Why the Icon is not a Religious Picture

Leonardo Davinci's Religious Picture of Christ

Rembrandt's Religious Picture of Christ

Traditional Protestant Religious Picture of Christ

Latin Religious Picture of Christ (Sacred Heart)

Modern "reconstructive" Religious Picture of Christ



Orthodox Icon of Christ



religious picture is an altogether different thing from a liturgical icon. The one is the creation of someone’s artistic talent, the other the flower and reflection of liturgical life. The one is of this world. It speaks of this world and leaves you in this world. The other brings you a simple, peaceful and life-giving message, coming down from above. It speaks to you of something which has gone beyond the categories of yesterday and today, here and there, mine and thine. It addresses itself to human nature universally, to man’s thirst for something beyond. Through the icon, an everlasting and unchanging reality speaks without words; a reality which, in the clarity of silence and in tranquillity, raises up from the deepest level that which unites everything in man.

If the icon spoke a different language, it would torment man. If it relied on historical accuracy, it would merely be saying to us: You did not have the luck to be there then and see these events as those who crucified the Lord saw them.

If the icon depicted Christ suffering in pain on the Cross like a condemned man and rejoicing in the Resurrection, it would has us prey to the vicissitudes that lead to death, in the thrall of our passions. It would not give us anything beyond what we already had ourselves.

If an icon depicted night and day in romantic shades, it would leave us in the prison of the created world which we have come to know so well since the fall. If it feared the night, if it could be obscured by natural darkness, then we should be in the position of the unbaptised; we should fear death, and death would cut short our hope in life. We should remain in the territory of death.

If the icon used perspective it would put us, in a harsh but polite manner, outside Paradise and outside immediate participation in this world, like the foolish virgins; instead of our being partakers in the Wedding, it would throw us out into the darkness and cold of objective vision, into deception.

In other words, if the icon remained on the level of a religious picture, when it spoke to us of the fact of salvation it would merely be offering us and artistic diversion to make us forget, if possible, the prison and the territory of death. It would be a mockery.

As it is, it is Deliverance. The icon is not a representation of events. It is not an idol that has been manufactured; it is Grace incarnate, a presence and an offering of life and holiness.

Archimandrite Vasileios, Hymn of Entry pp. 81, 88-89.

the sea by Giannis Markopoulos

Listen to the entire piece, you will not regret it!

Iconoclasts: Orthodoxy's "Conservatives" by Christos Yannaras

I will attempt to show that iconoclasts are always the "conservatives" of Orthodoxy.

Their stumbling block is the scandal of the persona. An icon (image) is the verification of a person - the verification of freedom.  It is not a coincidence that the historical starting point of the Iconomachy is Monotheletism and its champion the emperor Philippikos-Vardanis (711-713). The Monotheletes denied the distinction between volition and person; in other words, they refused to separate the person from nature. Human nature is one and it is common to all, whereas human beings are "myriads" and dissimilar to each other. Volition is the work of nature, whereas freedom, as opposed to volition, is ascribed to the person; it is the verification of the person.  Volition pertains to the physical individual, whereas freedom is linked to the human person.

Distinguishing is of extreme importance to us.  Man realizes his personal hypostasis, when he denies his physical volition - that is, when he ceases to be an individual, a physical self-awareness which projects his individual nature as an "I" in others' natures.  Individualism is the confusing of nature and person; it is the fragmenting of nature, which is attributed entirely to corruption through sin.  We determine the human person by his individual, physical characteristics, while his person remains inaccessible to any natural determination whatsoever - unique, incomparable and dissimilar, containing the entirety of his nature and constituting a separate and unprecedented possibility of being a depiction of God.

The iconoclasts would ask the defenders of Icons which of the two natures of Christ were being portrayed - the divine or the human.  And Saint Theodore the Studite replied that "in everyone who is depicted, it is not the (Trns.note:physical) nature, but the hypostasis that is depicted."  This means that Orthodox hagiography does not aspire to portray individual natures; it only depicts the "event" of that person. It does not seek to symbolize the person of the Holy Mother by resorting to the features of a contemporary young woman; it strictly confirms the presence among us of a Virgin and a Mother of God.  The character of hagiography is therefore neither a symbolic nor a relative one; it is an admission and a certification of facts.

This distinguishing between the image of things and the shadow of things is found in the Epistle to Hebrews: "...for the Law is but the shadow of future things, and not the image itself of those things" (Hebr.10:1).  It is only within this ontological content that we can perceive Man as an "image of God" (Genesis 1:26). Man is a depiction of God, not per nature (ie proportionately and symbolically), but as a distinction between nature and person; that is, between "actually" and "ontologically".  The first meaning of "icon" (image) - the proportionate and symbolic one - is of Hellenic origin. The second meaning is the meaning per the Bible and Judean tradition.

The Septuagint fathers had rendered the Hebrew word "chelem" as meaning "image", which is interpreted (on the basis of paleo-Judean and Babylonian sources) as "appearance", "representation", "equivalence", "substitute".  At the same time, it also has the meaning of creative depiction - of a dimensional representative presence.  It is characteristic, that in passages of the Old Testament and the New Testament, the meaning of "icon" is linked to (or interpreted with) the meaning of "glory" - with the corresponding Hebrew word that implies something objectively supreme, which is offered to Man as an immediate sensation and empirical knowledge.  It is the appearance and the manifestation of the holiness of Jahwe, which is usually perceived as "light" and as "power".

It is in this sense that Christ is likewise the "image of God the invisible" (2 Cor.4:4 and Colos.1:14); in other words, the appearance of God, the manifestation of God.  And Christians are called upon to become "of similar form to the image of the Son of God" (Rom.8:29).  With our natural (physical) birth, we "donned the earthen image", which does not cease to be the image of our Creator God, despite all the confusion between individual nature and the persona.  With our spiritual rebirth "we shall also don the image of the celestial" (1 Cor.15:49); in other words, we shall be rendered a form of "God's likeness" - the appearance and the manifestation of God.  In this verse, the future tense of the verb (shall) refers us to the eschatological end, - which should not be understood as referring only to Time, given that the "eschaton" (final) is in reference to the major accomplishment of the Church - but rather it refers us to the form of the "new man", the one who is "renewed with the conscience of being the image of the one who created him" (Colos. 3:10)

This renewal - with conscience - into the image of,  pertains to the Church's presence and comprises the "manifestation" of the children of God, the fullness of humanity's destination.  The consciousness of God leads to the revelation of the human person; Man fulfils his personal hypostasis within the event of being the "image of God".  "Never until now  has it been revealed what we shall be like.  We do know, that if it is revealed, we shall be alike to Him, for we shall be seeing Him the way He is" (Ούπω εφανερώθη τι εσόμεθα. Οίδαμεν δε ότι εάν φανερωθή όμοιοι αυτώ εσόμεθα, ότι οψόμεθα αυτόν καθώς εστιν) (1 John 3:2). Within the realm (the 'Kingdom'), the cognizance of God is not a relative and metaphysical one; it is not a knowledge "about God", but rather a direct view - a depiction of the personal God in the human person.  Man becomes "the place of God" - the appearance and the manifestation of God. "All of us, with our persons revealed and reflecting the glory of God, are transformed into that same image, from glory to glory, as by the spirit of the Lord." (Ημείς πάντες ανακεκαλυμμένω προσώπω την δόξαν Κυρίου κατοπτριζόμενοι την αυτήν εικόνα μεταμορφούμεθα από δόξης εις δόξαν, καθάπερ από Κυρίου πνεύματος. (2 Cor. 3:18).

And that is the scandal for the Iconoclasts. This ontology of the icon/image is unfathomable to them, and that is why they prefer the path of emulation: 'We need to resemble Christ'... These are the moralists. They appeared in History as revolutionaries and radicals, tearing down the "forms" and the "images" for the sake of promoting the pure truth of the word. Iconoclastically speaking, these are all pietistic movements within the bosom of the Church. Conscious or unconscious ones.  They usually appear for the purpose of restoring disturbed moral order, and they have an a priori disdain for the lay respect of forms and symbols.  They seek to replace formal religiosity with the "essence" of moral consequence.  They deny the image for the sake of the word.  To resemble Christ means to mimic Him in His specific moral virtues; it is something that can be controlled with one's logic. But to actually comprise the image of God - the revealing and manifestation of God - well, that is a leap that is impossible to perform with the crutches of iconoclast logic.  It presupposes a forsaking of the word and the acceptance of the whole man as an instrument for approaching the truth.

Then there is the scandal called 'freedom'.  Emulation requires subordination; depiction presupposes dialogue in the person. And dialogue means the undertaking of an extreme responsibility, which cannot be shared with any spiritual authority.  Iconoclasts deny the icon/image, because they find it impossible to grasp its ontological content, the certainty of the person's presence and the immediate potential for dialogue with the depicted person.  They are only familiar with individual natures, which, when depicted, cannot portray their morally perfected character, which is why their depiction is considered redundant.  If there is ever going to be a compromise with conjectural representation, it will lead to the acceptance, not of images, but of religious art, because of its ability to subject one sentimentally and facilitate the accomplishment of a moral obligation.

At best, religious art is a form of learning, a reference to the past life of the persons being portrayed. However, an Icon is always the Church's expression of certainty of the immediate presence of those who are "already perfected" - the testifying and the experiencing of a community of the living and the reposed.

"For where the imprint is, there he (the depicted one) also is" (Ένθα γαρ αν ή το σημείον, εκεί και αυτός έσται), says Saint John of Damascus. And elsewhere he supplements: "The Apostles had seen the Lord with their corporeal eyes, and the Apostles were seen by others, and the martyrs by others. It is my desire to also behold them, with my soul and with my eyes... because, being a human and having a body, it is my desire to likewise address and behold holy things corporeally. " (Είδον οι απόστολοι τον Κύριον σωματικοίς οφθαλμοίς, και τους αποστόλους έτεροι, και τους μάρτυρας έτεροι. Ποθώ καγώ τούτους οράν ψυχή τε και σώματι… επεί άνθρωπός ειμι, και σώμα περίκειμαι, ποθώ και σωματικώς ομιλείν, και οράν τα άγια.

And it is also a characteristic fact that while religious art is almost always naturalistic (ie, it depicts only individual natures), hagiography sees objects complete with soul and body and it portrays their form as already glorified bodies: that certainty about the person which relates overall to the entire body and has no need for natural beauty in order to be "actually" revealed.

In other words, iconography is the denial of moralistic models, the denial of relative teaching for the sake of the person alone.  The "fact" of the person is a moral risking, as it presupposes dialogue with God, ie, an awareness of God's absence (which we call repentance), with a previous awareness of sinfulness.  This is where the scandal called 'freedom' is located, which is why monasticism - that incessant grieving during one's repentance - is incomprehensible to iconoclasts, from the time of the Iconomachy through to this day.

Thirdly, it is the scandal of materialism, of matter.

Iconoclasts seek spiritual worship; they are forever wary of the danger of idols. This is yet another consequence of the denial of the person, because the human person is the hypostatic "blending" and "adjoining" of matter and spirit. Man comprises an image of God in precisely such an overall synthesis.

Says Saint Gregory Palamas: "Not the soul alone, nor the body alone is called Man, but both of them together, which, having also been made as an image of God, must be thus called" (Μη αν ψυχήν μόνην, μήτε σώμα μόνον λέγεσθαι άνθρωπον, αλλά το συναμφότερον, ον δη και κατ’ εικόνα πεποιηκέναι Θεός λέγεται). The discerning between matter and spirit in Man portrays the discerning between the Essence and the Energies in God - that ineffable reality of the world's animation by the Grace of God. That is why the defenders of holy Icons would use the teaching of Saint Maximus the Confessor and Dionysios the Areopagite in order to envisage the image of God within natural reality overall; that effusion of uncreated Grace, which is the fulfiller of the overall function of the Logos within the material and spiritual universe. The cosmos constitutes an image of God, precisely because it is the manifestation and appearance of His uncreated energies.

This potential of an "actual" depiction of Godhood in matter is restored, by the rescinding of the natural division between created nature and the uncreated God in the Person of Jesus Christ.  That is why Saint John of Damascus would proclaim: «In the past, God - the uncreated and unformed - was in no way depicted. Now, having seen God in the flesh and mingling with people, I depict the visible aspect of God. I do not worship through matter; I do worship the Creator of matter, Who became matter for my sake and Who condescended to reside within matter, and Who forged my salvation through matter, and I shall not cease to respect matter, through which my salvation was forged.» (Πάλαι μεν ο Θεός, ο ασώματός τε και ασχημάτιστος, ουδαμώς εικονίζετο. Νυν δε σαρκί οφθέντος Θεού, και τοις ανθρώποις συναναστραφέντος, εικονίζω Θεού το ορώμενον. Ου προσκυνώ τη ύλη, προσκυνώ δε τον της ύλης δημιουργόν τον ύλην δι’ εμέ γενόμενον, και εν ύλη κατοικήσαι καταδεξάμενον, και δι’ ύλης την σωτηρίαν μου εργασάμενον, και σέβων ου παύσομαι τη ύλη, δι’ ης η σωτηρία μου είργασται).

Being opposed to this overall perception of salvation, iconoclasts are forever dualists. They show disbelief in the body; they locate the origin of sin in material nature alone; they determine spirituality by means of rationalistic notions of a formal idealism, and they deprive it of all participation in the truth of personal beauty. They deny the body, and yet their fear of it follows them and infects their life with subconscious complexes.  They surrender to marriage as though to a loveless compromise with the flesh; human and divine love (Eros) are both entirely incomprehensible to them. There is no mystical life to iconoclasts; only mimicry and self-discipline. They exorcise moral corruption in society by creating followers, on which they militarily impose uniform ways of life, thought, and even external appearance.

It is not symptomatic that Orthodoxy recognizes a triumph of hers in the reinstatement of holy Icons. An Icon is the measure and the criterion of the Orthodox phronema-conscience and experience; it is the immediate and tangible testimony of the faith of the Orthodox regarding Man, Salvation and the world.

Source: Magazine "SYNORO", Issue No.36, 1965
Source of Translation: http://www.oodegr.com/english/ekklisia/praktikes/iconoclasts1.htm

The "Christomonism" of the West and the Spirit Conditioned Christology of the East

The following is from the notes that were taken from the lectures of Professor I. Zizioulas (current Metropolitan of Pergamus and Chairman of the Athens Academy) at the Poemantic Division of the Thessaloniki University’s School of Theology, during the academic year 1984-1985.

In Western theology, one observes a tendency to over-accentuate Christology, to the detriment of Pneumatology (matters of the Holy Spirit), and this of course affects Ecclesiology.  This preference is attributed to the fact that Christology is chiefly preoccupied with historical realities: the Incarnation, the life of Christ, etc., and Western thought is inclined, as we have said, to focus on History.  The Holy Spirit, Pneumatology, on the other hand, is the opposite. The role of the Holy Spirit in Providence was to liberate the Son from the bonds of History, because the incarnated Son took upon Himself all of the consequences of man’s Fall: He became Adam and entered History with the negative aspect that the Fall bestowed upon it. He entered the History of Time and Space - the Son of God was born in Nazareth of Palestine; He was born during the rule of Caesar Augustus, during a specific point in Time; He was crucified during the time of Pontius Pilate, etc. In other words, He partook of History in exactly the same manner that we do, and He became a part of that History.

But History, the way that we are living it, has negative existential consequences, because it carries death inside it. For example, my own history, the way that I am living it, carries inside it the fact that there was a time that I did not exist; that my father used to exist but now no longer exists; that I shall not be alive after a certain number of years. Death is interwoven with historical existence; with Time. Consequently, the Son also entered this status with His Incarnation.

The Spirit did not become incarnate, nor of course did the Father. The Father does nothing but ‘favor’, because He is the source of every ‘gift of God’.  For example, when we say “Thou, the Father of Lights”, as quoted in the prayer that is cited behind the pulpit (which we priests incorrectly cite in front of the icon of Christ). This prayer is addressed to the Father. We must never confuse the Persons, as it is a dogmatic faux pas to do so.  The Father, therefore, has this role; He favors the Incarnation and the coming of the Spirit. The Son is the One Who is incarnated. The Spirit is not incarnated; hence the Spirit does not suffer the consequences of History, which contains decadence and death.  However, the Spirit also has a role; it is not merely that of non-incarnation – the Spirit is the One Who constantly stands by the Son, during the entire period of His Incarnation, in order to liberate Him from the negative consequences of the Incarnation.

We have here a very important fact, which we Orthodox constantly forget.  By assuming human flesh, the Son also assumed death as a part of History, and was crucified and suffered the pain of the Cross and death, however, He was not finally overcome by death; He was not conquered by death, as He overcame it with His Resurrection.  Many people forget that the Resurrection of Christ was accomplished through the Holy Spirit. The Father resurrects the Son, through the Holy Spirit. Instead of this, the idea prevailed that Christ’s divine nature had somehow overcome death.  This is not correct; not biblically (because we have clear testimonies that the Father raised the Son through the Holy Spirit), nor is it correct from the Patristic point of view, because no natures can act on their own; these were ideas that Pope Leo I had introduced in the 4^th Ecumenical Synod – the so-called “reciprocation of the characteristics of natures” – but Cyril had insisted more on the hypostatic union.  Whatever occurs in Christology is a matter of persons, and is not simply a matter of natures.

Thus, we should not forget that the Spirit has a significant role in Christology and that role is precisely to be at the side of the Son, during that adventure called Incarnation; He is at the Son’s side in the desert, when He goes to fast. He stands by Him in the garden of Gethsemane, where He is to make His decision. It is not by coincidence that the Spirit accompanies the Son in all of these instances. The major role that the Spirit has is, precisely, to provide the opening for History to move towards End Times; to free History from the limitations of the created. This is why the Spirit is also linked to Theosis as the perfection of the created. When the boundaries of the created and of death are transcended, then the Spirit is present and is in fact playing a main role. However, because the Spirit is not connected to History, i.e., it is not the Spirit Who leads Christ into submission to History, but on the contrary, it is the Spirit Who causes Him to be released from the clutches of History, then, when one has historically-based tendencies like the Westerners have (since they tend to see everything unilaterally, through the prism of History), it is to be expected that they will find something that interests them more, only in Christology.  And this is why they developed Pneumatology (matters pertaining to the Spirit) in retrospect; or, to be more correct, when they eventually developed Pneumatology, they did not connect it organically to Christology.  One of the basic repercussions this had on Ecclesiology was that they regarded the Church as a historical reality – i.e., the Body of Christ, in which, however, the role of the Holy Spirit is somehow only a decorative one.  This is like building the edifice of the Church with Christological material - a Body of Christ, a historical community which has its given form in the past – and then placing inside it the Holy Spirit to act. This is not a placing of the Holy Spirit in the very foundations of the Church and regarding that the Spirit is the One Who builds the Church. (This is within the basis of the Church). Thus, we have a deviation and a preference in Western theology, always towards Christology and at times towards Christomonism, i.e. the stressing of Christ only, while overlooking the Holy Spirit.

Consequently, when we refer to “Western theology” we must always bear in mind that, along with the over-accentuation of History, we also have an over-accentuation of Christology, to the detriment of Pneumatology.  Pneumatology at times has a secondary and decorative role. With Roman Catholics, this becomes apparent in their Ecclesiology, inasmuch as they overstress historical succession and the historical privileges of the hierarchy.  Their overall Ecclesiology, the Papist one, with the idea of a Pope at its center, is justified precisely by means of the argument of historical privileges.  They assume that the Pope has a historical succession that goes as far back as Saint Peter. This is of immense importance to them; if they can prove the historical succession, the historical link, then the Ecclesiological argument is definitely a convincing one for them. From an Orthodox viewpoint, this is not enough.  Even if it could be proved (and it cannot be), it would still not be enough, because for us, the Church is not merely a society that is perpetuated throughout Time historically; it is the charismatic element that permeates Her foundations and Her institutions.  Consequently, in our relations with Western theology, we have –and must always have- this issue in mind:  How do we synthesize Christology with Pneumatology properly in Ecclesiology?

By giving precedence to Christology, Western theology created the following situation as regards the Church: the Church basically became the Body of Christ for Roman Catholics. For the Protestants, it became a community that follows Christ and His teaching and listens to His word, the Gospel.  This creates a “long-distance relationship”, one could say.  The Head and the Body do not coincide; they do not fully connect, because the Holy Spirit was not introduced from the very first moment, to create that communion which liberates beings from the limitations of the individual.  The Holy Spirit creates persons, He creates a community.  When we place Pneumatology at the base of Christology, then we do not have Christ first, with a group that follows behind Him; instead, we have Christ as a Person that embraces all of us within Him.  The Church, therefore, is formed in this way: it is a community that has its identity, not in Herself but in Christ Himself, because She is so closely tied to Christ that one cannot refer to Her being, without a reference to Christ.  Thus, for example, we Orthodox speak of the sanctity of the Church; that sanctity is found in Her very nature, Her very being. Why?  Well, where does the Church draw this sanctity from? The answer is given in the Divine Liturgy, every time we cite: “The sanctified (gifts) unto the saints” …. “One is Holy, One is the Lord, Jesus Christ”.  The “saints”, to whom the sanctified gifts are given, are the members of the community.  The members of the community are sinful; and yet, they are addressed as “saints”; however, by being fully conscious that they are not per se holy, they respond with the words “One is Holy – Jesus Christ”.

source: http://www.oodegr.com/english/dogmatiki1/F3b.htm

The Role of the Holy Spirit in Salvation by Metropolitan John Zizioulas

In very broad terms, everything in Providence begins from the Father and everything returns to the Father. And the Church, as I also mentioned previously, was likewise “willed” by the Father.  The Person that wills in the Holy Trinity – the One Who commenced everything – was the Father.  So, the Father willed the Church. What does this imply? That the Father willed to unite the created to the Uncreated; to unite His world with His self. And not to unite it simply and at random, but to unite it in His Only-begotten Son. This was how the Father favored things to be. The Father favored the world to arrive at an eternal communion, so that it would be able to live, otherwise, Creation would have been unable to live on its own – to arrive at a communion with God Himself, and in His Son.  Therefore, the initiative for the existence of the Church is the Father’s.

Of course the Son and the Holy Spirit are also in favor of this, however, in saying this, we must not lose sight of the delicate distinction that it is one thing to co-favor something, and an entirely different thing, to have the initiative in favoring something. It is a very delicate, but also a very important distinction that exists between the roles –so to speak- of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. In other words, when referring to this “volition”, this “favoring”, we are in fact observing a certain movement taking place in the Holy Trinity: there is nothing static within the Holy Trinity, so that the volitions of the three persons would simultaneously (from the aspect of their eternicity) have to make their appearance, or relate to each other without discrimination. The Father favors; the Son and the Spirit co-favor. In other words, they say “yes”. There is a “yes” inside the Holy Trinity – a dialogue. The Son consents – let’s call it that --; He too favors; He co-favors, to be the one “in Whom” this favoring of the Father (for the union of the created to the Uncreated) will be realized.

The role therefore of the Son, His particular contribution, is: firstly, to acquiesce freely to the favoring of the Father and secondly, to become Himself the focal point, the center, upon which this union of created and Uncreated is to be realized. In other words, the union of the created to the Uncreated will NOT be realized with the Father as the focal point, nor will it be realized “in the Father”.  Creation will not be saved “in the Father”. The salvation of Creation does, of course, eventually end up with the Father; it will report to the Father, but only “in the Son.”

The Holy Spirit likewise has a particular contribution: to ensure that the incorporation of Creation “in the Son” is rendered possible, by offering with His presence the ability for Creation to open up – to open itself – to its incorporation “in the Son”.  Because Creation cannot on its own communicate with God, on account of its natural limitations and not only on account of its Fall, which entails a reaction towards God and hinders the incorporation “in the Son”. Creation has to overcome its boundaries; a finite thing cannot be a part of the infinite, if its boundaries aren’t transcended. Thus, neither is the Holy Spirit the one “in Whom” Creation will be united, nor is the Father. It is only the Son. This is why this entire plan, this whole “Providence” as we call it, is realized “in the Son”, and it is the Providence of the Son, of Christ. Of course the Son does not act without the presence of the Father and the Holy Spirit, but we mustn’t confuse the roles of each person.

The Church is located within this Triadic plan, where the Father favors, the Son is the One Who offers Himself so that Creation can become incorporated and be able to have a relationship with the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the One Who liberates Creation from its limitations, from the restrictions of being created.

Source: http://www.oodegr.com/english/dogmatiki1/F2c.htm

The Gospel, Acts of the Apostles, and the Synaxarion

O Theanthropos

Saint Justin Popovich once said:

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

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

And what are the "Lives of the Saints"? They are nothing else but a certain kind of continuation of the "Acts of the Apostles." In them is found the same Gospel, the same life, the same truth, the same righteousness, the same love, the same faith, the same eternity, the same "power from on high," the same God and Lord. For "the Lord Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever" (Heb. 13: 8): the same for all people of all times, distributing the same gifts and the same Divine energies to all who believe in Him. This continuation of all life-creating Divine energies in the Church of Christ from ages to ages and from generation to generation indeed constitutes living Holy Tradition. This Holy Tradition is continued without interruption as the life of Grace in all Christians, in whom through the holy mysteries and the holy virtues, Jesus Christ lives by His Grace. He is wholly present in His Church, for She is His fullness: "the fullness of Him who filleth all in all" (Eph. 1: 23). And the God-man Christ is the all-perfect fullness of the Godhead: "for in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2: 4). And Christians must, with the help of the holy mysteries and the holy virtues, fill themselves with "all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3: 19).

The Lives of the Saints show forth those persons filled with Christ God, those Christ-bearing persons, those holy persons in whom is preserved and through whom is transmitted the holy tradition of that holy grace-filled life. It is preserved and transmitted by means of holy evangelical living. For the lives of the saints are holy evangelical truths which are translated into our human life by grace and podvigs (asceticism). There is no evangelical truth which cannot be transformed into human life. They were all brought by Christ God for one purpose: to become our life, our reality, our possession, our joy. And the saints, all, without exception, live these Divine truths as the center of their lives and the essence of their being. For this reason the "Lives" of the Saints are a proof and a testimony: that our origin is in heaven; that we are not from this world but from that one; that a man is a true man only in God; that on earth one lives by heaven; that "our conversation is in heaven" (Phillip. 3: 20); that our task is to make ourselves heavenly, feeding ourselves with the "heavenly bread" which came down to earth. [16] And He came down to feed us with eternal Divine truth, eternal Divine good, eternal Divine righteousness, eternal Divine love, eternal Divine life through Holy Communion, through living in the one true God and Lord Jesus Christ. [17]

In other words, our vocation is to fill ourselves with the Lord Christ, with His Divine life-creating energies, to live in Christ and to make ourselves christs. If you set about this you are already in heaven although you walk on earth; you are already wholly in God even though your being has remained within the limits of human nature. The man who makes himself a christ surpasses himself, as man, by God, by the God-man, in Whom is given the perfect image of the true, real whole man in the image of God; and in Him are also given the all-vanquishing Divine energies, by the help of which man raises himself above every sin, above every death, above every hell; and this he does by the Church and in the Church, which all the powers of hell cannot overcome, because in Her is the whole wondrous God-man the Lord Christ, with all His Divine energies, His truths, His realities, His perfections, His lives, His eternities.

Prayer of the Spirit By Fr. Sophrony

Misfortune in the shape of reduced circumstances, illness or the death of a loved one often drives people to prayer. But if the situation alters for the better, not only does their impulse to pray abate- prayer itself may seem pointless. But there is a different kind of prayer, prayer of the spirit, fastened on eternity, and here no external well-being can heal the sufferings of the soul who sees herself falling short of the sought-for eternal. Then prayer becomes the normal state for the soul, and the grace of the Holy Spirit may visit her, suddenly, inscrutably, bringing a foretaste of eternity. For this visitation integrity and faithfulness are the essential prerequisites. I have before me a remarkable document, a letter from a former rabbi.

‘Why did I, a former rabbi, become a Christian?’ he writes. ‘The question sounds strange in my ears. Did I, of myself, become a Christian, following a plan, a purpose, after due consideration? No, the grace of God made me Christian. My conversion is a mystery to me before which I bow my head in awe. It was the Holy Spirit, He alone transfigured me. When I accepted Christ the laws of Deuteronomy ceased to be a means of drawing near to God…I feel myself all the time filled through and through with Divine love. Of a sudden, unexpectedly, independently of any effort of mine, light shone upon me- the light that in the old days when I was a devout Jew was only a far-off glimmer. All at once I beheld in myself the Holy One, the Mystery of Mysteries and yet the clearest of all that is clear… As for religious ethics, they are much the same in Judaism as in Christianity: the commandments concerning morals are often expressed in identical terms. In practice, however, they differ vitally. The Christian ethic is given from on High, by the Holy Spirit, Who came to us only after Christ’s resurrection. It is the same Spirit that pious Jews dream of to this day: they feel Him, see Him, but only from afar. But the true Christian lives in the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit captivates even our body with the sweetest love, liberating it from thralldom to the passions until the body itself longs to dissolve in the Spirit. And so it was not I of myself who became Christian- it was God Who sent down the grace of the Holy Spirit and made me so…The Spirit reposes within the true Christian and encircles him round about. And all this happens through faith in Christ. This is the process: faith attracts the Holy Spirit, while the Holy Spirit strengthens faith, cares for you, sustains you, encourages your ardent desire for the Kingdom of God…To those who have not yet savored true grace, my words will be unintelligible. The process of true conversion cannot be described or explained: it is something that the eye cannot see, that the ear cannot hear. Filled with Christian sentiments, I heard my soul speaking within me, telling me of my new birth in Christ; but she spoke in the language of silence which I cannot find words for. I do know, though, that my soul sang a new song, a sweet song of love which lifted the power of the past from me. And this song transfigured me and gave birth in me to a new will, to new yearnings. Now I am as it were in love with Christ, and, you know, a man in love with Christ has no desire to philosophize. He only wants one thing- to love for all eternity. Do you want to understand? Would you like to experience the grace of Christ? Then seek this grace from Him Who can bestow it. If it seems that it is not for you, since you cannot believe, my advice is to set your heart on believing and you will be able to believe. Through faith you arrive at faith. Persist in wishing for faith and it will be granted to you. When I was a Jew I, too, had God and knew it. But it was a God Whose attitude changed according to man’s conduct. But through Christ, through the Holy Messiah and Son of God, I was led into the sphere of unconditional, steadfast Divine love. This can only be understood if you already live in grace. Christianity is the richest of treasures equal to satisfying each and every soul.  ‘In Christ is Truth, to which the Holy Spirit bears witness. And all who believe heed His testimony.’

I have quoted this triumphant cry of a soul who found the Christ-God because, though many have had a similar experience, few find words to express the well-nigh inexpressible.

The Holy Spirit comes when we are receptive. He does not compel. He approaches so meekly that we may not even notice. If we would know the Holy Spirit we need to examine ourselves in the light of the Gospel teaching, to detect any other presence which may prevent the Holy Spirit from entering into our souls. We must now wait for God to force Himself on us without our consent. God respects and does not constrain man. It is amazing how God humbles Himself before us. He loves us with a tender love, not haughtily, not with condescension. And when we open our hearts to Him we are overwhelmed by the conviction that He is indeed our Father. The soul then worships in love.

St Gregory of Sinai goes so far as to say that prayer is God Himself acting in us. ‘Do Thou Thyself pray in me,’ was the constant appeal of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow in the last century. We also have the witness of St Paul: ‘And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father’ (Gal. 4,6).

Fired by the vision of our high calling, we strain to accomplish our purpose – our yearning for Divine Love to dwell in us forever. Without this preliminary rapture of faith, without this fervent reaching towards the loving God Who continually inspires us, we cannot help falling beneath the massive pressure of the contemporary world which does not know prayer.

Life-giving faith consists in unquestioning belief in Christ as God. Only when Christ is accepted as perfect God and perfect Man does the plenitude of spiritual experience described by the apostles and fathers become possible. Christ is now the cornerstone on which we must construct our entire life, both temporal and eternal. The nature of the gifts which such faith entrains declares their supernal provenance.
The Lord said: ‘But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and when thou hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly’ (Matt. 6.6). True prayer operates in our innermost depths which we learn to hide from outside eyes. If I now venture to touch on matters sacred for each of us, I am urged to do so by the tragic atmosphere of tension throughout the world, and, more especially, by my consciousness that we belong together in Christ. Let us, therefore, as true brethren, share what it has been given us to know by a gift from on High. (I would ask you to pray as you read, as I pray God to inspire me with words pleasing to Him.)

Christ gave us the word that He had received from the Father (cf. John 17.14). He spoke of Himself as the stone which will break all who fall on it and will grind to powder those on whom it falls (cf. Matt. 21.44). What then? Is it we who have fallen on this great and wondrous stone, or has the stone fallen on us? We do not know. But however that may be, we are precipitated into a world of realities whose existence we did not suspect before. In the old days when life for the majority flowed in the broad channels of established tradition, the word of Christ was so presented as not to disturb. But now, with the whole earth full fraught with man’s despair, with the protest of consciences outraged, with violence threatening to wipe out all life, we must make our voices heard. In our present peril decorous words which commit us to nothing are not enough. All of us today are in vital need of a firm faith in Christ’s eternal victory, that we, too, may become spiritually invincible. A very great deal depends on ourselves – to remember, for instance, that at the baptismal font we received new birth from on High, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Those who are baptized ‘with the Holy Ghost and with fire’ (Luke 3.16) perceive in their prayer that every given moment of our life is enveloped in Divine eternity. At all times and in all places we are held in the invisible Hand of our Heavenly Father.