Incarnation. Why did God need to become a man?

Introduction.

1.1. The purpose of human creation.

God called us from non-existence so that we could share His blissful existence and have full communion with Him. But could Adam, even being perfect, but only a man, fully communicate with God? It is obvious that creatures with a similar nature can have full communication. Thus, the Persons of the Holy Trinity are in communion with each other, being of the same nature. The nature of Adam, although it bore within itself the image of the nature of God, nevertheless remained different in relation to it. It's as if we put a monkey in a classroom, dress it up, give it a notebook and a pen to take notes on the conversation. It is clear that no full communication would have happened. Why, we ask? Because our natures and essences are different. For full communication, either we must descend to the level of a monkey, or the monkey must become human. Thus, the Creator’s plan for man is not limited to bringing him from non-existence and endowing him with his image and likeness. The end of the Creator's plan for man is the mysterious union of his Divine nature with created human nature. This union of the incompatible, the created with the uncreated, the limited with the infinite, completes the Creator’s plan for man and opens the door to a blissful existence with God and in God. It is incomprehensible to the mind that the deified nature of man becomes similar to the divine nature, with the only difference being that God is God in essence, and man becomes God by grace. It is clear that man himself cannot deify himself by accepting the Divine nature, just as a monkey cannot become human through his efforts and imitations. Therefore, God decided to take on human nature. They say this: “God became man so that man could become god.”

In addition, God, having created man, did not remain hidden from him, but, on the contrary, “introduced himself” to man, introduced man to Himself. This is called revelation, the revelation of God Himself to man. And in the light of what was said earlier, it becomes clear that this revelation becomes most complete precisely in the union of the divine and human natures, i.e. in the Incarnation.

So, speaking about the Incarnation, we have not yet said anything about sin. From what has been said, it is clear that it was not the Fall of man that served as the impetus for the Divine decision to incarnate, but this was the original intention of the Creator.

1.2. Original sin and the consequences of sin.

However, it so happened that a person, being deceived by the devil, lost his understanding of the Divine plan, of what and in what way he was called, and decided to go to the same goal, as it seemed to him, but in a different, roundabout, easy way. And what was the “work” that God predetermined for Adam and Eve on the way to Himself? This is the observance of His commandment, and we understand that its observance itself could not deify Adam. But people chose a different path, resisted the will of the Creator and believed the devil more than God. This is the very original sin that has been transmitted from Adam to this day. A question arises, a question that the unfortunate Cain could not answer correctly. Well, Father Adam sinned, but what do I have to do with it? The answer to this question lies in understanding human nature and what happened to it at the moment of the ancestors’ renunciation of God.

So, according to the original plan of the Creator, man was a being living in two worlds - the spiritual and the material. There was a strict hierarchy in its structure: spirit, soul and body. The Spirit is the life-giving power of the soul, the very breath of spiritual life that God breathed into Adam. The spirit was voluntarily immersed in God, the soul followed the spirit, carrying out mental, sensory and desirable activities, the body obeyed the soul, manifesting it in the material world. At that moment, when Adam decided to become a god “bypassing” God, his spirit, no longer wanting to abide in God, broke away from Him. Being in itself, without God, weak, the spirit could no longer carry the soul along with it, and it, connected with the body, began to be carried away not by the spirit, but by it, the body, which gravitates towards the earth, since it was taken from it. What God warned Adam about happened. Death has occurred. The separation of the soul from the spirit is called spiritual death, and this happened to Adam at the same moment after renouncing God; the separation of the soul from the body is called physical or bodily death. Moreover, death is not God’s “punishment” at all, but only a consequence of Adam’s disobedience. Thus, the consequence of sin is death - damage to the original nature of man and the impossibility of communion with God. By going against God, man was going against his calling, against that God who was not somewhere out there in the clouds, but the one he himself had to become. In such a state, a person could no longer be a full-fledged inhabitant of two worlds - the spiritual and the material; he acquired fatness, coarseness, passion, deadness, perishability, and to this day lives mainly only a material life. Spiritual life has become inaccessible to man and extremely difficult. A person is now forced to force himself towards it, to tune in to it.

So, disaster struck. The image of God embedded in man has fallen apart. Did God know about this in advance? Of course he knew, because He is omniscient. But, nevertheless, it happened. We know that God is Love. How can this happen at the same time? Only if, knowing in advance that a person would sin, God would take responsibility for it. And He took it. Eternally, at the council of the Holy Trinity, it was decided not to “throw” a person corrupted by sin back into oblivion, but to heal him, return him to his previous state and even give him something incomparably greater - deification. In addition, we also know that God is unchangeable, and man’s sin could not change the Creator’s plan, which was mentioned earlier. However, based on what actually happened, the Incarnation began to have the goal not only of deification, but also of redemption from sin and its consequence - death. And further about how the Incarnation took place.

Conversations with the priest. The meaning and significance of the Incarnation

In the Moscow studio of our TV channel, Hieromonk Nikodim (Shmatko), a cleric of the Church of the Intercession at the Moscow Theological Academy, and a teacher of theological disciplines, answers questions. – Today the topic of our program is “The Incarnation of God and its meaning and place in the Orthodox worldview.”
Let's talk about the meaning of the Incarnation, about the holiday of the Nativity of Christ, about those events that took place almost two thousand years ago. Why are they described in such detail in the Gospel and why are they so important for us today? – The fact is that the Lord is love. The Most Holy Trinity created this world out of love, and love tends to be expressed in something, in some object. After all, the love of a husband and wife is expressed in the birth of children, and they ideally devote their entire lives to their child. God Trinity is love. She expressed Her love in the created world, and the pinnacle of this love was free man, created in the image and likeness of God. The image of God lies in his immortal soul.

Accordingly, the Lord understood that man could fall in the same way as Lucifer. Let's not go into details; I hope everyone knows who Lucifer is. This was the highest angel, above all the angels - and he fell and, according to Tradition, carried away with him a third of the angels, envied man and distorted this image and likeness of God, seducing Eve. Accordingly, the plan did not change completely, but the sequence of events in which God had already manifested Himself as the God-man changed. And He made up for what Adam and Eve failed to do. They could not rise to God-manhood themselves; they had to go through this in paradise, preserving and cultivating paradise, transforming themselves and transforming the whole world - what the God-man subsequently did.

That is, a man without God wanted to become God, he was carried away by vanity, which the devil excellently presented to Eve: “Did God really say that you cannot eat from the tree of knowledge?” He started a conversation with Eve, she became carried away, and the devil, seducing her, led her away from the God-saving worldview, from the God-saving industry. And man was forced to remain in this suffering and sorrow for five and a half thousand years in order to realize that without God he would never become God. After all, in essence, what did the devil offer? “Come on, without God...”

Now all advertising is based on this; modern television in whose hands? Not always in the Orthodox majority. They basically suggest: “Drink Pepsi-Cola, inject yourself; have a drink, smoke." Entire programs were created in Hollywood in order to confuse humanity, to offer not the Divine-human religion of Christianity, Orthodoxy, but the man-divine religion of transhumanism, which is now developing in the fullness of the creation of a transhuman, and subsequently a posthuman. That is, the Incarnation of God is not necessary for the future, because there will be a new person, he will replace his organs. And this topic is very relevant.

If we recognize the Incarnation, it will be significant for us. This means that God will help us transform ourselves with our free consent. And if we give our freedom to the devil, as Eve gave it? not needed. For pagans this is madness: why would God incarnate? He is the All-Satisfied, the Omnipresent, the Unchangeable. Why would He do this? For whom? For the sake of people who “are a worm,” as the psalmist David says? For the sake of those who betrayed Him?

And that’s why God showed love, He became incarnate, knowing that He would be crucified. In the Gethsemane prayer, He prayed until he sweated blood; He knew that people would crucify Him, but He knew that He would also be resurrected. Without the Incarnation there can be no crucifixion, and there can be no resurrection. That is, the Incarnation is the beginning of kinesis, condescension, this is the beginning of the Cross. And the top of the Cross - before the Ascension.

Therefore, the Feast of the Incarnation is a kind of restraining fact, so that a person does not change himself in the passions and does not betray Christ to the end. Yes, we crucified Christ, but we repent of this, and the Lord gives His flesh for our repentance, He transforms us. This is the religion of the Incarnation, it includes the concepts of Incarnation, Resurrection, Ascension and Transfiguration.

And another concept offers us a werewolf religion. And at the moment, the holiday of Christmas is very important in the ideological understanding of modern man. Man, stop! God incarnated for your sake to make you a god, do not reject this holiday, do not fall into the comfort and pleasure of the werewolf religion of transhumanism, when you will change your organs, then create a new person, and then your consciousness will fly on the Internet. But this is all advertising. The devil will not create a new soul for us, only God gave it, and He can transform it along with the body.

The body is our clothes, the body, roughly speaking, is the brakes for our car. There are many mechanisms in this car: a steering wheel, headlights - eyes (you can say symbolically, so to speak, it is clear that this is a rough example), and there must be brakes. Whatever the supercar, it must have brakes (and we sometimes like to give it a boost if the path is straight)... If there are no brakes, humanity will fly to hell, into the abyss of eternal torment...

The body is our brakes. He drank, smoked, started coughing up blood, smoked his lungs. If you drink, your liver suffers... A person thinks, runs to the temple: “God, forgive me! God, be merciful to me, a sinner! I want to save my soul, I don’t want to be enslaved.” People hallucinate when they use drugs. That is, the body is a kind of restraining factor.

Just imagine: we use all these bad substances and create an artificial paradise for ourselves on earth. There is even such a thing as artificial programming of needs (this is in the religion of transhumanism). That is, it turns out that some kind of artificial paradise is being created in our brain. In Japan, tens of thousands of people are dying because these programs, tablets and games simply make them forget to eat and drink, and exhaustion sets in.

In essence, the religion of Orthodoxy asserts, from the Incarnation to the moment of the Ascension, that man perceives God in order to become god with the help of God, with grace, with the Holy Spirit. But in transhumanism we don’t need the Holy Spirit; here we will transform a person, parasitize on nature, on all other human abilities, in order to be opportunists. Essentially, this is a satanic religion: superman, superhero, transhumanism. This will be the Antichrist.

The icon of the Incarnation depicts the Mother of God, She gives birth to the God-man without artifice, He is without original sin. How is this depicted on the icon? We see that the Mother of God has turned away. Usually, when a woman gives birth, it is common for her to take the baby in her arms and press it to her chest. And the icon shows that She turned away. Why? This is not because the Mother of God thinks that He is not Hers. No. This is an image of the fact that the Lord was born without original sin, that He did not need any care, He was born as the God-man, and not as an ordinary person from a male seed. “The Holy Spirit will come upon You, and the power of the Most High will overshadow You.” Here they are - three rays as an image of the Holy Trinity: the angels of God, the shepherds praising, the wise men have come.

Adam did not fulfill his purpose. What is Adam's purpose? After all, there are the words: “And God said: Let us create man...” “Said” is singular, “let us create” is plural. “God said” is like a symbol of the One, and “Let us create” is a symbol of the Trinity. “Let us create in the image and likeness.” What does image mean? This is what is given, given; and similarity is the ability to freely develop the givenness that is in you.

And the Lord says: “He created man in Our image.” And his likeness begins to reveal itself. How is the similarity revealed? He brought the animals to him. What kind of dignity is it to name and rule over someone? I say three options at once: royal dignity, high priestly and prophetic. Naming animals, showing power - what kind of service is this?

- Tsarskoe.

- Tsarskoe. That is, the wise men brought gold; and is listed in this order: gold, myrrh and frankincense. Others say frankincense and myrrh. But the point is that the high priests usually anoint with myrrh, and frankincense is like a prophetic ministry. There are other interpretations, but this is not the point. It is important that these three abilities were revealed. Where do we see the high priestly ministry? When the Lord induced deep sleep... And the Lord kept saying “good,” and then at the end he said, “very good.” And one more thing: “It is not good for a man to be alone”... It is not good for a person to become proud like Lucifer, that is, a person can repeat the “feat” of Lucifer.

And so it happened. Adam and Eve were not established in their freedom. And this is the dignity: you must establish yourself in the fact that the primacy of a man is to be the first to die, this is the awareness of his mortality. Therefore, men fight for the faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland, for Holy Rus', for the Orthodox faith. This is the primacy of a man’s honor... There is, remember, a chant on Good Friday: “Having fallen asleep in the flesh...” The Lord did not die on the Cross, He fell asleep; just as Adam fell asleep, so Christ fell asleep. The Lord voluntarily went to the Cross, to voluntary suffering.

This is how the process of birth takes place here. It is the man Adam who gives birth, not the woman. The Lord did not create Eve, from whom Adam was born; The Lord created Adam, and from Adam gives birth to Eve, to show that his birth was different from what is happening with us now. We are born in iniquity, “for in iniquity I was conceived, and in sins did my mother give birth to me.” That is, we are cleansed of sins in the sacrament of Baptism, but original sin dominates us. Adam had no sin, and he gives birth from his rib, just as Christ gave birth to the Church. There are even two angels: one angel of the Old Testament Church runs away, and the second angel of the New Testament Church substitutes the cup. There is such an icon.

That is, here Eve is born, there is a new Church, this is a manifestation of the high priestly ministry, to which myrrh is more suitable. And so Adam and Eve are one flesh. In the sacrament of Communion we become one flesh with the God-man, we are born. That is, this moment of birth is the Incarnation of God, God creates man in His image and likeness, He incarnates in this image and likeness in order to save us from sin, curse and death. Therefore, the icon depicts that She gives birth without original sin; and She gave birth to a King, a High Priest and a Prophet. On the icon of the “Savior” the God-man is depicted in power: He sits as a King, He holds a scepter and orb, He has a high priestly vestment, and from His mouth comes a sword as a prophetic ministry. That is, the God-man has three ministries at once.

The God-man shows us that in our minds we should be kings; according to feelings, to give your heart for your homeland - that is, the high priests (“there is no greater love than to suffer for one’s friends”); by our own will we must be prophets, know where we come from. Who is a prophet? This is not the one who is just a pipe that doesn’t understand. It can be beaten, distorted, or a new pipe can be poured. No, it's a personality. He agrees that the will of God may be foretold through his lips. We know about the prophet Jeremiah how he complained: “God, take this prophetic gift away from me, people still don’t hear me.” And the Lord says to him: “Your forehead is stronger than their forehead, go and fight with them.” That is, this is a symbol: his thoughts are stronger. And it is precisely in the Proto-Gospel that it sounds exactly like this, the Lord gives punishment to the serpent: “Because you seduced Eve, and she seduced Adam, you will crawl and feed on flesh, the earth, and the earth (man is created from the earth) will feed on our sins." That is, the Lord gives you repentance.

The moment of the Incarnation already begins in the Book of Genesis. And then 5.5 thousand years passed, according to our Church Tradition. You can understand how many tribes there were in the genealogy from Adam - everything is listed there: dates, numbers. Approximately 2,200 years passed before the flood. This is the first Cainite civilization to reject the Incarnation.

What have genetically modified people led to – what transhumanists are now inventing in our country? You can watch Galina Tsareva’s film about the technology of dehumanization (or about the anti-world). There may be ambiguous statements, but the meaning and content are very clear to people: the time is coming when the Incarnation will not mean anything to us.

– Question from a TV viewer: “What is the root cause of the emergence of man? Maybe someone looked at this from a Christian point of view? Why did God create man after all? God is generally self-sufficient and loving; Why did He need a man?

– This is exactly where we started, that God is love, and love does not tend to close in on itself. For example, we gave birth to a child. Why did we give birth? In order to express this love in its entirety. Notice, a girl who has not yet given birth to a child, who does she pay more attention to? For yourself or for the groom. For themselves - how to decorate themselves, how good I am (especially passionate girls), what advantages I have... And some even worry that their nose is big or small, they begin to change their organs, change their face, instead of decorating themselves spiritually.

That is, love tends not to withdraw into itself and express itself. And this expression of love was the creation of man. Of course, you can say: but God the Father expressed His love for Christ, and Christ expressed His love for the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit expressed... Well, they would love... But without the Cross there is no Christ. Where there is no Cross, there is no Christ; where there is no Christ, there is no salvation. That is, this is love up to self-sacrifice.

It’s one thing when we separate something from ourselves (for example, we give something away from our clothes), and another thing when I completely give myself up to death for the sake of someone. And so man was created in order to demonstrate this love in its entirety, and before that angels were created, but they were created without flesh. Angels have an image, and man has an image and likeness; he strives for self-improvement with the help of God. And it is precisely this love that we express in its entirety.

And to speak even more directly, we cannot fully understand this mystery of the creation of man, the mystery of the Incarnation, the mystery of the crucifixion, the mystery of the Last Judgment in our state. No matter how many examples I give now, no matter how many I designate them, they will not be sufficient. It may even be blasphemous, because our worldview is fallen. And recognizing oneself as fallen and not self-sufficient is the moment when God can come to us. And when we consider ourselves Pharisees and Sadducees, we don’t need Christ, “I’m not like that publican, I know everything.”

For transhumanists, God is also not needed; they themselves are the masters here. Transhumanists are Pharisees, only in the flesh, and the Pharisees were also in the flesh, but here they are those who want to live without God. If, for example, the theory of evolution cancels the seventh commandment (if we descended from monkeys, then we can live like monkeys), then debauchery becomes free for us; if the theory of universal salvation rejects the Ten Commandments (we will all be saved anyway), then the theory of transhumanism denies man in general. “Why did you give birth to me, why do I exist here on earth?” That is, this is the denial of love in general, this is the denial of the sacrificial principles of serving God and one’s neighbors, this is the denial of everything that exists in general, of what is created on earth.

This is the hatred with which Lucifer dwells. He invented it and it will be expressed in whoever is born. The God-man accepted man in order to transform him and return him to heaven, or better yet, to place him even higher. And transhumanists prepare a person for the perception of Satan, who will then, with the help of chipping, lead all of humanity into eternal torment. The soul is immortal, and it will be an eternal parasitism on human abilities. The Lord transforms our abilities, our properties of the soul, so that we eternally rejoice, empathize, and love. There will be no love there, there will be eternal torment.

Therefore, your question is very important. There is a religion of love, the Divine-Human Incarnation, but now a werewolf religion of a transhumanist, a transhuman, a superhero is being created. You can see from the advertising on television: he ate a Snickers and became a biorobot, then fell to the ground and became a human again. That is, this is a combination of technology and man, entire manifestos. Back in 1927, a certain Julian Sorell was the first to use the idea of ​​transhumanism. Then, in 1950, it was developed. If Sorell said that we all need to rise up and change so as not to distort nature (that is, he had some other good ideas), then among modern people (after 1950) these are already ideas of denying man himself, reincarnation.

This foresight project “Childhood 2030”, then the modern Russian transhumanist social movement (50 thousand people are now part of it) are only the beginnings of that new world religion that will destroy all traditions, all our dogma. There will be no more twelve holidays, there will be no Christmas trees, there will be different images. If we don’t come to our senses in time, it will be like a little poison from a snake: it can spoil a whole vat of water - and hundreds of people will die. If we don’t notice this snake in time, it will drink water from our well, this poison will enter there - and we will all be in trouble. Therefore, we must get ahead of the snake before it climbs in and starts drinking our water. That is, the Church and the state have not yet developed these ideas of change and eternal life, that we will not have old age, that we can change our organs (transplantology is now developing in medicine).

– That is, it comes to the point that a person can, as it were, live forever on earth without God. This is the idea of ​​transhumanism, as I understand it?

– Yes, to live forever without God. If we return to the icon (so that we don’t go too far in the other direction), the Mother of God is called the Theotokos, She gave birth to the God-Man, and She became the embodiment of all the labors of humanity in the Old Testament Church. How much Adam, Seth, Noah worked! After Noah - Shem, Ham, Japheth, especially Abraham. These are our forefathers, our holy fathers, who worked hard. Their main work is repentance, remaining in repentance, meeting God through repentance, fighting with God’s help. And Jacob receives the name Israel.

The moment of the Incarnation of God is the moment when these experiences and constraints occurred. That's why Jacob struggled when he left Laban with his eleven sons... But before he crossed the Jordan (that's entering the promised land), he wrestled with an angel. This is the moment of the Incarnation, when God unites with man. And they clashed and fought all night. That is, the entire Old Testament is a struggle with the help of God against original sin. Job curses his birthday, but by doing so he curses original sin. This is what needs to be said.

That is, this moment of Incarnation is constantly present. When is Isaac born? Not when Sarah gave birth to him, but when he ascended Mount Moriah, where later, according to Tradition, the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. Isaac asks: “Father, I see fire, I feel brushwood on me (symbol of the Cross), I see a knife in your hand, but where is the lamb?” - “The Lord will provide.” This is the moment when God entered Isaac, and indeed Isaac was born for eternal life, he already believed in the resurrection. The Lord stopped his death. And Abraham believed that he would be resurrected.

And this faith in the Incarnation, faith in the resurrection permeates all the patriarchs, permeates King David in his psalms. Also, the prophet Isaiah says: “Behold, a virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel, which means “God with us.” At Great Compline these words are heard: “God is with us. God is strong, Ruler, Ruler of the world.” That is, this is not Satan with his transhumanism, not the werewolf religion of the Antichrist, but precisely our Divine-Human religion, based on the Incarnation, on correction.

The Mother of God was with original sin, only the God-man without original sin, and only He could fulfill the mission that Adam did not fulfill. Adam was created pure, at the level of the sixth beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” He needed to be a peacemaker, to be adopted, to stand in the truth (unlike Lucifer). As the Apostle James writes: “That is why Lucifer fell because he did not remain faithful.” And what commandment tells us about fidelity? “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for to them is the kingdom of heaven.”

... But Adam got carried away (first Eve, then Adam), he fell to another spiritual level. And the God-man, born in purity, fulfilled the mission of Adam as King, High Priest and Prophet. And He, in the sacrament of Baptism, returns to us this royal, high-priestly and prophetic dignity.

Where was it taken from us? Darwin was a believer, but he still proposed this theory of evolution. It was picked up by religious figures, politicians, they replicated it, gave it a scientific basis, they made some kind of Neanderthal out of a pig’s tusk... Some millions of years... What millions of years? Geologists say: all layers of the earth show that it is young. There haven't been billions of years, look at the Bible.

And the Lord said: “Not one iota will escape from the Holy Scriptures.” Look what we had before Abraham (there is a clear calendar, everything is clear), what we had before the flood. This period from Babylon to Abraham is insignificant, but the genealogy is also listed there. If you look, it’s five and a half thousand years. This theory of evolution is a special project, it is very strongly supported by the Freemasons, for them it is simply vital. This is the foundation for ecumenism, and ecumenism is the foundation for transhumanism, and transhumanism is the werewolf religion of eternal torment, the religion of the Antichrist.

Therefore, the Incarnation is a bone in the throat for them, just like the Resurrection. They don't want this. That is why these transhumanist manifestos and the Russian transhumanist social movement are created. What kind of social movement is this? Social movement of atheists. And manifestos are written in order to destroy our Orthodoxy. And we, as priests, as teachers who must bring the truth to the people, should not be silent about this. It is necessary to understand that these ideas cannot be conceived within the framework of Orthodoxy. These are wolf ideas that want to destroy us like the seven little goats (the seven sacraments want to destroy). These are fox ideas that unprincipled people (koloboks) want to eat. We must be firm in our truth, not run away from dogma, not destroy our “egg that Ryaba the hen laid for us.”

These are Russian folk tales, our worldview, this is the Proto-Gospel for us, the micro-gospel, the micro-catechism; Russian folk tales are a microbible for our children. They were written for a reason, they were written in order to prepare our children for more solid food - for Christmas events. And when we give gifts to children, we give them to become kings, high priests and prophets. What happens at our New Year's performances? Who do we dress our children as for Christmas? In Cheburashka, Crocodile Gena, in some ninja turtles, Koshcheev in strange skeletons, in aliens or ghouls, vampires. What's this? That is, we are taking away their royal dignity. This is the taking away of royal dignity: if we descended from a monkey, we do not become kings.

– That is, modern man does not understand the true meaning of the Incarnation?

- Does not understand. Theology is torn away from it, traditions are replaced. In Russian folk images, the turnip is a virtue. It is necessary that there be a “grandfather” - dogma, so that there are traditions - a “grandmother”. (There is no father, no mother; grandmother, grandfather - Adam and Eve, dogma, traditions.) So that the granddaughter is saved in justice, in truth, knows the truth, so that our soul - the “granddaughter” (she is here as a symbol of the Church) seeks the truth, holds on free for her. So that the truth is free and there is a good thought. Then this whole sequence will help to form a “turnip” - a virtue, to make the soul strong and courageous. “Blessed is the man who does not follow the counsel of the wicked.”

We need to keep our eggs from being broken by these mice... We move the mouse around the table, and there we have the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, whoever wants to visit us. Click the mouse, one movement - and the world is open to us. If there is no repentance, passions will simply drag you there, you will not get out of there. This is why many children die near computer games...

Our religion, Orthodoxy, offers us a path of transformation. And a certain ideology, a werewolf religion (although it cannot even be called a religion), a werewolf concept of transhumanism, leads us away from this truth. She will make sure that we avoid suffering, so that we do not have old age, do not have diseases: for example, they replaced your heart, they grew some new one, instead of you repenting and asking for forgiveness.

It is clear that if a person repented, maybe partly everything would be different. If the same transplantology were in the hands of pious Orthodox people who take communion and confess, then even computers would not hurt us. And transplantation too. But if it is in the hands of other people who want to destroy humanity, then it all becomes our destruction at an accelerated pace.

– Question from a TV viewer: “When God created the spiritual world and man, He initially knew that sin would still enter into it: this is also shown by the example of Dennitsa, and the same person will fall. It turns out that He couldn’t correct this mistake in the first place? I can't even imagine how God could make a mistake. Why then did this happen? Where did evil come from?

– Evil does not exist, it is the result of the distortion of good. For example, a thief or someone who is well versed in technology, instead of creating equipment, steals it, dismantles it for parts and sells it. It's easier than creating something. That is, evil is a distortion, it, in fact, does not exist, God did not create it. And the devil did not create it, he invented it. This is not a creative invention. For example, dad made a knife, and the child took it and cut himself. Dad created a knife to cut a child? No.

- Of course not.

“The child just used it ineptly.” But it is clear that the child did not know the properties of the knife and cut himself. But Lucifer knew everything, he participated in the creation of the world, and he wanted to become God. Like in a Russian folk tale, which is like a microcatechism: “Let me have a fish on my parcels.” You see, the old woman says: “Give me a trough here, make me a pillar noblewoman, a queen...” The old man is, in fact, the human race, and the old woman is the image of Satan. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin knew perfectly well that the devil claimed to be equal to God... Pushkin also added: “And let the fish be on my parcels.” Satan didn’t say that then, he said: “I want to be equal to God.” But he wouldn’t stop there, he would do even more. That is, it turns out that this is an invention of vanity: vain glory, the desire to live not according to one’s worth, the desire to live not according to one’s capabilities. Here envy, which then becomes pride through vanity, is established.

The question was: couldn’t God correct a person right away in paradise?.. The Lord gives us free will. If He had not given us free will, then we would not be His image and likeness. I will try to connect your question a little with our topic: the significance of the Incarnation for personal, family and social life. That is, this is a sign of sacrificial love. Imagine, dad comes home from work. First picture. Mom, like an ensign in the army, shouts: “Be at attention!” The children lined up. “Dad came to take off his shoes.” They ran up and took it off. That is, they are trembling and afraid: dad will give them an outfit, something else, or send them to the guardhouse. Military discipline. But it would be a prison. That is, children do everything not out of love, but are simply afraid of dad. They help him with everything. So, did God create Lucifer without free will? Would you create a person without free will? But it would be an Orthodox concentration camp. So what is it? No.

Another picture is that of modern transhumanists. Dad comes, mom doesn't care; nothing matters: who is there. Which dad? I don’t have any dad: the kids are some who play computer games, some who eat Snickers. “Dad, did you bring us candy? Did you buy the last game? Did you buy a tablet? - "No". “Well, undress yourself, we don’t need you.” This is the second idea, transhumanist. But transhumanists also combine totalitarian control, and this is sloppiness. Humanism turns into transhumanism and ends in tyranny. Because with the application of chips on the forehead, there will be complete control; they even created the “Artificial Programming of Needs” program.

Everything we buy now, if we pay via card, is recorded; the Internet contains all the information about us, personal data. This is very easy to manipulate: rent, switch your apartment to someone else, sell you along with your guts; you will come, and your apartment will already be sold three times, because everything will already be in electronics. This may not be now, but after some period of time... And you have a chip on your forehead, on your hand, or somewhere else.

And the third picture is Orthodox. In answer to your question, why did God create man? Dad comes and brings, for example, grapes. “Daddy has come! Mommy, have you prepared food? Let me help you". - “Wait, I brought you a gift.” - “No, for us, dad, you are the most expensive gift. You brought grapes, you can eat them yourself.” They were waiting for him... Dad said out of love, out of tenderness: “I’ll give you everything, eat first.” - “Dad, I don’t want it, you eat first, you are the head of the family.”

Which picture do you like? To be like soldiers, afraid of dad? Or be humanists, lie on the bed, and You, God, let us satisfy all our needs. And here we are, therefore, going to sin. As a disciple approached the Lord Jesus Christ: “Wherever you go, I will go with you.” And what did the Lord answer him? “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” And you are a fox, “you are not for the sake of Jesus, but for the sake of the bread of taste,” you are an opportunist, you enter the bosom of the Church with your dirty linen, with your dirty clothes...

Transhumanists will not go to heaven because they reject the Incarnation itself, they don’t need it, they don’t need repentance, they don’t need Christ. Maybe at first there will be a screen that they seem to be tolerant of our rules, and then that’s it, this trap will close. Traditional holidays will be destroyed if we look at it like this and don’t warn ourselves. After all, the main thing is to stop it at the level of thought.

How does sin develop? Thought, compassion, attention, pleasure, determination, sin. Now we have already come to grips with this; in our state there are sites of the Russian transhumanist social movement. There are 50 thousand people there. And they also have their own manifestos. They announce something there, how we should develop, Nobel Prizes are given to transhumanists to promote all these ideas.

Therefore, the Lord gives us free will, which the devil will take away from us through transhumanism. But the Lord defeated and strengthened us, and we should not give our free will in repentance, in Communion, in the sacraments of the Orthodox Church to the wolves. They will change into our clothes. Christ walked on water - transhumanists will also learn to walk on water, they will create such a person. Christ performed miracles and healings - they will also perform. Antichrist is an expression of the religion of transhumanism... They are working to take man out of man in order to create a superman, but this will end in disaster.

- Superman, but without God.

- Without God, yes. It's very scary. Therefore your question is correct. To answer it briefly, man was created in the image and likeness of God and the Lord gave him free will. And He corrected it: the man was established in grace, passed the tests, and all those people who were expecting the Messiah were corrected and brought into paradise. Hasn't the Lord accomplished man's salvation? Completed.

If He had not become incarnate, if He had not risen and ascended and sent down the Spirit, then yes - why did He create man then, if man will suffer forever? But He Himself brought everyone who wanted into heaven. And he also gives us His Flesh, the Body and Blood of the Lord in the Orthodox Church... This was all confirmed at the Ecumenical Councils. Christ united with man inseparably, inseparably, unchangeably, unmerged. This is Jacob's struggle. We are Israel, regardless of nation, origin, we are God-men, if we partake in the sacraments, we partake of the Heavenly Church, the Heavenly Jerusalem...

– There are still a few minutes to summarize our conversation today.

– Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord, having created us in the image and likeness of God, allows each of us to reveal our royal, high priestly and prophetic dignity during our lives. Our royal dignity, even among a simple person, is expressed in the fact that he should be Orthodox, so that he understands that without Christ we cannot “do anything.” You can say to every person who has fallen (alcohol, used some kind of drugs): “You are the image and likeness of God, you are a king, to what level have you sunk?” - “Who brought me to this?” - “Your passions, which you were carried away by, brought you down. You are a king, fight for your kingdom!” - "But as?" - “This is repentance. Be baptized, the Lord gives you royal flesh so that you can be the universe. Well, why have you sunk to the level of a monkey, to the state of a pig? You are the image and likeness of God, come to the Church, you are a king.”

When a sober person walks into a group of drunk people, what do they say? "Do you respect me?" Some kind of dignity awakens in them. They need to be told about this: “You are worthy people. The Lord even made the thief, who hung on the right side of Him on the cross, king”... Why do we need to listen to these advertisements? Why do we need to be drug addicts, alcoholics, drunkards? Why should we be debauched if the Lord gives us everything? You are the high priests. Serve each other, help each other. For the Motherland, for Holy Rus', for the faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland! Revive your high priestly dignity.

We must keep this seventh commandment of royalty: “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Here it is - with a clean head, royal, high priestly. You are peacemakers, “blessed are the peacemakers.” We go to death as if it were some kind of joy. They wore white shirts from Suvorov, because after Communion, for them, death was an acquisition. To die for your Motherland is to go to heaven; your ancestors will remember you all the time. Here they are - Suvorovites, Ushakovites, who went to die for their Motherland.

We are high priests, and in Rus' we are the most freedom-loving people, and our enemies know this. And they just offer these transhumanist ideas in order to make us pigs, a society of consumers: “Take everything from life.” And we must transform the world, we even forgive and love our enemies, because they elevate us to heaven. This is the religion of love. And we, as prophets, must know our history, know Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Rear Admiral Ushakov, Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir, Vladimir Monomakh, Yaroslav the Wise. Know your history, know the Apocalypse, recent events. Then we will be people, God-men, God will become incarnate in us.

This is our heart, and there should be a God-man in it, and not some kind of artificial paradise to be created there with the help of New Year holidays. Or get drunk, take drugs and forget. Therefore, may the Lord grant us, on the Feast of the Incarnation, to realize and reveal our royal, high-priestly and prophetic dignity.

And these fables are utopian... Listen to Katasonov, there is his book about the new utopian ideas of transhumanism. Or Chetverikova writes: “Transhumanism is the last religion of the Antichrist”... That is, these are people who root for their Motherland. Therefore, we are called to root for our Motherland, to become like Christ, reviving our Holy Rus'. Amen.

Presenter Denis Beresnev

Recorded by Elena Kuzoro

The Incarnation of God the Word and the Nature of Jesus Christ

2.1. Annunciation and Christmas.

At the gates of heaven, God promised sinful Adam salvation. He gave him the first Gospel, the first good news that the Savior would come, who would be the seed of the woman and erase the head of the serpent. This information was carried by righteous people through the centuries from Adam to Abraham, and further, until New Testament times, the bearer of this information was the Jewish people. “The seed of the woman will erase the head of the serpent,” we read in the Bible. How can this be, since only a man can produce seed? The Most Pure Virgin Mary was also surprised by this when, on the day we celebrate April 7, the Archangel Gabriel told Her the good news that God had chosen Her to come into the world as the Savior promised to Adam. God chose her to create the flesh in which He Himself was going to put on. God did not force the Virgin Mary to do this, as we see from the Gospel reading, the Mother of God gives her humble consent: “Behold, handmaid of the Lord, be unto me according to thy word.” And then the Holy Spirit comes upon Her and the power of the Most High overshadows Her. And from Her most pure virgin blood the Savior is born, that very promised seed of the woman. The incontainable God is contained in the virgin womb. Even the Archangel Gabriel is horrified by this event, as it is said in the akathist - “and you were incarnated in vain, Lord, horrified.” And we are still horrified by this sacrament and confess the Virgin Mary as the Ever-Virgin, who conceived without male participation. In addition, we call Her as “the real Mother of God.” This means that Her baby from the moment of conception in the womb is God - the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God. God, incarnate, sanctified with his nature all states of man, all ages - intrauterine, infant, adolescent, etc. up to full age. God not only became incarnate, but became human, that is, he became a true man, similar to us in everything except sin.

The next event is the Nativity of Christ itself, in which the Savior appears incorruptibly, that is, without violating the virginity of the mother, into the world. The existence on earth of such a person as the Virgin Mary shows us that human strength can be maximum enough to prevent damaged nature (original sin) from acting and producing personal sin. The Virgin Mary is the only person in the entire history of mankind who does not have personal sin, despite possessing original sin. For She was conceived and born according to ordinary human law, had a father and mother - ordinary, albeit righteous people. This is the maximum that damaged humanity is capable of. Only one out of many billions was able to cope with personal sin, but she herself could not, with only her purity and righteousness, restore the torn human nature and further unite it with the Divine nature. We say that Mary is the second Eve. The one Eve could have become. The limit of perfection of Eve, undeified, but obedient. For deification, as we know, the Incarnation was necessary.

2.2. Sacrifice of the Cross, Resurrection and Ascension.

Life itself teaches us that the concept of love is inseparable from the concept of sacrifice. And indeed, if we love someone, then we sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the one we love, trampling on our own egoism and the desires of the one we love, putting them above our own desires. We can imagine the concept of sacrifice in relation to man to man. In this case, something is lost from the one who sacrifices and something is gained from the one for whom they sacrifice. How can we imagine the sacrifice of God, Who is unchangeable, from Whom nothing is taken away and to Whom nothing is added? And yet, His Love is perfect and His sacrifice is perfect. It is impossible to understand this with the mind. Only by experiencing the following words can you touch this mystery with your heart - “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son...”. Also, according to the Apostle Paul, we know that the Son of God emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant, becoming like a man, which is also a sacrifice of God for the sake of man.

According to the same Apostle Paul, we know that if everything ended only with the sacrifice of the cross, this would not have saved humanity from death and would not have completed the Creator’s plan. Humanity killed God. How can this save this very humanity? This is why Paul says that if Christ has not been raised, then our faith is in vain. And we say that Christ redeemed us not just through suffering and death, but through His suffering, death and Resurrection! This is why the Resurrection is a holiday and a triumph of triumphs! The final victory over death. And further, as the excess of God’s mercy - the ascension of deified human nature into the spiritual world, into heaven, and moreover, the sharing of divine glory and power with humanity. Human nature in the person of Jesus Christ is restored, united with the Divine, and even “planted” at the right hand of the Father! The ascension in the body of Christ to heaven, that is, to the spiritual world, completes the implementation of God’s plan for man.

What nature did Christ take upon himself? Damaged or whole? After all, the corruption of nature is inherited from Adam, and Christ was born without male participation. God the Word took on damaged human nature and became a Man, similar to us in everything except sin. He accepted what needed to be healed. But the important thing is that this nature was originally deified in him. How did He heal her? Strictly speaking, He did not heal her. Let's just say that theoretically there were two options: the first was to destroy damaged human nature by destroying humanity itself. The second is to take on the damaged human nature and destroy it in Himself. Since God is Love, there was no choice of option before him. So, by His death the Savior destroyed death, that is, damaged human nature, and by His Resurrection He restored it in Himself.

2.3. Chalcedonian dogma.

Who is our Savior? God or man? The Orthodox Church confesses Jesus Christ as the God-man. The True God is the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, hypostatically, that is, in one person, in one I, united with man. Moreover, the Personality of Christ, his Self, is the personality of God the Son. Christ has two natures - divine and human and two wills - free of God and free of humanity, which in Christ is voluntarily, out of love, obedient to the will of God. The Holy Fathers of the Fourth Council of Chalcedon, who gathered in 451 with about 630 participants, defined a dogma about the image of the union of two natures in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. As they say, two natures are united in Christ inseparably, that is, as a result of the union, no third nature was formed, invariably, that is, during the union, the Divine nature remained Divine, the human - human, inseparably, that is, it is impossible and inseparable to separate them after the Incarnation, which means it will stay that way forever. In Christ there was no inner conflict that caused Adam to go against God. Christ revealed in Himself what Adam was called to, and completed the Creator’s plan for man. This plan is God-manhood. Christ is called the second Adam. He, Christ, does everything that Adam could not do, and even more. And if Adam was disobedient even in small things, in small things - all he needed was not to eat something, then Christ was obedient even to death on the cross. An involuntary question arises: how does this apply to me personally? What can I do personally? How can we become partakers of this saved, deified and glorified Humanity in Christ, or rather God-Humanity? How to apply this miracle to yourself in practice? This will be discussed in detail in the next conversation, in which we will talk about the Church and the Eucharist.

2.4. Salvation is a matter of synergy between God and man

The incarnation of the Son of God and His saving work does not violate the free will of man. The atoning sacrifice of Christ and deification are assimilated by us only if we want it. Christ does not force a person to do anything, but expects from him a voluntary and conscious entry onto the path to salvation. As it is said in the book of the apocalypse, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock...”. Deification, which is the goal of Christian life, is not achieved immediately, but is created in the process of gradual and continuous spiritual growth of a person. Achieving the goal of Christian life largely depends on the efforts of the person himself, however, salvation itself is in the hands of God. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “it does not depend on the one who struggles, but on God who has mercy.” In other words, human effort is a necessary but not sufficient condition for salvation. On the other hand, God's providence, although it is a sufficient condition, cannot by itself, without meeting the necessary conditions, save a person against his will. Thus, salvation is a matter of synergy - the joint creativity of God and man.

Incarnation. Why did God need to become a man?

Incarnation. Why did God need to become a man?

(Bishop Pitirim of Dushanbe and Tajikistan about the Incarnation.)
The topic of our conversation today is the Incarnation, the Nativity of Christ. The joyful life that Adam and Eve wanted led to the greatest tragedy. It all started with disobedience. The Lord created this entire visible world so that creation could enjoy the Creator. The human heart cannot live without love and without fun. You and I have a need for love, a need for pleasure, but this pleasure must be sinless, and after the Fall, Adam and Eve turned this God-given need for pleasure into a sinful one, into a sinful movement, into a sinful direction of the forces of human nature.

What was the structure of human nature in the primordial Adam, even before the Fall? Man is two-part: he has a soul and a body, the highest power of the soul is the spirit, sometimes it is even distinguished as the third component of human nature, but the soul itself is indivisible, and therefore its highest power, the highest manifestation is the spirit. And this spirit - the highest component of human nature - must live in God, because God is also a Spirit and akin is united with akin. A person in spirit must live in the spirit of God. And the deified spirit feeds the soul, the soul thus receives energy and strength from the Spirit, which lives in God, and the flesh receives movement, strength and life from the deified soul.

Thus, the direction vector of human forces should be directed towards God. He was directed to God, he lived in God, lived in the Spirit. What is the tragedy of Eve's disobedience? It would seem that she did such a terrible thing - ate the fruit? We commit such sins several times a day, and not like this. This is probably the easiest sin that we don’t even notice.

For example, Lent is performed. How many times have we eaten something like this, without thinking, knowing that this should not be done. But what happened at that moment when human nature was still sinless? The vector of direction of the forces of human nature turned upside down, the spirit broke away from God and began to parasitize the soul, began to feed on the forces of the soul. Man became spiritual, not spiritual, and the soul began to feed on the forces of the body, carnal passions, and lust. The soul became carnal, the soul became mundane, and the body, not finding food, became mortal and began to die. There is no food for him, because the body can live forever only in God, only receiving divine energy.

This, in fact, is where death came from in man - from this sin, from disobedience. And the disaster turned out to be monstrous in its consequences. Although now to us, with our damaged nature, this sin of Adam and Eve seems insignificant, because we ourselves repeat it very often.

I say again that we repeat it in our sinful state, because we commit sin so easily, because our nature is fundamentally corrupted, such a deep anthological catastrophe has occurred with man. And what is required to correct this nature? It is required that this vector of direction of the forces of human nature be again directed towards God. Not a single person in all of humanity could do this; he could only do it for himself, and then only with incredible efforts.

All the saints whom we commemorate today, the holy forefathers, tried to do just that, tried to preserve these divinely established laws - even before Moses there was a law that came from Abraham through the prophets, through the forefathers. And then the law of Moses was given, a very strict law. Here everything was regulated and planned down to the smallest detail. The law was given not for the righteous, but for sinners, as the Apostle Paul says, in order to limit this sinful nature in everything, namely legally, so that by fulfilling the law, people would not sin so much, because it was possible to correct themselves only on their own, and when all the death penalty, of course, people will be afraid to sin in fear. And the law gave its results, because by the time of the Nativity of Christ the pagan world, which did not have the law of Moses, had become corrupted to the extreme. This is what is happening now. There were monstrous perversions in the pagan world, there was mass suicide, and it was considered noble to die like that.

You know all this, you watched films, you read books about these pagan times, about Nero, about Cicero, how all this is described, how perverted, sophisticated in evil the human nature of the pagans has become. The Jews did not have this. The Jews did not pervert human nature as massively as it did in the pagan world.

But the Jews, to whom this good law was given to them, managed to use it for evil, again due to the corruption of human nature, the human mind. They began to fulfill the letter of the law, no longer understanding its life-giving spirit. And from here appear the Pharisees and scribes who became fixated on this literal fulfillment of the law, but no longer understood its power and did not fulfill it. That is why they did not accept the Messiah.

Incarnation... Why did God have to be incarnate? We are often asked about this by the Muslims who surround us here. if God cannot have a Son, and Jesus Christ is not God, then none of what I am telling you now happened.

Because only God could correct nature for all humanity, taking this nature upon Himself and correcting it in Himself, which happens at the moment of the Incarnation, when the Holy Spirit cleanses the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, prepares it for the second hypostasis of the Holy One to move into it Trinity, God the Word.

The second hypostasis, God the Word, from the Most Pure Blood of the Virgin Mary creates new human flesh, healed of sin, and already in Jesus Christ the vector of direction of human forces was the same as in the primordial Adam. Human nature was healed in Jesus Christ, He corrected it in Himself, and He already becomes sinless; from the moment of the Incarnation there is no sin in Him. God became man, that’s what the Incarnation is.

He voluntarily assimilates our human weaknesses, that is, he takes the blame for sin, the punishment for the sin of all mankind. And just as we suffer, we thirst. He experiences all the same feelings that our sinful flesh experiences, but with Him it was not sinful. He assimilates within himself these so-called impeccable passions, that is, not sinful passions that come from our fallen nature. He takes upon himself corruptible flesh, corruptible but incorruptible. That is, His flesh, which He took upon Himself, carried within itself this corruption, fatigue, thirst, desire to sleep, eat, and so on, but it was incorruptible, just as our flesh decays after our death, disintegrating into the elements. The flesh of Jesus Christ was not subject to decay, and when he rose from the dead, it was incorruptible and incorruptible.

We will have the same incorruptible and uncorrupted flesh in the general resurrection if we become like the Kingdom of Heaven. And if we go to hell, then it will constantly decay and decay, and will never decay, this is eternal torment that awaits us.

Why was the Incarnation necessary? Christ became incarnate in order to set everything right. Why was it necessary to incarnate God? In order to accomplish this. What kind of people could do this? No one, even the Mother of God, had a nature with original sin, was subject to sin, although the Mother of God Herself never sinned in her life, not even with a thought, but She did not sin because she made efforts on herself. Her enemy also tempted Her, but She never sinned, although Her nature was probably the purest of all people. It took five thousand and a half years for such a pure Mother of God to be born, so that it was from Her that the Lord could accept human flesh.

Well, Jesus Christ accomplished the Incarnation of God, corrected the nature in Himself, but the rest of humanity remained just as damaged and sinful. I think that you yourself will answer me how our human nature is corrected. How? How do we become involved in the divine nature?

We begin, probably, with the first sacrament with which we are born in the Church. Through baptism we are freed from original sin, which from generation to generation, through the male seed, passes from person to person. A person becomes infected with this sinfulness, which comes from Adam and Eve, and then in himself it all strengthens each individually with his own hands. And in baptism we are freed from this continuity of sin, we are freed from original sin.

What is the tragedy of unbaptized babies who were killed in the womb or who were born and died immediately without having time to receive baptism? They are not freed from this original sin, they die with original sin.

Dying with original sin, all people who are baptized outside the Orthodox Church or not baptized at all, a huge number of people, are not cleansed from the original filth.

And then, when we sin after baptism, we have the sacrament of repentance. In the primal Church, in the Apostolic Church and the Church of the first times, maybe up to the 4th century and in the 5th century there was no repetition of confession. That is, a person after baptism could confess once in his entire life, and there was very strict discipline. Thanks to this, the man knew that if he sinned now, he would confess once, and after this confession he would have no more repentance, he would die and as the Lord judged him. And therefore, people often delayed baptism; there were so-called clinics that went in the rank of catechumens until old age, and already on their deathbed they were baptized. Later, ecumenical councils prohibited this practice - delaying baptism in this way, but, nevertheless, we know that even our ecumenical teachers, such as Basil the Great, were baptized already in adulthood. Because the parents were afraid that the young man would grow up, passions would begin to play in him, and suddenly he would commit mortal sins, and then only once would he be able to repent. And this is how everyone was baptized as adults, as a rule.

Now our practice is different, you know, we can confess at least every day. But on the other hand, frequent confession relaxes us. Now we’ve sinned, let’s go to confession tomorrow and that’s it. Imagine if we could confess once, how afraid we would be? How strong would the fear of God be in us if we did this?

And, of course, the most important sacrament of ours, in which we, in fact, unite with God - both physically, mentally, and spiritually - is the sacrament of Communion, when we partake of the body and blood of Christ, here we are united. And, says the Lord, “Whoever does not eat My Body and Drink My Blood will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” that is, he will not himself become the Body of Christ, the Body and flesh of Christ.

Another interesting moment. Regarding the Eucharistic Gifts. When you and I eat them, they are not digested in our stomach like ordinary food, they transform us into themselves, that is, the opposite happens. You and I become the Body and Blood of Christ. Here is some kind of wonderful moment that is incomprehensible to our minds, but, nevertheless, it is so. And therefore, the more often we receive communion, the more often and more we transform ourselves. If we receive communion not in condemnation, you and I become the flesh and blood of Christ, we become the Church of Christ. We assimilate within ourselves this justification by which Christ justified us on the cross. We become partakers of His essence.

Although it is impossible for man and angel to know the essence of God, nevertheless, we unite with God in this way through the sacrament of Communion. This is very important, and the importance of this current event, which we call the Incarnation, that God appeared in the flesh. That is, our salvation is being accomplished.

This is the beginning of our salvation, the Incarnation, the Nativity of Christ, which takes place in such humiliation. Do you see how God comes, the Creator of the Universe, the Ruler of the World? He comes in such a humiliated form, there was not even a place where He could be born. He is born in the Den, and from that moment His exhaustion begins, kenesis in Greek, exhaustion of the Divine, self-abasement. And the peak of this exhaustion, of course, is Golgotha, the crucifixion of Christ.

And everything - what is this? This is the atonement for our sin, our guilt, for all humanity. He takes it all upon himself and bears it, and on the Cross he brings this sacrifice to the Father. The sacrifice is made not only to the Father, but to the entire Holy Trinity on the Cross.

Our justification occurs, that is, this charter of our sins, our guilt before God, is torn apart, and you and I receive the justification perfected by Christ.

But we still have to understand a very important point. This is an excuse. Again, through everything that I just told you, through Baptism, through confession, through Communion, this justification is assimilated. Because if we don’t do this, then we don’t internalize it.

Justification is the answer to those who say: “Why do I need church, I’ll just pray to God, God is in my soul.” the so-called soul-worshipers - even the term has now been invented - who have God in their soul.

“And I don’t need the Church, you won’t understand what’s going on there,” as they say. They will hear enough gossip and rumors. There is, of course, an information war going on against the Church. The enemy of the human race will never calm down and will always encroach on the Church and spread slander and lies about the Church.

The devil is the father of lies, this is his job. It would be strange if he didn't do this. It would be strange if the Church were not subjected to such attacks, which means something is already wrong with the Church. If only she were kind to the world. But, thank God, this is not happening, and you and I, as Christians, must understand that this is how it should be. But our task is to be church people. Our task is to receive this justification and unite with God. And the Incarnation, the holiday of the Nativity of Christ, is a very joyful holiday, a very bright holiday, because we finally saw God in the flesh. God appeared in the flesh, and He begins from the very beginning in this Bethlehem Den to accomplish His redemptive feat. His humiliation has already begun, His exhaustion, kenesis, has already begun.

And, in fact, you and I, as disciples of Christ, must also follow this: not to be proud, not to be arrogant, nothing. If God humiliated Himself, then how humble we need to be in order to become real Christians, to become His real disciples and followers.

Because if we are exalted and proud, then whose disciples will we be? Certainly not Christ’s, right?

I have now very briefly told you the dogmatic meaning of this holiday of ours, which we call the Incarnation of God, i.e. Nativity. Why exactly did God have to become incarnate? What does this Incarnation mean for us, and how can we be partakers of this great sacrament? All this happens in our Church. You and I are learning all this, but you and I must personally try to improve. Because the efforts that you and I are making are very valuable before God. It’s one thing - you were simply saved and justified, thank God, at least that. But the Lord wants every creature to enjoy to the maximum. We were born for pleasure. Not for sinful pleasure, because everything in our human nature has been perverted, and we can only enjoy sinfully, but in order to enjoy spiritually, we must do spiritual work on this disobedient flesh of ours in order to receive a drop of spiritual pleasure.

As a rule, we work and work, and when the Lord sends this consolation, pleasure, we already break down and cannot stand it. And our reward and consolation are already ready for us, but we run away - we run away from service, and abandon the feat, we do not carry it. But the Lord prepared to endure to the end, because He said: “He who endures to the end will only be saved.”

And most of us do not have enough patience to receive this grace, to receive this pleasure. And a person does not receive pleasure in church, but only has heaviness. And he leaves the church. It seems to him that it is impossible and unbearable here. Why most people don’t go to church is because they don’t want to work on themselves, because they don’t want to receive and learn to receive this spiritual pleasure. But this is only thanks to working on yourself.

Yes, when a person turns to God, only when the calling grace acts on him. There are different types of grace, the first grace is calling. All Muslims who come here are affected by this grace, which is why so many miracles happen to them. As soon as they arrive, they immediately receive help, when they ask the icons, when they light a candle. All this is prohibited by their faith, but despite this, they overcome themselves, come and immediately receive help.

This calling grace acts on them, and calling grace acts on all of you and us. At first, remember how joyful it was, how bright it was, how many miracles there were, what God’s help was. But then the Lord departs from the person, and in order to receive this grace, you need to work, and the further you go, the more you need to work.

Very beautifully, spiritually, poetically, this relationship between the Church, man and God is described in the book “Song of Songs”. Because Shulamith, the heroine of the book, is a girl from the vineyard, who at first enjoyed love with her fiancé, and then he leaves her, leaves her, she runs all over Jerusalem looking for him, passionately looking for him, longing for him, asking everyone where he is, where she is groom.

The groom is the Church, and the girl and the vineyard are our souls, which should also strive for God.

First, the Lord makes us feel this love, the pleasure that awaits us in Paradise. Even a small drop of this pleasure. And a person, having tasted this sweetness, can no longer forget it, and the soul must strive to seek God, and he gives again and runs away again, then gives again and runs away.

And here it is – our life, and the life of the holy ascetic fathers, when they describe this state of God-forsakenness. On the way to the Kingdom of Heaven, every ascetic necessarily experiences this state, a state of being forsaken by God, and so does any Christian.

When a person lies on his deathbed, what is this if not abandonment by God? Many grumble about their illness, but those who do not grumble receive a crown.

And so, again, when a person is simply a Christian, he is saved, and when he accomplishes some kind of feat, when he does not complain about illness, he is crowned. The Lord wants to give each of us crowns, to allow us to enjoy spiritual gifts in the Kingdom of Heaven to the maximum extent. Because our temporary life is worth nothing at all. It is only so that we can be saved here and receive as much reward as possible there, in the Kingdom of Heaven. Even if expressed in worldly language, we now choose in this earthly life who we will be there: someone will be a soldier, someone will be a corporal, someone will be a captain, someone will be a general, someone will be a field marshal, and someone is a generalissimo.

You see, if you compare it with military ranks, this is happening here, now our positions are being distributed to you. And how much effort does a person make to occupy earthly positions, to make an earthly career? What is she? It will end with his life when he usually retires, and a rather bleak time begins for a careerist, especially for an honest careerist. Those who are dishonest - they will collect bribes or something else, but for all this they will have to pay with mental anguish.

How do the same people who spend so much effort for the sake of human careers not even want to lift a finger to become at least someone in the Kingdom of Heaven? Complete, completely inversely proportional. And it turns out that the great ones in the Kingdom of Heaven will be those who are the last here, which, in fact, is written in the Gospel. And it is those who do not mean anything among people who try. This is all – you and me, who are sitting here.

And the apostle also said: which of you is rich, which of you is famous, which of you is famous... Even the first Church, which was - there were few rich, few famous, few famous? And the preaching of the Apostle Paul failed. This elite of the then society of the Roman Empire turned out to be completely impossible to accept the good news of Christ, that He was risen.

This, in fact, is the tragedy of people who try to build their lives here on earth and attach themselves to this earthly life.

Bishop of Dushanbe and Tajikistan Pitirim

The reasons for the Incarnation in the light of the teachings of St. fathers.

Next, let us consider what the holy fathers—the teachers of the church—thought when reflecting on the reasons for the Incarnation. Let's look at the example of the teachings of the following fathers of the Eastern Church: Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory the Theologian, Isaac the Syrian, Maximus the Confessor and Simeon the New Theologian.

3.1. Athanasius of Alexandria - renewal of the image of God in man.

In his treatise “A Tale on the Incarnation of God the Word and His Coming to Us in the Flesh,” Athanasius of Alexandria, speaking about the reasons for the Incarnation of God, refers to the concept of the image of God. In fallen man, the image of God was darkened, just as the image of a person on a board covered with layers of dirt ceases to be visible. In order to restore the image, there is no need to throw away the board: for this it is necessary that the person from whom the portrait was painted comes and the face is painted anew on the old board. This is exactly what the Son of God did: “being the image of the Father, He came to our countries to renew man, created in His image.” But the image of God in man could not be restored without the destruction of death and corruption. Therefore, it was necessary for the Word of God to take on a mortal body, so that with its help death would be destroyed and the image of God would be renewed in people. However, the Son of God did not immediately make a sacrifice for everyone after His incarnation, giving His body to death. At first He, as a man, lived among people and taught them the knowledge of His Father, so that they would come from idolatry to worship of God. And only after He proved His Divinity by deeds, He “finally makes a sacrifice for everyone, handing over His temple to death in order to make everyone free from responsibility for the ancient crime.”

3.2. Gregory the Theologian. Love is self-exhaustion (kenosis).

Gregory the Theologian, in his interpretation of the dogma of atonement, emphasizes the love of God, which was the main reason for the Incarnation. The Only Begotten Son of God was sent by the Father into the world in order to heal human nature damaged by sin. As we have already said, the consequence of sin was death. But this itself was a manifestation of God’s love, and death itself contained a hidden blessing, since it blocked the path to the spread of sin. After all, eternal existence, immortality in such a painful, damaged state is real torment. And the “cure” for this disease was the Incarnation; it became a turning point in the fate of humanity: in its significance, according to Gregory, it surpasses even the creation of man. We have already talked about the Love of God and the sacrifice He made for our salvation. Speaking about this, Gregory speaks of the “impoverishment” and “exhaustion” of the Divine nature, but not in the sense of its change and belittlement, but in the sense of condescension to union with human nature. That is, the very fact of combining the nature of the Creator with the nature of creation speaks of voluntary self-humiliation. This is called kenosis.

3.3. Isaac the Syrian. Love is the main reason for the Incarnation.

In Isaac the Syrian's theological vision, Divine love occupies such a central place that other traditional Christian themes such as redemption from sin and victory over death recede into the background in his interpretation of the Incarnation. Isaac, for example, believes that the Son of God became incarnate not for the sake of the remission of sins and the destruction of death, and not even to redeem people from sin, but only for the sake of the manifestation of God’s love for man. The incarnation of God took place, as Isaac emphasizes, without any request from people. It was the initiative of God and the consequence of His immeasurable condescension towards the human race. The incarnation of the Son of God, according to Isaac, became a new revelation about God in comparison with the Old Testament. We have already said this earlier. In Old Testament times, people were unable to see or hear God; this was the lot of only chosen people - the prophets. After the incarnation all this becomes possible. In addition, Isaac the Syrian emphasizes the universal significance of the coming of God to earth and His taking upon Himself of human flesh. The Incarnation is directly related to the fate of the entire universe and each individual person. In other words, God became incarnate not for the sake of a faceless mass of people, but for the sake of each person individually.

3.4. Maxim the Confessor. The Incarnation is the ultimate goal of creation.

In his writings, Maximus the Confessor repeatedly returns to the idea that the Incarnation was the ultimate goal of creation. The Incarnation is connected not with the Fall of Adam, but with the creation of the world: the whole world, according to Maximus, was created for the ultimate goal of the Incarnation. Man was created for the sake of deification, and this Divine goal remained unchanged after the Fall. This teaching was also reflected in the historical views of Maximus, who considered it possible to divide the entire history of the Divine economy into two periods: the first includes centuries relating to the “mystery of the Divine incarnation”, the second - centuries relating to the “grace of human deification”. The Incarnation of God is thus considered as a turning point in the history of mankind and the entire universe: for the sake of this event everything was brought into being, and from this event the path of creation begins to the goal that was intended by the Creator at the Eternal Council. At the same time, it should be noted that in the Eastern Church the cause of redemption and deification was never considered in isolation from one another.

3.5. Simeon the New Theologian. Connection with the Eucharist.

Speaking about union with Christ in the Eucharist, St. Simeon likens it to the Incarnation. He asserts that “this sacrament, manifest to the whole world... which took place during the incarnate economy of Christ, in the same way and after that was and is performed in every Christian. For when we accept the grace of Jesus Christ our God, we become partakers of His Divinity, and when we partake of His most pure Body... then we become His co-partners and relatives in truth.” A kind of “exchange” takes place: the Son of God, Who took human flesh from us, gives us His Divinity through His deified flesh, thanks to which we become His relatives. The grace of God descending in the sacrament of the Eucharist penetrates a person so deeply and unites so closely with his soul that it embraces the entire nature of man, dissolving with it - this gives the monk reason to call people relatives and co-corporeals of God. Thanks to the sacrament we have within us “the whole of God incarnate.”

Opus Dei

The Coming of Christ

When the fullness of time had come, God sent His (Only Begotten) Son, who was born of a woman

(Gal 4:4).
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us
(John 1:14). The Incarnation is a great miracle that distinguishes Christianity from other religions.

The reasons for the Incarnation are contained in the Apostolic Creed: “For our sake, people, and for the sake of our salvation, he came down from Heaven.” The Word became flesh to save us by reconciling us to God and to make us partakers of the divine nature

(2 Peter 1:5). As shown by St. Irenaeus of Lyons (140-200) and St. Athanasius the Great (295-373), the highest good achieved in Christianity is the deification of human nature. God became man so that man could become God.

The existence of Jesus Christ is a historical fact. Jesus Christ was born, lived and died in a certain historical era (cf. Lk 2:1-2 and 3:1-2). There is evidence from the Gospel and other texts of the New Testament, and there are also ancient sources mentioning Jesus Christ: the works of Josephus (93-94), Pliny the Younger (111-113), Tacitus (115-120) and Suetonius ( 121-?). Christ is not a myth, not a human invention.

Christ is a true man. With His human hands He worked, with His human mind He thought, with His human will He acted, with His human heart He loved.

Christ is the true God. Father and I are one

(John 10:30).
Before Abraham was, I am
(John 8:58).
He who has seen Me has seen the Father
(John 14:9).
No one knows the Son except the Father;
and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal him (Mt 11:27; Lk 10:22).
Jesus solemnly declared His Godhead during His trial: Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?
Jesus said: “I am; and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:61-62). Because He proclaimed His Divinity, He was sentenced to death (cf. Mark 14:64).

Jesus demonstrated His Divinity not only with words, but also with His Divine actions. He showed His power over nature (the wind and sea obey Him

, Mk 4:41), over illness (He
healed every disease and disease in people
, Mt 4:23) and over death (cf. Mt 9:18-26; Lk 7:11-17; Jn 11:1-45 ). He had divine power to forgive sins (cf. Mark 2:5-12). Jesus manifested His Divinity primarily when He, by His personal authority, performed the miracle of His Resurrection.

Hypostatic union

The Word became flesh through not the transformation of deity into humanity, but the deification of human nature (soul and body) of the Second Hypostasis of the Most Holy Trinity. The Word of God truly became man, truly remaining God. We call this union of human nature with the divine nature in the Son of God the hypostatic union.

The Church was forced to defend and explain this truth of faith during the first centuries in the face of heresies that distorted it. The Christological dogma was finally formulated by the Council of Chalcedon (451).

The Chalcedonian dogma was the end of a long struggle against attempts to explain the Incarnation by belittling either the Divine or the human nature of Christ.

Attempts to diminish the Divine nature of Christ:

– “Arianism” denied the Divine nature of the Son. According to Arius (256-336), an Alexandrian priest, the Son of God came into existence by the will of God, before time and centuries, precisely when God wanted to create us through Him. According to Arius, the Logos had a beginning of its existence. He did not come from the being of the Father, but was created out of nothing by the will of the Father. He is a creature. Opponent Arius, St. Athanasius the Great (295-373) tirelessly repeated that the Son came from the essence of the Divinity. Arianism was condemned at the Council of Nicaea (325), which declared that the Son of God is consubstantial with the Father.

– “Nestorianism” argued that in Christ, in addition to the Divine Face, there is also a human face. In the understanding of Nestorius (381-451), Patriarch of Constantinople, only the human face of Christ was born from the Virgin, and therefore Mary is the Mother of Christ, and not the Mother of God. She is not the “Virgin Mother”, but the “Christ Mother”. Nestorianism divided Christ into two different persons. Nestorius could not comprehend the mystery of personality; he thought of personality in terms of nature and, in the end, identified one with the other. If there is no unity of personality in Christ, then human nature is not truly assumed by God. If there is no true unity in Christ, then there is no possibility of uniting man with God. Nestorius's opponent, St. Cyril of Alexandria (376-444) asked the Pope to express his judgment on the case of Nestorius. The Council of Ephesus (431) declared that in Christ there is only one Person, Divine, who has assumed human nature. This Council proclaimed Mary “Theotokos.”

Attempts to diminish the humanity of Christ:

– “Docetism” (from the Greek dokeо - “to seem”) argued that humanity in Christ is not true, but only visible. This heresy was condemned by the apostles themselves. Every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not from God, but is the spirit of Antichrist

(1 John 4:3).

– “Apollinarianism” argued that humanity in Christ is imperfect. According to Apollinaris of Laodicea, Christ does not have a human soul. In Him, the human soul gives way to the Divine Logos, which governs the body as a weak-willed organ. Christ of Apollinaria was not so much a God-man as an animal nature united with God. In fact, the Logos does not take the place of any of the elements of human nature: He is the Person who perceives nature in its entirety. Opponents of Apollinaris, St. Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa proved the need to recognize the rational human soul in Christ. The Council of Chalcedon (451) confesses Christ as a true man, consisting of a rational soul and body.

– “Monophysitism” argued that in Christ there is only one nature – Divine. According to Eutyches, the Archimandrite of Constantinople, humanity in Christ was absorbed into the Logos. The Alexandrian Patriarch Dioscorus recognized the correct teaching of the Monophysites. Against Eutyches and Dioscorus, Saint Pope Leo I wrote the following message to Archbishop Flavian of Constantinople: “We could not defeat the author of sin and death if He had not accepted and adopted our nature... To deny the true flesh means to deny suffering in the flesh. And this means denying the reality of our salvation. The Catholic Church lives and prospers by this very faith, so that in Christ Jesus she confesses neither humanity without true Divinity, nor Divinity without true humanity... Both natures retain their properties without any damage... each of the two natures, in conjunction with the other, acts as is characteristic of it ... To hunger, to thirst, to be weary and to sleep is characteristic of man; but to satisfy 5,000 people with five loaves, but to give the Samaritan woman living water, from which the drinker will thirst no more, but not to walk on the surface of the sea with wet feet, and to decorate the disturbance of the waves with the consolation of a storm, is without a doubt a Divine work.” Condemning the Monophysites, the Council of Chalcedon (451) confessed “Christ in two natures, unfused, unchangeable, inseparable, inseparable.”

After the Council of Chalcedon, new forms of Monophysitism appeared, which, obeying the letter of the Creed, tried to essentially destroy its content.

– “Monoenergism” (or monergism) recognized two natures, but argued that their action, i.e. the energy in which they manifest is one – Divine. In this case, the distinction between the human and the Divine turns into pure abstraction. This doctrine was refuted at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681. Each nature cooperates in a single act in its own way. “It is not human nature that resurrects Lazarus, it is not Divine power that cries over his tomb,” writes St. John of Damascus (675-753).

– “Monothelitism” recognized the existence of two natures in Christ, but only one will – the Divine. This teaching was refuted at the same Council. Christ has a genuine human soul with its spiritual abilities: human reason and human will. The entire economy of salvation is based on the subordination of the human will of Christ to the will of the Father, i.e. the common will of the Most Holy Trinity: Not My will, but Thine be done

(Luke 22:42).
Not as I want, but as You want
(Matthew 26:39).

St. was a firm opponent of monoenergism and monothelitism. Maximus the Confessor (580-662).

Humanity of Jesus Christ

At the Incarnation, human nature was received, but not absorbed, into the Word of God. The Church confesses the full reality of both the human soul, with all its actions of mind and will, and the human body of Christ.

The Body of Christ was formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The soul of Christ was created directly by God and attached to the body. The Word of God united with the body and soul of the Lord. All these actions took place simultaneously.

The Lord assumed human nature without demonstrating in His Humanity the supernatural glory that belonged to Him. He humbled Himself

(Phil 2:7), experienced hunger, fatigue, etc. He wanted to become like us in everything except sin.

There was no “root of sin” in Christ; He was not born in original sin and did not have to suffer or die. For our salvation, He voluntarily accepted suffering and death.

The human mind of Christ has a threefold knowledge coming from a threefold source:

– From blissful contemplation, which consists in the direct contemplation of God and everything Divine. By the power of its union with the Word of God, the human nature of Christ knew everything that befits God.

– From knowledge by inspiration, through directly communicated ideas. In His human knowledge, Jesus demonstrated His Divine insight into the innermost thoughts of human hearts.

– From experienced knowledge acquired through the senses and reason: He increased in wisdom and stature and favor with God and men

(Luke 2:52).

Christ is to be worshiped not only in His Godhead, but also in His Humanity, for His Humanity is God-Humanity: At the name of Jesus every knee bowed

(Phil 2:10).

The Most Holy Humanity of the Lord is the path to Divinity. Holiness consists of becoming like Christ and uniting with Him. Through the action of the Holy Spirit, a Christian becomes a second Christ.

Types and prophecies of the coming of Christ

God foretold the coming of Christ by types and prophecies: Search the Scriptures

“, Jesus said to the Jews, “
they testify about Me
(John 5:39).

The prophecies foretell that the Redeemer will be born into the tribe of Judah and the family of David (cf. Isa 11:1; Jer 23:5). The Prophet Micah announced the Nativity of Christ in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). Isaiah announced the birth of Christ from a Virgin: Behold, the Virgin will be with child and give birth to a Son, and they will call His name Immanuel

(Isa 7:14). He announced His suffering and death (Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12). More than 60 Old Testament prophecies about Christ were fulfilled in the New Testament.

The main types of the Redeemer in the Old Testament are as follows:

– Righteous Abel, making a sacrifice pleasing to God, and himself becoming the first victim of his brother’s envious malice, foreshadows Christ given to the slaughter, the Great Righteous One betrayed by Judas;

– The High Priest Melchizedek, appearing in the depths of history, without father, without mother, without genealogy, holding in his hands bread and wine for sacrifice, foreshadows Jesus Christ, the Eternal Priest;

– Isaac ascending Mount Moriah, with a load of firewood for sacrifice, foreshadows Christ ascending Calvary, bent under the weight of the cross;

– Joseph, betrayed and sold by his brothers for a few silver coins, foreshadows Christ betrayed and sold by people for the sake of our salvation;

– The slaughter of the Paschal lamb foreshadows the slaughter of Christ – the Lamb of God, who took upon Himself the sins of the world. The Passover meal was one of the greatest rites of the Jews. This meal was supposed to remind the Jews that once, on the eve of the miraculous deliverance by the hand of Moses, their fathers took part in a similar meal. And just on Easter, Jesus was slain. He sprinkled His blood on the wood of the cross, and thereby opened the gates of heaven for us.

– The presence of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale foreshadows the death of Jesus and His resurrection: And no sign will be given to him except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

(Mt 12:39).

Names of Jesus Christ

Jesus

in Hebrew it means “God saves.”
She will give birth to a Son, and you will call His name Jesus;
for He will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

Christ

is the Greek translation of the Hebrew term “Messiah,” meaning “Anointed One.” In Israel, priests, kings and prophets were anointed. Jesus is the Christ, for He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and thus became Priest, Prophet and King with the express commission to establish the Kingdom of God forever.

Lord

(in Greek
Kyrios)
denotes the Divine power itself. This means that the power, honor and glory that belong to God the Father also belong to Jesus. Jesus is our Lord also because He redeemed us with His blood.

Christ is the new Adam

. Just as Adam, who was the head of the human race by nature, so Christ, the source of all grace, is the Head of the Church (cf. 1 Cor 15:45-49).

Christ is the only Mediator between God and people

Jesus Christ is true God and true Man in the unity of His Divine Person; therefore He is the only Mediator between God and people (cf. 1 Tim 2:5). As Mediator, Christ is Priest, Prophet and King.

He is a Prophet

(i.e. Teacher), for He taught us the knowledge of the Triune God and His Plan. The prophets of the Old Testament were sent by God with the purpose of foretelling the coming of the Supreme Teacher, Who is the only and perfect Word of the Father, i.e. the fullness of Revelation.

He is a Priest.

It is common for priests to offer sacrifices to God for sins (cf. Heb 5:1-3): Christ offered Himself as a Sacrifice to God on the Cross to atone for our sins and reconcile us with God (cf. Heb 9:14).

He is the King

not only because He is the son of God, but also because at the price of redemption He won this dignity.
Christ reigns, drawing to Himself all things and all people by His Death and His Resurrection (cf. John 12:32). His kingdom is a spiritual and eternal kingdom: it begins on earth and is perfected in Heaven. This is the kingdom of holiness, love, truth and peace. Christ reigns by His ministry. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many
(Matthew 20:28).

All the baptized participate in these three assignments of Christ and are responsible for the mission and ministry that flow from them.

The Whole Life of Christ Has Redemptive Significance

The entire life of Christ, not only His public ministry, Passion, Death and Resurrection, but also His years of daily work and family life in Nazareth, has redemptive value. “From that moment,” said Father Alexander Men, “when the Son of Man accepted our joys and sufferings, our love, our work - nature, the world, everything in which He was, in which He was born, as a man and a God-man - not discarded, not humiliated, but elevated to a new level, sanctified”[1].

[1] A. Men, Lecture dated September 8, 1990, Moscow House of Technology.

Features of the concept of Incarnation and deification in the doctrine of the logoi of St. Maximus the Confessor

“Scientific aspect No. 2-2019” – Humanities

Stepanenko Elena Gennadievna – master’s student of the Department of Orthodox Culture and Theology of the Don State Technical University.

Abstract: The article is devoted to the aspects of the Incarnation and deification in the work of St. Maximus the Confessor. The Incarnation is a key event in world history, and Saint Maximus wrote a lot about this mystery of the Divine Economy. The article also discusses the possibility of deifying human nature. Human nature, damaged in the Fall, could only be healed by the Creator by uniting it with the Divine nature. The image of the union of the Divine and human natures is clearly examined in the teaching on the logoi of St. Maxima.

Key words: St. Maxim the Confessor, Incarnation, deification, Divine Logos, logoi, Orthodox doctrine, mysticism.

The legacy of the Holy Fathers gives us the opportunity to understand the structure of the world and our place in it. In the work of St. Maximus the Confessor, one of the brightest theologians of the Orthodox Church, many aspects of Orthodox doctrine were developed. The significance of his works is difficult to overestimate, his legacy is so comprehensive and meaningful. The versatility of his works, the mystical aspect characteristic of Orthodoxy and inherent in the work of the holy father, attracts more and more researchers of his works. The worldview of the holy Confessor was formed under the influence of the best thinkers of Christianity - his predecessors. The system of definitions and description of the created world is based on principles and concepts developed in the era of trinitarian and Christological disputes [13]. Theology of St. Maxim is still relevant today. By studying his creations, one can get an accurate idea of ​​God’s relationship to man and the created cosmos, and of the structure of the universe. The central event of the theology of Saint Maximus is the Incarnation of God - the realization of the Economy of Salvation. With the coming of God into the world, people were given the opportunity of deification - the fulfillment of the Creator's plan for man and the goal of Christian life.

The relevance of the event of the Incarnation in the works of St. The Maxim of the Confessor is associated with a soteriological aspect. In secular society, Christianity is often seen as the teaching of the great man Christ, not of God. But if Christ is not God, if the Savior has not come into the world, “if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is in vain” 1 Cor.15:17 [1]. A person like the rest cannot free people from slavery to sin, death and the power of a fallen angel. This is possible only for God. In his works, St. Maxim clearly shows the fulfillment of the Creator’s plan for the Economy of salvation, substantiating the complex aspects of Orthodox dogma with the unique teaching of logoi. Maximus the Confessor, in his doctrine of logoi, reveals the image of the mysterious union of the immortal Divine Being with human nature damaged by original sin and the possibility of deification.

The purpose of this article is to consider some aspects of the doctrine of the Incarnation and deification in the doctrine of the logoi of St. Maximus the Confessor.

According to the purpose, the object of this study is the works of St. Maximus the Confessor and the works of researchers of his heritage.

The subject of the study is the Incarnation and deification in the doctrine of logoi in the theological system of St. Maxima.

The idea of ​​Christ in the teaching of St. The maxim acts as fundamental; the entire system of the saint is Christocentric [2, p.76], writes S.L. Epifanovich. God's plan for the created man was not realized as a result of the fall of the first Adam, which resulted in the corruption and mortality of human nature. The plan was embodied in the more mysterious idea of ​​​​Christ, including everything divine and human. “In the Incarnation (which St. Maximus views as recapitulation or restoration), the Word, the divine Principle of the world’s Reason, becomes at the center of creation, at the center of world history”[5, p.322], notes Meyendorff. God the Son showed in Himself God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, wholly present in Him by nature and in a perfect way. The Father favored and the Holy Spirit assisted in the incarnation of the “self-acting and fully incarnate Son,” but the First and Third Persons of God did not incarnate [13]. In the “Chapters on Theology and Economy...” the holy Confessor speaks of the primordial Great Council of God and the Father - the unknown, surrounded by silence “the mystery of the [Divine] Economy” fulfilled by the Only Begotten Son in the Incarnation. Christ acts as the Messenger of the Great and Eternal Council of God the Father [3, p.319]. St. Maximus, in question 22 of “Questions to Thalassius...” writes about the Creator’s decision to immutably mingle with human nature in the Hypostasis of Christ, to invariably unite with human nature in order to become Man and make man a god by uniting with Himself [10]. It was impossible for fallen humanity to restore communication with God and heal on their own. God could save His creation only by introducing a new principle - divine power [2, p.86]. The principle needs to take root in humanity like the spread of corruption, sin, the condemnation of death in the descendants of the first Adam through carnal birth. In “Ambigvah to Thomas” St. Maxim connects the deification of human nature with the incarnation, or more precisely, with its union with the Divine Logos in His Hypostasis: “For if, without transformation, the ineffable Word, exhausted, became the seed of its own flesh, then His received flesh had [its] hypostasis, its by logos (I mean hypostasis) no different from Him” [9]. As Professor Jean-Claude Larcher writes, union with God and assimilation to Him occurs due to the fact that Christ acts as the Mediator of this great mystery, and not only due to Christ’s hypostatic perception of human nature [4]. Man is likened to God by the action of the divine energy of all Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). The deification of human nature in the hypostasis of Christ occurred thanks to perichoresis περιχώρησις , the intercommunication of natures [4]. Human nature has changed, unified with the divine and, at the same time, retaining natural qualities. Saint Maximus resolves the emerging contradiction by introducing the concepts of logos λόγος and tropos τρόπος. These two concepts are used by the Venerable Confessor in his Christology in different aspects. The concept of “logos” is used to describe the natural qualities of any being. The image of being of each essence is St. Maxim calls it “tropos”. This term has a wider semantic range. In addition to the way of existence, tropos can have theological, logical, ethical or physical meaning [4]. The many meanings of tropos entail many different concepts of the logos-tropos pair. In "Ambigvah to John" St. Maxim uses these concepts to describe the emergence of supernatural qualities in natural phenomena while maintaining their natural essence. He explains that any renewal occurs in relation to the tropos (image of renewal), but not in relation to the foundations (logos) of nature: “... the renewal of the basis (logos) of nature destroys nature itself, from the moment it no longer corresponds to its original basis ( logos). The renewed image of existence (tropos) with the preserved natural basis (logos) shows miraculous power, showing nature being influenced and acting beyond the limits of the law established for it” [8].

Thus, the incarnation of God the Word occurs. The human nature of Christ is in relationship with His divine nature in hypostatic union. Thanks to the change in the way of being of natures in Christ, the deification of His human nature occurs. Afterwards, other people are given the opportunity of deification [4]. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5) [1, p.1001]. As Larche writes, rational beings with the gift of freedom perform actions guided by their will. Action (ἐνέργεια) is an attribute of the nature of beings. At the same time, in relation to each creation, as an object, influence by force and action on the part of another actor is possible. For example, God performs miracles through the action of His Grace, divine energy, thanks to which the way of existence tropos of any creature can be changed [4]. St. Maximus points out that in the Incarnation the logos of divine and human nature remains the same, as do natural energies. The tropos of the existence of both natures changes [8]. Consequently, the holy father convinces, both natures, united in the Person of Christ, retain their own essential properties. Saint Maximus speaks about this in “Questions to Fallasius”: “The sacrament of Christ is truly the ineffable and incomprehensible hypostatic union of Divinity and humanity, in all ways, through the logos of hypostasis, drawing humanity to the same thing as the Divinity, creating from the two one complex hypostasis, which does not in any way bring with it any reduction in their essential difference in nature. So, on the one hand, from two hypostases one is made, as I said, on the other hand, the natural difference remains intact and, according to it, even after the union, the natural quantity of both is preserved without diminishing, the essential logos of each of them remains intact.” [10]. Emphasizing the interaction of natures in Christ, the Holy Father intends to show, first of all, their synergy. The union of the two natures of Divine-human relations, according to St. Maxim, occurs “in silent consent and mutual harmony of ineffable unity” [7, p.61].

The Lord remains true God and perfect Man and acts naturally according to each nature. He also possesses the essential properties of each nature, acting in accordance with them. This statement strengthens the soteriological basis of the doctrine of two wills in Christ as natural properties of His two natures. Both natures are united in the divine Hypostasis of Christ, human nature is perceived by the Face of the Divine Logos, is considered and exists in unity with Him [4]. In this case, the deification of the human will of Christ occurs due to its union with His Divine will, identical to the will of the Father. This affirms the connection of deification with the union of natures, since wills are natural forces, and the natural human will is also deified: “(He is) the One who cleanses the will from all dirt by assimilation and Who deifies our nature by incarnation” [7, p.44] . In his polemic against monoenergism, Saint Maximus emphasizes the immutability of the natural energies of the two natures of the Savior, preserving their own essential logoi intact. At the same time, Divine energy does not cancel the action of human nature and does not place it in the position of a passive instrument, but unites with it in love [7, p.52]. The holy father sees the impossibility of merging the Divine and human natures in Christ in their difference according to the logos of heterogeneity “according to the essence of the two natures of which He consists...” [12]. The Divine and the human will never be equal in essence; the created and the uncreated cannot be united by nature. St. Maxim calls another statement madness [12].

According to the views of the monk, the human nature of Christ was unusual in connection with the Divine and possessed exceptional properties of power and action. The Lord was by human nature free from all sin, and had nothing in it that contradicted God: “His human will was, in fact, natural, like ours, but at the same time divinely sealed in some image superior to us” [7, p.49] . As Orlov notes, the truth of the Incarnation is necessarily connected with the integrity of the human nature of Christ [6]. He cites four points in affirming the integrity of humanity of the Savior: a) The Savior is like us in everything except sin. In this prp. Maxim sees the impossibility of even a mental inclination to sin, the true sinlessness of the Savior due to the power of union with the Divine nature in the Person of God the Word; b) the Logos accepted in His Hypostasis human nature as it was at creation, with its natural will; c) it is especially important that Christ perceived human nature in full “with all ... the essential qualities and distinctive features of human nature; that is, with natural passions and animated sensual and rational nature - and this is especially important” [6]; d) The Lord, in the integral human nature, along with the flesh, also accepted the rational soul, the spirit, containing all the essential distinctive properties of a spiritual and moral being. That is, He was a Perfect Man. St. Maxim, in his early works, wrote about the presence of a gnomic will in Christ, points out Archpriest. John Meyendorff [5, p.324], but later changed his position. The presence of a human will is undoubtedly present in Christ, since He was hungry, thirsty, and experienced suffering during the Gethsemane prayer. The Incarnate God was subject to all the temptations that people experience, but He could not sin [5, p.324]. Recognition of the presence of a natural human will is of a soteriological nature, since the Fall of man took place in it. According to St. Gregory the Theologian: “What is not accepted is not healed.” Therefore, in the system of Saint Maximus, this aspect is given the main place. Otherwise, the humanity of Christ and His incarnation have no meaning. The New Adam, having fulfilled the plan of creating man, must renew humanity and lead it through the spiritual birth of everyone [7, p.52]. Divine will does not replace human will. According to the economy, incarnating in man, in the Hypostasis of the Son, Christ can renew man without prejudice to his natural will through sonship through the action of Divine grace: “He, by His own incarnation, made nature characteristic of grace that surpasses nature - deification” [7, p.52]. After his ascension, Christ gave man His divine power in the Holy Spirit. St. Maxim gives an example of saints in whom deification is manifested, and through whom we recognize God. Saints go beyond the boundaries of human essence, their own nature, in order to unite only with God through the action of divine energies in mystical collaboration. For them, everything worldly and created loses its meaning [4]. They represent for us the visible possibility of achieving a godlike state. As Larcher notes, for a deified person the laws of nature change. But the transformation of human nature does not mean a loss or change in its essential properties. A person becomes God by grace, by the action of Divine energies, and not by nature. Human nature does not become divine and does not mix with it [4] according to the logos of heterogeneity. A person’s personality is preserved, a person does not lose his hypostatic uniqueness. According to Larshe's remark, Rev. Maxim limits the possibility of man achieving godlikeness. The worthy can become “like God,” “like God and equal to Him, as much as possible.” St. Maxim uses such comparisons as iron heated by fire, air permeated with light, where interaction occurs without merging [4]. In created existence, the deification of man is inseparable from the destinies of the whole world. The paths to deification are different, but they must necessarily include the transformation of the world as a goal [5, p.326].

conclusions

The Incarnation, established by the Most Holy Trinity at the Eternal Council, was accomplished by God the Word. Human nature, damaged by sin, was healed in Christ as a result of unity with the Divine, unfused, unchangeable, which is clearly shown in the teaching of the logoi of St. Maximus the Confessor. The All-Guilty Logos united all humanity with Himself through spiritual renewal, becoming its Forefather. He granted the possibility of deification through the action of Divine grace without changing the essence and without losing personal properties according to the natural logos.

Bibliography

1. New Testament. – M.: Danilovsky blagovestnik, 2009. –1152 p.
2. Epifanovich S.L. St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine theology, M.: Martis, 2003. –135 p.
3. Selected works of St. Maximus the Confessor. – M.: Pilgrim, 2006. – P. 319.
4. Larcher Jean Claude. Image of deification [Electronic resource] // Portal ABC of Faith - URL: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Zhan_Klod_Larshe/obraz-obozhenija/ (access date 12/23/2019).
5. Meyenforf John (prot.). Introduction to Patristic Theology. – Minsk: Rays of Sofia, 2007. – 384 p.
6. Orlov I. A. Works of St. Maximus the Confessor on the disclosure of the dogmatic doctrine of two wills in Christ [Electronic resource] // Portal Predanie.ru - URL: https://predanie.ru/lib/book/116432/ (access date 03/11/2019).
7. Pospelov D. A. Maxim the Confessor and Christological disputes of the 7th century. Dispute with Pyrrhus. - M., Temple of Sophia - the Wisdom of God in Sadovniki. 2004. [Electronic resource] // Portal ABC of Faith - Access mode: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Maksim_Ispovednik- 532 p. (date of access: 02/24/2019).
8. St. Maxim the Confessor. Ambigvy to John [Electronic resource] // Portal ABC of Faith - URL: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Maksim_Ispovednik/ambigvy_k_Ioannu (access date 07/28/2018).
9. St. Maxim the Confessor. Ambigvy to Thomas [Electronic resource] // Portal ABC of Faith - URL: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/?Maksim_Ispovednik/ambigvy_k_Fome=1_5 (access date 07.28.2018).
10. St. Maxim the Confessor. Questions and answers to Thalassia. Book 2. Part 1. Questions I–LV. – M.: Martis, 1993. [Electronic resource] // Portal ABC of Faith - URL: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/?Maksim_Ispovednik/Voprosootvety_k_falassiyu=58 (access date 03/04/2019).
11. St. Maxim the Confessor. Chapters on the theology and economy of the incarnation of the Son of God [Electronic resource] // Portal ABC of Faith - URL: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Maksim_Ispovednik/glavy_o_bogoslovii_i_domostroitelstve_voploscheniya_Syna_Bojiya (access date 02.24.2019).
12. St. Maxim the Confessor. Letter XV. About the general and the special, that is, about the essence and hypostasis, Cosmas, the most godly deacon of Alexandria // ABC of Faith Portal - URL: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Maksim_Ispovednik/pisma/15 (date accessed 03/10/2019).
13. Stepanenko E.G., Ter-Arakelyants V.A. Some aspects of the knowledge of God in the teachings of St. Maximus the Confessor (based on the works of Russian researchers of the 19th-21st centuries) // Theology. Philosophy. Law/Theology. Philosophy. Law. – 2021. – No. 3 (7). – P. 7 – 19. [Electronic resource] URL: https://theophil.ru/index.php/journal/issue/view/17 date of access 03.29.2019.

Interesting article? Share it with others:

The Incarnation of God the Word (+VIDEO)

Today is the feast of the Nativity of Christ. We are talking about this most important event in the history of mankind and its dogmatic significance with Candidate of Historical Sciences Pavel Vladimirovich Kuzenkov, a teacher at Sretensky Theological Seminary.

— Pavel Vladimirovich, what is the most convincing proof for you that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate?

— When the Lord began His sermon and His disciples followed Him, at some point He asked them: “Who do you say that I am?” Then Peter, on behalf of all the apostles, answered: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” That is, even Christ’s closest disciples did not immediately understand who was in front of them. That is why the Lord said to Peter: “Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” The Lord considered it a special miracle that His own disciples saw in Him the Son of the Living God - the One Whom we now honor in Jesus Christ, i.e. Son of God, Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

Even for a person brought up on the Old Testament, which is full of prophetic predictions about the Incarnation, it was not easy to accept the news that the Son of God and God Himself would dwell with us, which happened on the day of the Nativity of Christ, when He was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and began to live among us. This is how difficult it was at that time for direct witnesses of these events to see the mystery of the Divine Incarnation. It is all the more difficult for us, people who are separated from this time by two thousand years and who, generally speaking, have lost the spiritual depth of perception of biblical texts, to see any evidence.

At the same time, the Lord loved man so much that he did not give him direct evidence of this truth. Remember how the Jews asked Him to do a sign for them from heaven? But this kind of proof would mean depriving a person of the most important thing - the gift of freedom. And the Lord requires from us a feat of faith and a feat of love. He demands from us that this is not obvious to us - and therefore not forced. What is obvious is forced, and there is no freedom of choice. That is why Christianity is called faith, and not knowledge about God, because it always remains unproven, non-obvious.

For me personally, evidence that Christ is the true God is His feat on the Cross

But for me personally, His feat on the Cross is not so much proof as evidence that Christ is the true God. Because an ordinary person would not be able to endure this kind of greatest service that Christ performed in the name of the human race. A service that was expressed in amazing words addressed to the Father: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; however, not as I want, but as You want.” Through the sacrifice of the cross, the fate of the human race changed, history took a different path.

All this was unthinkable for the ancient consciousness. How is it: God dies, God sacrifices Himself, God suffers?

We come to spiritual perfection only through sacrifice and suffering

This was also unthinkable for the Jews, who saw in God the great and absolutely omnipotent Creator, Who cannot be subject to any violence. But for Christians and the Christian faith, this is the most visible proof that God became man, that God was resurrected, so that we all would be resurrected. This is the main meaning of Christianity - that man himself must become a god by grace. Therefore, the Divine nature of our Lord Jesus Christ is clearly visible precisely in the greatness of His suffering. For me, as a historian, this is also a kind of way of action for a Christian in such situations: we come to spiritual perfection only through sacrifice and suffering.

Pavel Kuzenkov. Photo: Pravoslavie.Ru

— At the same time, the Church was faced with the emergence of various heresies related to the union of two natures in Christ: Divine and human.

- This is one of the most amazing secrets of Divine Providence. Indeed, one can believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God. Moreover, it is directly written in the Scriptures. And Christ Himself in Scripture speaks about Himself in the words of Peter and approves of the words of Peter. But how to explain the combination of Divine and human nature? After all, according to ancient philosophy, God is an unchanging, immortal and completely impassive being. Man is mortal, changeable and subject to passions - and this is also a property of human nature. And if the Lord took on human flesh, it means that He took on human nature. How to combine these seemingly incompatible things? And on this basis some very beautiful logical constructions arose. Well, I’m not even talking about those early forms when movements arose that recognized and greatly revered Christ as a great Prophet and Teacher, but did not recognize his Divine nature. These, by the way, are Muslims who teach that Isa (Jesus) is the greatest Prophet, but Christians perverted the essence of His teaching, declaring Him God, introducing polytheism, and so on. That is, they stand guard over monotheism - truly the most important achievement of the Old Testament religion. It is very important to preserve monotheism. But how can it be combined with the presence of God the Father and God the Son? This already confused many in ancient times.

Someone was confused by the fact that the gospel words “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” were very much reminiscent of philosophical concepts

Others were confused by the fact that the gospel words “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” were very much reminiscent of philosophical concepts. Even a sect of “Alogs” arose, who considered the Gospel of John a fake and, accordingly, they rejected the teaching about the Word of God, about the Logos.

On the other hand, many went to the other extreme and believed that the Son of God and God are so united that, in principle, there is no difference between Them, that they are simply different manifestations of the One and the Same Person as certain avatars. That is, God can turn to a person in different directions, but he is, nevertheless, a single Person.

To get out of all these intricacies, it took colossal intellectual intensity work of the Holy Fathers - the greatest minds of antiquity. The peak of this entire Christological discussion, as it is called, came at the end of the 4th - 5th centuries. And ultimately, the Church developed the only correct doctrine about God from all points of view, which bypasses the flaws of all other concepts.

Here we must keep in mind that Christianity does not claim to know about God. The mystery of the Divine Trinity, the mystery of the Incarnation are incomprehensible to the human mind. When we talk about the teaching of the Church, we are talking specifically about a belief system that rejects false teaching. That is, in essence, Christian theology is always apophatic, it always cuts off false speculations so that a person does not fall into error. Therefore, sometimes one hears that Christian theology is unprovable. As I already said, one can only believe in God; He cannot be known in a fallen state. But you can believe truly, or you can believe falsely. That is, opinions about God can be false. And in fact, the concept of “Orthodoxy” (“Orthodoxy”) consists precisely in the fact that a person holds a true opinion about God.

Christianity teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true man

Christian dogma teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true man. That two natures in Him were united in such a way that they did not form a third nature, that they did not merge, but cannot be separated, that they were united in an immutable way and can no longer be separated, and that during their union they did not change each other . Human nature was not subordinated to the Divine, the Divine nature did not undergo changes from the union with the human. These things are difficult to understand, but all other options are dogmatically flawed, because they imply the falsity of our hopes for salvation.

Suppose we followed the heresy of Nestorius. Nestorius taught that Jesus Christ is the union of the man Jesus and God the Word. From this union came a certain new Person, a Unity Person, which he called Christ. That is, God the Word and the man Jesus formed Christ. And therefore Mary is the Mother of the man Jesus. God the Father is the Father of God the Son, and Christ was born of Mary, and in this sense Mary can be called the Mother of Christ. But in no case can she be called the Mother of God, because the Son of God was born from the Father before all ages. If we follow this teaching, it turns out that the union of Jesus and God the Word was, although miraculous, instantaneous. He was honored, as Nestorius taught, only by the greatest sinless righteous man, Jesus, who was chosen for such an amazing sacrament. What about us? How is our nature saved? And it turns out that if this connection was only a connection at the level of Persons and there was no connection of natures, then it turns out that human nature is not saved.

On the opposite side stands the teaching of Eutychus (or, as it is sometimes called, Eutyches) Monophysitism. Eutychus taught that the union of natures in Christ led to the creation of a single nature. That it turned out to be so close that humanity and Divinity merged into one. And it is clear that they merged into the Divine nature, because the Divinity is higher than humanity. But, based on this concept, it turns out that humanity is diminished during deification and a change in human nature occurs. She finds herself, as it were, involved in the Divine. And the most flawed content of this teaching is that the suffering of Christ in this situation is the suffering of God, who is not subject to suffering. Hence the consequence of Eutychianism is aphthartodocetism. People who professed this doctrine believed that Christ’s suffering on the cross was imaginary, because the Lord God does not suffer. But this entailed very dangerous consequences. After all, then there was a feeling of a certain illusion and theatricality of all the events that took place in the Gospel and described in the New Testament. And of course, from a dogmatic point of view, this is an unacceptable construction.

Therefore, only the Orthodox definition remains, developed at the IV Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon, according to which the Church teaches us, and we already confess, that Divinity and humanity - two natures - were united in Christ in one Person. Moreover, this connection did not lead either to the emergence of a special unified nature, or to the appearance of a single Person. That is, in Christ Jesus there is no separate man and no separate God. And the Person - if you like, the subject of this connection - is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. As it is actually written in the Creed: “[I believe] in the One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, ... for our sake man and for our salvation ... Incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” That is, this is the very Son of God, Who was born before all ages from the Father, and He was born in time from the Mother of God. And this is the very teaching that allows us to call the Virgin Mary the Mother of God. And it is this teaching, quite complex from the point of view of some philosophy, but invulnerable from the point of view of dogmatic consequences, that is considered Orthodox.

Father Georgy Florovsky has interesting analogies with our time: he calls Nestorianism anthropological maximalism, and Eutychianism anthropological minimalism. And in this sense, Western Christianity, especially the Christianity of modern times, humanistic, which places man and the human principle too highly in the Lord, is similar to Nestorianism. By the way, this is where the Catholic specificity of the depiction of the Crucifixion comes from, in which the Lord is necessarily depicted crouched in agony. While for the East, according to this analogy, exaggerated attention to the Divine principle in Christ is more typical - hence the iconic image of Christ, the impassive God, characteristic of Eastern Christianity. Of course, this is just a play on certain meanings, although the fashion that appeared in Europe for Nestorianism at the beginning of the 20th century shows that there is something in this concept... In general, exaggerated attention to the human principle, human freedom, of course, takes place in the entire Western civilization, which we call humanistic civilization. At the same time, at some point, exaggerated attention to the human actually leads to the fact that this civilization ceases to be Christian, and man not only reaches the level of God, he takes the place of God.

Monophysites have another tendency - a tendency to belittle humanity, and this tendency in its highest form is manifested in religions of a fatalistic nature, when nothing depends on man - everything is in the will of God.

Orthodox Christianity avoids both extremes: it preserves both the height of humanity and its proper place.

— Some associate the holiday of the Nativity of Christ with the expectation of miraculous changes in their lives. Where does it come from?

— The holiday of the Nativity of Christ is a celebration of a certain renewal, a new life cycle, the beginning of a new, better life. The Nativity of the Savior marked this beginning for all humanity, while each of us annually associates a certain turning point in our own lives with this Holiday. This, of course, is a purely symbolic phenomenon, because the Lord does not perform miracles according to the calendar.

It is important for us that both on the day of the Holiday and during the Nativity Fast we turn to God with prayers much more often

However, it is important for us that both on this holiday and during the Nativity Fast we turn to God with prayers much more often than usual. At this time, communication between man and God is closer, more intense - and the Lord responds to our calls. The most important thing in your prayers and in your desire to change your life for the better is to maintain two things: complete trust in God (if something is not given to you by the will of God, then it is better for you) and to avoid pride when the Lord answers your prayers and gives you what you ask for.

—Has it ever happened in your life that the Lord responded to prayers?

- Yes, such events have happened in my life. Once it was about the illness of a person close to me, whose life was literally hanging in the balance, so there were no objective reasons for things to get better. The only hope left is in the Lord. I didn't promise anything to God. Do you know the story of how Martin Luther promised during a thunderstorm: “If You save me from a lightning strike, I will become a monk”? We know how it all ended: he became a monk, but only then destroyed the Catholic Church from the inside. Such vows are very dangerous, they are unbearable burdens. A person cannot play such a trade with God: I - for You, You - for me. Why is this? God needs nothing from us except love. Therefore, I asked for what is called free of charge, without promising anything. But he asked, as it seemed to me, sincerely. And indeed, everything went very well: this man is now alive and well.

— What could you wish our readers on the occasion of the Nativity of Christ?

There were few joyful days in the earthly life of the Lord, but it all ended with the bright Resurrection

— Dear friends, on these joyful days, happy days of the Christmas holiday, I would like to wish you and all of us, first of all, strength in faith. Because it is this fortress that helps us overcome any adversity, helps us to rejoice in our earthly joys and helps us not to fall into any despondency or sorrow during all kinds of troubles that are inevitable on our way. The Nativity of Christ reminds us of the earthly life of the Lord Himself, in which there were quite a few joyful days, there were many injustices, there was a lot of grief, there was betrayal - probably the worst thing that can befall a person. But it all ended not with terrible torture and execution on the Cross, but with the bright Resurrection. So for us, Christmas is a memory not only of the beginning, but also of how the life of a Christian ends. It ends with the resurrection from the dead, the life of the next century, the new birth. And earthly Christmas entails heavenly Christmas. I would like to wish all of us to always remember this.

The teaching of St. Athanasius the Great on the Incarnation as the basis of salvation

Saint Athanasius is one of the great fathers of the Universal Church. Already during his lifetime he was called the great teacher of the Holy Church, the father of Orthodoxy, the invincible defender of the faith. Saint Basil the Great wrote to him: “If you knew the benefit of your letters, you would not have missed a single opportunity to write to us” (Creations, part 6, letter 76. To Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria. Sergiev Posad, 1892, p. 178). The Monk Cosmas gives a similar review of the works of St. Athanasius: “If you come across the word of St. Athanasius and do not have paper with you, take it and write it on your clothes” (Blessed John of Mosch. Spiritual Meadow, ch. 40. Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, 1896, p. 54). Priest Pavel Florensky called Saint Athanasius “the pillar of church life understanding,” the exclusive bearer of church consciousness, the most Orthodox among the Orthodox (Pillar and affirmation of truth. Experience of the Orthodox Theodicy in twelve letters. M., 1914, p. 293 , 56–57).

Saint Athanasius the Great entered the history of Christian theology, first of all, as a zealous champion of the Nicene symbol and a tireless fighter against Arianism. From the time of his election to the See of Alexandria, Saint Athanasius stood at the head of the defenders of the Nicene creed. “He was not only their leader, but also an indicator of their position in the Church. All intrigues directed against the Nicene Symbol usually began with Athanasius; the expulsion was a clear symptom of the increasing reaction; its triumph was the triumph of the Council of Nicaea and its creed. We can say that Athanasius carried the Nicene symbol on his shoulders from the storm of doubts it caused in the East” (Prof. A. Spassky. History of dogmatic movements in the era of the Ecumenical Councils. T. I. Sergiev Posad, 1914, p. 263). Five times, due to the machinations of the Arians, he was expelled from the see of the Primate of Alexandria; he spent more than 17 years in exile, but each time, returning to his flock, he continued his activities with the same energy. His holy work on the throne of the Holy Apostle Mark and his creations were dedicated to the establishment of faith in the consubstantiality of the Son of God with God the Father. In the last period of his activity, in letters to Serapion, Bishop of Tmuy, he also spoke about the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Saint Gregory the Theologian testifies, Saint Athanasius “first and alone, or with very few, dared to stand for the truth... having confessed the one Divinity and the oneness of the Three Persons” (Creations, part 2, Homily 21, commendable to Athanasius the Great, Archbishop Alexandrisky. M., 1889, p. 169).

Saint Athanasius the Great should be considered the founder of post-Nicene Trinitarian theology. By affirming the consubstantiality of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he paved the way for the further disclosure of the dogma of the Holy Trinity by the great Cappadocian fathers.

Fighting for the purity of faith in the Trinity of consubstantiality, Saint Athanasius the Great in his works reveals other theological issues, the most significant of which is the question of human salvation. He pays no less attention to the problems of soteriology than to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. And this is quite natural, because all the dogmas of the Church are inextricably linked with our salvation. All Orthodox theology is essentially soteriological, because the central place in it belongs to the doctrine of salvation. This is precisely the nature of the theology of St. Athanasius the Great.

The saint affirms faith in the Trinity of consubstantiality not as an abstract truth, but, mainly, as a justification for our hope in salvation. In the dogma of consubstantiality, the Alexandrian saint defended the reality of the salvation of man by the God-man Jesus Christ. For Saint Athanasius, “the Trinitarian question about the birth and consubstantiality of the Son of God is, first of all, a Christological and soteriological question” (G. V. Florovsky. Eastern Fathers of the 4th century. Paris. 1931, p. 30)2.

The polemical nature of most of the works of Saint Athanasius creates certain difficulties for the researcher, who, however, has at his disposal the early work of Saint Athanasius, “The Tale of the Incarnation of God the Word,” which is remarkable in all respects. It reflected everything that the Alexandrian saint lived by and that he zealously defended until the day of eternal rest in the heavenly abodes.

Saint Athanasius the Great deeply and in detail developed issues related to the saving feat of our Lord Jesus Christ performed by Him during His earthly life: incarnation, teaching, deeds, death on the cross, Resurrection and Ascension. He paid special attention to the truth of the Incarnation as the most relevant and directly related to human life.

The Incarnation is the essence of the Christian faith. The Incarnation is the stone that lies at the head of the corner (Matthew 21:42), the foundation of our salvation. Christ the God-man and the salvation of people are inseparable. “Why can’t the Word, who became man, save the world,” asks St. Athanasius the Great, when is it known that in the same nature in which sin was committed, an excess of grace appeared? What kind of excess of grace is this? That the Word was made man, being God, so that, having become man, it was confessed to be God; since Christ, being a man, is God, because, being God, he became man, and in human form saves those who believe” (3, 347)3.

Saint Athanasius thoroughly reveals the motives that dictated the need for the coming of Christ in the flesh for the salvation of the human race.

Since humanity fell into error and began to forget the true knowledge of God, the Word had compassion on our weakness, condescended to our corruption (1, 201) and appeared as a man to impart knowledge and “with His helm and His goodness to save” us (4, 458 ). “Since idolatry and atheism took possession of the universe, and the knowledge of God became hidden, then who could teach the universe about the Father?” asks the saint and continues: “Perhaps they will say that creation was enough for this. But if there were enough creatures, then so many evils would not have happened. There was a creature, but, nevertheless, people were mired in the same delusion about God. Therefore, in whom was there… a need, if not in God the Word, Who sees both the soul and the mind, sets everything in motion in creatures, and through creatures makes it possible to know the Father? The One who, through His own providence and the order of the universe, teaches about the Father, had to renew this teaching. How would this happen? They will say, perhaps: this could have been done in the same way, that is, again to show by the works of creation what you need to know about God. But this was no longer reliable, and not at all reliable, because people had already ignored this, and their eyes were no longer directed towards grief, but down. Therefore, wanting to provide faithful help to people, the Word of God comes as a man, taking upon Himself a body similar to human bodies, and helps those below, that is, with His bodily deeds, so that those who do not want to know Him from His providence about the universe and from governing it, although from His bodily works they knew the Word of God in the flesh, and through Him the Father” (1, 208-209).

Saint Athanasius also solves the important question of why God chose the incarnation to save man, and not some other method? Why didn’t He limit himself to demanding repentance from man? Or why didn’t He save him with the wave of His merciful will? After all, He created the universe with one word? Why couldn’t a person be saved in the same way?

Saint Athanasius, based on faith in the omnipotence of God, does not exclude the possibility of saving a person in some other way than the incarnation, for with God everything is possible; but he believes that the Incarnation - “the dispensation according to the flesh” (2, 359) - was the most expedient means of saving man, for “it was fitting for redemption to be accomplished not through anyone else, but through Him who is Lord by nature, so that for us, created through the Son , not to call another Lord, and not to fall into Arian and pagan foolishness, having served more than God, who created all things” (2, 280).

Saint Athanasius asks whether it would not be enough to demand that a sinner repent of his sins and, after repentance, grant him absolution and forgiveness, and answers that repentance alone would not be enough to save a person. Repentance in itself is beneficial, because in a person’s conscience it is combined with the condemnation of sin. But repentance, only stopping sin and not extending to its consequences, could not be the only means of salvation (3, 346). The repentant could not free himself from the state to which sin had led him, for by repentance he cleared his conscience, but did not destroy the discord between spirit and flesh. “If only there had been a sin, and had not been followed by corruption, then repentance would have been wonderful. If, however, people, as a result of a previous crime, once became subject to natural decay and lost the grace of God's image, then what else should have happened? Or was there a need for anyone else to return such grace and to call people, except God the Word, who created the universe out of nothing in the beginning? It belonged to him to bring corruptible things back into incorruption, and to keep what was most just for the Father” (1, 199-200).

To accomplish salvation, the command of God alone was not enough. Based on the concept of the omnipotence of God, Saint Athanasius believed that God could resolve an oath with a single word, but this would not be useful for a person. A person, having accepted grace from without, could commit an even more serious sin, since he would be convinced that no matter how much he sinned, God would forgive his sins. “We must keep in mind what is useful for people, and not take into account that everything is possible for God... What the Lord does is useful for people, so be it, otherwise it was not appropriate. What is useful and decent, that is what He provides. Therefore, I came, not “to let them serve Him, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28) and to work out our salvation... If God had omnipotently spoken and the oath had been resolved, then the power of the Commander would have been seen in this, and man would have become the same, what Adam was like before the crime, having accepted grace from the outside, without adapting it to the body (for as such then man was introduced into paradise), but at the same time he, perhaps, would have become even worse, because he learned to break the law. And in such a state, if he were deceived by the serpent, the need for God would again insist on uttering a command and resolving the oath. And therefore the need for this would continue indefinitely, but people would still be guilty, servile to sin. Constantly sinning, they would constantly have a need for forgiveness, and would never be freed from guilt, being themselves flesh, and due to the weakness of the flesh, always overcome by the law” (2, 350-352).

If the Lord, in His infinite mercy, had enlightened and saved people with one wave, “as He did in ancient times, when He created the world out of nothing” (1, 247), then this would only testify to a certain action of the will of God in the being of the Holy Trinity, but would not change would be the essence of man. A person would know that his sins were forgiven, but he would not receive cleansing from them or healing from corruption. Although a corrupted, perishing man, he was “whole” and did not need salvation. “And instead of decay, it was necessary to instill life into it, so that just as death occurred in the body, so life also occurred in it. If death were outside the body, then its life would have to happen outside. If death was grafted into the body and, as abiding in it, prevailed over it, then it was necessary for life to be grafted into the body, so that, having clothed itself with life, it would cast off corruption from itself. Otherwise, if the Word were outside the body, and not in the body itself, then, although death would naturally be defeated by the Word (because death is not able to resist life), the corruption that began in it would nevertheless remain in the body" ( 1.247–248). In the same nature in which the “persistence of sin” took place, the “revelation of righteousness” was also to take place (3, 346–347). If someone protects the straw from fire, it will not burn, but the fire will still threaten to destroy it. If someone covers it with “a large amount of stone flax, which, as they say, resists fire, then the straw is no longer afraid of fire, finding safety for itself in a fireproof shell. The same can be said about the body and about death. If the command had only prevented death from reaching the body, it would nevertheless, according to the general law of bodies, remain mortal and corruptible. And so that this does not happen, the body is clothed in the incorporeal Word of God, and thus is no longer afraid of death or corruption; because he has life as a garment, and corruption is destroyed in him” (1, 249).

So, when deciding whether the Incarnation was generally necessary for our salvation, according to Saint Athanasius, one should proceed not from the concept of the omnipotence of God, but from which of the possible methods of salvation is most useful for people and most consistent with their nature and the state in which this nature found itself after the Fall. The salvation of man by the one omnipotent word of God would be beneficial only if liberation from sin was equivalent to the removal from man of the guilt of sin. But sin has brought about profound changes in the very nature of man, and these changes would have remained without healing with the external method of salvation. Removing the guilt of sin would not free a person from slavery to sin, would not eliminate the discord between his soul and body.

Thus, the salvation of people was possible only under the condition of the internal rebirth of all human nature through its union with the highest Divine power. Only the connection of a person in secret

The Incarnation with Divinity, which overcomes the condemnation and weakness of nature, could grant him salvation.

The Son of God took on flesh like us to become our foundation, on which we could be built up like precious stones and become “the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.” But just as He is the foundation, and we are the stones built upon Him; so again He is the vine, and we are like rods, united with him not according to the essence of Divinity (this is impossible), but also according to humanity; because the rods must be like the vine, and we in the flesh are like Him... But what is laid as a foundation is laid for the sake of the stones that are built on it” (2, 358-359).

Saint Athanasius the Great in his works testifies that salvation is accomplished by God and that the basis of salvation is the Incarnation. In the “Sermon on the Incarnation of God the Word” he says: “The disembodied, incorruptible, immaterial Word of God comes to our region, from which it was not far before, because not a single part of creation remained deprived of Him, but, being with His Father , fills It and the entire universe in all its parts. But He comes, condescending to us with His love for mankind and His appearance among us. And seeing that the verbal human race is perishing, that death reigns over people in decay; noting also that the threat of a crime maintains corruption in us, and it would be inappropriate to abolish the law before fulfilling it; noticing the indecency of what had happened, because that which It Itself was the Creator was destroyed; noticing the evil nature of people that exceeds all measure, because people gradually increased it to the point of intolerance to their own detriment; Noticing also that all people are guilty of death, He took pity on our race... did not suffer the possession of death, and so that what was created would not perish, and what His Father had done for people would not turn out to be in vain, He takes upon Himself a body, and a body that is not alien to ours... Being the Almighty and Creator of the universe, in the Virgin he prepares a body for himself as a temple, and assimilates it to himself as an instrument, allowing himself to be known in it and dwelling in it” (1, 200-201).

What exactly, according to Saint Athanasius, did the coming of God in the flesh bring to man?

“In the first four centuries of Christianity, there was a lot of debate about the nature of the Son of God,” writes Prof. I.V. Popov, many opposing views were expressed, but there was a common feature in the diversity of opinions on this issue. All parties, with the exception of the Gnostic ones, saw in the Son of God both the Creator and the Redeemer, because redemption itself was thought of as the restoration (my disposition - K.S.) of the primordial perfection of man and nature. The same idea is repeatedly expressed by St. Athanasius" (Prof. I. Popov. The religious ideal of St. Athanasius. "Theological Bulletin". 1904. May - August, pp. 91–92).

Primordial people deviated from God, distorted the image of God; human nature, “having undergone a change, abandoned righteousness and loved lawlessness” (4, 152). What should God do now? What now had to happen “if not the renewal of what was created in the Image, so that through this Image people could again know God?” (1, 207, 208). And the Only Begotten Son of God became man in order to “correct this in Himself, to instill in human nature to love truth and hate lawlessness” (4, 152). The image of God - the Word of the Father - comes personally, so that “it can be recreated in the image of created man,” renew and seek the lost (1, 208). The Creator became man to revive people, was born from a Woman, “recovering to Himself from the first creation the human form” (3, 350). The Father handed over everything into the hands of the Son, so that “just as all things were created by Him, so all things about Him could be renewed. For it is not so that from being poor one becomes

He is rich, he devotes himself to Him, not so that, having no power, He accepts power, He accepts everything - let this not be! “By Him,” so during correction, about “Him” this came into being with that difference in sayings that at the beginning came into being by Him, and later, when everything fell, the Word became flesh and put on flesh, – in With him everything was renewed” (1, 270).

Having assumed flesh, God’s Word put to death the sin nesting in the flesh, removed the oath from man, sanctified him - and our wisdom became free (2, 335; 3, 351). “He redeemed us from the curse (Gal. 3:13), and, according to the word of Isaiah, bore our sins (Is. 53:4), and according to what is written in Peter, “sang” them “in His body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2, 24)" (2, 323–324). Therefore, “the devil approached Jesus as a man, but, not finding in Him the signs of his ancient omnipotence, nor success in the present enterprise,” “put to shame and overcome, he yielded victory over himself, and in exhaustion said: “Who is this who came from Edom?” ”, that is, from the land of men, advancing “with strength” (Isa. 63), 1)? That is why the Lord said: “The prince of this world is coming, and in Me” he will find “nothing” (Jn. 14:30); although we know that the Second Adam had both soul and body and the whole first Adam” (3, 350–351).

“What Adam cast down from heaven to earth, Christ raised from earth to heaven; what in Adam was sinless and uncondemned, and by him was cast down into corruption and the condemnation of death, Christ showed in Himself incorruptible and redeeming from death” (3, 322-323). The Son of God in man healed our wounds, quickened all beings (4, 460; 2, 409) - When the Word became flesh, He was given works: He was created “into works” in order to accomplish them “and, having made them whole, to present the Church to the Father .as the Apostle said, “I have no filthiness, or vice, or anything from such, but let her be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:27)” (2:349).

Faith in our resurrection is based, first of all, on the unity of our flesh with the flesh of the Risen Christ: if Christ is resurrected, then we will also be resurrected, because the Immortal Word trampled death, and by His union with mortal human nature opened the gates to eternal life (2, 233 ). The appearance of the Savior in the flesh destroyed the very fear of death (3, 308).

The Creator of creation receives a body from the Virgin Mary (1, 417) not for His improvement, but to resurrect our flesh (3, 299). “What again is the success of the Immortal, who has taken upon Himself mortal things? Or what is the perfection of the Eternal, clothed in the temporal? What greater reward is possible for the eternal God and King who exists in the bosom of the Fathers? Don’t you see that this was done for our sake, and that it was written about us, so that the Lord, who became man, would make us mortals and temporary immortals and bring us into the eternal kingdom of heaven?” (2, 239). And Christ leads humanity “into the Holy Mountain,” into heavenly abodes, mountain villages, “to the mental altar” (4, 147). – “This is a truly extraordinary thing!” (2, 440). The restoration of the image of God in man would not have been accomplished “if death and corruption had not been destroyed.” The Word takes upon Himself a mortal body in order to finally destroy death and renew people “in the image” (1:208).

Christ is the Lord in us, and the devil does not have the same strength and audacity to attack people. With the coming of the Savior, “demons are deprived of the power to torment people” (4, 218). “Reveal Your truth before the tongues, driving out the prince of this age, and vindicating us, who from ancient times were under his torment” (4, 317). Since the human race, “having retreated from the kingdom of God, fell under the torment of Satan, the Only Begotten came to overthrow the enemy (3, 350), again subjugate him to “His power” (4, 307), and finally execute His sentence over him, to make everyone free (2, 352).

The Creator of the universe became “the Second Adam, so that from the name we might know the truth” (3, 323). Having clothed himself “in everything” with Adam, having even accepted Adam’s infirmities, except for sin (4, 459–460), “the Word that existed before the ages, consubstantial with the Father” (3, 329) cancels the ancient Sovereign sentence: “Earth ecu, and to the earth you will depart.” (Gen. 3, 19), “you will die by death” (Gen. 2, 17), reconciles God with man and frees “the whole man” (3, 331).

Saint Athanasius does not dwell on the meaning of the Incarnation as the re-creation of man, but goes further and teaches about the perfection of creation through the incarnation of the Son of God. The Lord not only returned to man the blessings that he had lost in the fall, but gave more than what Adam had and what he could achieve only by obedience to the will of God. The Incarnation is a secondary matter of “creation on the part of the Word, in order to ensure the achievement of the ideal goal of the world, which is the perfection of man and the achievement of which was not ensured in the first creation” (Jerom. Vladimir (Blagorazumov). St. Athanasius of Alexandria, his life, scientists -literary and polemical-dogmatic activity (Kishinev, 1895, p. 369). "

The Father's Son marked the beginning of a new path. With His appearance “the ancient mimoidosha” (2 Cor. 5:17) a new creation came into being. The Son of God is called “the firstborn of creation, after the adoption of all. But as the firstborn among the brethren, “the sweat of the dead raises up the fruits of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:20),” the God-man takes precedence in everything, becomes the beginning of paths, “a curtain, that is, in His flesh” (Heb. 10:20) renews a new and living path for us , is the beginning of a new creation, “so that man no longer lives according to that original creation, but since the beginning of a new creation has been laid,” then, having the beginning of the ways of Christ, he already followed Him (2, 346–347). "

“Explaining the words of the holy Apostle Paul: “Because of the better covenant Jesus was a great helper” (Heb. 7:22) in the sense of the guarantee He gave for us, Saint Athanasius continues: “The service He performed became better; because... “We are not in the flesh, but in Dus” (Rom. 8, 9). And the Son of God came into the world, “let not the world judge.” but may He redeem everyone and “may the world be saved by Him” (John 3:17). For then the world, as guilty, was judged by the Law; and now the judgment took upon itself the Word,” which granted salvation to everyone. “And with this in mind, John cried out: “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). But grace is better than Law; reality is better than shadow." And the best “could not be done through anyone else, but through the Son, who sits at the right hand of the Father” (2, 255-256').

Human nature in Christ was anointed and sanctified by the Godhead. God had no need for anointing, and if he is anointed, it is not He, “but the flesh He took upon Himself is in Him and is anointed by Him, so that the sanctification accomplished over the Lord as a man might be accomplished by Him over all people.” The descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him in the Jordan was the descent upon us. “And it was not for the perfection of the Word, but for our sanctification again, so that we would partake of His anointing, and it could be said about us: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you.” From the God-man “we began to receive anointing and seal”” (2, 238–239).

By the incarnation of the Second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, man is elevated to incorruption. Corruption, which “has long prevailed” over people, no longer has “power over them for the sake of the Word, which dwelt in them through a single body” (1, 202).

Thanks to the incarnation, people entered into real unity with the Son of God, and through Him with the Father, they became sons of God. Christ has become one with us, therefore we also participate in what he does

He. The Savior “has made us sons of the Father” (2:227). In his interpretation of the high priestly prayer of the Lord, Saint Athanasius says: “It is known how the Word became in us; It has taken on our flesh. But “You also are in Me,” Father, because I am Your Word. And because You are in Me, because I am Your Word, and I am in them in body, and through You the salvation of people has been accomplished in Me; then I ask, “that they also may be one” according to the body in Me and according to its completion; “That they too may be perfect,” having unity with this body and being “one” in it, so that all, as those borne by Me on Myself, will be one body and one spirit, and attain perfect manhood” (2, 397–398). These words express the view of Saint Athanasius on the economy of our salvation.

According to the Father of Orthodoxy, the main thing in the matter of salvation is the union of man with God and his deification. God’s Word “became human, so that we might become deified” (1:260). From this soteriological point of view, Saint Athanasius illuminates the Face of the Redeemer and reveals the whole vital meaning of confessing Him as God and man. The main idea of ​​Saint Athanasius can be formulated as follows: if the Word is a creature, man remains in the same state, not united with God (2, 350). But the Word is God - and man is deified, and not man in general, but each individual, for Christ the Lord was and remains in everything except sin, similar to us. He is our Sotelesnik. He is truly the most loving Brother and Friend of all people (2, 342). And since He is the beloved Son of the Heavenly Father, His intercession for us is great, effective help to all who strive for Him with a pure heart.

The infinity of God's love awarded man the highest honor - it deified him, placed him in this respect above Adam before his fall, gave man more than he lost: with Adam we lost human dignity, with Christ the Savior we received Divine dignity. God recognized everything human as His own, not alien to Himself, but He also obliged people to consider everything Divine in Christ not alien to Himself. People are called into the unity of eternal Divine life as children of God, as His friends. And we boldly follow our Brother in wedding clothes to a spiritual meal in the Father’s Abode. “Those who became Thy partakers rejoiced, as those who had received mercy because they had learned from You to love righteousness and hate iniquity” (4:152), as those elevated by the Word to fellow citizens of heaven and cohabitants with God (2:353). For the human body, “a great addition took place from the communication and union of the Word with it. For from being mortal it was made immortal; being soulful, it became spiritual; being from the earth, it passed through the heavenly gates” (3, 299).

The Father’s Word and Wisdom, having descended to creatures, “becomes for them an imprecise shrine, an imprecise life, a Door, a Shepherd, a path, a King, a Leader, a Savior in everything, a life-giving Light and a common providence for all” (1, 190). “When “the Word became flesh and dwelt” in “us” (John 1:14), when He came to serve and give salvation to everyone, then He was salvation for us, life was for us, cleansing was for us, then His dispensation was for us became better than the angels, and the Word became the way, became the resurrection.” Christ “was the best hand of help,” who showed us a great benefit through His incarnation (2, 259–260). Being God and the eternal King, He adopted “what is ours for Himself, so that we may be enriched by what is His” (4, 292).

And now our Lord Jesus Christ, “good and creative,” daily reveals Himself to everyone, for “by Him all things stand and live. And in Him and through Him the Father reveals Himself, as the Savior says: “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me” (John 14:10)” (1:190). Now the Lord is always with us, even if we are in adversity” (4, 304).

So, if the Son of the Most High Father had not humbled Himself, “had not become man, then we would not have been delivered from sins and would not have risen

would be from the dead, but would remain dead under the earth, would not be taken up to heaven, but would remain lying in hell” (2, 233). If the Lord had not become incarnate, “taking upon Himself our nature, except sin, then there would have been no salvation for us” (4, 307). We would not have received the grace of the Spirit if the Word had not become flesh. “We would not have been delivered and exalted if “in the form of God” He had not taken on “the form of a servant...”. We would not have become partakers of the Spirit and would not have been sanctified otherwise, if the Giver of the Spirit Himself, the Word, had not said about Himself that He would be anointed with the Spirit for us. And we are reliably accepted, because He is said to be anointed by us according to the flesh. For as soon as the flesh was sanctified in Him first, and through it He is revealed to those who have received the Spirit as a man, then after Him we also have the grace of the Spirit, receiving from His fulfillment” (2, 242-243). That is why, says Saint Athanasius, the psalmist calls the coming of the Lord “the joy of salvation... according to what Simeon said: “As my eyes have seen Your salvation” (Luke 2, 30)” (4, 177).

Thus, from the union of the Son of God with human nature flow all saving and grace-filled gifts. One of the researchers of the activity of Saint Athanasius, based on the works of the great father of Orthodoxy, writes: “The Word, through His incarnation, renewed and brought to perfection all aspects of His image in man, damaged in him by the Fall. From here Saint Athanasius often speaks of the renewal of the world, of a new creation, of the fact that the Word brought immortality and incorruptibility and acquired our resurrection. Next, the Word was to renew and recreate man created in the Image, the Word was to exalt, sanctify and restore us. It was supposed to free everyone from error and idolatry and bring us again the knowledge of God. It was supposed to uproot sin and, thus, destroying the works of the devil, completely free us from his power. The Word came to give us hope in God again, to reconcile us, to adopt us, to deify us, and to unite us to the Holy Spirit. The purpose of the coming of Jesus Christ to earth is also to unite people more closely with each other. Saint Athanasius presents all these points not separately from each other, but in close connection with each other, so that each of these points also contains the others” (Jerom. Vladimir (Blagorazumov), op. cit., pp. 368–369) .

So, the Incarnation is the basis of our salvation. “Our salvation is Jesus Christ, who leads us into a new feat,” “into a new age,” and “prepares us to reign with Him” (4, 304, 305). Our whole life is concentrated in the God-Man due to His close unity with us. He is all our hope, all our help; He Himself will “replace everything for us with Himself in heaven, receiving us into eternal life” (2, 362).

“Having delved into this,” teaches Saint Athanasius, “bow down to the common Savior of all, the omnipotent Word of God, and condemn what is diminished by Him and turned into nothing. Just as with the appearance of the sun darkness no longer has power, but if it still remained somewhere, it is expelled everywhere, so, after the divine appearance of God’s Word, the darkness of idols no longer has power” (1:261). “You are my God, and we will confess to You.” These words... should be proclaimed to the Savior Christ” (4, 366).

Share:

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Dear brothers and sisters, Christians!

A wonderful combination of holidays this year: tomorrow is Sunday, a day that is always joyful, festive, Eucharistic, Thanksgiving, and it is combined with the celebration of the memory of St. Paisius Velichkovsky and the beginning of the Nativity Fast. I can’t even believe how quickly this time of Advent has come, which means that a year is already ending - so unusual, so filled with experiences, and at the same time with some hopes both in the church and, perhaps, even in society. And for us, of course, it is always important to think about what such a unique combination of holidays means, like three planets merging together.

Of course, the very image of St. Paisia ​​fits perfectly with the image of the risen Christ. This is understandable, because he is an amazingly wise, amazingly spiritual, subtle man, a man who knew how to teach and gather people and at the same time was not afraid of any difficulties, who did not look back. St. Paisios is, as it were, the founder of a new movement in our church, together with St. Tikhon of Zadonsky: at the end of the 18th century, from the outskirts of the Russian Empire, suddenly something new for that time appeared - a thirst to build one’s life in a new way on the foundations of brotherly love, on the foundations of love for God and neighbor, and the memory of how it happened before. A thirst arises for intelligent spiritual prayer, outwardly ineffective, not making any impression, but very effective, because the Jesus Prayer is a prayer for everyone, for the whole world. Just as the Resurrection of Christ shines with joy and hope for every person in the world, regardless of his nationality, social status, education, his human abilities and strengths - in the same way, this practice of the Jesus Prayer, developed over the centuries by Orthodoxy, supported faith in Christ, reaching the hearts of even the simplest people.

And finally, we can connect this experience of assimilation of the gifts of Christ's Resurrection and the mystical practice of the Jesus Prayer with preparation for the Nativity of Christ. It is clear that everything in this world requires embodiment. Every spirit requires embodiment. Many of us already understand and know well that the incarnate spirit is a more perfect spirit than the non-incarnate one. Therefore, the fact that the spirit strives for incarnation is one of the paradoxical spiritual secrets. Not to disembodiment, as our rationalistic experience might claim, but precisely to incarnation, i.e. to creative transformation, to the creation of something different in relation to oneself. For you and me, dear brothers and sisters, this is extremely important to remember and know, because in our lives there are a lot of provocations that lead us to disembodiment, because everything embodied seems so unsteady, so unstable that it seems worth wasting time and energy to support various kinds of embodied forms - in culture, in art, in society, even in the church? People often do not trust the external, contrasting it with the internal. Sometimes this is justified, it happens, you and I know this too well. But in the normal case it can be just the opposite. And the famous line from the Gospel, which tells us that the same Lord created both the external and the internal, seems to put our rationalistic mind, our worldly mind in its place. It is very important for us to remember that the spirit creates a form for itself, and in this regard, it is very important that the Holy Spirit also created a form for itself - a form for the incarnation of God's Word - and Man became this form of incarnation. Not an angel, not a beast, not some mineral or crystal - no, Man. Our great mystical thinkers tell us what this means - which means that man is God-like, and God is human-like.

It is not so easy for us to understand this seemingly simple truth. If we still, at the very least, perceive the fact that man carries within himself the Divine image and the desire to become like God, if we are already accustomed to accepting this at least with our minds, then our hearts often do not respond here - not because there is some kind of untruth in this, but only because our heart does not know what to do with this truth, how a person can be likened to God. Therefore, when reading the Gospel, we try to quickly read those lines where Christ reminds those listening to His words of Scripture: “You are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High.” We often don’t understand this because it seems cut off from the earth, from history, from our modern realities of life, although, if you think about it, where can it be more specific? Just recently, in Soviet times, so much such godlikeness was revealed on our long-suffering land, when people exceeded all their human abilities and potentials, when they truly demonstrated miracles of Divine love and self-sacrifice. Maybe not all, far from all, but there were many of them. And there is still a lot we don’t know here. We only hope that the Soviet archives will be opened and that we will learn more about it, because for us this experience is priceless.

And thinking about this, we cannot help but wonder how we ourselves can become godlike. After all, very often we lose it; it seems impossible to us. And who in our time will boast that he has found God in himself so much that he himself has become like the sun shining with Divine rays? Here is St. Paisiy Velichkovsky - yes, he lived like that. Etc. Tikhon of Zadonsk, and Seraphim of Sarov, and the Optina elders, and many others. What do we have to do with it?

The Nativity Fast should help us find the answer to this question. You can’t answer it in one moment, in one day. You need to experience something yourself, you need to go through some invisible line, you need to see the invisible light, you need to learn to distinguish between light and shadow, a worthy form, created by the Holy Spirit, smelted by His fire, and an unworthy form, desecrating man and the world.

Of course, it is more difficult for us to think about the human-likeness of God, because God was human-like even before the creation of the world and man. Therefore, He could accept into Himself the incarnate Christ, His already incarnate Word, without His disincarnation. In Christianity, each person is elevated by his calling above all creation, above all spiritual, mental and material entities, above - as they used to say - all angelic and archangelic powers and armies. A person always has a special calling, but even Christians themselves often forgot about this, as they still do, and therefore do not feel the personality, the radiance of the divine face in themselves, in other words, the illumination of a person’s face with the divine Light at his birth as a person. After all, a person is not born as a person; he becomes a person only when he is accepted by God as His creation. You and I need to think about all this, dear brothers and sisters, now, during the upcoming Nativity Fast.

This is also appropriate for the catechumens, those who are preparing for baptism, because, as you see, again many people have come to ask the same ancient spiritual questions about how to live in a Divine, and therefore human, way. There are more and more young people in the groups that are being announced; there are almost no older people there anymore. Something is changing in our lives...

Let us not, dear brothers and sisters, let this time of the Nativity Fast pass fruitlessly, let it not simply turn into a change of diet, a healthy restriction in food. Let's remember that the Nativity Fast was born from the oldest church tradition - to baptize people at Christmas, on Epiphany. The ancient church did not baptize whenever it pleased, as often happens now, but baptized on Easter or on Epiphany, or on the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, on the day of the Holy Trinity. It was for the sake of preparation for baptism that this seven-week Nativity fast was established. And the rest of the church members only joined the fasting catechumens, enlightened people seeking baptism. They repented of their previous sins, delved into the mysteries of the Incarnation and their great calling, and the whole church joined them, empathizing and sympathizing with them, extending a helping hand to them. Let us not forget, dear brothers and sisters, that in every person who joins the Church, Christ is incarnated in a new way and continues to live, as in one of the members of His Body, alive and imbued with the Spirit. Let us remember this mutual responsibility of ours for each other.

Unfortunately, as I said, Christians have often forgotten this throughout history. And in our country, with its vast expanses, they very often did not appreciate the face of another person, did not appreciate his personality, his freedom, his love, often did not honor the other person as the image of God, as a living icon of God. And from this a lot of different troubles happened and are happening. That is why so many people lose themselves and go not to God, not restoring themselves in Christ, but destroying themselves and others. We often underestimate the processes that take place in modern society and in the church; we cannot give them a spiritual, anthropological assessment. We do not understand how terrible the consequences of the anthropological catastrophe that occurred in our country in the 20th century are still for all of us. It seems to us that if we personally have nothing to do with it, then it does not concern us. But that's not true.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, as we spend the wonderful days of the Nativity Fast, which directs us to the holiday of Christmas and then Epiphany, let us remember this mystery of Christ’s Incarnation. Let us remember how God looks at each of us, and our own responsibility for this. Will God find us as His own or will He look and say: no, I don’t know this creature? Let us, dear brothers and sisters, spend the fast not just in spiritual joy, as Christians should spend every fast, but let us delve into the mystery of the incarnation of the spirit. Let us not neglect the external form of our life, for where there are no boundaries - and therefore no form - there is no responsibility. And we are all fed up and even fed up with irresponsibility. We will correct and restore what has been lost, like restoration artists who can restore and see what should be in a given image, although now it looks different. Let us try to carry within us a perfect spirit, but also a perfect form corresponding to this spirit. Let us appreciate every manifestation of goodness and beauty in this world, which is from God, because these phenomena are born during the incarnation of the spirit. There is too little goodness and beauty in our lives, although there is a lot of talk about them. Let us remember that every ugliness, everything inappropriate, unkind, everything that is not from God - all this cannot be present in us, in our heart, in our life, starting from its most sublime moments to the simplest, everyday, everyday Christianity has talked a lot about purification for centuries. So, cleansing a person’s heart, mind and body is bringing him to a worthy form of life, to a worthy form of embodiment of the spirit. Let us take care of this, dear brothers and sisters. And let us remember that this is a task that is impossible for an individual, possible for a community as a spiritual family, possible for a brotherhood built on the law of brotherly love.

And if we do not forget about this, if we change at least something in ourselves and around us during these forty days of the Nativity Fast, then we will not spend the fast in vain. If not, then fasting will not do us any good. This needs to be told to children, this needs to be reminded to ourselves, this needs to be told even to old people, to whom no one has almost certainly told this at one time.

May the light of Christ's Resurrection and all the saints, may the joy of the revelation of the mystery of God's incarnation appear as a bright ray in our lives! And may each of us feel all the warmth, joy, and love from the radiance of this light!

Amen.