The Mystery of the Eastern Orthodox Church

when Christ said repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at [Music] hand this is a call to a life of theosis personal communion with God the Son of God became man so that man can become a God by grace to the Western mind this idea of becoming a god may seem incomprehensible sacrilegious even but it derives unquestionably from Christ's teachings these same teachings have been preserved in the Eastern Orthodox church for the past 2,000 years the following video was written by Arch Mander George an Abbot of a monastery on Mount AOS it explains this concept

how we can become perfect just as our father in Heaven is [Music] perfect the first atam separated us from God with his disobedience and his egotism with his love and his obedience to the father obedience unto death the second Adam Christ brings us back once more to God once again he orients our freedom towards God so that by offering him our freedom we Unite with him the work of the new Adam presupposes the work of the new EVE the panagia who put right the wrong done by the old Eve Eve drove Adam to Disobedience the

new EVE the panagia contributes to the Incarnation of the new Adam who will guide the human race towards obedience to [Music] God therefore as the first human person who achieved theosis in an exceptional and of course unrepeatable way the theotokos played a role in our Salvation which was not only fundamental but both necessary and irreplaceable if the panagia in her obedience had not offered her freedom to God had she not said yes to God God would not have been able to [Music] Incarnate once God had given freedom to [Music] man he would not have been

able to violate his gift so he would not have been able to Incarnate if there had not been such a pure all holy psyche as the theotokos who would offer her Freedom her will all of herself totally to God so as to draw him towards herself and towards [Music] us we owe so much to panagia this is why our church honors and venerates the theotokos so much so much so that St Gregory palamas summarizing patristic theology says that our panagia holds the second place after the Holy Trinity that she is god with a little G

after God with an uppercase G she is the boundary between the created and the uncreated she leads those being [Music] saved [Music] [Music] me [Music] here on the Holy [Music] Mountain a contemporary Saint Nicodemus lived and he pointed out that the Angelic ranks themselves are illumined by the light they receive from the panagia therefore she is praised by our church as more honorable than the cherubim and incomparably more glorious than the seraphim the Incarnation of the Loos and the theosis of man are the great mystery of our faith and theology our Orthodox Church lives this

every day with its Mysteries with its hymns with its icons with its whole life even the architecture of an Orthodox Church witnesses to this the great Dome of the churches symbolizes The Descent of Heaven to [Music] Earth the Evangelist St John writes that God became man and dwelt among [Music] us we represent the the toos in the apps of the altar to show that God comes to Earth and to men through her she who contained the uncontainable God within herself for our [Music] Salvation to continue our churches show deified men those who became Gods by

Grace because God became man sainted and deified man thus when we enter an orthodox church and see the beautiful holy icons this is an immediate experience through which we learn what God's plan is for man the purpose of our life the Incarnation of God and the theosis of man the all those who wish to unite with Christ and through Christ with God the Father recognize that this Union is realized in the body of Christ which is our holy Orthodox Church of course this Union is not with a Divine Essence but with the deified human nature

of Christ but this Union with Christ is not external nor is it simply moral we are not followers of Christ in the way that one might perhaps follow a philosopher or a teacher we are members of Christ's body the church is the body of Christ the real body not a moral one as some mistaken theologians have written not having looked deeply enough into the spirit of the holy church despite our unworthiness and sinfulness Christ takes us Christians and incorporates us into his body he makes us members of himself we become real members of Christ not

just followers of a code of [Music] morality as the Apostle Paul puts it we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones certainly depending on the spiritual state of Christians they are sometimes living members of Christ's body and other times they are dead but even as dead members we still do not cease to be members of Christ's body for example someone who is baptized has become a member of Christ's body if he does not confess does not take communion does not live a spiritual life he is a dead member of Christ's

body but when he repents he immediately receives Divine Life this permeates him and he becomes a Living member of Christ's body again someone like this does not need to be re-baptized someone who has never been baptized however is not a member of Christ's body even if according to human standards he lives a moral life in order to be incorporated into Christ he needs to be baptized since we are members of Christ's body Christ's life is offered to us and becomes our life so we are enlivened saved and deified yet we could not be deified if

Christ did not make us members of his holy body we cannot be saved if the holy Mysteries of the church did not exist these make us one body with Christ and as according to the church fathers we share the same body and the same blood as [Music] Christ we are in fact one body and one blood with Christ St John christum the fifth century Saint says that God has nothing more to give man than what he gives him in Holy Communion man cannot ask anything more of God than what he receives from Christ in Holy

Communion so being baptized crism confessing we commune through the body and blood of the Lord and we too become God's by Grace we Unite with God we are no longer strangers for we have become familiar with [Music] God inside the church in which we Unite with God we live this new reality which Christ brought to the world the new creation Christ This Is The Life of the church of Christ which becomes ours as a gift from the Holy [Music] Spirit everything in the church leads to theosis the holy liturgy the Mysteries Divine worship the gospel

sermon the fasting all of these lead to this one thing the church alone is the place of the [Music] the church is not a social cultural or historical organization and does not resemble other organizations in the world the world has Fine institutions fine organizations fine establishments and other fine things but our Orthodox Church is the unrepeatable the sole place for the communion of God with man for the theosis of [Music] man only within the church can man become a God and nowhere else not in universities not in Social Services not in any of the fine

and good things that the world has none of these are able to offer what the Church offers however good they may be it is possible that we weak and sinful men go through crisis and difficulties from time to time within the church all of these happen in the church because we are as yet on the way to theosis and it is very natural that human weaknesses still exist We are Becoming Gods but not yet so no matter how often these things occur we will not leave the church because within the church we have the possibility

we have the only possibility to unite with [Music] God for example when we go to church to attend the service we may meet people there who do not pay attention to the holy service then Along Comes A seemingly reasonable thought which says what do you gain by coming to church might it not be better to sit at home pray in Greater peace and comfort however we must contradict this evil thought with discretion yes perhaps I'll have more outward peace at home but I will not have God's grace to de deify and sanctify me I will

not have Christ who is present in his church I will not have his holy body and his Precious Blood which are on the holy altar in his holy church I will not partake in the Last Supper of the Holy liturgy I will be cut off for my fellow brethren in Christ together with whom we form Christ's body so whatever may happen we will not leave the church because only within it do we find the path to theosis according to the teachings of the Holy Bible and the fathers of the church man is able to achieve

theosis because within the Orthodox Church of Christ the grace of God is [Music] uncreated God Is Not only Essence as the West thinks he is also energy if God was only Essence we could not Unite with him could not commune with him because the essence of God is awesome unapproachable for [Music] man as was written never will man see my face and [Music] live so here's a relevant example from things human if we grasp a bare electric wire we will [Music] die however if we connect a lamp to the same wire illumination we see enjoy

and are assisted by the energy of the electric current but we are not able to grasp its Essence let's say that something similar happens with the uncreated energy of God if we were able to with the essence of God we would become God's in essence then everything would become a God and there would be confusion so that essentially nothing would be a god this is what they believe in the Oriental religions in Hinduism where the God is not a personal existence but an indistinct power dispersed through all the world in Men in animals and in

objects if God had only the Divine Essence of which we cannot partake and did not have his energies he would remain a self-sufficient God closed within himself and unable to communicate with his creatures God according to the Orthodox theological view is one in a trinity and a trinity in one as the holy fathers repeatedly say God is is filled with a Divine Aros a Divine love for his creatures because of this infinite and ecstatic love of his he comes out of himself and seeks to unite with them this is expressed and realized as his energy

or better said his Energies with these God created the world and continues to preserve [Music] it he gives Essence and substance to our world through his Essence creating energies he is present in nature and preserves the universe with his preserving Energies he illuminates man with his Illuminating energies he sanctifies him with his sanctifying energies finally he deifies him with his deifying energies thus through his uncreated energies holy God enters nature the world history and human [Music] life the energies of God are Divine energy they too are God but without being his Essence they are God

and therefore they can deify man if the energies of God were not Divine and uncreated they would not be God and so they would be unable to deify us to unite us with God there would be an unbridgeable distance between God and man But as God has the Divine energies and unites with us by these energies we are able to commune with him and to unite with his grace without becoming identical with God as would happen if we were united through his Essence so we Unite with God through his uncreated energies and not through his

essence this is the mystery of our Orthodox faith and life Western Heretics cannot accept this being rationalists they do not discern between the essence and the energy of God so they say that they cannot speak about man's theosis because God is only Essence for on this basis how can man be deified when they do not accept that the Divine energies are uncreated but regard them as created how can something created deify man how can something outside of God deify man what then according to them remains as the purpose of human life simply moral Improvement if

man cannot be deified with divine grace and divine energies what purpose does his life have only that he becomes morally better but moral perfection is not enough for man it is not enough for us simply to become better than before simply to perform moral Deeds we have as our final aim to unite with holy God himself this is is the purpose of the creation of the universe this is what we desire this is our joy our happiness and our fulfillment the psyche of man who is created in the image and likeness of God yearns for

God and desires Union with him no matter how moral how good man may be if he does not find God if he does not Unite with him he finds No Rest for holy God placed within him this holy thirst the Divine arrows the desire for Union with him for theosis so he has in himself the power which he receives from his creator in order to love truly strongly selflessly just as his holy Creator falls in love with his world with his creatures this is so that with his holy impetus and loving power he falls in

love with God if man did not have the image of God in himself he would not be able to seek its prototype each of us is an image of God and God is our prototype the image seeks the Prototype and only when it finds it does it find rest thus concludes chapters 3 4 and 5 on the full teaching of theosis found in Orthodoxy you can watch and read the rest of the chapters in the link below I toit have walked all the days of my life in the ways of Truth and justice but all

the tribes revolted sacrificed to the haer [Music] Bal fear not for she is appointed to you from the beginning and you shall preserve her and she shall go with you blessed be God praise Him Magnify [Music] Him