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Reverend Ioann Barbus |
DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS!
We are glad to welcome you to the official website of the
Transfiguration of our Lord Russian Orthodox Church,
located in the city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland,
USA. The church belongs to the original
Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) and has
as its goal the preservation of the spiritual traditions
and the treasure of church services of ancient Russian
Orthodoxy.
We invite you to acquaint yourself with our church and our
parish, to see our small but wondrous iconostasis, to hear
our modest choir. When visiting our online
Orthodox library, you will be able to acquire deeper
knowledge of the Orthodox faith through the
spiritually-enlightening materials that are contained
therein. These materials are printed in our church
bulletins, which are issued monthly in both Russian and
English. You are also very welcome to visit our church in
person.
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View our current schedule of
services.
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With love in Christ,
Reverend Ioann Barbus and the church council. |
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| THE
SACRAMENT OF PENITENCE |
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Homily for the fifth week of Great Lent
And so, dear brethren, we have reached
the fifth Sunday of the Great Lent. Today the Holy
Church offers us St. Mary of Egypt as a supreme
example of repentance. Not everyone is able to
understand why, precisely, the Church has chosen
her. “She led a most sinful life,” - they say, -
“she was a terrible sinner.” But such words can be
said only by those who have not yet come to
understand the sacrament of penitence.
Let us carefully consider this
extraordinary sacrament. Let us first look at how
it is revealed to us in the example of the
venerable Mary. St. Mary of Egypt led a dissolute
way of life. Arriving in Jerusalem, even there she
continued to engage in debauchery. But when she
wanted to go into the church and venerate the
Lord’s precious Cross, she was barred from entering.
Gradually she understood why that was happening and
began weeping bitterly. Catching sight of an icon
of the Mother of God, she prayed to it, repented
her way of life and vowed, under the guidance of
the Holy Virgin, to reform her life.
At first glance it may seem an easy
thing to do. However, let us think, dear brethren:
how many of us have truly repented our sins? The
Church calls us to penitence and communion. And so
we go, and we confess our sins, and we partake of
the Holy Mysteries. But… during confession, do we
truly repent? or do we only list our sins?
It is easy to go to confession. When we
stand before the priest, there is usually a list
of sins available. We can look at it and be
reminded of our sins. An experienced priest will be
able to help us by suggesting possible sins that
we may have committed. At the end of confession
the priest asks us: do we repent of our sins?
Note the question, dear brethren! We are not asked:
have you confessed your sins? But - do you
repent of your sins? And when we answer: yes, I
repent, - we must feel complete remorse in our
hearts and truly repent, repent in the same way
that Mary of Egypt repented her sinful life.
At least once in our lifetime we receive
encouragement towards penitence. Mary of Egypt was
barred from entering the church. She understood the
reason and spent the following 47 years in
penitence. For us the doors of the church are not
closed; however, we close them ourselves. “How is
that?” - you may well ask. - “I go to church, I
confess, I take communion.” Dear brethren! If we,
knowing that a service is going on in church, go
out to amuse ourselves instead, or sit around the
house in idleness, or if we, having taken
communion, immediately begin to pass judgment on
others and commit anew the sins that we have just
confessed, - we close the doors of the church upon
ourselves. Even if we enter the church physically,
our constant and unrepented sins bar from our souls
the grace, the purity, the comfort which we expect
to receive in church.
We must understand the sacrament of
penitence and immerse ourselves fully in it. After
St. Mary of Egypt realized her sins and her guilt,
the Holy Virgin led her out of society into the
desert, where she became completely immersed in
repentance and spent many years in this spiritual
labor. For her absolute repentance, her soul was
totally healed and she ascended to a level of
absolute sanctity. When the venerable Zosimas found
her in the desert, she was waiting for him. She
had become like the angels.
St. Mary actually confessed only three
times in her life: the first time - before the
icon of the Mother of God, when she became aware
of her sins; the second time - in church before
her departure for the desert; and the last time -
to the elder Zosimas, when she recounted her life
to him. But she repented for 47 years. Through her
penitence she so purified her soul, returned both
her soul and her body to such a paradisiacal
state, that she lay dead in the desert for a
whole year, untouched by corruption, or beasts, or
the burning sun, or the windswept sands, and when
the elder Zosimas found her, a lion came out of
the desert and helped bury her. Thus the Lord
Himself glorified her and gave her to us as an
example of supreme repentance.
Five weeks of the Great
Lent have passed already, dear brethren. Let us ask
ourselves: have I begun to repent as Mary of
Egypt once repented? Have I become aware of my
sins? Have I truly understood them and have I
repented of them with a sincere intention of
reforming myself? Let us not come to confession
simply to list our sins, dear brethren, but let us
come and repent of them in all earnestness, let us
purify our hearts, so that we could truly sing: “The angels sing in the heavens of
Thy Resurrection, O Christ our Saviour, and may we
on earth glorify Thee with a pure heart.” Amen.
Father Rostislav Sheniloff
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| ANNUNCIATION
OF THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD |
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The time came for the appearance of Christ the
Saviour in the world. There were no more princes of Judah
left, and the throne of David was occupied by Herod, an
Idumean. The decades foretold by Daniel, which indicated the
exact time when Christ was to be born, had come to pass. The
promise of a Saviour was safeguarded not only among the
chosen people, but the pagans also eagerly awaited the
arrival of a great messenger from heaven. This was like the
early dawn, when the sun had not yet risen, but its
glimmering was already dispersing the darkness.
The glorious event of the Annunciation, as
described by the holy Evangelist Luke, mentions only its
high points. It is very unlikely that the holy Archangel
Gabriel appeared and said only the few words reported to us
by St. Luke. The Evangelist mentions the most important
points, as the entire Gospel generally speaks only of the
most important things, because it is said there that if one
were to write down all that the Lord Jesus Christ said and
did, the whole world could not contain such a vast number of
books.
However, the tradition of the Holy Church, together
with the writings of the Holy Fathers, have provided us with
some additional details of this great event.
In the Holy Land, in the city of Nazareth, there is a
certain well to which the Holy Virgin used to go when She was
still a young maiden, to draw water as was customary in those
times. It is here, at this well, that She once heard a voice
saying: “Thou shalt give birth to My Son.” She alone heard
this voice. Who said those words? Obviously they were spoken
by the One Whose Son was to be born from Her, i.e. by God the
Father Himself. And although the words were for Her alone,
whenever creation hears the voice of its Creator and Master,
it trembles. And thus Her virginal and pure soul began to
tremble. In trembling and fear She returned home, and in
order to somehow calm Her soul She engaged in Her favorite
pastime – the reading of the Holy Scriptures.
However, when She opened the book and began to read,
She came upon the passage in Prophet Isaiah which speaks of
the Saviour being born of a Virgin.
But so profound was Her divine and fragrant modesty,
that despite the words She had heard at the well She never
thought of applying this prophecy to Herself, but after
having read of the Saviour’s birth from a Virgin She thought
very simply: “How happy I would be to be even the lowest
servant of this Most-blessed Virgin!” And at this point the
Archangel Gabriel appeared before Her, and She heard his
words: “Hail, Thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with
Thee: blessed art Thou among women!” We know from Her life
that the appearance of an angel was nothing new for Her.
Angels had appeared to Her many times before while She was
living at the temple, but the words which She heard this time
disconcerted Her. She started pondering what such a greeting
could mean. And She heard the Archangel continue speaking to
Her: “Fear not, Mary, for Thou hast found favor with God.
Thou shalt bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus.
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the
Highest, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.”
The church service for this feast has retained the
touching tradition that the Archangel’s words were more
detailed, and that seeing Her agitation the holy Archangel
Gabriel said to the Virgin: “Why dost Thou fear me, Why dost
Thou tremble before me, O Mistress, before Whom I myself
tremble… I myself stand before Thee in pious awe!”
The Most-holy Virgin believed the Archangel’s words and
therefore did not demand any signs from him, as had the high
priest Zacharias when he was told of the forthcoming birth of
his son (St. John the Baptist). But Her invariable love of
chastity encouraged Her to ask the Archangel: “How shall this
be, seeing that I know not a man?”
In order to understand this question correctly, one
must know that Mary had previously given the promise to
remain virginal all Her life, for if She were not bound by
such a promise, and was engaged to a man, what reason would
She have to question the possibility of bearing a son? But
when the Archangel said to Her: “The Holy Spirit shall come
upon Thee, and the power of the Highest shall over-shadow
Thee,” She understood that this would be a supernatural
birth, and quieting down, She said those wondrous words which
St. Philaret of Moscow called “glad tidings from earth to
heaven”!
The feast of
the Annunciation combines two concepts which are
incompatible in earthly terms: glad tidings from heaven to
earth and reciprocal glad tidings from earth to heaven
through the Holy Virgin’s humility. She replied: “Behold the
handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto Me according to thy
word,” i.e. I am the Lord’s handmaiden, and a handmaiden
does not question the Master’s actions, but only submits to
His will and follows it.
Humility, total obedience, and complete loyalty to
God’s will – such was required in order to achieve total
salvation of fallen mankind.
Let this be a lesson to all of us for all time: the
humility of the Most-holy Virgin, which at first impeded Her
acceptance of the tidings that She would become the Mother of
God, and Her obedience to God, which led Her to aver that She
was the Lord’s handmaiden and would accept all that would
happen to Her in accordance with the tidings of the heavenly
messenger. Amen.
Protopriest Igor Hrebinka
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| THE
CONQUEROR OF DEATH |
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Christ is risen!
He has become the conqueror of death. But
we ask ourselves now: whom has the risen Lord
freed by His victory over sin and death? People of
only one nation, or one race? People of one class
or social position? Not at all! Such a freeing
would, in essence, be the selfish victory of
earthly conquerors. The Lord is not called “Lover
of the Jews,” or “Lover of the Greeks,” or “Lover
of the poor,” or “Lover of the aristocrats,” but “Lover
of mankind.” He intended His victory to be for all
men, with no consideration of the differences that
men set up among themselves. He won His victory
for the good and the help of all created men, and
has offered it to them all. To those who accept
this victory and make it their own, He has
promised eternal life and co-inheritance in the
Heavenly Realm. He imposes this victory upon no one,
even though it cost so dearly, but leaves men free
to make it their own or not. As man in Paradise
freely chose the fall, death and sin at the hands
of Satan, so he is now free to choose life and
salvation at the hands of God the Victor. Christ’s
victory is a balm, a life-giving balm, for all
men, all having become leprous from sin and death.
This balm makes the sick well, and the
well even healthier.
This balm raises the dead and gives
fuller life to the living.
This balm makes a man wise, it ennobles
him and makes him divine; it increases his
strength a hundredfold, a thousandfold, and it
raises his dignity far above all other nature, in
its weakened state, even to the resplendence and
beauty of God’s angels and archangels…
Come then, all of you, my brethren, who
fear death. Come closer to Christ the Risen and
the Raiser, and He will free you from death and
the fear of death.
Come all of you who live under the
shame of your open and secret sins. Draw nearer to
the living Fount that washes and cleanses, and that
can make the blackest vessel whiter than snow…
Bow down before Him in body and soul.
Unite yourself with Him with all mind and thoughts.
Embrace Him with all your heart. Do not worship
the enslaver, but the Liberator; do not unite
yourself to the destroyer, but to the Saviour; do
not embrace the stranger, but rather your closest
Kinsman and your dearest Friend.
The risen Lord is the wonder of wonders;
but He is, while being the wonder of wonders, of
the same nature as you are - of real human
nature, the original nature that was Adam’s in
Paradise. True human nature was not created to be
enslaved to the irrational nature that surrounds it,
but to govern nature by its power. Neither is
man’s true nature manifested in worthlessness,
sickness, mortality and sinfulness, but in glory and
health, in immortality and sinlessness.
The risen Lord has torn down the curtain
that divided true Godhead from true humanity, and
has shown us in Himself the greatness and beauty
of the one and the other. No man can know the
true God except through the risen Lord Jesus;
neither can any man know true man except through
Him alone.
Christ is risen, my brethren!
Nikolai Velimirovich, Bishop of
Ochrid
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| THOMAS’S
DISBELIEF |
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Christ is risen!
The joyous days
of the bright paschal week have passed.
The Church has closed the royal doors of
its altars and has directed our mind’s and heart’s
gaze towards seeing how the world accepted the news
of Christ’s Resurrection.
And the first image that the Church
offers to us is the image of the doubting Thomas.
The great and incomprehensible truth of
Christ’s Resurrection could not be grasped by the
mind of man, and thus could truly become for him
a stumbling block and a source of incredulity.
But at this point the nature of disbelief is
revealed to us.
“Usually,” - says a Christian philosopher,
- “truths of faith are rejected in advance not
because of coarseness of mind, but because of
corruption of the will. There is no heartfelt
attraction towards such objects as God, salvation of
the soul, resurrection of the body; there is no
desire to have such truths truly exist or, at the
least, to regard them seriously… Such disbelief,
essentially uncertain of itself and, therefore, more
or less set against the objects whose existence it
denies, - gives itself away through this hostility,
since one cannot really be set against that which
does not exist at all, - such disbelief is
unscrupulous…” But the disbelief, or
rather the doubt, of Apostle Thomas was quite
different. He wanted to believe, he tried to
believe, he sought confirmation of his belief.
And Christ the Saviour, Who never
appeared amid offensive and stubborn disbelief,
condescended to Thomas’ frailty and personally
con-firmed His resurrection to him.
This image is quite instructional for all
of us of course, but it is especially relevant to
those who suffer disbelief, who are tortured by a
weak and shaky faith.
Above all we must guard ourselves against
allowing our sinful will to seek an outlet for
itself in this spiritual frailty. After all, it is
much easier to live without faith. Faith requires
intense pressure, requires spiritual labor, while
disbelief unties one’s hands for many things.
Thus, brother Christian, if you feel that
your faith is becoming scarce, realize that the
cause of this lies not in the objects of faith,
but in your own limitations. And if you understand
this, then God will enlighten you as He had
enlightened Apostle Thomas, and will condescend to
you as He had condescended to the latter’s frailty.
Amen.
Hieromonk Methodius
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| CHRISTIAN
TEACHING |
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The spiritual labor of non-condemnation
The venerable Maxim the Confessor says: “Should we not
tremble, hearing how God the Father, without judging
anyone Himself, ‘hath committed all judgment
unto the Son’ (John 5:22) And the Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, says to us: ‘Judge
not, and ye shall not be judged’ (Luke
6:37). Similarly Apostle Paul says: ‘Therefore
judge nothing before the time, until the Lord
comes’ (1 Cor. 4:5), and again: ‘
for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest
thyself’ (Rom. 2:1). I tell you, it is
so: for men, having ceased to weep over their own
sins, have taken the judgment out of the hands of
the Son, and judge and condemn each other as though
they themselves were sinless! Truly this frightens
the heavens and makes the earth tremble.”
Centuries pass, yet men still stand
before this unassailable wall of condemnation and
are unable to overcome it. Adam, justifying himself
in paradise before God, condemned Eve; Cain, having
condemned his brother Abel in his heart, killed
him; the sin of condemnation led the Jews to kill
the Messiah; and we, modern Cainites and Pharisees,
are pushed by condemnation to a daily spiritual
execution of our brothers.
Judgment tortures the doers of it
themselves, takes away their peace of mind, forces
them to continuously monitor the actions of those
around them, and poisons their souls with the
bitter poison of suspicion.
An elder once said: “It is easy to
step unto the path of salvation: you must only
firmly decide that from this moment you will no
longer judge anyone.” We can understand these words
with our mind, but how do we actually accomplish
them? For this we must understand why we judge
others. The reason lies in our false
self-evaluation: he judges others, who feels that
he has a right to judge, who places himself higher
than others, who sees himself blameless of the sins
of which he accuses others. Whoever is not aware
of his own spiritual corruption, will never cease
to judge others.
But we are all tarnished
by sin, we all agonize over our corruption, we all
hope for deliverance in eternal life, we all have
need of Divine aid. Again we know all this
theoretically, but in practice it is painfully
difficult to refrain from judgment; we yearn to
judge others. Why? Because judgment has become a
passion with us and, like all vices, it gives us
demonic pleasure, a shiver of prideful delight. How
“delightful” to judge someone in the course of a
friendly conversation, to laugh at another’s
deficiencies… But do we not heed the warning of
the Gospel that some day we will have to answer
for every single word we utter, and that
includes this false delight which is based on
condemnation?
The struggle against the vice of
judgment, like any other vice, cannot be
theoretical; it must take place every day, every
minute, throughout one’s entire life; it must be
based on forcing oneself to be attentive to all
one’s words and thoughts. In other words, we cannot
do without spiritual labor.
But of what should this spiritual
endeavor consist in such a case? In monitoring
oneself with utmost attention throughout all the
various circumstances of life. Moreover, we will
soon notice that, in the course of the day,
occasions for judgment surround us like invisible
underwater reefs and threaten to destroy the ship
of our soul. However, with God’s help, we will
gradually learn to avoid collision with these
underwater reefs: where we formerly became irritated
- we will remain calm; where we became angry -
we will remain silent; where we tried to justify
ourselves - we will remain humble; where we judged
others - we will pray for them and for ourselves,
in order to avoid similar sins.
Very soon we will notice that our soul,
no longer burdened by judgment, will experience
genuine spiritual joy and lightness; and that is
only natural, since the yoke of the sins of others
will no longer oppress us.
Just as judgment attracts other vices:
anger, quarreling, enmity, so a victory over
condemnation opens the way to other virtues: pure
prayer, tranquility, a true evaluation of one’s sins.
It is for this reason that demons do their best
to ensnare the soul into the nets of judgment,
and to hinder its liberation from this vice. In
turn we, too, have no right to delay our struggle
with judgment for the same reason, but must
immediately begin to watch ourselves attentively.
“To watch oneself” is the golden rule of
Christian morality, which - alas! - is so often
neglected by Christians. How much effort we spend
on external activities and how little energy we
save for the task of monitoring ourselves. And
yet, without this internal endeavor, nothing external
will ever lead us to salvation…
Saint Seraphim of Sarov said that the
goal of Christian life is the acquisition of the
Holy Spirit. And to attain this goal we must step
onto the path of a spiritual struggle with
passions, and with God’s help, overcome them one by
one. But we can begin the battle with this same
passion for judgment.
Let us remember the words of the elder:
“It is easy to step unto the path of salvation:
you must only firmly decide that from this moment
you will no longer judge anyone.”
Monk Vsevolod (Filipyev) (Reprinted from “Orthodox
Russia,” No. 20, 2002)
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| LIVES OF
THE SAINTS |
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Saint Tikhon the Confessor, Patriarch of Moscow.
On April 7th (March 25th, old style), on the day of the
feast of the Annunciation, the Church also
commemorates Saint Tikhon the
Confessor, Patriarch of Moscow.
The
holy Patriarch Tikhon was born in 1865 in the
Pskov province, in the family of a priest. While
studying first in the Pskov Seminary, and later in
the St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy, the saint
became the object of universal love for his deep
religiousness, his affectionate nature and his
readiness to help his friends. After becoming a
monastic and gradually reaching the rank of
archbishop, St. Tikhon was an industrious and beloved
pastor of several archbishoprics before being elected
to the Moscow cathedra. Soon all of Moscow came to
know and love its affectionate and readily-accessible
archbishop, which subsequently played an important
role when the entire populace came out to guard
him from the Communists.
At the Holy Sobor in Moscow in 1918,
St. Tikhon was elected the first Patriarch of
Russia after a 217-year hiatus. Taking upon himself
the martyric feat of Church rule at a time of
cruel persecution, St. Tikhon fearlessly looked after
the needs of his flock, and the Russian people,
who had just lost their Tsar, acquired in the
Patriarch a true spiritual father. St. Tikhon saved
the Church from the Renovationist heresy,
anathematized the Church’s persecutors and clearly
showed the falsehood of entering into a compromise
with the godless authorities.
The fearless confessor died on March 25,
1925.
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| BASIC
PRECEPTS OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH |
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(Continuation)
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full article
XII. The Mystery of the Union of the Divine and Human
Nature in the One Person of our Lord Jesus Christ
The humanity of Jesus Christ does not have a separate
individuality in our Saviour, does not constitute a separate
hypostasis, but has been incorporated by His Divinity into
the unity of His Divine Hypostasis or Person.
“The Hypostasis of God the Word became incarnated,
taking on from the Virgin the foundation of our nature, i.e.
flesh, animated by a vocal and rational soul, and through
this assimilation of flesh the Hypostasis of God the Word
also became the hypostasis of the flesh,” – says St. John
Damascene. “The Hypostasis of God the Word,” – continues to
reason St. John Damascene, – having become the hypostasis of
two natures, does not allow one of the natures to become
hypostasis-less, but at the same time it does not allow the
two natures to be hetero-hypostatic. The Hypostasis of God
the Word does not become the hypostasis of first one and then
the other nature, but remains the inseparable and indivisible
hypostasis of both natures. Jesus Christ is a single Divine
Person, unilaterally perceiving Himself in the duality of His
natures. Christ is the true Emmanuel, the God-man.”
This is why the Holy Scripture calls the single Person
of Jesus Christ sometimes God, sometimes man, sometimes the
Son of man, sometimes the Son of God. It now becomes
understandable why human traits are sometimes attributed to
Christ as God, or Divine traits attributed to Him as man.
In speaking of Christ as God, Apostle Paul has in mind
His human nature, while in speaking of Him as man, he has in
mind His Divinity: “But we preach the wisdom of God, which is
a mystery, which is hidden, which God ordained before the
world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world
knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:7-8). In the Acts of the
Apostles (3:14-15) we read: “But ye denied the Holy One and
the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and
killed the Prince of life, Whom God hath raised from the
dead, whereof we are witnesses.”
Since God cannot be crucified, nor the Prince of life,
i.e. God, be killed, the Lord God, our Saviour, being at the
same time man, acquired His Church by means of His blood. All
of this speaks of the unity of two natures in the single
Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only by positing the organic
integrity of the two natures – Divine and human – in the
single Person of the Lord may one understand how God – the
Absolute Spiritual Origin – was able to acquire His Church by
means of His blood. Only by positing the unity of the
Hypostasis or Person in Jesus Christ does it become
understandable how the Son of man (the Saviour), Who was born
in the reign of the Roman Caesar Augustus, existed “even
before Abraham was.”
The fact that the Divine and human natures in Christ
remain an indivisible and single Hypostasis has been clearly
confirmed by the Word of God:
The Evangelist John the Theologian says: “And the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth;
and we beheld His glory, the glory as the Only-begotten of
the Father” (John 1:14).
In his epistle to the Philippians (2:6-8), Apostle Paul
attests that “Christ, being in the form of God, thought it
not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no
reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was
made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a
man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross.” Commenting upon these words, St.
Cyril of Alexandria says that they represent a clear teaching
of the idea of the perfect unity of hypostasis in Jesus
Christ. The Apostle would not have said that the Same One Who
is in the form of God, i.e. has a Divine nature, has taken
upon Him the form of a servant, if there had been two persons
in Christ.
Commenting upon Apostle Paul’s words: “But when the
fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the law” (Gal. 4:4), St. John
Damascene and St. Cyril of Jerusalem say: “It is not said
‘made through a woman,’ but ‘made of a woman,’ i.e. God did
not enter a man created in advance, but Himself in essence
and in fact became man; He Himself became the hypostasis for
His flesh.”
Thus, according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church,
the humanity in Christ did not receive a special hypostasis,
did not constitute an independent person, but was received by
His Divinity into the unity of His Divine Hypostasis, so that
even after incarnation He remained the Son of God, the Second
Person of the Holy Trinity.
Even from the point of view of common sense one simply
cannot agree with the heretic Nestorius who divided Christ
into two persons, because if the Son of God, God the Word,
united Himself with the man Christ only mentally and not
physically, and dwelled in Christ as He had previously done
in Moses and the other prophets, then strictly speaking the
incarnation of the Son of God would not have occurred, and
then it could not be said that “the Word became flesh,” as
the Evangelist John the Theologian confirms; it could not be
said that God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.
However, despite the obvious truth of the unity of the
Divine and human natures in the single Person of our Lord
Jesus Christ, there appeared people who in their desire to
philosophize about God more than man is allowed to
philosophize, and being carried away by the proof that Christ
had two natures, began to assert that Christ also had two
persons. There emerged the heretic Nestorius, Patriarch of
Constantinople, who tried to prove that it was a plain man
who was born from the Virgin Mary, and that God the Word
became united with him only mentally and not physically.
Having condemned the heresy of Nestorius at the Third
Ecumenical Council in Ephesus in 431, the Church Fathers
composed a hymn of glorification in honor of the Most-holy
Theotokos, and anathematized all those who called Her not the
Birth-giver to God, but Birth-giver to Christ or man.
Against the heresy of Nestorius, who posited two
persons in Jesus Christ, took up arms Archimandrite Eutyches
from a monastery in Constantinople, and became so carried
away in proving the unity of hypostases in Christ that he
also merged the two natures (Divine and human) into a single
nature, thereby laying the foundation for the heresy of
Monophysitism, which taught that Christ’s Divinity had
engulfed His humanity, i.e. that Christ only had a single
Divine nature, and that it was only His Divinity which had
been crucified and suffered on the cross under the seeming
appearance of flesh.
In order to put an end to such a terrible fallacy, the
Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon in 451 clearly
formulated the teaching on the Person of the Lord Jesus
Christ in the following words: “Following the Divine Fathers,
we unanimously enjoin you to confess the One and Only Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, absolute in Divinity and absolute in
humanity; true God and true man; One-in-essence with the
Father in Divinity and one-in-essence with us in humanity,
and like unto us in all but sin; born before all ages from
the Father in Divinity, and in the last days, for the sake of
us and our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary Theotokos in
humanity; the One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord,
Only-begotten, having two unmerged, immutable, indivisible,
and inseparable natures; not separated or divided into two
persons, but One and the Same Only-begotten Son, God the
Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the ancient forefathers
taught of Him, and as the Lord Jesus Himself taught us.”
Thus despite the fallacies of those who divided Jesus
Christ into two persons, the two natures in the single Person
of Jesus Christ are joined indivisibly and inseparably, while
despite the fallacies of those who taught that Divinity
engulfed humanity in Jesus Christ, the Church teaches that
the two natures are joined unmerged, immutably, and
unalterably.
Even from the point of view of common sense, Divinity
cannot change, while human flesh is too weak and limited to
subordinate Divinity to itself. Only their absolute
integrity, preservation, and immutability could effect our
salvation: God could suffer on the cross only through His
humanity, while infinite value to His suffering could only be
imparted by His Divinity. The Divine and human natures were
joined in the Saviour’s single Hypostasis from the moment of
His inception in the womb of the Most-holy Virgin Mary. From
then on these two natures were never separated and will never
be separated. Christ arose with His flesh, ascended into
heaven with His flesh, and will once again appear as the Son
of man to judge the world, as the Word of God tells us: “When
the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy
angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His
glory” (Matt. 25:31).
In what manner the two natures became conjoined in the
single Person of the God-man, in what manner Jesus Christ,
absolute God and absolute man, remains a single Divine Person
– that is, of course, the greatest supernatural miracle of
miracles, unable to be comprehended by the limited human
mind, and before which the holy Apostle Paul exclaims with
all due humility: “Great is the mystery of godliness: God was
manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16).
(To be conluded)
Professor G.A. Znamensky
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| THE
FIRST PEOPLE ON EARTH (in the light of most recent
excavations) |
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(Continuation)
Click here to read full
article
Life on Earth before Deluge
The culture of Adam’s descendants
Here is what is known about the Obeidian culture, about
the culture of Eridu and Ur.
“It is important to note that the temple acknowledged
to be the most ancient one in Mesopotamia was discovered in
1948 in Eridu, while Eridu is named in the cuneiform tablets
as the first residence of the antediluvian kings” (p.37). The
cuneiform source lists ten antediluvian kings/patriarchs,
attesting to the fact that Eridu was the first residence of
the antediluvian forefathers. Moreover, all cuneiform tables
of both Sumer and Babylon always divide history into “before
the Deluge” and “after the Deluge.”
The Obeidian potters possessed a more sophisticated
technique of clay-processing than the potters of the Halafi
culture, since their ceramics were distinguished by a great
variety of forms. “The clay was mixed with hay and made into
bricks, for the purpose of erecting really fundamental
buildings.”
Furthermore, the North Obeidian culture represents a
singular and late peripheral variant of the culture of Sumer
(which had appeared earlier than in other regions), and it
was in Sumer that the North Obeidian culture was first
discovered. “In fact, in this culture’s most ancient
settlement – Eridu, which according to Sumerian tradition was
considered to be the first city of the kings, the ancient
ceramics were noticeably different from those of southern
Babylon.”
We must note yet another essential detail: the Adamites
of the Obeidian (antediluvian) period in Sumer had very
beautiful painted ceramic pottery made of calcite, as well as
mortars made of basalt and small-grained limestone.
“This is easily explained: there were no solid layers
in Sumer suitable for such artifacts, but instead there were
primarily various thin clays. Jericho, on the other hand, had
rich deposits of crystalline layers: calcite, balsamite, and
also dense small-grained limestone.
In Jericho there is an empty four-meter layer lying
over the layer of the Natufian (antediluvian) culture, above
which lie cultural layers containing fragments of ceramic
pottery; this means that after the Deluge people from Sumer
came to Jericho and brought with them the tradition of making
clay pottery. This data allows us to say with certainty that
Adamites lived in Jericho and were destroyed there during the
Deluge. In Jericho there is a complete break between the
Natufian culture and the empty four-meter layer and the layer
above, and thus archaeologist Robert Braidwood, who conducted
explorations there, believes that the Neolithic culture of
Jericho (i.e. the one lying above the empty layer) cannot
have issued from the Mesolithic Natufian culture (Gordon
Childe, The Most Ancient Near East).
The cultures are provisionally called Neolithic and
Mesolithic, in order to denote the epoch and not the stone
industry, as is done in Europe.
From whence arose the high culture of the first most
ancient settlements in mankind’s ancestral homeland? Gordon
Childe does not write about this. It is naturally hard for a
scientist reared on firmly entrenched views of man’s
evolutionary provenance to explain the sudden appearance of
the high culture of the Proto-Obeidian period by its having
been brought in “from somewhere.” Who and from where is
unknown. An atheist brain cannot think otherwise. To presume
that the high culture of the Adamites was worthily preserved
by Adam’s family, his children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren, for Gordon Childe was unthinkable.
Interestingly enough, the Sumerians themselves believed
that they came from Delmun, which was located somewhere on
the shores of the Persian Gulf, in other words on the
territory of Paradise; by the time that written language
appeared after the Deluge, the location of Paradise was
erased from human memory, and only an approximate idea of it
remained.
Thus all the most ancient cultures Halaf, Sumer, and
Khasum were offshoots of a single common root – Eridu.
Despite the fact that we do not yet possess complete
archaeological data, we may still have a fairly reliable idea
of the culture of the Adamites and of the first-created Adam
himself.
Adam lived on the shores of the sea, and all his
closest descendants founded cities on the shores of the sea,
close to each other. They had boats, caught fish, bred
cattle, and with great difficulty tilled the earth.
Here is what Gordon Childe writes: “The lands of the
Obeidian culture were annually enriched by new deposits of
silt, but the exploitation of this natural paradise, this
primeval Eden, demanded intense work and the organized
cooperation of a great number of people. Arable land
literally had to be created out of the chaos of marshes and
sandbars” (p. 180).
This fully accords with what God said to Adam: “In
sorrow shalt thou eat of it (the earth) all the days of thy
life. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Gen.
3:17-19).
The suitability of the terrain for agriculture became
the decisive factor for human settlements. In fact, we will
subsequently see that the first civilizations arose in the
valleys of the fertile lands of Euphrates and Tigris, Jordan
and Nile, along the so-called “fertile crescent” of the
Middle East. The other areas were deserts or mountainous
regions unsuitable for the first agriculturalists.
The arid climate of these regions forced the residents
to make use of irrigation canals and the flooding of the
rivers, which each year brought in a new layer of silt.
The Adamites lived in tents or simple adobe homes made
of unfired bricks. No caves were found in the area of these
cities.
According to the Bible, Jabal was the father of such as
dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle (Gen. 4:20).
The Adamites had strongly developed arts: they used
paints, made colored ornamented pottery and even mosaics, and
they had their own music and singing. The only thing they did
not know was high technology, but at their level of knowledge
it was not even needed.
Of their spiritual culture we may judge only from the
Biblical narrative, although archaeology has not produced any
information whatsoever that would raise doubt of their
profound religious knowledge of the True God. Paganism
appeared much later, after the Deluge, among the descendants
of Ham who had intermixed with Semites in the Ninevehian and
Babylonian cultures.
Adam lived for almost one thousand years, and all the
people heard his account of God, the Creator of heaven and
earth, of Paradise, of the Fall, of the expulsion from
Paradise, of the fiery Cherubim, of the devil, of the fact
that a time will come when Adam’s Descendant will strike the
devil’s head, and of hope in the afterlife. Were there some
among Adam’s descendants with a burnt conscience like Cain’s?
Of course there were, and they were apparently becoming more
and more numerous, the earth was becoming full of their
iniquities, and when sons were born to Noah, God said to Noah
about these evildoers: “Behold, I will destroy them from the
face of the earth” (Gen. 6:13) – (this was when Noah’s father
and grandfather had already died) – “but with thee will I
establish My covenant” (Gen. 6:18).
The great antediluvian forefathers lived for over 900
years, but this does not mean that absolutely all Adamites
lived so long. Longevity was granted to the righteous as a
reward. To depraved people the Lord said: “Their days shall
be 120 years” (Gen. 6:3).
After the Deluge even the lives of the righteous became
curtailed. Shem lived for 600 years, his sons and grandsons
lived for 400-300 years, and afterwards longevity gradually
diminished. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived for about 150
years.
(To be continued)
Protopriest Stefan Lyashevsky
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| SPIRITUAL
POETRY |
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CHRIST IS RISEN!
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The night
still waited for the gift of grace –
A night of mysteries and earthly woes.
A host of stars sailed through the boundless space,
Filling the quiet with their sparkling glow.
Still silent were the celestial lyres’ strains,
And yet an unseen hand had touched their strings,
And down the starry path into the world of pain
An angel came – tidings of joy to bring
And to erase the brand of evil counsel’s shame.
From the tomb’s entrance he removed the stone.
His countenance shone brightly like the sacred flame.
His eyes were bolts of lightning in a storm.
Then “Christ is risen!” heard the world for the first
time,
That sound ineffable of the heavenly choir,
And on the earth the bells of night began to chime.
Since that night “Christ is risen!” sings the world
entire…
V. Utrenev Translated by Kosara Gavrilovic
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| WE
KINDLY APPEAL TO YOU TO HELP OUR CHURCH |
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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ!
P24
We appeal to you with a heartfelt request to help our
small parish cope with the great difficulty that has beset
it.
Our church building – which houses our church and is the
site of our entire parish life – is over 100 years old.
Besides the constant repairs that it requires by virtue of
its venerable age, several times it has demanded
“catastrophic” repairs from us due to the negligence to
which the building was subjected during a 12-year period
in which the church had no rector.
Now we are faced with yet another catastrophic repair that
surpasses all previous ones. It turns out that there have
long been leaks in the roof and in the drainage system,
which due to the ancient construction of the building were
not immediately apparent. Gradually water from snow and
rain poured under the roof and into two walls of the
facade, until all the wood rotted and the very brick began
to crumble.
The cost of the necessary repairs far exceeds the very
modest funds that the church possesses. Moreover, our
expenses for repairing the facade are greatly complicated
and increased by the fact that the church building has
been placed in the category of historic edifices, and city
laws require all restorations to be done in keeping with
its original style.
We kindly ask you to help us, dear brothers and sisters,
and may the All-merciful Lord Himself reward you a
hundredfold for your generosity and concern for His
abode! Please send all contributions to the church
address, marked for the “Renovation Fund.” Thank you and
God bless you!
Transfiguration of our Lord Russian Orthodox
Church 2201 E. Baltimore St.,
Baltimore, MD 21231 USA
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With love in Christ,
Rector Ioann Barbus
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