The
entire world is God's creation and therefore it is by nature good; evil
does not have an ontological existence. Natural evil is the result of
discord which was created after man's fall; even death is a means of
educating man in order to lead him back to communion with God. Moral
evil, sin, does not have its cause in man's nature, but in man's
disposition.
Through
man's fall, all of nature was dragged into servitude to corruption.
God, however, in the person of His Incarnate Word or Logos entered into
the reality of the world and renewed it. By His death, Resurrection and
Ascension, He led man, whom He had assumed, to the life of incorruption
and immortality; and He exalted him to the height of the glory of God
the Father.
This
glory, which during the second coming of our Lord shall become our
possession, is prefigured in the life of the Church, and especially in
the life of the saints. The bodies of the saints, the sacred relics, are
surrounded by the sanctifying grace of God and become a source of
divine blessings and miracles (IV Kings 13,21. Wisdom of Sirach 18,14).
The grace, honor and glory which God grants to the relics of the saints
constitute a foretaste and predepiction of man's transfiguration and
that of all creation. This same grace surrounds the saints even during
this life and can be discerned in some as warmth, in others as light, or
through various miraculous energies, which are blessings for man. Even
material objects in the life of the Church bear God's grace.
The
presence of God's grace and glory in man and in material creation
prefigures the liberation of all of creation from servitude to
corruption and guarantees the certainty of our hope in life and
incorruption. The world's sanctification was also wrought in the Jordan
River during our Lord's Baptism. The hymns of our Church on the day of
Epiphany and the prayers of the Great Sanctification of the Waters
reveal the new reality of the world: "Today the earth and the sea share
in the world's joy and the world is filled with gladness", states the
prayer of St. Sophronios of Jerusalem.
Christ
hallowed the waters of the Jordan, the banks of the river and all of
creation: " You, Ο Lord, being baptized in the Jordan did sanctify its
waters"; "having hallowed the waters of the Jordan You did crush the
power of sin"; " Today creation is enlightened; today all things
rejoice, the heavenly together with the earthly", states the hymnology
of our Church.
Through
the participation of the material creation in the divine worship of the
Church and in the praise and doxology of God the hope of incorruption
is expressed. In the Divine Liturgy all of creation is taken on and
becomes a new creation in Christ. It is the bread and wine that becomes
the Body and Blood of Christ, the candles, the icons, the Holy Cross;
and all the material objects participate in some way in the Divine
Liturgy. The water, the oil, the incense, the palms, the flowers, and
even the new harvest of the crops of the earth are blessed, and the
whole world regains that which it lost through man's fall: internal
unity, the correct relationship with God, which is an eucharistic
relationship, a relationship of offering in which all things are
referred up and offered to God, Who becomes once again the centre of the
world.
The
unity of the entire creation which offers up "with one mouth" doxology
to the Triune God is expressed at the end of the prayer for the Great
Blessing of the Waters: "...that with the elements, and men, and Angels
and with all things visible and invisible they may magnify Thy most holy
Name, together with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and
unto ages of ages. Amen." Man thus forsakes his autonomy and his
egoistic use of God's creation; he once again finds his correct place in
the world and his "royal" and "priestly" ministry (Gen. 1, 28. 2, 15).
The
Christian does not reject this world, nor does he consider it to be
something negative. He is not called to abandon the world, but to serve
or liturgize in it. Christ wants his faithful to be in the world; to be
"the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world" (Matth. 5, 13-14).
If our world is "tasteless and unsalted" and in darkness, if it follows a
process of disintegration, then this means that Christians do not serve
"as the salt of the earth" and the "light of the world". We must not
then look for the cause of the world's misfortune in others.
This
place that the Christians hold in the world implies responsibility for
the preservation and the sanctification of God's creation, a task which
stems from the service which God intrusted to man in Paradise ("...to
cultivate and preserve", Gen. 2, 15). A Christian cannot be indifferent
to the world's problems; he must labor to bring the world once again
back to its doxological relationship with God. This means that the use
of the world cannot have as its centre the satisfaction of man's ego and
the "needs" which man constantly creates.
The
true believer does not attribute absolute and exclusive value to the
needs of this life nor to man's abilities. He does not intervene in
God's creation in an autonomous way, independent of God's will, and
egocentrically; he feels that he is responsible for creation. He does
not seek knowledge and use of God's creation "unconditionally". The
faithful does not use the powers of the world in a manner not blessed by
God and contrary to the balance and harmony in creation and to the
unity of God's world.
The
Orthodox believer knows that man after the fall ceased to offer
creation up to God as a doxology, i.e. to practise his priestly duties
vis-a-vis creation; it was he who led creation into servitude to
corruption. Within the Church however, he acquires the experience of
freedom from this servitude. With this experience he is now called to
return to the world with the assurity of the transfiguration and
salvation of the entire creation. Having once again acquired within the
liturgical place his correct relationship with creation and his correct
place within it, he is called to practise his service as priest of the
world.
This
transfiguration of man and creation in the Church is still not yet the
"new heavens" and the "new earth". These will become a reality during
Christ's Second Coming. Thus it is that the Christian hope is "not of
this world". Every chiliastic-messianic concept which looks to an
establishment of an earthly kingdom and the creation of Paradise on
earth, is foreign to the spirit of Christ.
Christians
respect the authorities of the world and submit themselves to human
laws which do not go against their Christian hope (Rom. 13, 1-8. Acts 3,
30). They do not preach a "gospel" conforming to the aspirations and
the aims of this world. This is the saving message of the Church to a
world which has an exclusively intersecular character and can discern no
other vertical dimension in its life. It is for this reason that
Orthodox Monasticism with its ascetical character and heavenly
orientation offers to our society a great service. It shows to
contemporary man, who is exclusively orientated towards the horizontal
dimension, the vertical dimension which is at the centre of monastic
life.
The
monks thus constitute the indicators of the reality of heaven, which
man who lives in the world cannot easily grasp. Monasticism opens the
way to the absolute experience of life in Christ: a way of asceticism
and obedience which is followed throughout one's life without ending; a
way which is at the same time dangerous for those who fail to remain
humble and steadfast in love that "seeks not its own". This life of the
monastics constitutes a continuous vocation to contemporary man's
disposition and an excellent prefiguration of the future life.
This
anticipation of a new life creates in the Christians the conviction
that here on earth they are strangers and sojourners, and that in
traversing this life they walk towards their true homeland (Hebrews 11,
13-16). The believer has his eyes always fixed upon heaven and considers
death to be the last stop in his journey, his "passing on" or birth
into the next life.
We
believe that after their separation from the body the souls of the
righteous are in the hands of God (Wisdom of Solomon, 3,1) and they
await the resurrection of the bodies, so that they may "totally" become
partakers in God's love and glory. On the contrary, the souls of the
unrighteous who in their lives rejected God's love and communion with
Him and with the brethren, and who had as the only centre of reference
their "ego", are deprived of this love, for their egoism does not allow
them to accept it.
Christ's
Second Coming will signal the general resurrection; our bodies will be
clothed with incorruption and immortality. The righteous shall be raised
unto life, the unrighteous unto condemnation. This will be the general
judgment of the world; God's love will judge man in accordance with the
position he assumes towards it, i.e. whether he accepts it or rejects
it.
The
Lord desires the salvation of all men, and their return to their true
homeland: to the love and communion with the Triune God. This we call
Paradise. By this word we do not mean a material but a spiritual
reality. Holy Scripture compares this communion to the relationship
between the Bridegroom and the Bride, and their union is compared to
marriage (Rev. 19,7).
The
sons of the Kingdom shall be eternally united with Christ and shall
henceforth absolutely live the condition of being "one in Christ"; then
shall we be in Him participators by grace of His unity with the Father
("I in my Father and you in me" Jn 14,20). All who live in this life
closed up within themselves, all those who do not rejoice in seeing the
face of their brother shall be deprived of this joy. They of their own
accord have chosen their eternal torment.
Christ's
Second Coming is for the faithful the fulfilment of their hope, just as
is the arrival of the Bridegroom for the Bride. This is why the
preparation for the reception of the coming Christ constitutes the chief
concern of this life.
But
when shall the Lord come? Christians do not concern themselves in
pinpointing a specific date. They are vigilant and take care to be ready
at every moment, for the Lord shall come suddenly, when we do not
expect Him (Matth. 24, 13. 33. Acts 1, 7). The Lord Himself warns us to
protect ourselves from false prophets who will be workers of guile and
treachery. Outwardly they shall appear in the guise of Christ or in the
form of an angel (Matth. 24, 4-5. 23-27. II Cor. 11, 13-15). Their
teaching shall not be identical with that of Christ; thus the knowledge
of the only real truth of Christ is necessary in order to avoid error
and deceit.
DECEMBER 27, 2010
