic or
prosopic, that is to say, that Christ is a divine Person, the Person of
the Son and Word of God; but, it is equally important to note that the
union of the two natures in Christ is also energetic (6).
The significance of this energetic interpenetration of the divine and
human natures in each other is of paramount importance for us human
beings in that it forms the basis of our own union with God, which is
also energetic and not essential or hypostatic. In other words, it
proves to us that the example of Christ is also realizable, also
attainable, by us human persons, and that theosis to the point of
divine perfection, far from being optional, is in fact an obligation.
It is in this sense that Staretz Sophrony understands the exhortation:
”Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect” (Matt. 5:48).
Father Sophrony also highlights another
mystery concerning the Life of Christ on earth as a model and pattern
for our own Life in Christ. This is revealed in the fact that even with
the human nature of Christ we may observe a certain growth or
dynamism, or, as Holy Scripture puts it, a certain ”increase”: ”And
Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man”
(Luke 2:52). Thus, before all things had been fulfilled, even after the
hypostatic union of human nature to the divine Person of the Word –
even after His assumption of our humanity into His divine Person - even
Christ, in His human aspect, appears as increasing in perfection.
Hence, He also undergoes temptations (Luke 4:1-13, Hebr. 2:18); and
even reached the point of agony (Luke 22:44). This, as Father Sophrony
remarks, is due principally to a certain division which may be observed
in Christ before His glorious Ascension, owing to the asymmetry of His
natures. Following His Ascension, and the sitting of Christ the Son of
Man on the right hand of God the Father, we have the new vision of the
Christ-Man as equal to God, not of course according to His nature, but
according to His energy.
Father Sophrony cautiously notes,
however, that this does not refer to Christ’s hypostatic ”aspect,” for
the pre-eternal and uncreated Word remained such even after His
Incarnation. Nevertheless, in the human ”aspect” of His union and
existence, we find once again the model and pattern for our own Life in
Christ, for, as Staretz Sophrony puts it:
”Christ is the unshakable foundation and the ultimate criterion for the anthropological teaching of the Church, Whatever we confess concerning the humanity of Christ is also an indication of the eternal divine plan for man in general. The fact that in the Christ-Man His hypostasis is God, in no way diminishes the possibility for us humans to follow His example (cf. John 13:15) (7), after which ‘in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren’ (Hebr. 2:17).
”Christ is the unshakable foundation and the ultimate criterion for the anthropological teaching of the Church, Whatever we confess concerning the humanity of Christ is also an indication of the eternal divine plan for man in general. The fact that in the Christ-Man His hypostasis is God, in no way diminishes the possibility for us humans to follow His example (cf. John 13:15) (7), after which ‘in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren’ (Hebr. 2:17).
”If it is true that Christ is the ‘Son
of Man,’ consubstantial with us, then it follows that everything that
He accomplished in His earthly life must likewise be possible for the
rest of the ‘sons of men.”’ And for this reason. Father Sophrony adds
that ”if we confess His full and perfect theosis, it behooves us also
to hope for the same degree of theosis for the saints in the age to
come” (8).
The fundamental theological concern
behind all that we have said so far is soteriological, that is to say,
it concerns our Salvation in a most fundamental way. Why? Because of
the simple fact that we cannot live with Christ if we are not like Him
in all respects. As the great hierophant John the Theologian and
Evangelist proclaims: ”We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be
like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this
hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3). ”We
shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” So, if we wish to be
eternally with Christ, we must become like Him; and this process of
becoming Christ-like, this purification, invariably involves repentance
- a fundamental change in our whole way of life, in our very ”mode of
being.”
Saint Symeon the New Theologian, in his Hymn no. 44 reiterates this point in the following way:
”The Master is in no way envious of mortal men that they should appear equal to Him by divine grace, neither does He deem His servants unworthy to be like unto Him, but rather does He delight and rejoice to see us who were made men such as to become by grace what He is by nature. And He is so beneficent that He wills us to become even as He is. For if we be not as He is, exactly like unto Him in every way, how could we be united to Him? How could we dwell in Him, as He said, without being like unto Him, and how could He dwell in us, if we be not as He is?” (9)
”The Master is in no way envious of mortal men that they should appear equal to Him by divine grace, neither does He deem His servants unworthy to be like unto Him, but rather does He delight and rejoice to see us who were made men such as to become by grace what He is by nature. And He is so beneficent that He wills us to become even as He is. For if we be not as He is, exactly like unto Him in every way, how could we be united to Him? How could we dwell in Him, as He said, without being like unto Him, and how could He dwell in us, if we be not as He is?” (9)
And again concerning the awesome-ness of our inheritance, the great Paul, in Romans, writes the following:
”The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ’, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:16-18).
”The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ’, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:16-18).
Father Sophrony also makes another very
interesting and important observation concerning the example given by
Christ and our own theosis or deification. He points to the fact that
even though the deification of Christ’s human nature was, as Saint John Damascene
says, effected from the very moment in which He assumed our nature,
nevertheless Christ as Man shied away from anything which might give the
impression of auto-theosis, that is to say, self-deification or
self-divinization. That is why we see the action of the Holy Spirit
underlined at His Holy Birth: ”The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee…
therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be
called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35); also, the Holy Spirit descends upon
Christ at His Baptism in the Jordan (Matt. 3:15); and concerning the
Resurrection, the Scriptures speak thus: ”God, that raised him up from
the dead, and gave him glory” (1 Pet. 1:21); and finally, Christ
Himself, teaching us the way of humility and how always to ascribe glory
to Our Heavenly Father, says: ”If I bear witness of myself, my witness
is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know
that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true” (John 5:31-32).
The same movement may be observed in the
Divine Liturgy. The Words of Institution - ”Take eat, this is my
body,” ”Drink of this all of you, this is my blood” - by themselves are
not regarded as sufficient to effect the consecration of the Holy
Gifts; they must be accompanied by the Epiklesis, the invocation of the
Holy Spirit, precisely in order to avoid any notion of
self-deification, to avoid, that is, giving the impression that simply
by speaking the words which Christ spoke, we are able to transform the
Holy Gifts into the precious Body and Blood of Christ. (Of course, at
the heart of this movement lies the truth that the action of Father,
Son and Holy Spirit is always one and the same: the Three Divine
Hypostases always act together, always act in unison, which is an
expression of Their consubstantiality.) Thus, it behooves us to beseech
God the Father to send down the Holy Spirit, by Whose power the change
of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is effected (10).
2. Love for Enemies as the Measure of Our Likeness to Christ
Icon from this post: The Life and Teachings of Elder Siluan |
Now although Saint Silouan himself, as
far as I am aware, does not actually use the term theosis, the
deification of the human person in Christ is certainly a golden thread
which may be traced throughout his writings. For Saint Silouan, the
fundamental criterion by which a person may measure his or her likeness
to Christ is love for one’s enemies (cf. Matt. 5:43-45). As he says:
”Christ prayed for them that were crucifying him: ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’ (Luke 23:34). Stephen the Martyr prayed for those who stoned him, that the Lord ‘lay not this sin to their charge’ (Acts 7:60). And we, if we wish to preserve grace, must pray for our enemies.”
”Christ prayed for them that were crucifying him: ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’ (Luke 23:34). Stephen the Martyr prayed for those who stoned him, that the Lord ‘lay not this sin to their charge’ (Acts 7:60). And we, if we wish to preserve grace, must pray for our enemies.”
Herein lies the mystery of the divine
”mode of being,” God’s very way of life: humility. Humility on the
ascetic plane, explains Father Sophrony, is manifested as regarding
one’s self as the worst of all sinners, while on the theological plane,
humility is revealed as love, which is given freely and completely (11). Saint Silouan, who was himself possessed of this divine love, humbly warns us to be watchful:
”If you do not feel pity for the sinner destined to suffer the pains of hellfire, it means that the grace of the Holy Spirit is not in you, but an evil spirit. While you are still alive, therefore, strive by repentance to free yourself from this spirit” (12).
”If you do not feel pity for the sinner destined to suffer the pains of hellfire, it means that the grace of the Holy Spirit is not in you, but an evil spirit. While you are still alive, therefore, strive by repentance to free yourself from this spirit” (12).
The struggle for Christ-like love for
one’s enemies and humility, and against pride, is a very great one
indeed; and that is why the saints, the true imitators of Christ and
sharers in His love, are great indeed. Saint Silouan writes:
”I am a sorry wretch, as the Lord knows, but my pleasure is to humble my soul and love my neighbour, though he may have given me offence. At all times I beseech the Lord Who is merciful to grant that I may love my enemies; and by the grace of God I have experienced what the love of God is, and what it is to love my neighbour; and day and night I pray the Lord for love, and the Lord gives me tears to weep for the whole world. But if I find fault with any man, or look on him with an unkind eye, my tears will dry up, and my soul sink into despondency. Yet do I begin again to entreat forgiveness of the Lord, and the Lord in His mercy forgives me, a sinner.”
”I am a sorry wretch, as the Lord knows, but my pleasure is to humble my soul and love my neighbour, though he may have given me offence. At all times I beseech the Lord Who is merciful to grant that I may love my enemies; and by the grace of God I have experienced what the love of God is, and what it is to love my neighbour; and day and night I pray the Lord for love, and the Lord gives me tears to weep for the whole world. But if I find fault with any man, or look on him with an unkind eye, my tears will dry up, and my soul sink into despondency. Yet do I begin again to entreat forgiveness of the Lord, and the Lord in His mercy forgives me, a sinner.”
”Brethren,” Saint Silouan continues,
”before the face of my God I write: Humble your hearts, and while yet
on this earth you will see the mercy of the Lord, and know your
Heavenly Creator, and your souls will never have their fill of love” (13). So, we see that the love of Christ fills the very being of His saints.
3. Holy Relics as a Witness to the Love of Christ in Us
But whither does this all-embracing Christ-like love lead? The answer for Saint Silouan is a simple one:
”Love of God takes various forms. The man who wrestles with wrong thoughts loves God according to his measure. He who struggles against sin, and asks God to give him strength not to sin, but yet falls into sin again because of his infirmity, and sorrows and repents - he possesses grace in the depths of his soul and mind, but his passions are not yet overcome. But the man who has conquered his passions now knows no conflict: all his concern is to watch himself in all things lest he fall into sin. Grace, great and perceptible, is his. But he who feels grace in both soul and body is a perfect man, and if he preserves this grace, his body is sanctified and his bones will make holy relics” (14).
”Love of God takes various forms. The man who wrestles with wrong thoughts loves God according to his measure. He who struggles against sin, and asks God to give him strength not to sin, but yet falls into sin again because of his infirmity, and sorrows and repents - he possesses grace in the depths of his soul and mind, but his passions are not yet overcome. But the man who has conquered his passions now knows no conflict: all his concern is to watch himself in all things lest he fall into sin. Grace, great and perceptible, is his. But he who feels grace in both soul and body is a perfect man, and if he preserves this grace, his body is sanctified and his bones will make holy relics” (14).
There are, described in this passage,
four stages of love, the fourth and highest of which is that which is
attested to by the penetration of Divine Grace into the body, into the
very marrow of a persons being. And this is identified by Saint Silouan
as the highest state of perfection, the highest state of holiness. ”He
who feels grace in both soul and body is a perfect man, and if he
preserves this grace, his body is sanctified and his bones will make
holy relics.”
As with Christ’s voluntary death, in
which it was not possible for the Body of the Logos of Life to see
corruption, and which was thus raised together with His human soul on
the third day (15), so too will it
be with the bodies of those saints which have known great grace in
this life, and who have been able to preserve it.16 They too, even
after death, are not separated from the grace and love of God, neither
in soul nor in body, and hence their bodies are revealed as holy
relics.
Here we are confronted with an
overwhelming mystery: that man is not truly man, not truly a human
person or hypostasis, without his body. For this reason, even great
saints patiently await the Second and Glorious Coming of Christ, when
by Grace they will become united once more with their bodies. There
will not be a Judgment for them; for they have already been judged – by
holy self-condemnation. The Second Coming of Christ, then, will be for
them the moment of their full realization as persons, and thus the
inauguration of their full and perfect participation in the Life in
Christ, which is at one and the same time the Life of the Most Holy
Trinity.
The sole exception to this, of course,
is the Mother of God, the Theotokos (whose Feast of the Holy Protection
we celebrate tomorrow, October 1), who, as the Mother of Life, even
after death, could not be held by the grave, but, like her Son, ”passed
over into life.” She, therefore, even now, as a fully realized human
hypostasis, enjoys the blessed Life to which we have all been called.
In our first section, we noted an
important passage in Saint Paul, from his Epistle to the Romans,
concerning sonship, suffering and the final glory. Please allow me to
repeat it once more: ”The Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs;
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with
him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:16-18). ”The sufferings of
this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which
shall be revealed in us,” that is, in our adoption as sons, in our
Salvation, in our theosis in Christ. That is why Saint Gregory Palamas
affirms that ”except for sin nothing in this life, even death itself,
is really evil, even if it causes suffering” (17).
Speaking of the torments that the martyrs were willing to endure,
Saint Gregory explains that ”the martyrs made the violent death which
others afflicted on them into something magnificent, a source of life,
glory and the eternal heavenly kingdom, because they exploited it in a
good way that pleased God” (18).
Christ’s word is charged with His divine
energy, life and power; so too are His divine actions and His Life on
earth as Man. When we fill ourselves with His words, and strive
earnestly to live according to His command and example, to love even
our enemies as He did - as He does - so too do we, by the grace of the
Holy Spirit, enter into the sphere of Life which is contained in them.
There is, as Father Zacharias puts it, ”an exchange of lives” which
takes place. We thus become, in our souls and in our bodies, ”partakers
of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4) through union with His flesh, His
humanity - sharers, that is, in the very divine Life of Christ Himself,
which is at the same time the Life of the Most Holy Trinity. We are
saved not as individuals but as persons, as members of the Body of
Christ, of which Christ is the Head. We are united with Him - and
through Him, with the other members of His Body.
Notice the following words from Father
Sophrony’s We Shall See Him As He Is: ”Through His incarnation the
everlasting Logos of the Father gives us to partake of His Blood and
His Flesh in order thereby to pour into our veins His eternal Life,
that we may become His children, flesh of His Flesh, bone of His Bone
(cf. John 6:53-57)” (19).
In Holy Relics, therefore, we do not see
dead bones - far from it. In Holy Relics we see the result of
communion with the Lord, the result of sharing the very Life of the
Most High God (cf. Rom. 9:5) - communion with Him Who is Self-Life,
Life Itself (autozoe). United with Christ, then, though we pass through
”the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4), we pass from death to
Eternal Life. This is the point at which the created meets the
uncreated, the point at which earth meets ”heaven face to face,” and
the point at which we created, mortal human beings are transfigured by
Him into Divine Life.
Thus are the perfect. Thus are the
saints. Thus are they whose very bones have preserved grace to the end.
Holy Relics are the earthly remains of those who have been taught by
none other than Christ Himself to love their enemies even unto death,
the death of the Cross, which is His glory, and which by grace becomes
their glory too. Love for enemies is not a moral injunction, it is the
fundamental criterion for the Christian way of life. This is Salvation.
Yea, this is theosis.
Truly, then, ”in this world there is
nothing more difficult than to be saved.” But as we begin to perceive
Salvation as theosis, so too do the dry bones seen by the Prophet
Ezekiel begin to receive Life:
”The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live… And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord” (Ezek. 37:1-14).
”The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live… And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord” (Ezek. 37:1-14).
”[I] shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live.” ”Even so, come. Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).
Faith And Science In Orthodox Gnosiology and Methodology
Fr. Anthony Alevizopoulos, Th.D., Ph.D, THE ORTHODOX CHURCH – Its Faith, Worship and Life.
BASIC
DOGMATIC TEACHING – An Orthodox Handbook, by
Fr. Anthony Alevizopoulos.
NOTES
(1) Adversus Hereses V, pref.
(2) De Incarnalione LIV.
(3) We Shall See Him As He Is,
translated by Rosemary Edmonds (Tolteshunt Knights, Essex: Patriarchal
and Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, 1988), p. 193.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Homiliae diversae IVin
transfigurationem (Patrologia Graeca 77:10138); cf. Ad Nestorium 12,
anathema 4 (Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum I, 1, 1:41), where the
concept of the communicatio idiomatum is formulated in a succinct
manner. The reality of the hypostatic union and the communicatio
idiomatum in Christ can be discerned in the fact that Christ conversed
with the people sometimes oikonomikos, as man, and sometimes with
divine authority (mat’ exousias tes Iheoprepous), as God, Ad Successum
episcopum Diocaesareae 171.6 (ACO I, 1,, 6:153). As a result of the
communicalio idiomatum, it is also permissible to say that the Son of
God was born, cf. Contra Nestorium 2 (ACO I, 1, 6:18-21), and Ad
Nestorium 6.3 (1:35), and died, cf. ibid., 4.5 (27-28) and 12, anathema
12(42); Contra Nestorium 5; 7 (6:101-3;105-6). See also De adorations
in spiritu el veritate 10 (PG 68:656C) and cf. Thesaurus de Trinitate
32 (PG 75:560C), where Cyril maintains that the human nature of Christ
possessed essential idiomata of God, while at the same time remaining
distinct from His divinity, of. also De recta fide ad Arcadiam et
Marinam 177 (ACO I, 1,5:107-8). For further details see my ”The
Transfiguration of Christ in Greek Patristic Literature: From Irenaeus
of Lyons to Gregory Palamas” (Oxford D. Phil, thesis, 1991), pp.
134-135.
(6) Asceticism and Contemplation [in
Greek], translated by Hieromonk Zacharias (Tolleshunt Knights. Essex:
Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, 1996),
p. 152.
(7) ‘For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.’
(8) For all of the above, see: Asceticism and Contemplation, pp. 138-139.
(9) See ibid., pp. 151-152.
(10) Ibid., p. 153.
(11) Ibid., p. 156.
(12) Saint Silouan the Athonite,
translated by Rosemary Edmonds (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Patriarchal
and Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, 1991), p. 352.
(13) Ibid., pp. 362-363.
(14) Ibid., pp. 438-439.
(15) Cf. the Troparion: ”In the tomb
according to the flesh, As God in hell with the soul, In paradise with
the thief, And on the throne with the Father and the Spirit wast thou, O
Christ, omnipresent, incircumscript.” Translation taken from the
Orthodox Liturgy of the Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of St.
John the Baptist, Essex (Oxford University Press, 1982). p. 63.
(16) Cf. Saint Gregory Palamas’ Homily XVI, On Holy Saturday, 17.
(17) Ibid., 33.
(18) Ibid. Quotations taken from the
forthcoming The Homilies at Saint Gregory Palamas, edited with an
introduction and notes by Christopher Veniamin, and translated by
Christine Selte (Saint Tikhon’s Seminary Press).
(19) Op.cit., pp. 192-193.
Source: Veniamin Christopher. ”Theosis” in Saint Silouan the Athonite
and Starets Sophrony of Essex // Alive in Christ:
The Magazine of the Diocese of Eastern Pennsylvania,
Orthodox Church in America. 1997. Vol. XIII. N 3. P. 22-27.
Delivered at the St. Tikhon’s Annual Lecture series, September 30, 1997
and Starets Sophrony of Essex // Alive in Christ:
The Magazine of the Diocese of Eastern Pennsylvania,
Orthodox Church in America. 1997. Vol. XIII. N 3. P. 22-27.
Delivered at the St. Tikhon’s Annual Lecture series, September 30, 1997
Taken from St. Silouan the Athonite
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