arc him and rite justin popovich

8/2/2019 Arc Him and Rite Justin Popovich

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Archimandrite Justin PopovichWhat is the objective of Orthodox culture? It is to introduce and to realize, to

the greatest extent possible, the Divine in man and in the world around him; toincarnate God in man and in the world, wherefore Orthodox culture is anincessant service to Christ our God, an incessant divine service. Man servesGod by means of all creation; all around himself he systematically and

regularly introduces that which is of God into his every effort, into hiscreativity. He awakens everything divine in nature around him, in order that allof nature, under mans guidance, might serve God, and thus does all creationparticipate in a general and mutual divine service, for nature serves that manwho serves God.

Theanthropic culture transfigures man from within, and thereby likewiseinfluences his external condition, it transfigures the soul, and by way of thesoul, it transfigures the body. For this culture, the body is the temple of thesoul, which lives, moves and has its being through the soul. Take away the soulfrom the body and what will remain, if not a stinking corpse? The God-manfirst of all transfigures the soul and, subsequently, the body as well. The

transfigured soul transfigures the body; it transfigures matter.The goal of Theanthropic culture is to transfigure not only man and

humanity, but also all of nature through them. But how is this goal to beattained? Only by Theanthropic means: through the evangelic virtues of faithand love, hope and prayer, fasting and humility, meekness and compassion,love of God and neighbour. It is by means of these virtues that TheanthropicOrthodox culture is fashioned. Pursuing these virtues, man transfigures hisdeformed soul, making it beautiful; it is transformed from something dark intosomething light, something sinful into something holy, something with a darkcountenance into something Godlike. And he transfigures his body into atemple that can accommodate his Godlike soul.

It is through thepodvig of procuring the evangelic virtues that man acquirespower and authority over himself and over nature around him. Banishing sinboth from himself and from the world that surrounds him, man likewisebanishes its savage, destructive, ruinous force; he fully transfigures himselfand the world, and subdues nature, both within and without and about himself.

The finest examples of this are the saints: having sanctified and transfiguredthemselves through the podvig of attaining to the evangelic virtues, theylikewise sanctify and transform nature around about them. There are manysaints who were served by wild beasts and who, simply by the mere fact oftheir appearance, could subdue and tame lions, bears and wolves. Theytreated nature prayerfully, mildly, meekly, compassionately, and gently; beingneither harsh, nor stern, nor hostile, nor ferocious.

It is not an external, violent, mechanical imposition thereof, but an inner,good-willed, personal assimilation of the Lord Jesus Christ through the podvigof the Christian virtues that establishes the Kingdom of God on earth, thatestablishes Orthodox culture for the Kingdom of God does not comeexternally or visibly, but internally, spiritually, imperceptibly. The Saviour says:The Kingdom of God shall not come perceptibly; And they shall not say: lo, it ishere, or: lo, it is there. For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. (Luke17:20-21) it is within the God-created and Godlike soul, sanctified by the


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Holy Spirit, for The Kingdom of God is not food nor drink, but righteousnessand peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Rom. 14:17) Yes, in the Holy Spirit, andnot in the spirit of man. It can be in the spirit of man to the extent that maninfills himself with the Holy Spirit by means of the evangelic virtues. Whereforethe very first and very greatest commandment of Orthodox culture is: Seek yefirst the Kingdom of God and of His righteousness, and all this shall be added

unto you. (Matt. 6:33), that is, everything will be added unto you which isneedful for supporting the life of the body: food, clothing, shelter. (Matthew6:25-32) All these things are but the appurtenances of the Kingdom of God, yetWestern culture seeks these appurtenances first of all. Therein is its paganismto be found; for, in the words of the Saviour, it is the pagans who seek theseappurtenances first of all. Therein is its tragedy, for it has starved the soul in itsconcern for material things, whereas the sinless Lord has stated once and forall: Do not be concerned for your life, for what ye shall eat or drink, nor for

your body, what ye shall wear... Because it is the pagans who seek all thesethings, and because your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of allthis. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this shallbe added unto you. (Matthew 6:25, 32-33; Luke 12:22-31)

Great is the extent of those necessities which modern man passionatelycreates in his imagination. In order to satisfy these senseless needs men haveturned our wondrous Divine planet into a slaughterhouse. But our philanthropicLord has long since revealed what is the one thing needful for each man andfor all of humanity. And what is this? the God-man Jesus Christ andeverything that He brings with Him: divine truth, divine justice, divine love,divine goodness, divine holiness, divine immortality and eternity, and all theother divine perfections. That is the one thing needful for man and forhumanity, and all the rest of mans necessities, in comparison with this, are soinsignificant, that they are almost unneeded. (Luke 10:42)

When man seriously, and in accordance with the Gospel, contemplates the

mystery of his own life and of the life around him, then he must, of necessity,conclude that the most pressing need is to reject all necessities and to followdecisively after the Lord Jesus Christ, to unite with Him by way of perfectingthe evangelic podvigs. Without having done this, man remains spirituallyunfruitful, senseless, lifeless; his soul dries up, crumbles away, disintegrates,and he gradually grows insensate, until such time as he finally dies completely,for the Divine lips of Christ did say: Abide ye in Me, and I in you. As a branchcannot bring forth fruit of itself, unless it be on the vine: so also you, unless yebe in Me. I am the vine and ye are the branches, he who abideth in Me, and I inhim, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing. Hewho abideth not in Me shall be cast out, like a branch, and shall wither up, butsuch branches are gathered and cast into the fire, and they are consumed.

(John 15, 4-6)

It is only by means of a spiritually organic unity with the God-man Christthat man can continue on his life into life eternal and his being into one ofeternal existence. A man of Theanthropic culture is never alone: when hethinks, he thinks through Christ; when he acts, he acts through Christ; when hefeels, he feels through Christ. In a word: he incessantly lives through Christ-God, for what is man without God? at first, half a man, and in the end, noman at all. It is only in the God-man that man finds the completeness and


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perfection of his own being, his Prototype, his perpetuity, his immortality andeternity, his absolute worth. The Lord Jesus Christ, alone among men and allbeings, proclaimed the human soul to be the greatest treasure of all worlds, ofthose both above and below. Therefore, fear them not: for there is nothingconcealed that shall not be revealed, nor secret which shall not be madeknown. (Matthew 10:26)

All the stars and planets are not worth a single soul. If a man wastes awayhis soul in sins and vices, he will not be able to redeem it, even were he tobecome master of all the stellar systems. Here man has but one way out theGod-man Christ Who is the only One Who grants immortality to the humansoul. The soul is not freed from death by material things, but enslaved; and it isonly the God-man Who frees man from their tyranny. Material things have nopower over the man who belongs to Christ; rather, he has power over them. Hesets the true value of all things, for he values them in the same way as didChrist. And whereas the human soul, according to the Gospel of Christ, has anincomparably greater worth than all the beings and all the things in the world,Orthodox culture is therefore primarily a culture of the soul.

Mans greatness is only in God that is the motto of Theanthropic culture.Man without God is 70 kg of bloody clay, a sepulchre prior to the grave.European man has condemned to death both God and the soul, but has he notthereby also condemned himself to that death following which there is noresurrection? Try dispassionately to grasp the essence of European philosophy,of European science, politics, culture, civilization, and you will see that inEuropean man they have killed God and the immortality of the soul. And if oneseriously ponders the tragedy of human history, then it is possible to see thatDeicide always ends with suicide. Remember Judas: first he killed God, andthen he destroyed himself, such is the inevitable law of the history of ourplanet.

The structure of European culture, erected without Christ, must crumbleaway, crumble away very quickly prophesied the insightful and astuteDostoyevskii one hundred years ago, and the mournful Gogol over onehundred years ago. And before our very eyes are the prognostications of theSlavonic prophets coming to pass. For ten centuries has the European Tower ofBabel been a-building, and now a tragic picture meets our gaze: what has beenconstructed is a huge nothing! General perplexity and confusion have begun:man cannot understand man, nor soul, soul; nor nation, nation. Man has risenup against man, kingdom against kingdom, nation against nation, and evencontinent against continent.

European man has reached his destiny determining and head-spinningheights. He has set the superman at the summit of his Tower of Babel, seeking

therewith to crown his structure, but the superman went mad just short of theapex and fell from the tower, which is crumbling away and collapsing, in hiswake, and being broken down by wars and revolutions. Homo europaeicus hadto become a suicide. His Wille zur Macht (lust for Power) became Wille zurNacht (longing for Night). And Night, a burdensome Night, descended uponEurope. The idols of Europe are crashing down, and not far distant is that daywhen not a stone will remain upon a stone of European culture, that culture


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which builds cities and destroys souls; which deifies creatures and casts awaythe Creator...

The Russian thinker Herzen, enamoured of Europe, long lived there; but, inthe sunset of his life, one hundred years ago, he wrote: For quite some time didwe study the worm-eaten organism of Europe; in all its strata, everywhere, we

saw the signs of death... Europe is advancing toward a frightful catastrophe...Political revolutions are collapsing beneath the weight of their inadequacy.They have wrought great deeds, but have not accomplished their task. Theyhave destroyed faith, but have not secured liberty. They have kindled in menshearts such desires as were not fated to come to pass... Before all others, I turndeathly pale and am affrighted of the impending night... Farewell, dying world!Farewell, Europe!

The heavens are empty, there is no God in them; the earth is empty, thereis no immortal soul upon it. European culture has turned all its slaves intocorpses and has itself become a graveyard. I want to journey to Europe, saysDostoyevskii, and I know that I am going to a graveyard. (F. M. Dostoyevskii.

Zimniya zametki o lyetnikh vpechatlyeniyakh [Winter Notes On Summer

Impressions].)

Prior to the First World War, Europes impending perdition was sensed andforetold only by melancholic Slavonic seers. Following it, some Europeans alsotake notice of and sense this. The boldest and most sincere of them, doubtless,was [Oswald] Spengler, who shook the world with his book Untergang des

Abendlandes (O. Spengler, vol. 1, [Obraz i deystvityelnost] Image andActuality, M.- Pg., 1923) In it, through all the means that European science,philosophy, politics, technology, art, religion, etc., could provide him, he showsthat the West is perishing. Ever since the First World War, Europe is emittingher pre-mortem death-rattle. Western or Faustian culture, which according toSpengler had its origins in the tenth century, now is passing away and

crumbling down, and is destined to perish completely in the twenty-secondcentury. (At present it would seem that this process has become accelerated.)In the wake of European culture, Spengler foresees the coming of the culture ofDostoyevskii, the culture of Orthodoxy.

With each new cultural discovery, European man grows ever more mortifiedand dies. European mans love affair with himself that is the grave fromwhich he neither desires to, nor, consequently, can be resurrected. Itsinfatuation with its reason that is the fatal passion which desolates Europeanhumanity. The only salvation from this is Christ, says Gogol;. But the worldthroughout which are dispersed millions of glittering objects that scatter onesthoughts in all directions, has not the strength to meet with Christ directly.

The type of European man has capitulated before the fundamental problemof life; the Orthodox God-man has solved all of them, each and every one.European man has solved the problem of life through nihilism; the God-man,through eternal life. For the Darwinian-Faustian man of Europe, the main objectof life is self-preservation; for the man of Christ it is self-sacrifice. The firstsays: sacrifice others for yourself! while the second says: sacrifice yourself forothers! European man has not resolved the pernicious problem of death; theGod-man has resolved it through Resurrection.


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Doubtless, the principles of European culture and civilization aretheomachic. Long was the type of European man in his becoming what he is,until such a time as he replaced the God-man Christ with his philosophy andscience, with his politics and technology, with his religion and ethics. Europemade use of Christ merely as a bridge from uncultured barbarism to culturedbarbarism; that is, from a guileless barbarism into a sly barbarism. (Bp. Nikolai

[Velimirovich], Slovo o vsecheloveke [A Sermon On Everyman], p. 334.)

In my conclusions about European culture there is much that is catastrophic,but let this not astonish you, for we are speaking about the most catastrophicperiod of human history the apocalypse of Europe, the body and spirit ofwhich are being rent asunder by horrors. Without a doubt, volcaniccontradictions are implanted in Europe, the which, if they are not removed, canbe resolved only by the final destruction of European culture.

All the truths of Orthodoxy emerge from one truth and converge on onetruth, infinite and eternal. That truth is the God-man Christ. If you experienceany truth of Orthodoxy to its limit, you will inevitably discover that its kernel isthe God-man Christ. In fact, all the truths of Orthodoxy are nothing other thandifferent aspects of the one Truth the God-man Christ.

Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy by reason of the God-man, and not by reason ofanything else or anyone else. Hence another name for Orthodoxy is God-manhood. In it nothing exists through man or by man, but everything comesfrom the God-man and exists through the God-man. This means that manexperiences and finds out about the fundamental eternal truth of life and the

world only with the help of the God-man, in the God-man. And it meanssomething else: man learns the complete truth about man, about the purposeand meaning of his existence only through the God-man. Outside of Him a manturns into an apparition, into a scarecrow, into nonsense. Instead of a man youfind the dregs of a man, the fragments of a man, the scraps of a man.

Therefore, true manhood lies only in God-manhood; and no other manhoodexists under heaven.

Why is the God-man the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy? Because Heanswered all the questions that torture and torment the human spirit: thequestion of life and death, the question of good and evil, the question of earthand heaven, the question of truth and falsehood, the question of love and hate,the question of justice and injustice. In brief: the question of man and God.

Why is the God-man the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy? Because Heproved in the most obvious way by His own earthly life that He is the incarnate,humanized, and personified eternal Truth, eternal Justice, eternal Love, eternal

Joy, eternal Power: Total-Truth, Total-Justice, Total-Love, Total-Joy, Total-Power.

He brought down all the divine perfections from heaven to earth. And He didnot just bring them down, but also taught them to us and gave us grace-filledpower to transform them into our life, into our thoughts, into our feelings, into


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our deeds. Hence, our calling is to incarnate them in ourselves and in the worldaround us.

Consider the best of the best people in the human race. In all of them it isthe God-man that is best, most important and most eternal. For He is theholiness of the Saints, the martyrdom of the Martyrs, the righteousness of the

Righteous, the apostleship of the Apostles, the goodness of the Good, themercy of the Merciful, the love of the Loving. Why is the God-man each andevery aspect of Orthodoxy? Because He, as One of the Holy Trinity, theincarnate Son of God, is distinct as God, as Comforter, as Defender, as

Teacher, and as Saviour. Only in Him, in the all-merciful Lord Jesus, does man,tormented by earthly tragedies, find the God who can truly give meaning tosuffering, the Comforter who can truly give comfort in every misfortune andsorrow, the Defender who can truly defend from every evil, the Saviour whocan truly save from death and sin, the Teacher who can truly teach eternal

Truth and Justice.

The God-man is each and every aspect of Orthodoxy, for He infinitelymagnifies man. He elevates him to God; He makes him a god by grace. And He

did this without reckoning man less than God, but filled man with all divineperfections. The God-man has glorified man as no other has. He has given himlife eternal, Truth eternal, Love eternal, Justice eternal, Joy eternal, Goodnesseternal, Blessedness eternal. Man has become divine majesty through the God-man.

While the God-man is the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy, the fundamentaltruth of every heterodoxy is man, or fragments of his being reason, the will,the senses, the soul, the body, expertise.

Integral man does not exist in heterodoxy; the whole man is divided intoatoms, into particles. And it is all for the glory of man's greatness. But just asart for the sake of art is nonsense, so also is it nonsense to say man for the

sake of man. That path leads to a most pitiful pandemonium, where man is thesupreme idol and nowhere is there a more pitiful idol than he.

The first truth of Orthodoxy is that man does not exist for the sake of man,but for the sake of God or, more fully, for the sake of the God-man. Therefore,we stay with the God-man in the name of man. In Him alone is anunderstanding of man's being possible; in Him alone is a justification for man'sexistence possible. All the mysteries of heaven and earth are attained in thistruth, all the values of all the worlds that man can contemplate, all the joys ofall the perfections that man can attain.

Indirectly and directly, the God-man is everything in Orthodoxy, and thusman is in Him, but in heterodoxy there is merely man.

In its very essence, Orthodoxy is nothing other than the Personality of theGod-man Christ extended across all ages, extended as the Church. Orthodoxyhas its own seal and sign by which it distinguishes itself. It is the radiant Personof the God-man Jesus.

Everything that does not have that Person is not Orthodox. Everything thatdoes not have the God-man's Justice, Truth, Love, and Eternity is not Orthodox.Everything that wants to carry out the God-man's Gospel in this world throughthe methods of this world and through the methods of the kingdoms of this


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world is not Orthodox, but implies enslavement to the third temptation of thedevil.

To be Orthodox means to have the God-man constantly in your soul, to livein Him, think in Him, feel in Him, act in Him. In other words, to be Orthodoxmeans to be a Christ-bearer and a Spirit-bearer.

A man attains this when, in the body of Christ the Church, his whole beingis filled with the God-man Christ from top to bottom. For this reason theOrthodox man is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:1-3).

The God-man is the axis of all worlds, from the world of the atom to theworld of the cherubim. Whatever being breaks off from that axis, tumbles intoterror, into tortures, into agony. Lucifer broke off and became Satan; angelsbroke off and became demons; man broke off in large part and becameinhuman (non-man).

Anything created that breaks off from it inevitably plunges into chaos andgrief. And when a people, as a group, deny the God-man, their history turnsinto a journey through hell and its horrors.

The God-man is not just the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy, but the powerand omnipotence of Orthodoxy as well; for He alone saves man from death,sin, and the devil.

No man whatsoever, nor even mankind as a whole ever could, can, or will beable to do that. The outcome of man's struggle with death, sin, and the devil isalways defeat, unless he is led by the God-man. Only through the God-manChrist can man conquer death, sin, and the devil.

Hence, the purpose of man is: to fill himself with the God-man, in His body the Orthodox Church; to be transfigured in Him through grace-filled feats; tobecome omnipotent. Even while he walks prayerfully through the gloomyearthly anthill in the body, in his soul he lives above, where Christ Sits at the

right hand of God, for his life is constantly stretched out between earth andheaven by prayers, like a rainbow that connects the summit of heaven with theabyss of earth.

To become immortal in Him by the power of the Holy Spirit, to become God,to become the God-man this is the purpose, the true purpose of the wholehuman race. It is also the joy, the only joy in this world of boundless sorrow andtoxic bitterness.

* * *

Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy through the God-man. And we Orthodox, byconfessing the God-man, indirectly confess the Christ-image of man, the divine

origin of man, the divine exaltation of man, and thus also the divine value andsacredness of the human personality.

In fact, the struggle for the God-man is the struggle for man. Not thehumanists, but the people of the Orthodox faith and life of the God-man arestruggling for true man, man in the image of God and the image of Christ.


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It is difficult, very difficult, for infinite and eternal life to enter the narrowhuman soul and the even narrower human body. The imprisoned inhabitants ofearth stand with suspicion before everything that is beyond here. Imprisoned intime and place, they cannot bear whether on account of atavism or inertia anything beyond time, anything beyond space to enter into them, anythingeternal. They regard such an invasion as an attack, and they respond with war.Furthermore, given the fact that the rust of time corrupts man, he does not likethe intervention of eternity in his life and he adapts to it with difficulty. Heoften regards this intervention as an act of violence, an unforgivable audacity.At times he becomes a harsh rebel against eternity, because he sees that inthe face of it he is insignificant, while at other times he lashes out against it invehement hatred because he views it through a very human, very earthly,inner-worldly prism. Submerged with the body in matter, tied by the force ofweight in time and space, his spirit withdrawn from eternity, the worldly manabhors the difficult excursions towards the beyond and the eternal. The chasmbetween time and eternity is for him unbridgeable, because he lacks thenecessary ability and strength to step over it. Besieged from all sides by death,man mocks those who tell him: Man is immortal and eternal. Immortal asregards what? His mortal body? Eternal as regards what? His feeble spirit?

For man to be immortal, he must feel himself immortal in the center of hisself-awareness. To be eternal, he must recognize himself as eternal in thecenter of his self-consciousness. Without this, both immortality and eternity arefor him conditions imposed from outside. And if man once had this sense ofimmortality and the recognition of eternity, this occurred so long ago, thatalready it has atrophied under the weight of death. And truly, it has atrophied:this is what the whole mysterious structure of human existence tells us. Ourwhole problem lies in how to rekindle that quenched feeling, how to resurrect

that atrophied recognition. People cannot do it, neither can the transcendentgods of philosophy. Only God can do this, He Who incarnated His immortal Selfin the human self-awareness and His eternal Self in human self-consciousness.Christ did precisely this when He became incarnate and became God-Man.Only in Christ, and in Christ alone, did man feel himself immortal and recognizehimself as eternal. Through His Person, the God-man Christ bridged the chasmbetween time and eternity and reinstated the relations between them. For thisreason only that person truly feels himself immortal and truly knows himself tobe eternal who organically unites himself with the God-man Christ, with HisBody, the Church. Hence, for man and humanity, Christ became the uniquecrossing and passage from time to eternity. For this reason, in the Church, theOrthodox Church, the God-man Christ became and remained the unique way

and the unique guide from time to eternity, from the self-awareness ofmortality to the self-awareness of immortality, from the self-knowledge offinitude to the self-consciousness of eternity and the unextended.

The eternal living personality of the God-man Christ is precisely the Church.The Church is always the personality, and furthermore the theanthropicpersonality, the theanthropic spirit and body. The definition of the Church, thelife of the Church, its purpose, its spirit, its program, its methods all havebeen given in that wondrous Person of the God-man Christ. Therefore, the


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mission of the Church is organically and personally to unite all its faithful withthe Person of Christ; to make their self-awareness Christ-awareness and theirself-knowledge (self-consciousness) Christ-knowledge (Christ-consciousness);for their life to become life in Christ and through Christ; so that not theythemselves live in themselves but Christ lives in them (Gal. 2:20). The missionof the Church is to secure for her members immortality and eternity, making

them partakers of the Divine nature (II Peter 1:4). The mission of the Church isfurthermore to create in each member the conviction that the normal conditionof the human personality is comprised of immortality and eternity and nottemporality and mortality, and that man is a sojourner who through mortalityand temporality journeys towards immortality and eternity.

The Church is the theanthropic eternity incarnated in the boundaries of timeand space. It is in this world, but it is not of this world (John 18:36). It is in thisworld to elevate this world to the world above, from which she herself came.

The Church is ecumenical, catholic, theanthropic, eternal, and for this reason itentails a blasphemy, an unforgivable blasphemy against Christ and the HolySpirit to make the Church a national institution, to narrow her to the small,

finite, and temporal purposes and methods of a nation. Its purpose is supra-national, ecumenical, panhuman: to unite in Christ all people, completely,regardless of nationality or race or social stratum. There is neither Jew norGreek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for yeare all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28), because Christ is all, and in all (Col.3:11).

The methods of this panhuman-theanthropic union of all people in Christhave been given by the Church in her holy Mysteries and in her theanthropicwords (asceses, virtues). And truly, the Mystery of Divine Eucharist composesand defines and comprises the method of Christ and the means for uniting allpeople: through this Mystery, man is organically united with Christ and with allfaithful. Through the personal exercise of the theanthropic virtues faith,

prayer, fasting, love, meekness, and utter compassion and charity manmakes himself firm in this union, he preserves himself in this holiness, hehimself lives Christ as the unity of his personality and as the essence of hisunity with the other members of the holy Body of Christ, the Church.

The Church is the personality of the God-man Christ, a theanthropicorganism, not a human organization. The Church is indivisible, just like theperson of the God-man, just like the body of the God-man. Therefore, it is afundamental mistake for the indivisible theanthropic organism of the Church tobe divided into small ethnic organizations. In their journey through historymany local Churches limited themselves to ethnicism, to ethnic purposes andmethods. . . The Church would adapt to the people, whereas the norm is the

opposite: the people should adapt to the Church. Our own Church often madethis mistake. But we know that these were tares of our ecclesiastical life, tareswhich the Lord does not uproot, but which He leaves to grow together with thewheat until the harvest (Matt. 13:25-28). But our knowledge of this goes fornothing if it is not transformed into prayer that Christ preserve us frombecoming sowers and cultivators of such tares.

It is the twelfth hour, it is time for our ecclesiastical representatives to ceasebeing exclusively slaves of ethnicism, and to become hierarchs and priests of


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The fourth is the theanthropic virtue of meekness and humility. Only he whois meek in heart makes rebellious and wild hearts meek. Only he who ishumble in heart humble proud and haughty souls. To show meekness towardsall people is the obligation of every true Christian (Titus 3:2). But man becomestruly meek and humble when he makes the meek and humble Lord Jesus theheart of his heart, He who alone is truly meek and humble of heart (Matt.

11:29). The soul of the people must be made meek with the meekness ofChrist. Every man must learn to pray: O most meek Lord, make my wild soulmeek! The Lord humbled Himself with the greatest humility: He becameincarnate, He became man. If you are Christ's, humble yourself to the utmost,to a worm; incarnate yourself in the pain of every pained person, in theaffliction of every afflicted person, in the sufferings of every tortured person, inthe grief of every animal and bird. Humble yourself below everyone: beeverything to everyone through Christ and according to Christ. When youare alone, pray: O Humble Lord, humble me through Thy humility!

The fifth is the theanthropic virtue of patience and humility. That is, toforbear evil, not to return evil for evil, to forgive with total compassion the

curses, the slanders, the wounds. This is Christ's: constantly to feel crucified inthe world, persecuted by the world, cursed and spat upon. The world cannotbear Christ-bearing people, just as it could not bear Christ. Martyrdom is theatmosphere in which the Christian bears fruit. We must teach this to ourpeople. For Orthodox, martyrdom is purification. It is Christian not only to bearsufferings with joy, but also to forgive with total compassion those who causethem, to pray for them to God, just as did Christ and the Archdeacon Stephen.For this reason, pray: O long-suffering Lord, give me long-suffering,magnanimity and meekness!

The mission of our Church is to make these theandric virtues-asceses themethods of life for the people, to weave the Christ-like theanthrophic virtuesinto the soul and life of the people. In this lies the salvation of the soul from the

world and from all soul-corrupting, homicidal, atheistic movements and worldlyorganizations. Against the educated atheism and the gentlemanly cannibalismof contemporary civilization, we must array Christ-bearing personalities, whichwith the meekness of a sheep will be victorious over the excited passions ofthe wolves, and with the innocence of doves will save the soul of the peoplefrom the cultural and political stench. We must counteract cultural asceticism which takes place in the name of the rotted and deformed European man, inthe name of atheism, of civilization, of the antichrist with ascesis in thename of Christ.

For this reason the main obligation of our Church is to create Christ-bearingascetics. The voice which must be heard in it today is: Go back to the Christ-

bearing ascetics, towards the Holy Fathers! Go back to the asceses and virtuesof the Holy Fathers! Go back to the virtues of Saints Anthony and Athanasios,of Saints Basil and Gregory, of Saints John Chrysostom and Damascene, ofSaints Sergei and Seraphim (the Russians), of Saints Savva, Prochor andGabriel (the Serbs), and others! Because these theanthropic asceses-virtuescreated Saint Anthony, Saint Gregory and Saint Savva. And today, only theOrthodox asceses-virtues are capable of sanctifying every soul and the soul ofour whole people, because the theanthropic purpose is eternal and unalterable,and its means are also eternal and unalterable, because Jesus Christ is the


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same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8). Here is the difference betweenthe human world and the world of Christ: the human one is finite and temporal,while Christ's is unalterable and eternal. Orthodoxy, as the unique bearer andguardian of the perfect and all-radiant Person of the God-man Christ, is realizedexclusively with the theanthropic-Orthodox means, the ascetical virtues ingrace, not with means lent by Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, because

these are Christianities according to the version of the proud European man,and not of the humble God-man. God Himself facilitates this mission of ourChurch, because in our people there exists a spirit of asceticism, as Orthodoxycreated it through the ages. The Orthodox soul of our people inclines towardsthe Holy Fathers, towards the Orthodox Ascetics. The personal, familial, andparochial ascesis especially in prayer and fasting is characteristic ofOrthodoxy. Our people, the Orthodox people, are the people of Christ because,like Christ, they summarize the Gospel in these two virtues: prayer and fasting.

They are convinced that every impurity, every impure thought, every impuredesire, every impure spirit, can be chased out of man only by prayer andfasting (Matt. 17:21). In the depths of their hearts our people know Christ, theyknow Orthodoxy, know what it is that makes the Orthodox man Orthodox.

Orthodoxy always creates ascetical rebirths; it does not recognize otherrebirths.

The ascetics are the only missionaries of Orthodoxy. Asceticism is the onlymissionary school of Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is ascesis and life, for this reasononly with ascesis and life does she reach and realize her mission. Asceticism personal and ecclesiastical must be developed; this must be the internalmission of our Church towards our people. The parish must become anascetical center. But this can only be done by an ascetic parish priest. Prayerand fasting, the ecclesiastical life of the parish, the liturgical life these arethe chief means by which Orthodoxy brings about rebirth in people. The parish,the parish community must be reborn, and in Christ-loving and brother-loving

love humbly serve Christ and all people with meekness and humility, withsacrifice and self-denial. This service ought to be saturated and nourished byprayer and a liturgical life. This is fundamental and absolutely essential. But allof these demand as a prerequisite that our hierarchs, our priests, ourmonastics become ascetics, and for this: Let us beseech the Lord.

According to the teaching of St. Isaac the Syrian, there are two sorts ofknowledge: that which precedes faith and that which is born of faith. The

former is natural knowledge and involves the discernment of good and evil.The latter is spiritual knowledge and is the perception of the mysteries, theperception of what is hidden, the contemplation of the invisible.

There are also two sorts of faith: the first comes through hearing and isconfirmed and proven by the second, the faith of contemplation, the faith thatis based on what has been seen. In order to acquire spiritual knowledge, a manmust first be freed from natural knowledge. This is the work of faith. It is by theascesis of faith that there comes to man that unknown power that makes him


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capable of spiritual knowledge. If a man allows himself to be caught in the webof natural knowledge, it is more difficult for him to free himself from it than tocast off iron bonds, and his life is lived against the edge of a sword.

When a man begins to follow the path of faith, he must lay aside once andfor all his old methods of knowing, for faith has its own methods. Then natural

knowledge ceases and spiritual knowledge takes its place. Natural knowledgeis contrary to faith, for faith, and all that comes from faith, is the destruction ofthe laws of knowledge though not of spiritual, but of natural knowledge.

The chief characteristic of natural knowledge is its approach by examinationand experimentation. This is in itself a sign of uncertainty about the truth.Faith, on the contrary, follows a pure and simple way of thought that is farremoved from all guile and methodical examination. These two paths lead inopposite directions. The house of faith is childlike thoughts and simplicity ofheart, for it is said, Glorify God in simplicity of heart (cf . Col. 3:22), and: Exceptye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into thekingdom of heaven (Matt. 18:3). Natural knowledge stands opposed both tosimplicity of heart and simplicity of thought. This knowledge only works within

the limits of nature, but faith has its own path beyond nature.

The more a man devotes himself to the ways of natural knowledge, themore he is seized on by fear and the less can he free himself from it. But if hefollows faith, he is immediately freed and as a son of God, has the power tomake free use of all things. "The man who loves this faith acts like God in theuse of all created things, for to faith is given the power to be like God inmaking a new creation. Thus it is written: Thou desiredst, and all things arepresented before thee (cf. Job 23:13). Faith can often bring forth all things outof nothing, while knowledge can do nothing without the help of matter.Knowledge has no power over nature, but faith has such power. Armed withfaith, men have entered into the fire and quenched the flames, being

untouched by them. Others have walked on the waters as on dry land. All thesethings are beyond nature; they go against the modes of natural knowledge andreveal the vanity of such modes. Faith moves about above nature. The ways ofnatural knowledge ruled the world for more than 5,000 years, and man wasunable to lift his gaze from the earth and understand the might of his Creatoruntil our faith arose and delivered us from the shadows of the works of thisworld and from a fragmented mind. He who has faith will lack nothing, and,when he has nothing, he possesses all things by faith, as it is written: All thingswhatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive (Matt. 21:22); andalso The Lord is near; be anxious for nothing (Phil. 4:6).

Natural laws do not exist for faith. St. Isaac emphasizes this very strongly:All things are possible to him that believeth (Mark 9:23), for with God nothing is

impossible . . . To step beyond the limits of nature and to enter into the realmof the supernatural is considered to be against nature, as something irrationaland impossible . . . Nevertheless, this natural knowledge, according to St.Isaac, is not at fault. It is not to be rejected. It is just that faith is higher than itis. This knowledge is only to be condemned in so far as, by the different meansit uses, it turns against faith. But when this knowledge is joined with faith,becoming one with her, clothing itself in her burning thoughts, when it acquireswings of passionlessness, then, using other means than natural ones, it rises


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up from the earth into the realm of its Creator, into the supernatural. Thisknowledge is then fulfilled by faith and receives the power to rise to theheights, to perceive him who is beyond all perception and to see the brightnessthat is incomprehensible to the mind and knowledge of created beings.Knowledge is the level from which a man rises up to the heights of faith. Whenhe reaches these heights, he has no more need of it for it is written: We

know in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in partshall be done away (I Cor. 13:9-10). Faith reveals to us now the truth ofperfection, as if it were before our eyes. It is by faith that we learn that which isbeyond our grasp by faith and not by enquiry and the power ofknowledge. . . .

There are three spiritual modes in which knowledge rises and falls, and bywhich it moves and changes. These are the body, the soul, and the spirit. . . Atits lowest level, knowledge follows the desires of the flesh, concerning itselfwith riches, vainglory, dress, repose of body, and the search for rationalwisdom. This knowledge invents the arts and sciences and all that adorns thebody in this visible world. But in all this, such knowledge is contrary to faith. It

is known as mere knowledge, for it is deprived of all thought of the divine and,by its fleshly character, brings to the mind an irrational weakness, because in itthe mind is overcome by the body and its entire concern is for the things ofthis world. It is puffed up and filled with pride, for it refers every good work toitself and not to God. That which the Apostle said, knowledge puffeth up (I Cor.8:1) was

Faith presents a new way of thinking,through which is effected all the workof knowing in the believing man. Thisnew way of thinking is humility. . . It isby humility that the intellect is healedand made whole. . . The humble man isthe fount of the mysteries of the new

age.

obviously said of this knowledge, which is not linked with faith and hope inGod, and not of true knowledge. True, spiritual knowledge, linked with humility,brings to perfection the soul of those who have acquired it, as is seen in Moses,David, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, and all those who, within the limits of human nature,were counted worthy of this perfect knowledge. With them, knowledge isalways immersed in pondering things strange to this world, in divinerevelations and lofty contemplation of spiritual things and ineffable mysteries.In their eyes, their own souls are but dust and ashes. Knowledge that comes ofthe flesh is criticized by Christians, who see it as opposed not only to faith butto every act of virtue.

It is not difficult to see that in this first and lowest degree of knowledge ofwhich St. Isaac speaks is included virtually the whole of European philosophy,from naive realism to idealism and all science from the atomism ofDemocritus to Einstein's relativity.

From the first and lowest degree of knowledge, man moves on to thesecond, when he begins both in body and soul to practice the virtues: fasting,prayer, almsgiving, the reading of Holy Scripture, the struggle with the


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passions, and so forth. Every good work, every goodly disposition of the soul inthis second degree of knowledge, is begun and performed by the Holy Spiritthrough the working of this particular knowledge. The heart is shown the pathsthat lead to faith, even though this knowledge remains bodily and composite.

The third degree of knowledge is that of perfection. When knowledge rises

up above the earth and the care for earthly things and begins to examine itsown interior and hidden thoughts, scorning that from which the evil of thepassions springs and rising up to follow the way of faith in concern for the lifeto come . . .

It is very difficult, and often impossible, to express in words the mystery andnature of knowledge. In the realm of human thought, there is no readydefinition that can explain it completely. St. Isaac therefore gives manydifferent definitions of knowledge. He is continually exercised in this matter,and the problem stands like a burning question mark before the eyes of thisholy ascetic. The saint presents answers from his rich and blessed experience,achieved through long and hard ascesis. But the most profound, and to mymind the most exhaustive answer that man can give to this question is that

given by St. Isaac in the form of a dialogue:Question: What is knowledge?Answer: The perception of eternal life.

Question: And what is eternal life?Answer: To perceive all things in God.For love comes through understanding,and the knowledge of God is ruler overall desires. To the heart that receivesthis knowledge every delight that existson earth is superfluous, for there isnothing that can compare with thedelight of the knowledge of God.

Knowledge is therefore victory over death, the linking of this life withimmortal life and the uniting of man with God. The very act of knowledgetouches on the immortal, for it is by knowledge that man passes beyond thelimits of the subjective and enters the realm of the trans-subjective. And whenthe trans-subjective object is God, then the mystery of knowledge becomes themystery of mysteries and the enigma of enigmas. Such knowledge is amystical fabric woven on the loom of the soul by the man who is united withGod.

For human knowledge the most vital problem is that of truth. Knowledgebears within itself an irresistible pull towards the infinite mystery, and this

hunger for truth that is instinctive to human knowledge is never satisfied untileternal and absolute Truth itself becomes the substance of human knowledgeuntil knowledge, in its own self-perception, acquires the perception of God, andin its own self knowledge comes to the knowledge of God. But this is given toman only by Christ, the God-Man, he who is the only incarnation andpersonification of eternal truth in the world of human realities. When a man hasreceived the God-Man into himself, as the soul of his soul and the life of his life,then that man is constantly filled with the knowledge of eternal truth. . . .


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It is the man who restores and transforms his organs of knowledge by thepractice of the virtues that comes to the perception and knowledge of thetruth. For him faith and knowledge, and all that goes with them, are oneindivisible and organic whole. They fulfill and are fulfilled by one another, andeach confirms and supports the other. The light of the mind gives birth to faith,says St. Isaac, and faith gives birth to the consolation of hope, while hope

fortifies the heart. Faith is the enlightenment of the understanding. Faith,which bathes the understanding in light, frees man from pride and doubt, andis known as the knowledge and manifestation of the truth.

Holy knowledge comes from a holy life, but pride darkens that holyknowledge. The light of truth increases and decreases according to a man'sway of life. Terrible temptations fall upon those who seek to live a spiritual life.

The ascetic of faith must therefore pass through great sufferings andmisfortunes in order to come to knowledge of the truth.

A troubled mind and chaotic thoughts are the fruit of a disordered life, andthese darken the soul. When the passions are driven from the soul with thehelp of the virtues, when the curtain of the passions is drawn back from the

eyes of the mind, then the intellect can perceive the glory of the other world.The soul grows by means of the virtues, the mind is confirmed in the truth andbecomes unshakable, girded for encountering and slaying every passion.Freedom from the passions is brought about by crucifying of both the intellectand the flesh. This makes a man capable of contemplating God. The intellect iscrucified when unclean thoughts are driven out of it, and the body when thepassions are up-rooted. A body given over to pleasure cannot be the abode ofthe knowledge of God.

True knowledge the revelation of the mysteries is attained by means ofthe virtues, and this is the knowledge that saves.

What are, on the other hand, the fruits of the God-Man society [the Church]? Saints, Martyrs, and Confessors. That is its goal, that is its meaning anddesign, that is the proof of its indestructible strength. Not books and libraries,systems and cities all things that are here today and gone tomorrow. Thevarious pseudo-Christian humanisms fill the world with books, while Orthodoxyfills it with the hallowed.

In the European West, Christianity has gradually transformed intohumanism. For a long time and arduously, the God-Man diminished, and hasbeen changed, narrowed, and finally reduced to a man: to the infallible man inRome and the equally infallible man in London and Berlin. Thus did papismcome into being, taking everything from Christ, along with Protestantism,which asks the least from Christ, and often nothing. Both in papism and inProtestantism, man has been put in the place of the God-Man, both as thehighest value and as the highest criterion. A painful and sad correction of theGod-Man's work and teaching has been accomplished. Steadily and stubbornlypapism has tried to substitute the God-Man with man, until in the dogma about


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the infallibility of the pope a man, the God-Man was once and for allreplaced with ephemeral, infallible man; because with this dogma, the popewas decisively and clearly declared as something higher than not only man,but the holy Apostles, the holy Fathers, and the holy Ecumenical councils. Withthis kind of a departure from the God-Man, from the ecumenical Church as theGod-Man organism, papism surpassed Luther, the founder of Protestantism.

Thus, the first radical protest in the name of humanism against the God-ManChrist, and his God-Man organism the Church should be looked for inpapism, not in Lutheranism. Papism is actually the first and the oldestProtestantism.

We should not do this ourselves. Papism indeed is the most radicalProtestantism, because it has transferred the foundation of Christianity fromthe eternal God-Man to ephemeral man. And it has proclaimed this as theparamount dogma, which means: the paramount value, the paramountmeasure of all beings and things in the world. And the Protestants merelyaccepted this dogma in its essence, and worked it out in terrifying magnitudeand detail. Essentially, Protestantism is nothing other than a generally applied

papism. For in Protestantism, the fundamental principle of papism is brought tolife by each man individually. After the example of the infallible man in Rome,each Protestant is a cloned infallible man, because he pretends to personalinfallibility in matters of faith. It can be said: Protestantism is a vulgarizedpapism, only stripped of mystery (i.e., sacramentality), authority and power.

Through the reduction of Christianity, with all its eternal God-Man qualities,to man, Western Christianity has been turned into humanism. This may seemparadoxical, but it is true in its irresistible and unerasable historical reality.Because Western Christianity is, in its essence, the most decisive humanism;and because it has proclaimed man as infallible, and has turned the God-Manreligion into a humanist religion. And that this is so is shown by the fact thatthe God-Man has been driven to the heavens, while his place on earth has

been filled with his replacement, Vicarius Christi the pope. What a tragicpiece of illogic: to establish a replacement for the everywhere-present God andthe Lord Christ! But this piece of illogic has been incarnated in WesternChristianity: the Church has been transformed into a state, the pope hasbecome a ruler, bishops have been proclaimed princes, priests have becomeleaders of clerical parties, the faithful have been proclaimed papal subjects.

The Gospel has been replaced with the Vatican's compilation of canon law;Evangelical ethic and methods of love have been replaced with casuistry,

Jesuitry and the holy Inquisition. What does all this mean? With the systematicremoval and destruction of everything that does not bow to the pope, evenwith forced conversions to the papal faith, and the burning of sinners for theglory of the meek and the mild Lord Jesus!

There is no doubt that all these facts converge into one irresistibly logicalconclusion: in the West there is no Church and no God-Man, which is why thereis no true God-Man society in which men are mortal brothers and immortalfellows. Humanistic Christianity is actually the most decisive protest anduprising against the God-Man Christ and all the Evangelical, God-Man valuesand norms. And even here is evident European man's favored tendency, toreduce everything to man as the fundamental value and the fundamentalmeasure. And behind that stands one idol: Menschliches Allzumenschliches.


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With the reduction of Christianity to humanism, Christianity has been no doubt,simplified, but also at the same time destroyed! Now that the gleischaltungof Christianity with humanism has been accomplished, some in Europe areseeking a return to the God-Man Christ. However, the cries of individuals in theProtestant world Zuruck zum Jesus! Back to Jesus! are empty cries in thedark night of humanistic Christianity, which has abandoned the values and the

measures of God-Man and is now suffocating in desperation and impotence.While from the depths of centuries past reverberate the bitter words of themelancholic prophet of God, Jeremiah: Accursed is the man who puts hisconfidence in man! . . .

In a broader historical perspective, the Western dogma about man'sinfallibility is nothing other than an attempt to revive and immortalize dyinghumanism. It is the last transformation and final glorification of humanism.After the rationalistic Enlightenment of the 18th century and the shortsightedpositivism of the 19th century, nothing else was left to European humanismthan to fall apart in its own impotence and contradictions. But in that tragicmoment, religious humanism came to its aid with its dogma about the

infallibility of man saved European humanism from imminent death. And,although dogmatized, Western Christian humanism could not help absorbing allthe fatal contradictions of European humanism, which are united in one singledesire: to exile God-Man from the earth. Because the most important thing forhumanism is for man to be the highest value and the highest measure. Man,not God-Man.

According to our own Orthodox feeling: Christianity is only Christianitythrough the God-Man, through His God-Man ideology and God-Man methods.

That is the fundamental truth for the sake of which no compromises can bemade. Only as the God-Man is Christ the highest value and the highestmeasure. One should be truthful and consistent to the end: if Christ is not theGod-Man, then he is the most impudent fraud, because he proclaimed himself

as God and the Lord. But the Evangelical historical reality irrefutably shows andproves that Jesus Christ is in everything and in all things the perfect God-Man.

Therefore, one cannot be a Christian without a belief in Christ as God-Man andin the Church as His God-Man Body, in which He left His entire MiraculousPerson. The saving and life-giving power of Christ's Church lays in theeternally-living and all-present personality of the God-Man. Any substitution ofthe God-Man with a man, and any winnowing of Christianity in order to pick outonly that which pleases a man's individual preference and reason, turnsChristianity into shallow and impotent humanism.

The outstanding importance of Christianity for making lies in its life-givingand unchangeable God-Manhood, by which it models humanity as a whole,

bringing it from the darkness of non-being to the light of Pan-being. Only by itsGod-Man power is Christianity the salt of the earth, the salt that saves manfrom rotting in sin and evil. If it dissolves into various humanisms, Christianitybecomes bland, becomes salt that has turned flat, useless, fit to be tossed outand trod on.

Any tendency or attempt at a gleischaltung of Christianity with the spirit ofthe times, with ephemeral movements and regimes of certain historicalperiods, takes away from Christianity that specific worth which makes it the


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singular God-Man religion in the world. In the Orthodox philosophy of society,the rule above all rules is this: do not accommodate the God-Man Christ to thespirit of the times, but rather accommodate the spirit of the times to the spiritof Christ's eternity Christ's God-Manhood. Only in this way can the Churchpreserve the life-giving and irreplaceable personality of the God-Man Christand remain a God-Man society, in which people fraternize and live with the

help of Divine love and justice, prayer and fasting, meekness and humbleness,goodness and wisdom, charity and faith, love of God and love of one's brother,and all the other Evangelical virtues.

According to the God-Man philosophy of life and the world, man, society,nation, and state are to accommodate themselves to the Church as the eternalideal, but the Church must never accommodate itself to them much lesssubmit to them. A nation has true worth only inasmuch as it lives theEvangelical virtues and incarnates in its history the God-Man values. Whatapplies to the nation, applies to the state as well. The goal of the nation as awhole is the same as the goal of the individual: to incarnate in one's selfEvangelical justice, love, sanctity; to become a holy people God's people

which in its history proclaims the Divine values and virtues (1 Peter 2:9-10;1:15-16).

* * *

They will ask us: where are the concrete fruits of this God-Man society? Howwas it that precisely on the field of Orthodoxy's radiation came about theappearance of the most radical secularism in human history? (Joseph Piper)Does there not also exist an Eastern Humanism (for ex. Caesaro-papism, etc.)?

The success of atheistic social humanism on the soil of Orthodoxy: is that notproof of the inability of Orthodoxy to solve the most elementary socialproblems?

It is a fact that this world lies in evil and sin. The reduction of everything to

man is in fact the atmosphere in which sinful human nature and man in general no matter where he is located lives and breathes, and something towardwhich they strive. It is, therefore, no wonder that the tides of this sinfulness,

just like the tides of European pseudo-Christian poisons, from time to timewash over the Orthodox peoples as well. However, one thing is irrefutably true:the Orthodox church has never ecclesiologically dogmatized any sort ofhumanism, whether we are talking about Caesaro-papism or any other ism.With the strength of its genuine and uncorrupted God-Manhood andEvangelical truthfulness, and through its constant call for repentance regardingeverything that is not from God-Man, it has preserved, by the power of the HolySpirit, the wisdom and the chastity of its heart and its soul. And by this it hasremained and continues to be the salt of the earth, man and society. On the

other hand, the tragedy of Western Christianity lies precisely in the fact that it,either by correcting the image of the God-Man, or by denying it, has attemptedto once again introduce demonized humanism, so characteristic of sinfulhuman nature, to where? Into the heart of the God-Man organism itself the Church, whose essence lies precisely in the freeing of man from it. Andthrough it into all regions of life, person and society, proclaiming it as thesupreme dogma, as the universal dogma. With this, the demonized intellectualpridefulness of man, hidden under the cloak of the Church, becomes the


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dogma of a faith without which there is no salvation! It is horrible to think it,much less say it: with this, the sole workshop of salvation and graduation toGod-Manhood in this world, is gradually turned into a demonized workshop ofviolence over consciousness and dehumanization! A workshop of thedisfigurement of God and man through the disfigurement of the God-Man!

The Orthodox Church has proclaimed no poison, no sin, no humanism, noearthly social system as dogma neither through Councils, nor through theBody of the Ecumenical Church. While the west, alas, does nothing but that.

The latest proof: the Second Vatican Council.

The Orthodox Faith: in it, repentance is a necessary holy virtue; and italways calls for repentance. In the West: the pseudo-Christian faith in mandoes not call for repentance; on the contrary, it clerically obligates amaintaining of its fatal-to-man homo-idolization, its pseudo-Christianhumanisms, infallibilities, heresies, and it pridefully considers that in no caseare these things for which one should repent.

Contemporary atheistic social humanism ideologically andmethodologically is in everything a fruit and an invention of pseudo-Christian Europe, wed with our own sinfulness. They ask us: how did it arrive onthe soil of Orthodoxy? It is God trying the endurance of the righteous, visitingthe children for the sins of their fathers, and announcing the strength of HisChurch by taking it through fire and water. Because, according to the words ofthe wise-in-God Macarius of Egypt, that is the only path of true Christianity:Wherever the Holy Spirit is, there follows, like a shadow, persecution andbattle. . . It is necessary that the truth be persecuted. What are, on the otherhand, the fruits of the God-Man society? Saints, Martyrs, and Confessors. Thatis its goal, that is its meaning and design, that is the proof of its indestructiblestrength. Not books and libraries, systems and cities all things that are heretoday and gone tomorrow. The various pseudo-Christian humanisms fill the

world with books, while Orthodoxy fills it with the hallowed. Thousands andhundreds of thousands, even millions of martyrs and newly martyred, fallen forthe Orthodox faith there is the fruit of God-Man society. Thus does thefamous Francois Mauriac, a Roman Catholic, on the dark horizon of thecontemporary world, with each day more and more pushed into the darknessof born-in-Europe, soul-losing homo-idolatry, see only one bright spot, thatgives hope for the future of this world: the bathed in the blood of the martyredand newly-martyred faith. The Orthodox faith.

But in the West? They neither know the Church, nor the path, nor the wayout of the hopelessness; all is sunk in soul-losing idolatry, in love of pleasure,love of self, and love of lust. Hence in Europe we see the renaissance ofpolytheism. The False Christs, false gods that have flooded Europe and are

exported from it to all the marketplaces of the world, have for their mainassignment the killing of the soul in man that unique treasure of man in allthe worlds, and in that way make impossible the very possibility of a genuinesociety.

In writing this, we are not writing the history of Europe, its virtues and faults,nor the history of the European pseudo-churches. We are merely laying out theentelechy of its ontology, descending into the pith of European intellectualpridefulness, into its demonic underground, where its black sources are, whose


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water threatens to poison the world. This is not a judgment of Europe but aheartfelt prayerful call to the solitary path of salvation, through repentance.

Until the coming of the Lord Christ into our terrestrial world, we men reallyknew only about death and death knew about us. Everything human waspenetrated, captured, and conquered by death. Death was closer to us than weourselves and more real than we ourselves, and more powerful, incomparablymore powerful than every man individually and all men together. Earth was adreadful prison of death, and we people were the helpless slaves of death (cf.Heb. 2:14-15). Only with the God-man Christ life was manifested; eternal lifeappeared to us hopeless mortals, the wretched slaves of death (cf. I John 1: 2).And that eternal life we men have seen with our eyes and handled with ourhands (cf. 1 John 1:1), and we Christians make manifest eternal life to all (cf. 1

John 1:2). For living in union with the Lord Christ, we live eternal life even hereon earth (cf. 1 John 1:3). We know from personal experience that Jesus Christ isthe true God and eternal life (cf. 1 John 5:20). And for this did He come into theworld: to show us the true God and eternal life in Him (cf. 1 John 5:11). Genuineand true love for man consists of this, only of this: that God sent His Only-Begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him (1 John 4:9) andthrough Him live eternal life. Therefore, he who has the Son of God has life; hewho has not the Son of God has not life (1 John 5:12) he is completely indeath. Life in the one true God and Lord Jesus Christ is really our only true lifebecause it is wholly eternal and completely stronger than death. Can a lifewhich is infected by death and which ends in death really be called life? Just ashoney is not honey when it is mixed with a poison which gradually turns all the

honey into poison, so a life which ends in death is not life.There is no end to the love of the Lord Christ for man: because for us men to

acquire the life eternal which is in Him, and to live by Him, nothing is requiredof us not learning, nor glory, nor wealth, nor anything else that one of usdoes not have, but rather only that which each of us can have. And that is?Faith in the Lord Christ. For this reason did He, the Only Friend of Man, revealto the human race this wondrous good tiding: God so loved the world that Hegave His Only-Begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perishbut have everlasting life. He that believes in the Son has eternal life (John 3:16-36). As the one true God giving people what no angel or man can give them,the Lord Christ alone in the human race had the boldness and right to declare:Amen, Amen, I say unto you: he that believes in me has eternal life (John 6:47),

and he has already passed from death unto life (John 5:24).

Faith in the Lord Christ unites man with the eternal Lord Who, according tothe measure of man's faith, pours out in his soul eternal life so that he thenfeels and realizes himself to be eternal. And this he feels to a greater degreeinasmuch as he lives according to that faith which gradually sanctifies his soul,heart, conscience, his entire being, by the grace-filled Divine energies. Inproportion to the faith of a man the sanctification of his nature increases. Andthe holier the man is, the stronger and more vivid is his feeling of personal


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immortality and the consciousness of his own and everybody else'simmortality.

Actually, a man's real life begins with his faith in the Lord Christ, whichcommits all his soul, all his heart, all his strength to the Lord Christ, Whogradually sanctifies, transfigures, deifies them. And through that sanctification,

transfiguration, and deification the grace-filled Divine energies, which give himthe all-powerful feeling and consciousness of personal immortality andpersonal eternity, are poured out upon him. In reality, our life is life inasmuchas it is in Christ. And as much as it is in Christ is shown by its holiness: theholier a life, the more immortal and more eternal it is.

Opposed to this process is death. What is death? Death is ripened sin; andripened sin is separation from God, in Whom alone is life and the source of life.

This truth is evangelical and Divine: holiness is life, sinfulness is death; piety islife, atheism is death; faith is life, unbelief is death; God is life, the devil isdeath. Death is separation from God, and life is returning to God and living inGod. Faith is indeed the revival of the soul from lethargy, the resurrection ofthe soul from the dead: he was dead, and is alive (Luke 15: 24). Man

experienced this resurrection of the soul from death for the first time with theGod-man Christ and constantly experiences it in His holy Church, since all ofHim is found in Her. And He gives Himself to all believers through the holymysteries and the holy virtues. Where He is, there is no longer death: thereone has already passed from death to life. With the Resurrection of Christ wecelebrate the deadening of death, the beginning of a new, eternal life (cf.Paschal Canon, Ode 7).

True life on earth indeed begins from the Resurrection of the Savior, for itdoes not end in death. Without the Resurrection of Christ human life is nothingelse but a gradual dying which finally inevitably ends in death. Real true life isthat life which does not end in death. And such a life became possible on earth

only with the Resurrection of the Lord Christ the God-man. Life is real life onlyin God, for it is a holy life and by virtue of this an immortal life. just as in sin isdeath, so in holiness is immortality. Only with faith in the risen Lord Christ doesman experience the most crucial miracle of his existence: the passover fromdeath to immortality, from transitoriness into eternity, from hell to heaven.Only then does man find himself, his true self, his eternal self: for he was dead,and is alive again; he was lost, and is found (Luke 15: 24).

What are Christians? Christians are Christ-bearers, and by virtue of thisbearers and possessors of eternal life, and this according to the measure offaith and according to the measure of holiness which is from faith. The Saintsare the most perfect Christians, for they have been sanctified to the highestdegree with the podvigs of holy faith in the risen and eternally-living Lord

Christ and no death has power over them. Their life is entirely from the LordChrist, and for this reason it is entirely Christ's life; and their thought is entirelyChrist's thought; and their perception is Christ's perception. All that they haveis first Christ's and then theirs. If the soul, it is first Christ's and then theirs: iflife, it is first Christ's and then theirs. In them is nothing of themselves butrather wholly and in everything the Lord Christ.

Therefore, the Lives of the Saints are nothing else but the life of the LordChrist, repeated in every saint to a greater or lesser degree in this or that form.


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More precisely it is the life of the Lord Christ continued through the Saints, thelife of the incarnate God the Logos, the God-man Jesus Christ who becameman. This was so that as man He could give and transmit to us His divine life;so that as God by His life he could sanctify and make immortal and eternal ourhuman life on earth. For both he who sanctifieth and they who are sanctifiedare all of one (Heb. 2: 11).

The Lord Christ made this possible and realizable in the world of man fromthe time that He became man, partook of flesh and blood, and thus became aBrother of man, a Brother according to flesh and blood (cf. Heb. 2:14-17).Having become man but having remained God, the God-man led a holy,sinless, Divine-human life on earth, and by this life, death, and Resurrection,annihilated the devil and his dominion of death and by this act gave andconstantly gives His grace-filled energies to those who believe in Him, so thatthey may annihilate the devil and every death and every temptation (cf. Heb.2:14, 15, 18). That Divine-human life is found entirely in the Divine-humanBody of Christ the Church and is constantly experienced in the Church asan earthly-heavenly whole, and by individuals according to the measure of

their faith.The lives of the saints are in fact the life of the God-man Christ, which is

poured out into His followers and is experienced by them in His Church. For thesmallest part of this life is always directly from Him because He is life ( cf. John14:6; 1:4), infinite and boundless and eternal life, which by His Divine powervanquished all deaths and resurrects from all deaths. According to the all-trueand good tidings of the All-True One: I am the resurrection and the life (John11:25). The miraculous Lord who is completely resurrection and life is in HisChurch in His whole being as Divine-human reality, and consequently there isno end to the duration of this reality. His life is continued through all ages;every Christian is of the same body with Christ (cf. Eph. 3:6), and he is aChristian because he lives the Divine-human life of this Body of Christ as Its

organic cell.

Who is a Christian? A Christian is a man who lives by Christ and in Christ.The commandment of the Holy Gospel of God is divine: live worthily of God(Col. 1:10). God, Who became incarnate and Who as the God-man has inentirety remained in His Church, which lives eternally by Him. And one livesworthily of God when one lives according to the Gospel of Christ. Therefore,this Divine commandment of the Holy Gospel is also natural: Live worthily ofthe Gospel of Christ (Phillip. 1:27).

Life according to the Gospel, holy life, Divine life, that is the natural andnormal life for Christians. For Christians, according to their vocation, are holy:

That good tiding and commandment resounds throughout the whole Gospel of

the New Testament (cf. 1 Thess. 4:3, 7; Romans 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:1-18,2:19, 5:3, 6:18; Phillip. 1:1, 4:21-22; Col. 1:2-4, 12, 22, 26; 1 Thes. 3:13, 5:27,2 Tim. 1:9; Phlm. 5:7, Heb. 3:1, 6:10, 13:24; Jude 3). To become completelyholy, both in soul and in body, that is our vocation (cf. 1 Thes. 5: 22-23). This isnot a miracle, but rather the norm, the rule of faith. The commandment of theHoly Gospel is clear and most clear: as the Holy One who has called you isHoly, so be ye holy in all manner of life (1 Peter 1:15). And that means thataccording to Christ the Holy One, Who, having been incarnate and become


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man, showed forth in Himself a completely holy life, and as such commandsmen: be ye holy, for I am Holy (1 Peter 1:16). He has the right to commandthis, for having become man He gives men as Himself, the Holy One, all theDivine energies which [are] necessary for a holy and pious life in this world (cf.2 Peter 1:3). Having united themselves spiritually and by Grace to the Holy One the Lord Christ with the help of faith, Christians themselves receive from

Him the holy energies that they may lead a holy life.

Living by Christ, the saints can do the works of Christ, for by Him theybecome not only powerful but all-powerful: I can do all things in Christ Jesuswho strengthens me (Phillip. 4:13). And in them is clearly realized the truth ofthe All-True One, that those who believe in Him will do His works and will dogreater things than these: Verily, verily I say unto you: he that believeth in me,the works that I do he shall do also and greater works than these shall he do(John 14:12). And truly: the shadow of the Apostle Peter healed; by a word St.Mark the Ascetic moved and stopped a mountain. . . When God became man,then Divine life became human life, Divine power became human power,Divine truth became human truth, and Divine righteousness became human

righteousness: everything which is God's became man's.What are the Acts of the Holy Apostles? They are the acts of Christ which

the Holy Apostles do by the power of Christ, or better still: they do them byChrist Who is in them and acts through them. And what are the lives of theHoly Apostles? They are the living of Christ's life which in the Church istransmitted to all faithful followers of Christ and is continued through themwith the help of the holy mysteries and the holy virtues.

And what are the Lives of the Saints? They are nothing else but a certainkind of continuation of the Acts of the Apostles. In them is found the sameGospel, the same life, the same truth, the same righteousness, the same love,the same faith, the same eternity, the same power from on high, the same God

and Lord. For the Lord Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb. 13:8): the same for all people of all times, distributing the samegifts and the same Divine energies to all who believe in Him. This continuationof all life-creating Divine energies in the Church of Christ from ages to agesand from generation to generation indeed constitutes living Holy Tradition. ThisHoly Tradition is continued without interruption as the life of Grace in allChristians, in whom through the holy mysteries and the holy virtues, JesusChrist lives by His Grace. He is wholly present in His Church, for She is Hisfullness: the fullness of Him who filleth all in all (Eph. 1: 23). And the God-manChrist is the all-perfect fullness of the Godhead: for in Him dwelleth all thefullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2: 4). And Christians must, with the help ofthe holy mysteries and the holy virtues, fill themselves with all the fullness of

God (Eph. 3:19).The Lives of the Saints show forth those persons filled with Christ God, those

Christ-bearing persons, those holy persons in whom is preserved and throughwhom is transmitted the holy tradition of that holy grace-filled life. It ispreserved and transmitted by means of holy evangelical living. For the lives ofthe saints are holy evangelical truths which are translated into our human lifeby grace andpodvigs (asceticism). There is no evangelical truth which cannotbe transformed into human life. They were all brought by Christ God for one


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purpose: to become our life, our reality, our possession, our joy. And the saints,all, without exception, live these Divine truths as the center of their lives andthe essence of their being. For this reason the Lives of the Saints are a proofand a testimony: that our origin is in heaven; that we are not from this worldbut from that one; that a man is a true man only in God; that on earth one livesby heaven; that our conversation is in heaven (Phillip. 3:20); that our task is to

make ourselves heavenly, feeding ourselves with the heavenly bread whichcame down to earth (cf. John 6:33, 35, 51). And He came down to feed us witheternal Divine truth, eternal Divine good, eternal Divine righteousness, eternalDivine love, eternal Divine life through Holy Communion, through living in theone true God and Lord Jesus Christ (cf. John 6: 50, 51, 53-57).

In other words, our vocation is to fill ourselves with the Lord Christ, with HisDivine life-creating energies, to live in Christ and to make ourselves christs. Ifyou set about this you are already in heaven although you walk on earth; youare already wholly in God even though your being has remained within thelimits of human nature. The man who makes himself a christ surpasses himself,as man, by God, by the God-man, in Whom is given the perfect image of the

true, real whole man in the image of God; and in Him are also given the all-vanquishing Divine energies, by the help of which man raises himself aboveevery sin, above every death, above every hell; and this he does by the Churchand in the Church, which all the powers of hell cannot overcome, because inHer is the whole wondrous God-man the Lord Christ, with all His Divineenergies, His truths, His realities, His perfections, His lives, His eternities.

The Lives of the Saints are holy testimonies of the miraculous power of ourLord Jesus Christ. In reality they are the testimonies of the Acts of the Apostles,only continued throughout the ages. The saints are nothing other than holywitnesses, like the Holy Apostles who were the first witnesses of what?, ofthe God-man Jesus Christ: of Him crucified, resurrected, ascended into heavenand eternally alive; about His all-saving Gospel which is unceasingly written

with evangelical holy deeds from generation to generation, for the Lord Christ,who is always the same, constantly works miracles by His Divine powerthrough His holy witnesses. The Holy Apostles are the first holy witnesses ofthe Lord Christ and His Divine-human economy of the salvation of the world,and their lives are living and immortal testimonies of the Gospel of the Savioras the new life, the life of grace, holy, Divine, Divine-human and thereforealways miraculous, miraculous and true as the Savior's life itself is miraculousand true.

And who are the Christians? Christians are those through whom the holyDivine-human life of Christ is continued from generation to generation until theend of the world and of time, and they all make up one body, the Body of

Christ-the Church: they are sharers of the Body of Christ and members of oneanother (I Cor. 12:27, 12-14, 10:17; Rom. 12:5; Eph. 3:6). The stream ofimmortal divine life began to flow and still flows unceasingly from the LordChrist, and through him Christians flow into eternal life. Christians are theGospel of Christ continued throughout all the ages of the race of men. In theLives of the Saints, everything is ordinary as in the Holy Gospel, but everythingis extraordinary as in the Holy Gospel both one and the other, uniquely trueand real. And everything is true and real by the same Divine-human reality;


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and the same holy power Divine and human bears witness to it: Divine inan all-perfect way, and human also in an all-perfect way.

What are the Lives of the Saints? Behold, we are in heaven, for earthbecomes heaven through the Saints of God. Behold, we are among angels inthe flesh, among Christ-bearers. And whoever they are, the Lord is completely

in them, and with them, and among them; and there is the whole EternalDivine Truth, and the whole Eternal Divine Righteousness, and the wholeEternal Divine Love, and the whole Eternal Divine Life.

What are the Lives of the Saints? Behold, we are in Paradise, in whicheverything which is Divine, holy, immortal, eternal, righteous, true, andevangelical grows and increases. For by the Cross in every one of the saintsthe tree of eternal, Divine, immortal life blossomed and brought forth muchfruit. And the Cross leads to heaven; it leads even us after the thief, who forour encouragement entered Paradise first after the All-Holy Divine Cross-bearer the Lord Christ and entered with a cross of repentance.

What are the Lives of the Saints? Behold, we are in eternity: no longer isthere time, for in the Saints of God Eternal Divine Truth, Eternal DivineRighteousness, Eternal Divine Love, Eternal Divine Life reign and rule. And inthem there is no longer any death, for their entire being is filled with theresurrecting Divine energies of the Risen Lord Christ, the Only Vanquisher ofdeath, of all deaths in all worlds. There is no death in them in holy people:their whole being is filled with the Only Immortal One the All-Immortal One:the Lord and God Jesus Christ. Among them we are on earth among the onlytrue immortals: they have conquered all deaths, all sins, all passions, alldemons, all hells. When we are with them, no death can harm us, for they arethe lightning-rods of death. There is no thunderbolt with which death can strikeus when we are with them, among them, in them.

Saints are people who live on earth by holy, eternal Divine truths. That is

why the Lives of the Saints are actually applied dogmatics, for in them all theholy eternal dogmatic truths are experienced in all their life-creating andcreative energies. In The Lives of the Saints it is most evidently shown thatdogmas are not only ontological truths in themselves and for themselves, butthat each one of them is a wellspring of eternal life and a source of holyspirituality.

According to the All-True Gospel of the unique and irreplaceable Savior andLord: My words are spirit and life (John 6: 63), for each one pours out from itselfsaving, sanctifying, a life-creating, transfiguring power. Without the holy truthof the Holy Trinity we have none of that power from the Holy Trinity on whichwe draw by faith and which vivifies sanctifies, deifies, and saves us. Withoutthe holy truth about the God-man, there is no salvation for man, for from it,when it is lived by man, wells forth the saving power which saves from sin,death, the devil.

And this holy truth about the God-man do not the lives of countless saintsmost evidently and experimentally bear witness to it? For the saints are saintsby the very fact that they constantly live the entire Lord Jesus as the soul oftheir soul, as the conscience of their conscience, as the mind of their mind, asthe being of their being, as the life of their life. And each one of them togetherwith the Holy Apostle loudly proclaims the truth: Yet not I live, but Christ liveth


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in me (Gal. 2:20). Delve into the Lives of the Saints: from all of them wells forththe grace-filled, life-creating, and saving power of the Most Holy Theotokos,Who leads them frompodvig topodvig, from virtue to virtue, from victory oversin to victory over death, from victory over death to victory over the devil, andleads them up into spiritual joy, beyond which there is no sadness nor sighingnor sorrow (Kontakion for the faithful departed), but rather everything is only

joy and peace in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), joy and peace from the victoryobtained over all sins, over all passions, over all deaths, over all evil spirits.

And all this, without a doubt, is the practical and living testimony to the holydogma concerning the Most Holy Theotokos, truly more honorable than theCherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, the holydogma which the saints by faith carry in their hearts and by which they livewith zealous love. Again if you want one, two, or thousands of irrefutabletestimonies of the life-bearing and life-creating nature of the All-VenerableCross of the Lord, and with it an experimental confirmation of the all-truthfulness of the holy dogma of the saving nature of the death of the Savioron the Cross, then start out with faith through the Lives of the Saints. And you

will have to feel and see that to each saint individually, and to all the saintstogether, the power of the Cross is the all-vanquishing weapon with which theyconquer all visible and invisible enemies of their salvation. Furthermore, youwill behold the Cross in all their being: in their soul, in their heart, in theirconscience, in their mind, in their will, and in their body, and in each one ofthem you will find an inexhaustible wellspring of the saving, all-sanctifyingpower which unfailingly leads them from perfection to perfection, and from joyto joy, until finally it leads them into the eternal Heavenly Kingdom wherethere is the unceasing triumph of those who keep festival and the infinitedelight of those who behold the ineffable beauty of the face of the Lord (1stMorning prayer by St. Basil the Great and First Prayer After Communion).

But not only these aforementioned dogmas are witnessed by the Lives of

the Saints, but all the other holy dogmas: of the Church, of grace, of t

arc him and rite justin popovich

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