The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism

St. Jus�n Popović

First Serbian Edi�on: 1974
Transla�on by Benjamin Emmanuel Stanley. Publish by Lazarica Press, Birmingham: 2000.

Archimandrite Jus�n was born in Vranje on the Feast of the

Annuncia�on, 1894, of parents Spiridon and Anastasija. He studied
at the Seminary of Saint Sava in Belgrade from 1905 to 1914. During
the First World War, be retreated to Skadar with the Serbian army,
where, with the blessing of Metropolitan Dimitrije, he received
monas�c profession in 1916, taking the name of Saint Jus�n the
martyr and philosopher. His secular name had been Blagoje.
Metropolitan Dimitrije sent him for further study to Petrograd and
Oxford. He returned to Belgrade a�er the war and was appointed as
an assistant at the seminary in Sremski Karlovci. He received his
doctorate of Athens University in 1926, with the doctoral thesis: ‘The
Problem of the Person and of Knowledge according to Saint Makarios
of Egypt’. On his return to Sremski Karlovci, he edited the periodical ‘Chris�an Life’. Transferred to the
Prizren seminary, and then sent back to Karlovci in 1931, he worked alongside Metropolitan Josif Cvijović
in the Carpathian area of Czechoslovakia, organizing church life among the Carpatho-Russians. On his
return, he was transferred to the Bitolj Seminary, and was chosen in 1934 to be professor of Dogma�cs
and Compara�ve Theology at the Theological Faculty in Belgrade. He remained in this posi�on un�l the
end of the war, at which �me the communist authori�es removed him from his work in the university.
A�er this, he lived in various monasteries in Serbia, and in 1948 went to the monastery of Ćelije near
Valjevo, where he remained un�l his death as the monastery’s spiritual father. He devoted himself
completely to prayer and to theological and scien�fic work and transla�on, to which his very many
published and unpublished works bear witness. He entered into rest in the Lord on the Feast of the
Annuncia�on, 1979.
CONTENTS:

Translator’s Note - 2 b) The Holy Mystery of Chrisma�on

Introduc�on - 3
Publisher’s Note - 6
PART ONE: THE ORTHODOX TEACHING ON THE
CHURCH
The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism - 8
The Orthodox Teaching on the Church - 9
The Characteris�cs of the Church: - 32
1. The Unity and Uniqueness of the Church
2. The Holiness of the Church
3. The Conciliarity of the Church
4. The Apostolicity of the Church
Pentecost – 37
Grace - 39
The Holy Mysteries: - 41
a) The Holy Mystery of Bap�sm
c) The Holy Mystery of the Eucharist
The Holy Virtues - 44
The Church’s Hierarchy - 47
The Church’s Divine Worship and the Feasts - 48
On God as Judge -52
PART TWO: ECUMENISM - 54
Ecumenism - 54
Humanis�c and Theanthropic Progress - 55
Humanis�c and Theanthropic Culture - 58
Humanis�c and Theanthropic Society - 65
Humanis�c and Theanthropic Educa�on - 73
Man or the God-Man - 79
Humanis�c Ecumenism - 86
The Way out of the Impasse - 100

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

The awesome task before me has brought the realiza�on that the mere precision and accuracy of
my previous work would not suffice. Wri�ng for publica�on in scien�fic journals and technical transla�on
have not prepared me adequately. Neither has a life�me of straddling the two cultures: Serbian and
English.

The Orthodox Faith is just that - faith. Enlightenment is not atained through an open mind but an
open heart. consequently, Orthodox theology is by no means scholas�c or Thomist. It is spiritual. It is
therefore difficult to render into any Western language. Eastern and Western languages can be compared
to ancient Greece and Rome. The Greeks were thinkers; the Romans were doers. Greek is the language of
philosophy and theology, La�n that of law and technology. The inhabitants of this island have, therefore,
had to reconcile many linguis�c influences.

And this is not all. Standing on the shoulders of the giants, the English-speaking Orthodox writers,
and translators of patris�c and Byzan�ne theological works, would only be of limited help. Even for an
Orthodox theologian, Father Jus�n’s language is par�cularly poe�c, and the expressions he coins are highly
idiosyncra�c.

Choosing between conven�onal terminology and the writer’s originality, l shall be hold and choose
the man.

BESt., London, The Na�vity of our Lord 1997.

INTRODUCTION

Archimandrite Dr Jus�n Popović, a professor of Belgrade University, was, together with Bishop
Nikolaj Velimirović, one of the most significant of Twen�eth-Century personali�es in the Serbian Church.
It can be said of these two theologians that they cons�tute the ‘theological mind’ of Orthodox Serbs.
Father Jus�n, as a theologian and a spiritual father, went beyond the boundaries of his people and country,
and became respected in the whole Orthodox world. His works were translated into many languages, both
of Orthodox and non-Orthodox peoples. As a spiritual father, a man of prayer and a confessor of the Faith,
he is greatly valued by Orthodox monks and nuns and by the devout people of God.

He had a very broad and deep theological, philosophical, and literary educa�on, studying at
several European universi�es and speaking several languages. He was one of the few who exerted
themselves to penetrate into the mo�ve forces of contemporary European culture and civiliza�on. He was
in constant exchange with these. He interpreted and challenged this civiliza�on for contemporary man
through the prism of Orthodox tradi�on.

All that he wrote (and he wrote so many works so very diverse in content and form that there are
very few people who could read them in a life�me) he first lived with asce�c tears through the experience
of faith, and his words are therefore persuasive and convincing. They leave no-one indifferent. He created
an original theological language that is of great value to the Orthodox theology of the Serbs.

Father Jus�n was gentle towards others, but strict with himself. He lived by the strictest monas�c
rule, spending days and nights in fas�ng and prayer. He is remembered for his uncompromising zeal for
Orthodoxy and his sharp cri�cism of all social anomalies, wherever he found them. He sharply cri�cized
many un-church-like phenomena within the Church itself most especially the tendency for the mystery of
faith to be reduced to a ‘repository of Chris�anity’.

The source of theology was, for Father Jus�n, the Church of Christ; the tradi�on of the Bible, the
apostles, the holy fathers, Saints Cyril and Methodios and Saint Sava. The essence of all his thought was
Christ the God-Man, indissolubly one of the Holy Trinity and one with His Church. He had a limitless love
for Him and was mys�cally one with Him and with the holy fathers, whose life, and wri�ngs he always
followed. All his works were therefore centered on Christ and based on the holy fathers. All the past ages
spoke through him, and also the eons to come.

He o�en said that the Liturgy is ‘the center and essence of every Orthodox soul’. His life and his
theology had a liturgical character. He did all he could to promote the renewal of liturgical tradi�on and
liturgical awareness in the Serbian Church.

‘The person is everything’, says Father Jus�n; the person who is in constant rela�onship and
communion with God on the ver�cal plane and with his fellow-men on the horizontal. The person alone
enters into eternity. Everything must therefore serve and be subordinated to it: science, culture,
technology, religion, the state, and the na�on. The person must not be sacrificed for anything.

He cri�cized ‘theology without God’ and ‘anthropology without man’, by which he understood
ra�onalist specula�on and abstrac�on about God and man. ‘Chris�anity is not, in fact, theology in a
philosophical and scien�fic sense, but is new life, theanthropic life; a man, with all his soul, heart and
mind, with all his strength, gives himself to God with the aid of holy love and the other holy virtues’, says
Father Jus�n in his prayer-diary.
 Because of his zeal for the Church of God, for all its truth and dogma, he was o�en accused of
conserva�sm, Orthodox fundamentalism, and na�onalism. His pupils suffered the same fate. All forms of
conserva�sm and na�onalism were, however, foreign to him; especially na�onalism, that he cri�cized on
many occasions. ‘The Church has conformed to the people, while the opposite is the norm: for the people
to conform to the Church’, says Father Jus�n, and he con�nues: ‘It is �me, it is the twel�h hour, for certain
of our ecclesias�cal representa�ves to stop being exclusively slaves of na�onalism and poli�cs, no mater
what and whose, and become high priests and priests of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.’

Father Jus�n Popović, following the example of Saint John Chrysostom, constantly expressed the
significance of the evangelical virtues in rela�on to one’s neighbor. ‘Indeed, in our earthly world, the
fragrance of evangelical love for our neighbor is savored in heaven like no other fragrance.’

His work: ‘The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism’, which has run to two edi�ons in Serbian, has
called forth much division, polemic, and misunderstanding. Many have considered it an excep�onal study
of Orthodox ecclesiology. Most of the aten�on has been concentrated on the stance on ecumenism that
emerges from the book. This has brought many people to accuse Father Jus�n of an�-ecumenism and
an�-Europeanism. He was, for truth’s sake, very cri�cal of Europe for its ‘historical’ presenta�on of Christ
and the general materializa�on of thought and life, and a scep�c towards modern ecumenist ideas
because of the danger of rela�vizing Orthodox truth, but this has nothing to do with an�-Europeanism
and an�-ecumenism. Taking into account the fact that he was, in Communist Yugoslavia, constrained to
live in isola�on in the monastery of Ćelije near Valjevo, without freedom of movement, Father Jus�n, as
Father John Meyendorff, the great theologian, said, ‘was perhaps, not in a posi�on to see the many facets
of the ecumenical witness of Orthodoxy, that does not necessarily represent rela�vism.’

The thinking on ecumenism that is found in ‘The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism’ is
fundamentally also that of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović in his work Кроз тамнички прозор (Through the
Prison Window), which the editor presented as an addi�on to Father Jus�n’s ecclesiology. It is therefore a
thankless task to make any judgement, on the basis of this book, of his stance on ecumenism. In another
posthumously-published work of his: На Богочовечанском путу (On the Theanthropic Path), he says
about ecumenism: ‘Ecumenisms are fashionable. But in this connec�on, it seems to us, the most important
thing is overlooked: the ecumenism of theanthropic truth is the heart of theanthropic Orthodox
ecumenism - the hypostasis of Christ the God-Man in His cosmic and super-cosmic, all-embracing fullness
and His earthly, historical concreteness. Neither man nor anything that is of man can be the measure,
symbol or concretum of ecumenism. No man can ever be this, but only and always the God-Man. The
whole tragedy of the West consists in its having, through its mul�farious hominism and humanisms, cast
out Christ’s theanthropy.’ These words cons�tute the essence of his a�tude to the phenomenon that is
today, for many, a stumbling block. The Orthodox Church s�ll has no official stance towards the ecumenical
movement and the concept of ecumenism. On one hand, almost all the Orthodox Churches take an ac�ve
part in the ecumenical movement; on the other hand, they have at least three possible a�tudes to this
problem. Some are, a priori, in favor of ecumenism; others are totally opposed to it; a third group is for
ecumenism but subject to specific condi�ons. Father Jus�n’s ecclesiology, which is en�rely based on
ecclesial and patris�c tradi�on, is of value for the understanding of the Orthodox vision of the world and
of life, and the problems that the modern world sets before the Orthodox Church.
 The publica�on of this book in English is an important undertaking, worthy of respect. It gives the
opportunity for many people to get to know one of the most significant Orthodox theologians of our day.

Father Radovan Bigović,

Professor of the Theological Faculty
of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade
PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This book, writen by Father Jus�n Popović, the well-known scholar, theologian and professor of
the Faculty of Theology of Belgrade University, is part of a very valuable inheritance le� to future
genera�ons of Orthodox Chris�an, to help them to understand the ecclesiology of the Church presented
in the first part of the book, a statement made by the Holy Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils of the One
and Undivided Church, accepted by all, everywhere and at all �mes to the present day.

However, the second part of the book, en�tled ‘Ecumenism’, concerns Orthodox views about, and
insights into, Western ecumenical ideas that have been, and are, widely accepted by Western Chris�an
confessions. In this part of the book, Father Jus�n, in building his ideas of Western ecumenism, leaned
very heavily on the thinking of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović of blessed memory, which was expressed in the
book Кроз тамнички прозор (Through the Prison Window), that he wrote towards the end of his �me in
Dachau, in 1945.

Bishop Nikolaj spent a great deal of �me in the West furthering his educa�on, when he made
many friends and gained respect for his spiritual and intellectual quali�es. During the First World War, he
was a great deal in England as an ambassador for his country, both delivering lectures at universi�es in
London, Birmingham and elsewhere, and preaching in many of England’s great cathedrals. He made new
friends in England and America and was acclaimed as a trusted friend of the West, being seen as a
spokesman for, and interpreter of, Orthodoxy.

A�er the First World War, at the �me of the founding of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Bishop Nikolaj
played an important part in the reviving of Orthodox spirituality both in his diocese and throughout the
Serbian Church, organizing a (Богомољачки покрет) - a movement of spiritual renewal (prayer at home
and in church, the reading of scripture and living by Chris�an moral values). To this end, he also wrote his
Охридски пролог (Prologue from Ochrid), Омилије (Homilies) and мисионарска писма (Missionary
Leters).

Before the Second World War, he led the opposi�on to the so-called Concordat, in which the
Va�can was trying to obtain privileges that were unacceptable to the Serbian Orthodox Church. He was
also witness to the atheist doctrines and the diminishing of Chris�an values among the Serbian people,
and this made him speak out with a prophe�c voice of thunder.

The Second World War and the occupa�on of Yugoslavia, as well as the massacres of the Serbs in
the puppet state of Croa�a, had a very great impact of Bishop Nikolaj and his thinking. The abandoning by
the West of the Serbian people in their struggle to survive, not only the German occupa�on but also the
Communist revolu�on and finally the installa�on of Tito, the Communist leader, in Yugoslavia, was
something that made Bishop Nikolaj aware of the absence of good inten�ons by Western poli�cians
towards the Serbs (a situa�on that is, alas, only too true today).

Moving to live in England and then America a�er the war, he was disillusioned by the
abandonment of their heritage by Western Chris�an confessions. There are many instances of this in his
later prophe�c wri�ngs.

From the �me of the Italian Renaissance and of the French Revolu�on, when new poli�cal
ideologies began to appear in the West, especially those inspired by revolu�onary ideas and the tendency
to ‘free’ man from God, atheism and godlessness brought a new outlook and new values into being. These
were intended to replace Christ and His lordship over life.

Bishop Nikolaj and Father Jus�n saw the danger threatening not only the Serbian people but also
the en�re world, and therefore wrote, spoke, and preached that there is, without Christ, no salva�on, no
life.

Father Jus�n made great use of Bishop Nikolaj’s thinking on the subject. The bishop spoke with
sorrow for the West, as he saw the end of Western civiliza�on unless it turned to God; a choice to which
he was constantly urging the Serbian people. We are strongly aware, however, that there is an over-
strictness and generaliza�on in some of Father Jus�n’s expressions, which are not an overall Orthodox
view.

***
We wish to thank Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia for his correc�ons and comments, and Archimandrite Ephrem
(Lash) for his reading of the transla�on and checking of the Greek sources.

Proto-Stavrophore Milenko Zebić

 PART ONE:
THE ORTHODOX TEACHING ON THE CHURCH

THE ORTHODOX CHURCH AND ECUMENISM

Ecumenism is a movement that generates a mul�tude of ques�ons. All these ques�ons, in fact,
spring from and flow into a single desire for only one thing: the True Church of Christ. The True Church of
Christ supplies, as it should, the answers to all the primary and secondary ques�ons posed by ecumenism.
For if the Church of Christ does not solve the eternal ques�ons of the human spirit, it serves no purpose.
The central hearth of the human spirit ever burns with eternal ques�ons, and every man burns with them,
consciously or unconsciously, willingly, or ins�nc�vely; his heart, his mind, his conscience, his soul, his
whole being burns, and there is no peace in his bones. Among all the planets, ours is the seat of eternally-
tormen�ng problems: of life and death, good and evil, virtue and sin, the world and man, immortality and
eternity, heaven and hell, God and the devil. Of all beings, man is the most complex and enigma�c, and
the most tormented. This is why God came down to earth and became man: to give us, as the God-Man,
the answers to all our tormen�ng, eternal ques�ons. For this reason, He remained in His fullness on earth
in His Church, of which He is the Head and which is His Body: the True Church of Christ, the Orthodox
Church. In it is the whole God-Man with all His Good News and all His perfec�on.

What ecumenism is in its roots, its essence, reali�es, and aspira�ons, can best be seen in the
mirror of the One True Church of Christ. This is why it is necessary to present, even in brief outline, the
teaching of the Orthodox Church about the True Church of Christ, the apostolic, patris�c, Church of Holy
Tradi�on.
THE ORTHODOX TEACHING ON THE CHURCH

The whole mystery of the Chris�an faith is found in the Church; the whole mystery of the Church
is in the God-Man: the whole mystery of the God-Man lies in the fact that that God became flesh and
brought His en�re Godhead, with all His divine values and perfec�on, with all the mysteries of God, into
that flesh. The en�re Gospel of the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, is condensed into a few words, into this
Good News: Great is the mystery of true religion: God was manifest in the flesh (Tim. 3:16). A �ny human
body contained God with all His innumerable infini�es, yet God remained God and flesh remained flesh in
one Person, the Person of the Theanthropos Christ: perfect God and perfect man: the perfect God-Man.
This is not a single mystery, but all the mysteries of heaven and earth brought together in the mystery of
the God-Man, the mystery of the Church, His theanthropic Body. The body of God the Logos, the
incarna�on of God, His becoming human, is the fundamental reality. The en�re life of the theanthropic
Body of the Church through which we know how to live in the house of God, which is the Church of the
living God, the pillar and ground of truth (1 Tim. 3:15) lies in this truth. ‘God was manifest in the flesh; in
this’, says Saint John Chrysostom proclaiming the Savior’s Gospel, ‘is the whole dispensa�on of our
salva�on. This is indeed a great mystery . . . Let us note that the holy Apostle always calls the dispensa�on
of our salva�on a mystery. Jus�fiably so, as it is not known to all men, nor was it revealed even to the
angels. It is revealed through the Church and is a great mystery indeed, for God became man and man
became God ... Let us therefore live worthy of this mystery.’1
1. St John Chrysostom: In Epist, I ad Timoth, Homily XI, 1; PG: 62: 553-6.

The most that God could have given to man, He gave by becoming man and remaining eternally
as the Theanthropos in all worlds, visible and invisible. The �ny human being has been en�rely filled by
God who is infinite. This makes the Theanthropos the most wondrous being in all human worlds. Saint
John Damascene rightly asserts, for all worlds and all �mes, that the Theanthropos is ‘the only new thing
under the sun’.2 I would add: and always new, with a newness that does not age either in �me or in eternity.
In the God-Man and with the God-Man, man himself has become a new being under the sun, a being
divinely important, divinely precious, divinely eternal, divinely complex. The mystery of God has been
inextricably united with the mystery of man and has become two mysteries in one, the greatest mystery
of all worlds. And so, the Church came into being: the Theanthropos is the Church. The Second Person of
the Holy Trinity the person of God the Logos, becoming man, becoming the God-Man, abides in our earthly
world and in all worlds as the God-Man the Church. By the incarna�on of God the Logos, man is magnified
by the Divine Majesty into an especially godlike being because the Second Person of the Holy Trinity
became his Head the eternal Head of the theanthropic Body of the Church. God the Father, by the Holy
Spirit, gave the Lord Christ, the Theanthropos, above all to be the Head of the Church, which is His body,
the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:17-23).
2. De Fide Orthodoxa, III, 1; PG 94: 984B

With the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, as its Head, the Church has become the most perfect and
most precious being in all worlds. All that belongs to the Theanthropos belongs to it: all the divine powers
by which He gives resurrec�on, transfigura�on, and deifica�on, making us like to the Holy Trinity and to
Christ, belong eternally to it. And what is of ul�mate, miraculous, and moving importance is that the
Person of God the Logos has Himself, out of His immeasurable love for mankind, become the eternal
Personifica�on of the Church. There is no divine treasure, glory or beneficence that has not, with the
miraculous Theanthropos, become ours, eternally human, in the Church.

All the immeasurable greatness of God’s power, the richness of His philanthropy and
omnipotence, are especially shown by His rising from the dead, His ascension into heaven above the
cherubim and the seraphim and all the bodiless powers of heaven, and by the founding of the Church as
His Body, of which He, the risen, ascended, and eternal Theanthropos, is the Head. This boundless miracle,
truly the most divine and the greatest miracle, God wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead,
and sat Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above every principality and power, and
might, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in that which is to come,
and put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things (υπερ παντα) to the Church
which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (το πληρωμα του παντα εν πασι πληρουμενου)
(Eph. 1:20-23).

Thus, in the risen and ascended Theanthropos, the plan of the thrice-holy Godhead conceived
before all ages is accomplished: to unify all things, both which are in heaven and earth, under the headship
of Christ (ανακεφαλαιωσασθαι τα παντα) (Eph. 1:10), accomplished in the Body of the Church. In the
Church, His theanthropic Body, the Lord has united all angelic beings, all men and all God-created mater
into an eternally-living organism. Thus, the Church is the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:23),
Christ the God-Man, who, as God, filleth all in all, and as man, the eternal High Priest, allows us men to
live in that fullness in the Church through the holy mysteries and the holy virtues. This is indeed the fullness
of all things divine, of all things eternal, godlike and God-given, because the Church is the fullness of divine
truth, divine jus�ce, love, life and eternity, the fullness of all divine as well as of all human perfec�on, as
the Lord Christ is the God-Man, a twofold unity of the fullness of divinity and humanity. This full,
theanthropic unity is made immortal and eternal by having the Eternal Theanthropos Himself, the Second
Person of the Trinity, as its Head. The fullness of the theanthropic Body, the Church, lives by the immortal
and life-giving powers of the incarnate God the Logos. This is felt by true members of the Church, and
most fully by the saints and angels. This fullness of the theanthropic perfec�on of Christ is, in fact, the
inheritance of the saints and the hope of all who are called to be Chris�ans (Eph. 1:18). The Church is not
simply the goal and purpose of all beings and all mater, from angels to atoms, but is their one all-
encompassing goal and purpose. In it, God has truly blessed us with all spiritual blessings (Eph. 1:3); He
has given us in it all the means to be holy and without blame before God (Eph. 1:4); He has adopted us in
it through His only-begoten Son (Eph. 1:5-8); He has revealed to us in it the eternal mystery of His will
(Eph. 1:9); He has united �me with eternity in it (Eph. 1:10); He has made it possible in the Church for all
beings and all mater to enter Christ the Spirit and the Trinity (Eph. 1:13-18). For all these reasons, the
Church cons�tutes the greatest and holiest mystery of God in all worlds. In comparison with God’s other
mysteries, it is the Mystery of mysteries. All the mysteries of God in it are good �dings and bea�tude, and
each of them is Paradise, because each of them is full to overflowing with the sweet Lord, through whom
Paradise is Paradise and bea�tude is bea�tude; through Him, God is God and man is man; through Him
truth is truth and jus�ce is jus�ce; through Him, love is love and goodness is goodness; through Him, life
is life and eternity is eternity.

The fundamental good news, and in it the fundamental joy of joys, for all beings and all worlds is
this: Christ the Theanthropos is all in all, in all worlds, and the Church in Him. And the greatest Good News
is this: the Head of the Church is the God-Man Christ. In fact, He is before all things, and by Him all things
consist (Col. 1:17). For He is God, He is the Creator, He is Providence, He is the Savior, He is life to life, being
to being, and existence to existence; all things were created by Him and for Him (Col. 1:16). He is the
purpose for which everything exists. All crea�on is built together as the Church and cons�tutes the Church,
and He is the Head of the Body, the Church (Col. 1:18).

This is the full unity of crea�on and its full purpose in the Logos. Sin has separated a part of
crea�on from this fullness of unity and purpose in the Logos and drowned it in purposelessness outside
the Logos, in death, hell and suffering. For this reason, God the Logos descends into our earthly world,
becomes man and, as the Theanthropos, accomplishes the salva�on of the world from sin. The purpose
of His theanthropic dispensa�on of salva�on is to cleanse everything from sin, to bring everything into the
Logos, to sanc�fy everything, to make everything a part of the theanthropic Body of the Church and thus
return everything to fullness of unity and purpose in the Logos.

Having become man and having founded the Church on Himself, with Himself and in Himself, the
Lord Christ, as the Theanthropos, has immeasurably magnified man as no one has before or since. Through
His theanthropic acts, He not only saved man from sin, death, and the devil, but also exalted him over all
beings and all crea�on. God became neither God-angel, nor God-cherub, nor God-seraph, but God-Man.
He thereby exalted man over all angels and archangels, over all superhuman beings, and put all things
under His feet in the Church: (παντα υπεταξεν υπο τους ποδας αυτου) (Eph. 1:22). By the Church and in
the Church as a theanthropic Body, man grows to, heights above the angels and the cherubim. Thus, the
path of his ascent towards perfec�on is longer than that of the angels, the cherubim and the seraphim.
This is a supreme mystery. Let all tongues be silent, for God’s unuterable and insa�able love is speaking,
the love for mankind of the only true Philanthropos, the Lord Christ. Here begin the visions and revelations
of the Lord (2 Cor. 12:1) which are inexpressible in any language, human or angelic. Everything here is
above reason, words or nature, above all crea�on as for the mystery, the fullness of the mystery of man
within the fullness of the mystery of the God-Man, who is the Church, its Body and its Head, is here. All
this enables man to enter Christ, the Spirit and the Trinity, to be part of the theanthropic Body of Christ,
the Church (Eph. 3:6) God’s holiest and most precious mystery, the greatest, the all-holy mystery. The
Church is Christ the Theanthropos extending through all ages and all eternity. With and a�er man, all God-
created mater, everything in heaven and on earth that was created through God the Logos enters into the
Church as its body of which the Lord Christ is the Head. The head is the head of the body, and the body is
the body of the head, inseparable, fulfilled one with the other, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph.
1:23). Becoming by holy bap�sm a member of the Church, every Chris�an becomes a part of the fullness
of Him that filleth all in all and is himself filled with the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19), thus ataining the
perfect fullness of his humanity, his human personality. Every Chris�an achieves this fullness through the
holy mysteries and virtues according to the measure of his faith and life in grace in the Church. This is so
for all Chris�ans of all �mes, all who are filled with the fullness of Him that filleth all in all, in us men, in
the angels, the stars, the birds, the plants and minerals, all in all of God’s creatures. This is how we men
are divinely kin to all God’s creatures and all His crea�on, for where the God-Man’s divinity is, there is His
humanity and there are also all the faithful of all �mes, both angels and men. Thus, we men are, in the
Church, filled with all the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9). The fullness of the Theanthropos is the Church:
the God-Man is its Head and it is His body. We are completely dependent on Him, as the body is on the
head. From Him, the immortal Head of the Church, the life-giving powers of grace flow through the whole
body of the Church, anima�ng us with immortality and eternity, all the Church’s senses come from the
Theanthropos: from Him, in Him and by Him. All the holy mysteries and virtues in the Church, by which
we are purified, regenerated, transfigured sanc�fied and made like Christ the God-Man, like God, like the
Holy Trinity, and by which we are saved, come from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, by the
grace of the unity of God the Logos with our human nature in the Person of the God-Man, the Lord Jesus.

Why is the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, all in all in the
Church, the Head of the Body of the Church, and the Church His Body? So that all the members of the
Church may grow up into Him in all things, even Christ . . . �ll we all come unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (εις μετρον ηλικιας του πληρωματος του χριστου) (Eph.
4:15,13). This means that the Church is a theanthropic workshop in which, by means of the holy mysteries
and virtues, men are made like the Theanthropos, like Christ, divinized and transfigured, becoming god-
men by grace and gods by grace. This all comes to pass through, in and according to the God-Man, all in
the Context of theanthropy and the God-Man Himself, the Theanthropos. The Lord Christ, in His Person as
the Theanthropos, encompasses, permeates, and passes through all the worlds in which human beings
move and live: He descends into the lowest parts of the earth, into hell itself, the realm of death; He
ascends above all heavens to fill all things with Himself (ινα πληρωσλη τα παντα) (Eph. 4:8-10; cf. Rom.
10:6-7)

Everything in the Church is led and guided by the Head of the Church, the Lord Christ. Thus, the
God-Man’s Body grows; the God-Man grows. This miracle is unceasingly wrought for the sake of us men,
for our salva�on and chris�fica�on. The Body of Christ, the Church, grows. It grows with everyone who
becomes member of the Church, an integral part of the theanthropic Body of Christ. This growth of every
person’s human personality within the Church comes from the Head of the Church, the Lord Christ: from
Him and His holy, Christ-bearing fellow-workers. The supreme Philanthropos gave apostles and prophets,
evangelists, shepherds, and teachers for the perfecting of the saints . . . for the edifying [building up] of
the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:11,12). Thus, from the Lord Christ, as the Head of the Church, all the Body of the
Church grows harmoniously joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, to the
effectual working . . . of every part (Eph. 4:16).

What is the basis of the hope of our Chris�an calling? It is our union with the Lord Christ and
through Him with those who are in Him, in His theanthropic Body, the Church. His Body is one body (Eph.
4:4), the Body of the incarnate God the Logos, and the spirit in that Body is one spirit (Eph. 4:4), the Holy
Spirit. This theanthropic unity is more perfect and complete than any other. There is no union more real,
more comprehensive and immortal in the earthly world than the union of man with God and other men,
and with all crea�on. The means to enter into this union are accessible to each and all: the holy mysteries
and virtues. The first holy mystery is bap�sm, and the first virtue is faith. One faith (Eph. 4:5), there is no
other; and one Lord (1 Cor. 8:6; 12:5; Jude 3), and there is no other but He (Eph. 4:5); one baptism (Eph.
4:5) and there is no other. Only in organic union with the theanthropic Body of the Church, as a part of
that wondrous organism, does man acquire the full sense, knowledge and convic�on that there is one
Lord: the Holy Trinity; one faith in the most Holy Trinity (Eph. 3:6, 4:13; 4:5; Jude 3); one baptism in the
name of the most Holy Trinity (Mat. 28:19) and one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through
all, and in us all (Eph. 4:6: cf. 1 Cor 8:6; 12:6; Rom. 11:36). ‘One is the Father who is above all, through all
by the Logos who is from Him, and in all by the Holy Spirit,3 To feel thus and live by it is to behave in a
manner worthy of our Chris�an calling (Eph. 4:1, cf. Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:8-17; 1 Thess. 2:7). This means, in
brief, to be a Chris�an.
3. St John Damascene: In Ephes, 4:5-6; PG. 95: 840D

Through Christ the Lord, all men, including Jews and pagans, have access to the Father in the one
Spirit, as only through Christ can anyone come to the Father (Eph. 2:18; Jn. 14:6). By His dispensa�on of
salva�on, the Theanthropos has opened to us and to all, the way and the means of approaching the Triune
Godhead (cf, Rom. 5:1-2; Eph. 3:12; 1 Pet. 3:18). In the theanthropic dispensa�on of salva�on, everything
comes from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. This is the supreme law of the theanthropic
Body of the Church, the supreme law in the life of the Church and in that of every member of the Church.
What, then, is salva�on? It is life in the Church. And what is life in the Church? It is life in the Theanthropos.
And what is life in the Theanthropos? It is life in the Holy Trinity, as the Theanthropos, the Second Person
of the Holy Trinity, is always of one essence and one life with the Father who has no beginning, and the
lifegiving Spirit (cf. Jn. 14:6-9; 6:23,26; 15:24-26; 16:7,13-15; 17:10-26). Thus, in fact, salva�on is life in the
Holy Trinity.

Only in the Lord Christ, the Theanthropos, has man for the first �me felt himself to be a completely
unified, triune being. He has found, in this godlike triunity, the unity of his being, along with godlike
immortality and eternal life. This is why eternal life consists in the knowledge of the Triune God (cf, Jn.
17:3). Conforming to the Triune Godhead, being filled with all the fullness of God (Col. 2:9-10; Eph. 3:19),
becoming perfect even as God is perfect (Mat, 5:48); this is our calling, the hope of our calling, a holy
calling (2 Tim. 1:9), a heavenly calling (Heb. 3:1), the calling of God (Phil. 3:14; Eph. 1:18; Rom. 11:29).
Only in the Church of Christ do we feel vitally and immortally that we are called in one hope of our calling
(Eph. 4:4). One calling for all men; one hope for all men. This calling is lived and experienced by the Church
and in the Church, with all the saints, through the holy mysteries and virtues (Eph. 3:18-19). We then feel
one body and one spirit . . . with all the saints, . . . so we, being many, are one Body in Christ (Rom. 12:5),
for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body . . . and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For
the body is not one member, but many. There are many members, yet but one body (1 Cor. 12:13,14,20).
Now ye are the Body of Christ, and members one of another (1 Cor. 12:27). Hope, led by faith and
evangelical love, carries us towards the accomplishment and atainment of our calling, our goal and
voca�on divine perfec�on. This is accomplished only within the Body of Christ the God-Man by means of
His theanthropic powers, by which all are part of that holy and united body, and in which there is one
spirit, the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Truth (Jn. 15:26) binds together the souls of all Chris�ans into one
Conciliar soul, all hearts into one conciliar heart, all spirits into one conciliar spirit, the conciliar spirit of
the Church: into one faith, the conciliar faith of the Church. This is, in fact, a unifica�on and unity of body
and spirit in which everything flows from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, because it is the
same God which worketh all in all (1 Cor 12:6; cf. Rom. 11:36).

So we, being many, are one Body in Christ (Rom. 12:5), only in Christ. Through the holy mysteries
and the living of the holy virtues, we become of one body in Christ, so that there is no separa�on, no gulf,
between us. We are enlivened by one another and bound together in one life, as the members of the
human body are bound together. Your thought, as long as it is in Christ, forms one body with the thoughts
of all the holy members of the Church, and you truly think with all the saints; your thought is, by grace,
organically united with their thoughts. So are your feelings, your will and your life, as long as they are in
Christ. As in our body there are many members, yet but one body (1 Cor. 12:12), so it is with Christ, for by
one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body (1 Cor. 12:13) and the one Spirit leads us to the one Truth. The
Lord Christ has reconciled all men by the Cross (Eph. 2:16) in His theanthropic Body, from which and
through which the Church exists. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit (1 Cor 12:4) in the
splendor of the eternal and all-divine theanthropic Body. The Spirit acts through the holy gi�s and dwells
in all the members of the Church, uni�ng them in one spirit and one body: by one Spirit are we all baptized
into one body (1 Cor. 12:13).

What is this one body, asks divinely-wise Chrysostom, and himself replies: ‘The faithful from all
parts of the inhabited world who are living now, who have lived and who will live. Those who were pleasing
to God before Christ’s coming are also a part of this body. Why they? Because they too came to know
Christ. How do we know this? It is said: Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and be saw it, and
was glad (Jn. 8:56), and also: For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me
(Jn. 5:46). Indeed, they would not have writen about one of whom they did not know what to say; but
since they knew Him, they also revered Him. Thence they are also parts of the one Body. The body is not
separate from the spirit, otherwise it would not be a body. Moreover, all things that are united and have
a great coherence we call one body.4 So we ourselves, in union, are one Body under one Head.
4. In Ephes. Homily X,1; PG 62: 75-6; Homily XI,1; 79-80.

Everything in the Church is theanthropic: God is always in first place, man in the second. Without
divine power, Chris�ans can neither live nor advance in theanthropic, evangelical living. For everything
that is of Christ the Theanthropos, man needs God’s help. Only by being clothed in power from on high (Lk
24:49; Acts 1:8), in the divine power of the Holy Spirit, can men lead evangelical lives on earth. To this end,
the Savior proclaimed at the Last Supper great, divine truths about the Holy Spirit who accomplishes and
effects the salva�on of men by the power of His divine ac�vity in the theanthropic Body of the Church (cf.
Jn. 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:7-13). By the Holy Spirit, the Lord Christ enters a man and renews him, sanc�fies
and chris�fies him (Eph. 3:16-17). Without the Holy Spirit, the human spirit decays and disintegrates
through sin into innumerable deaths, into non-being and pseudo-being. The Holy Spirit has come into the
world because of Christ and through Him, and has become the Soul in the Body of the Church. He is given
to men, and lives in men, only through Christ and because of Him. Where the God-Man is not, the Holy
Spirit is not; God is not there because the Triune Godhead is not there. For Christ is in the Church through
the Holy Spirit, and the Church is in Christ through the Holy Spirit, Christ is the Head and the Holy Spirit is
the Soul of the Church.

By His divine power the Holy Spirit unites all the faithful into one Body, the Church: by one Spirit
are we all bap�zed into one Body . . . and have all been made to drink into one spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). He is
the Architect and Builder of the Church. According to the inspired words of Saint Basil the Great, ‘the Holy
Spirit is the master-builder of the Church’.5 Through the Holy Spirit we are built, incorporated, into the
Body of the Church. By Him we become co-incarnate with the theanthropic Body of Christ; we become of
the same Body with Christ (Eph. 3:6). Not only has the holy, theanthropic Body of the Church, itself ever
one and indivisible, been created, but it is also constantly built up by the Holy Spirit. There is no doubt
that we become Christ’s only by the Holy Spirit, through the holy mysteries and virtues. For where the
Holy Spirit is, there Christ is also, and where Christ is, there is the Holy Spirit. In brief: the whole Holy
Trinity, by whom and in whom all things exist, is there. The proof of this is the Holy Mystery of Bap�sm:
by it man is brought into the Trinity, so that he can become one with the Trinity through his evangelical
ascesis during his life�me, living from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Receiving the Holy
Mystery of Bap�sm, man clothes himself with the Lord Christ, and through Him is clothed with the Holy
Trinity.
5. in Isaiam, ch. III; PG 30, 289D.

Having become, through bap�sm, a member of the Church of Christ, the eternal theanthropic
Body of Christ, a Chris�an begins to be filled by the holy, divine theanthropic powers which gradually
sanc�fy and deify him, and make him like the God-Man throughout his life and in all eternity. New things
are unceasingly born in him, all of them Christ’s. And what is Christ’s is always new, because it is immortal
and eternal. Our eternal joy lies in the fact that our wondrous Lord Christ is not only the Savior, the
Almighty and Providence Itself, but also the eternal Creator, and thus the eternal Wonderworker. He
therefore proclaims: Behold, I make all things new (Rev. 21:5). His act of crea�on in the Church is our
bap�sm, our rebirth, our new being (παλιγγενεσια) (cf. Mat, 19:28; Jn. 3:3-6).

A Chris�an is a Chris�an because he has, through holy bap�sm, become a living, organic part of
the theanthropic Body of the Church, one body with it, surrounded and permeated by God on all sides,
within and without, co-incarnate with Him, with His divine fullness. Chris�ans are called through bap�sm
to live in and by God incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ; to live in and by the Church, for it is His Body, the
fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:23). The Chris�an’s voca�on is to realize in himself God’s eternal,
divine plan for mankind (Eph. 1:1-10). This comes about through living by and in Christ, by and in the
Church.

The Holy Spirit keeps all the faithful, who have been bap�zed by Him and who cons�tute the Body
of the Church, in unity within the theanthropic Body of the Church by the grace of the holy mysteries and
virtues. The Holy Spirit, who is ever one, is instrumental in the rela�onship and unity of each member of
the Church with the others. All voca�ons in the Church, all the ministries, all the servants of the Church:
apostles, prophets, teachers, bishops, priests, and laity, all cons�tute the one body, the Body of the Church.
All are necessary to each, and each to all. All are bound into one conciliar, theanthropic Body by the Holy
Spirit, the Unifier and Architect of the Church. The supreme law of the conciliarity of the Church is that
each serve all, and all serve each; every member lives and is saved through the whole Body of the Church,
through all the members of the Church, both earthly and heavenly. Chris�an life is nothing other than life
with all the saints in and through the Holy Spirit; the unceasing service of God with all our heart, soul,
mind and being. The Holy Spirit lives in Chris�ans by par�cipa�ng in their en�re life. Through Him they are
aware of God, the world and themselves. All that they do is through Him: prayer, love, belief, and ac�on.
They are saved and sanc�fied, made immortal, becoming like the Theanthropos (cf. Rom. 8:26-27). In fact,
the en�re ascesis salva�on within the Body of the Church is achieved in the Holy Spirit. He is the One who
reveals the Lord to us in Jesus.

He is the One who brings the Lord Christ into our hearts by faith; He unites us with Him by means
of the holy mysteries and virtues; He so unites our spirit with Him that we become joined unto the Lord in
one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17); He shares and dispenses to us the divine gi�s according to His omniscient
Providence; confirms and for�fies us in these gi�s (1 Cor. 12:1-27); He chris�fies and trini�fies us by the
holy mysteries and virtues. And again, He is the one through whom everything that is Christ’s is
accomplished in the human world, the en�re dispensa�on of salva�on, because He is the Soul of the
theanthropic Body of the Church. This is the reason why the life of the Church, as the Body of Christ, began
with the descent of the Holy Spirit on it and con�nues through the ages by means of His presence in it,
because the Church is the Church through Him. Hence also the proclama�on by the holy and God-bearing
Father of the Church, Irenaeus of Lyons: Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God, and where the
Spirit of God is, there too is the Church, and every grace.’6
6. Contra haeres. III, 24:1; PG 7: 966

However, we must never forget that all that we Chris�ans have comes from the Holy Spirit and
from Him alone, for the sake of our wondrous and philanthropic Savior, the sweet Lord Jesus. ‘For His sake
the Holy Spirit descended into the world’;7 for His sake He con�nues His saving work as the Theanthropos
in the Church. If the Lord Christ, truly the ‘only Lover of mankind’, had not come to our earthly world and
accomplished His all-inclusive philanthropic act of salva�on, the Holy Spirit would not have come to our
world.
7. Akathist to our Most Sweet Lord Jesus Christ, cf. Jn. 16:7-17; 14:26; 15.26.

With the advent of the Lord Christ to our earthly world and through His theanthropic dispensa�on
of salva�on, everything divine has become human, earthly, ours, our body, our most direct reality. The
Logos was made flesh (Jn. 1:14), and so gave direct reality. The Logos was made flesh (Jn. 1:14), and so
gave us men the greatest and most precious gi� that only the God of love can give. What is the gi� of
Christ (Eph. 4:7)? Everything that the Lord Christ, as the God-Man, has brought into the world and done
for the world. He brought the fullness of the Godhead as a gi�, so that men could partake of it, and be
filled with the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19; 4:8-10; 1:23; Col. 2:10). Furthermore, He gave the Holy Spirit as
a gi� to men, that they might, by His grace-bestowing power, receive within themselves a place for the
fullness of the divinity. All this cons�tutes Christ the God-Man’s greatest gi� to the world: the Church. All
the gi�s of the Triune Godhead are in it. All this grace is given unto every one of us according to the
measure of the gi� of Christ (Eph. 4:7). But it depends on us, on our faith, our love, our humility and other
asce�c endeavors, how much we will use, adopt and live by this gi�. According to His immeasurable love
for mankind, the Lord Christ has le� to each and every one of us all of Himself, all His gi�s, all that He has
sanc�fied, all His Church. We partake in His gi� according to the degree to which we enter the Church and
Christ, and become like them in nature. His greatest gi� is eternal life. The Apostle therefore proclaims:
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 6:23).

All the Triune Godhead’s grace is given in the theanthropic Body of the Church; the grace which
saves from sin, death and the devil, which regenerates, transforms, sanc�fies, chris�fies, deifies and
trini�fies us. Grace is given to each of us according to the measure of the gift of Christ, and the Lord Christ
measures grace to each according to his own labor (1 Cor. 3:8), according to our labor in faith, love, charity,
prayer, fas�ng, vigilance, meekness, repentance, humility, longsuffering and in the other holy and
evangelical virtues and mysteries. Foreseeing, in His divine omniscience, how each of us will avail ourself
of His grace and gi�s, the Lord Christ allots His gi�s to every man according to his several ability: five
talents to one, two to another and one to a third (Mat. 25:15). However, our place in the life-giving,
theanthropic Body of Christ, the Church, which extends from earth to above all heavens, depends on our
own effort. The more a man lives by the fullness of Christ’s grace, the more the gi�s of Christ will be in
him and the more the powers of the theanthropic Body of Christ, His Church, will cleanse him from every
sin, sanc�fy and deify him and make him like the Theanthropos, pervading his whole being. Thus, each of
us lives in all and for all. This is why we rejoice at the gi�s of our brethren, par�cularly when they exceed
our own.
 For the Church to be able to accomplish the eternal plan of the Triune Godhead for the human
race, the Lord Christ gave it apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11). He ‘gave’
them to the Church, and gave them all the necessary divine and theanthropic powers by which they are
what they are. There are diverse gi�s, but the Lord who gives them is one and the Spirit who unites them
is one. An apostle is therefore an apostle because he lives, thinks and acts by the grace of apostolicity
received from the Lord Christ. A prophet is a prophet because he lives, thinks and acts by the grace of
prophecy received from the Lord Christ. Likewise, an evangelist, a pastor and a teacher are what they are
because they live, think and act by the grace of evangelizing, prophesying, and teaching respec�vely,
received from the Lord Christ (cf 1 Cor. 12:28; 12:4,5,6,11; Eph. 2:20). The Lord Christ is the apostolicity of
the and act by the grace of evangelizing, prophesying of the prophets, the sanc�ty of the saints, the faith
of the faithful, and the love of the loving. What is an apostle? A servant of the Church. And apostolicity?
Service of the Church. It is so according to the dispensation of God (κατα την οικονομιαν του θεου) (Col.
1:25). Such is the divine dispensa�on of the salva�on of the world (η οικονομια). For salva�on is service
of the Church, and service of the Church is obedience to the Church. Obedience to the Lord Christ stems
en�rely from love. This is the supreme law of theanthropic life in the Church.

Why did the Lord give these holy servants? For the service of the edifying of the Body of Christ (εις
οικοδομην του σωματος του χριστου) (Eph. 4:12). In what does this service consist? The building of Christ’s
body, the Church. God has appointed men of excep�onal holiness as leaders and guides in this holy work.
And the Chris�ans? All Chris�ans are called to sanc�fy themselves by the power of the grace given to them
through the holy mysteries and virtues.

How is the building of the Body of Christ accomplished? By the increase of the membership of the
Church. Every Chris�an is built into the Body of Christ by bap�sm, becoming of one body (Eph. 3:6) with
it. The Body of the Church thus increases, grows, is built up. The God-inspired Apostle says that Chris�ans
are the living stones which are built into the spiritual house, the Church (cf. 1 Pet 2:5). There is another
way of building the Body of Christ. This consists in spiritual growth, the perfec�ng, the upbuilding of the
members of the Church, those who are of one body with it. Every member works on the building of the
Body of the Church by every evangelical ascesis, as every spiritual endeavor builds the Church, and its
Body thus grows. It grows through our prayer, our faith, love, humility, obedience, charity, and
prayerfulness, it grows by everything in us that is evangelical, full of the holy virtues, of longing and love
for Christ; it is our becoming Christ-like. We grow spiritually through the Church, and it itself thus grows.
Therefore, let all things be unto edifying (παντα προς οικοδομην γενεσθω) (1 Cor. 14:26), to the building-
up of the Church of Christ, because we are all called to be builded together for an habitation of God through
the Spirit (Eph. 2:22). You Chris�ans, what are you? Ye are God’s building (οικοδομη) (1 Cor 3:9). A Chris�an
build (οικοδομει) the Church by every gi� that he is given by grace, every virtue, every asce�c endeavor
(cf, 1 Cor. 14:4,5,12,26). We all grow heavenwards through the Church and each of us grows through all,
and all through each. Each and every one of us is therefore directed towards these good �dings and this
command: to make the increase of the body (the Church) unto the edifying of (itself) in love (εις οικοδομην
εαυτου εν αγαπη) (Eph. 4:16). The edifying, upbuilding force is provided by all the holy mysteries and
virtues, with love in first place: love builds, charity edifies (οικοδομει) (1 Cor. 8:1).
What is the purpose of the building up of the Body of Christ and our spiritual growth in it? It is that we
should all come:

1. in the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.

2. unto a perfect man
3. unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

1. Unity of faith and of the knowledge of Christ is atained only in union with all the saints (Eph. 3:18), only
by conciliar life with all the saints, under the supreme guidance of the holy apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors, fathers and teachers. And they are, in the most holy manner, led and directed by the Holy Spirit
from Pentecost onwards, through all ages to the Dreadful Judgement. The Holy Spirit is that one spirit in
the Body of the Church (Eph. 4:4). Unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus
Christ, are in Him and from Him. The whole apostolic truth, the Orthodox Faith and the knowledge of
Christ are in the Spirit of Truth, who guides us into that one and unique truth (cf, Jn. 16:13; 15:26; 14:26).
He unites our sense of Christ with the conciliar heart of the Church and our knowledge of Christ with the
conciliar knowledge of the Church. The Body of the Church is one and is of one heart and one soul (Acts
4:32). We enter into that one heart, the conciliar heart of the Church, and that one soul, the conciliar soul
of the Church, and are united with them by the Holy Spirit’s act of grace, humbling our mind before the
holy, conciliar mind of the Church and our spirit before the Holy Spirit of the Church. Thus we achieve the
unchanging sense and knowledge that we are of one and the same faith in the Lord Christ with all the holy
apostles, prophets, fathers and teachers and with the righteous; the same faith in the Lord and the same
knowledge of the Lord.

Faith in the Lord Christ and knowledge of the Lord Christ cons�tute an essen�al, indestruc�ble
unity. These two are one in the Church and are given as one by the Holy Spirit for the asce�c prac�ce of
humility and most especially for humility of mind. ‘Unity of faith is not to disagree about the dogma�c
teachings. Likewise, unity of the knowledge of the Son of God means that there are no differences in the
understanding of Him.’8 ‘Unity of faith means that all of us have the same faith. For when all are one, that
is the unity of faith (οταν παντες εν ωμεν), when we all have the same understanding of that unity. Till
then you must work, if you have received the gi�, to build up (οικοδομης) others. And when all of us
believe the same, this is the unity of faith.’9 Unity of faith means that all of us have the same faith, neither
differing dogma�cally, nor having any discord among us in our lives. The unity of faith and knowledge of
the Son of God is real when we are dogma�cally orthodox (εν τοις δογμασιν ορθοδοξωμεν) and when we
live in love. For Christ is love.”10
8. Oecumenius: Comment in Ephes. Ad. Loc. PG 118: 1220C
9. St John Chrysostom: ibid Homily XI, 3: PG 62:83
10. Blessed Theophylactus: Expos. Ad Ephesios; PG 1244, ad loc.; 1088A

2. A perfect man. What is a perfect man and who is the perfect Man? Un�l the advent of Christ the God-
Man on earth, men knew neither what is a perfect man, nor who is the perfect Man. The human spirit was
incapable of conceiving the image of a perfect man either as a concept or as an ideal, let alone as a reality.
Hence so much fruitless searching even by the most prominent of human thinkers such as Plato, Socrates,
Buddha Confucius, Lao-tse and others: pre-Chris�an and non-Chris�an seekers a�er the ideal, perfect
man. Only since the advent of the God-man among men have men realized what the perfect man is, having
seen Him in reality, in their midst. For human ques�ng, there is no more doubt Jesus Christ is the perfect
Man. As far as the truth is concerned, it is all in Him, so much so that outside Him there is no truth, for He
Himself is the Truth. As for jus�ce, it is also all in Him, so much so that outside Him there is no jus�ce, for
He Himself is Jus�ce. All that is best, most sublime most godly and perfect has been realized in Him. There
is no goodness that a man can desire that cannot be found in Him. Likewise, there is no sin that an enemy
of Christ might imagine that could be found in Him. He is wholly without sin, and full of all perfec�on; the
perfect, ideal Man. If this is not so, find another who could approximate to Him. No such man can be
found, as no such exists in human history.

The ques�on is: how can one atain unto a perfect man? The uniqueness of the Unique One
consists in the very fact that He has given everyone the means not only to come into contact with the
perfect Man, but also to become partakers, members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph. 5:30).
How? Only together with all the saints, through the holy evangelical virtues, through the conciliar and holy
life of the Church. For the Church is nothing other than the perfect man on his path throughout the ages
towards the realiza�on of God’s plan for the world. So the least among us, the most despised and
miserable, is given the possibility to atain together with all the saints, through the evangelical virtues,
unto a perfect man. It is said: Till we all attain unto a perfect man. This means that is not given to the proud
man who walks by himself, but to the humble man who lives with his fellow-men; it is given for community
with all the saints. Living with all the saints in the theanthropic Body of Christ the perfect Man, every
Chris�an himself, according to the measure of his spiritual ascesis, atains this perfec�on, becoming a
perfect man. So this blessed goal and ideal become accessible and atainable to everyone in the Church:
Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect (Mat. 5:48). The holy Apostle par�cularly
emphasizes that the goal of the Church is that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus (Col. 1:28).
In His boundless love for men, the God-Man has transformed Himself, the perfect Man, into the Church,
to transform all those who become its members into perfect men. The theanthropic dispensa�on of
salva�on has only one purpose: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good
works (2 Tim. 3:17).

The measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (εις μετρον ηλικιας του πληρωματος του
Χριστου). What does this mean? What is it that comprises the stature, the fullness, of Christ? What is He
filled with? With divine perfec�on. For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9),
within the confines of the human body. The Savior thus shows that the human body is capable of
containing the fullness of the Godhead in itself, and that this is, in fact, the goal of the human being.
Therefore, to atain unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ means to grow into all His
divine perfec�on, to unite with it spiritually, to mold ourselves according to it and to live in it. In other
words, to experience Christ, the fullness of the Godhead in Him, as our own life, as our soul, our eternity,
as our ul�mate value, goal and thought. To experience Him as the only true God and the only true Man,
as perfect God and perfect Man, in whom everything human has been brought to the zenith of its human
perfec�on. To experience Him as perfect, divine Truth, perfect, divine Jus�ce, Love, Wisdom, and Life,
eternal Life. In brief: to experience Him as the Theanthropos, as the final goal of all God-created worlds
(cf. Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 2:10).

How is this possible? It is possible only in union with all the saints. For it is said: Till we all come ...
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, not only I, you, or we, but all of us: guided and
led by the holy apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, fathers, and teachers. Only the saints know the
way: only they have all the means, and they give them to those who yearn for God, to grow unto the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And what is the stature of the fullness of Christ, if not His
holy, theanthropic Body, the Church? To achieve the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ means
nothing other than to become a true member of the Church, for the Church is ‘the fullness of Christ’, the
fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:23). You are a member of the Church? This means that you are
always with all the saints, and through them with the wondrous and wonderworking Lord Christ. With
Him, you are en�rely limitless, holy and eternal: you are love, truth, jus�ce and prayer. Everything of yours
is of one heart and one soul with all the saints: your mind is conciliar, as your soul, heart, truth and life. All
is conciliar through the Holy Spirit, and you are not your own; you are in all and through all, and all is in
you and through you. Nothing is yours, because it is yours through all the saints; and you yourself are not
yours, but Christ’s and only through Him your own, and only your own with all the saints. It is they who,
with unuterable joy, make you Christ’s, and fill you with the fullness of Christ from whom, by whom and
in whom all things consist (Col. 1:16-17) Therefore, through the Church and in the Church alone, men
atain the goal, the meaning and the ul�mate purpose of the human being in all worlds.

Growing through Christ unto a perfect man, a man gradually leaves spiritual childhood, spiritual
weakness, and grows stronger, maturing in spirit, mind and heart. Living by Christ, he grows fully into
Christ, into Christ’s truth; he grows akin to it, and it becomes the eternal truth of his mind, his heart and
his soul. We can confidently say for such a man that he knows the truth, for he has the Truth. This living,
divine Truth in him serves as an infallible yards�ck for discerning between truth and falsehood, good and
evil, in the human world. He cannot, therefore, be swayed or misled by any human teaching. He
immediately senses the spirit of any human teaching offered to him, for he knows man and what is in him;
he knows what kind of teaching he can create and give. Is not any human teaching that does not lead to
divine truth forged of lies? What human teaching tells the true purpose of life and explains the mystery of
death? Not one. What they say about it is falsehood and deceit, as is what they propose as answers to
ques�ons about life and death. Equally there is no human teaching which explains the mysteries of the
world and man, the soul and conscience, good and evil, God and the devil. When they do not tell us these
things, are they not deceiving us with their trivial, gaudy trinkets, luring us into labyrinths of useless
cogita�on and dangerous pe�ness? In the human world only Christ the God-Man has resolved all the
greatest ques�ons about the world and life, on the solu�on of which depends the des�ny of the human
being in all worlds. He who has Christ, has everything that a human being needs, not only in this temporal
life, but also in everlas�ng, eternal life. A who is Christ’s cannot be thrown off balance by any wind of
human teaching, let alone swayed or carried away. Without faith in Christ, without rootedness in Christ’s
Truth, a man is indeed a reed tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of false human doctrine
(Eph. 4:14).

The infallible Apostle therefore advises and directs the Chris�ans: Be not carried about with divers
and strange doctrines. for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace (Heb. 13:9). Men
deceive themselves with their diverse teachings, more involuntarily than voluntarily. They deceive
themselves by sin, which has become their way of thinking through habit, and has become so natural and
human that it is not felt or recognized by those guided and led by sin in their thoughts and teachings.
Through sin we come to the creator of sin, the principal logic of sin; the devil. He has countless very skillful
and subtle ways of infiltra�ng his lies into human teaching, aliena�ng men from the only true God.
Moreover, he introduces all his wiles (πανουργια) by the logic of sin into these human sciences, ar�ully
deceiving men with his blasphemy, so that they, in their self-delusion, deny God, reject God, are blind to
God or fence themselves in from Him. Sin is primarily a mental, intellectual and ra�onal force, poured as
a most tenuous fluid over human consciousness and conscience, the mind, soul and reason. It acts through
the consciousness and conscience as their cons�tuent force, so that men consider all the blasphemies and
decep�ons of their consciousness and conscience as en�rely their own human and natural, without
realizing, in their self-delusion and Stupor, that all this is a devilish trick (πανουργια) by which the devil
precipitates the human mind, consciousness and conscience into death and darkness. Once there, men
cannot see either God or the divine, and thus they o�en blaspheme, denying and rejec�ng Him. It can be
clearly concluded by the fruits of these teachings that they indeed are doctrines of devils (διδασκαλιαι
δαιμονιων) (1 Tim. 4:1).

The intellectual fluid of demonic wiles permeates, consciously or unconsciously, all philosophies
a�er the tradi�on of men (Col. 2:8), and so they do not recognize the divine truths concerning man and
the world, good and evil, God and the devil. Instead, they are stupefied by subtle demonic lies, while the
full truth of all worlds (Col. 2:9) is in the philosophy according to Christ the God-Man. Philosophies a�er
the tradi�ons of men by good words and plausible speech deceive the hearts of the simple (Rom 16:18).
All human, earthly philosophies can, without doubt, be classified in two basic groups: philosophies
according to man and the philosophy according to the God-Man. The principal gnoseological crea�ve
factor of the first is the devil, and of the second, Christ the God-Man. The basic principle of the philosophy
according to the God-Man is this: the God-Man is the criterion for all creatures and all crea�on. Conversely,
the basic principle of the humanis�c or, more accurately, hominis�c, philosophies according to man is this:
man is the criterion of all creatures and all crea�on.

The philosophy according to the God-Man contains the whole Truth, eternal divine Truth, for in
Christ all the fullness of the Godhead is bodily present in this world, and through this fullness eternal Truth
is present in this world, present bodily in Christ the God-Man, who is at the same �me perfect God and
perfect Man, true God and true man. Conversely, the philosophies according to man contain, directly or
indirectly, the lie which comes in every way from the father of all lies, the devil, and always leads to him.
Therefore, our conscience, the human being’s ul�mate guardian, must be vigilant day and night, lest that
lie creep into you or me and cast us, our thoughts, our minds, into hell, the realm of lies. Hence the
evangelical commandment of the Lord Christ, the God-Man: in understanding be perfect (1 Cor. 14:20).
And you will if you atain unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Your
mind will then be united by grace with the mind of Christ, with the conciliar and holy theanthropic mind
of the Church, and you will be able to claim, together with the holy Christ-bearer: We have the mind of
Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). No wind of human teaching and deceit or diabolic wiles will then be able to sway us
or mislead us, but we shall remain with our whole being in the eternal Truth, which is the Lord Christ, the
Theanthropos Himself (Jn. 16:6; 8:32,36; 1:17).

If truth were anything but Christ the Theanthropos, it would be puny, deficient, transient, and
mortal. It would be such if it were a concept, or an idea, a theory, a scheme, reason, science, philosophy,
culture, man or humanity, the world or all the worlds, or anyone or anything, or all these together. But the
Truth is the Person of Christ the Theanthropos, and is therefore perfect, everlas�ng and eternal. In the
Lord Christ, Truth and Life are of the same essence: eternal Truth and eternal Life (cf. Jn. 14:6; 1:4,17). He
who believes in the Lord Christ con�nually grows by His Truth into its divine infinity; grows with all his
being his mind, heart, and soul. Thus, he lives constantly by Christ’s Truth, as it cons�tutes life itself in
Christ. Life in Christ is life in truth (αληθευοντες) (Eph. 4:15), a constant abiding with all our being in the
truth of Christ. A Chris�an’s life in truth stems from his love for the Lord Christ. He is constantly growing
and developing in that love, for love never faileth (2 Cor. 13:8). This love for the Lord Christ is the mo�ve
for our life in His Truth and maintains us in it. It allows a Chris�an constantly to grow in Christ, into all His
height, breadth, and depth (cf. Eph. 3:17-19). We are never alone, but are with all the saints, in the Church
and with the Church, as it is impossible otherwise to grow into Him which is the Head of the Body of the
Church, even Christ (Eph. 4:15). When we live in the truth, we do so with all the saints, and when we love,
we love with all the saints, for all is conciliar in the Church; all that happens is with all the saints because
all cons�tute one spiritual body, in which all live one conciliar life, by one Spirit and one Truth. Only by
living in truth and love with all the saints can we grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even
Christ. The Church receives the infinite powers required of all Chris�ans for growth in the theanthropic
Body directly from its Head, the Lord Christ. For only He, God and Lord, has these innumerable and infinite
powers, and disposes them with supreme wisdom.

In the Church, all truth was incarnate in Christ the God-man; it became human, became man. The
truth is man. This is who and what Christ is. When all truth could be, and was, incarnate as man, it means
that man was created to be the body of Truth, the incarna�on of Truth. The greatest �dings that the
Theanthropos brings is that to be a man is to be the incarna�on of Truth, the incarna�on of God. For this
reason, God became man and remains forever the God-Man. Hence life in Christ, in the Church, is life in
the fullness of Truth.

The Lord Christ is fully in the Church, with all His being as the Logos and the Theanthropos; fully,
with His truth, His life, His jus�ce, His love and His eternity. In brief: with all the fullness of his Godhead
and His humanity. Only from Him, the Theanthropos, do we men on earth and the angels in heaven know
that He is the Truth. The proclama�on that truth came by Jesus Christ (Jn. 1:17), is true for all �me. Its
meaning is this: the Truth is the Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus Christ; the Truth is the Second Person of the
Holy Trinity. In our earthly world, the Truth is no less than the whole Person of Christ the Theanthropos. It
is neither a concept nor an opinion; it is not a logical scheme, a logical force; it is not man or angel,
humanity anything human or anything created; nor is it all the visible and invisible worlds, but something
incomparably and immeasurably more than all that. The Truth, the eternal and perfect Truth in our earthly
world, and through it in all visible and invisible worlds, is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the
historical Person of the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Hence the Lord Christ proclaims this
trinitarian Good News about Himself: I am the truth (Jn 14:6; cf Eph. 4:24). And as He is the Truth, then
His Body, the Church of which He is the Head, is the Truth. Hence the miraculous and joyful proclama�on
by the Christ-bearing Apostle: The Church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim.
3:15). For this reason, the Church and its truth cannot be demolished, destroyed, disempowered or killed
by any of its enemies, whether on earth or in hell. In Christ the Theanthropos, it is uterly perfect, powerful,
divine, victorious and immortal. Being such, it frees every human being from sin, death and the devil, that
threefold lie, and ensures immortality and eternal life to each and every Chris�an. It does this by
sanc�fying and chris�fying men and making them like the God-Man, by means of the holy mysteries and
virtues. Hence the saving good �dings from the mouth of the God-Man: And ye shall know the truth, and
the truth shall make you free (Jn. 8:32) from sin, death and the devil, and lead you into all truth, giving you
all the blessings of heaven. One of the Fathers of the Church, therefore, jus�fiably says: ‘The Church is the
mainstay of the truth, and everything done in it is true and brings salva�on.’11
11. Theophylact: Expos. In Epist. I ad Timoth, 3:15; PG 125: 49C.
 For all these reasons, the incarna�on of God, God in the flesh, the Lord Christ, the Theanthropos,
is the Truth revealed in every page of the New Testament. With Him the whole Church stands or falls, the
en�re theanthropic dispensa�on of salva�on. This is the essence of all the acts, spiritual endeavors, virtues
and events that are recorded in the New Testament; the supreme the ul�mate Good News. This fact, this
ul�mate Good News, is the supreme criterion. It measures everything in the Church, in Christendom, as
the most infallible yards�ck. The zenith of this truth is: who does not confess the incarna�on of God, the
God-Man Jesus Christ, is not a member of the Church. He is An�christ.

This infallible criterion is the Good News given us by the holy, Christ-loving seer of God and His
mysteries, John the Evangelist: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:
because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit
that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, And every spirit that confesseth not that
Jesus Christ is come in flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it
should come, and even now already is in the world (1 Jn. 4:1-3; 2:22; 1 Cor. 12:3).

There are two kinds of spirit that inhabit or frequent our earthly world: those that are of God and
those that are of the devil. Those who acknowledge and confess that Jesus is the incarnate God the Logos,
the Lord and Savior, are of God. Those who do not are of the devil. The philosophy of the devil lies en�rely
in this: to deny God and His presence in the world to deny His incarna�on, His becoming man, in the world;
to claim and profess that there is no God either in the world or in man, that there is no God in the God-
Man: that it is nonsense to believe that God became incarnate as man and that He can live in man; that
man is en�rely without God, a being in whom there is no God, or anything of God, anything divine,
immortal or eternal, that man is completely transient and mortal, that man in everything belongs to the
animal world and it is therefore natural for him to live like animals, his only legal ancestors and his natural
brethren.

Such is the philosophy of An�christ, whose desire it is to supplant Christ at all costs, to take His
place in the world and in man, An�christ’s forerunners, confessors, and believers have through the ages,
been innumerable in the human world. Every Spirit: a spirit can be a person or a teaching, an idea, a
thought, a man, or an angel, or devil. So, every teaching, every person, idea or thought, every man who
does not acknowledge that Jesus is God and Savior, God incarnate and God-Man, derives from and belongs
to An�christ. There have been such persons, teachings, and ideas from the very �me of the Lord Christ’s
coming into the world. Hence the holy seer of divine mysteries says that An�christ is even now already in
the world. Every man, every idea in the world that denies Christ the Theanthropos and His Church is of
An�christ. Directly or indirectly, An�christ is the creator of every an�-Chris�an ideology. In fact, there are
only two kinds of ideology: for Christ and for An�christ. In the end, man is in this world to resolve only one
thing: whether he is for Christ or against Him. This is all that every man does, willingly or unwillingly: he
solves this problem, his ul�mate problem. Each one of us is therefore either a Christ-lover or a Christ-
hater; either a Christ-worshipper or a devil-worshipper. There is no third op�on.

The God-Man’s Gospel directs us men to our chief task and purpose in life: to have that mind . . .
which was also in Christ Jesus; to think on those things which are above, in the risen and ascended God-
Man, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:5; Col. 3:1-4). What are these things? All that He, as eternal Truth, is
and contains in Himself as God the Logos; all His divine proper�es, virtues and perfec�ons. Likewise, all
that He, as the incarnate Man, the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, has and contains in Himself: all His
human characteris�cs, thoughts, ascesis, experiences, acts; all His life, from His birth to His ascension,
from the Ascension to the Judgement Day, and from the Judgement Day through divine eternity. Our
primary Chris�an duty, day and night, is to ponder on all this. If a man thinks of truth and folly, of life and
death, of good and evil, of jus�ce and injus�ce, of heaven and hell, of God and the devil, and does not
think of these things in Christ Jesus, his thoughts do not grow into Christ’s thought but are cast down into
nonsense and suicidal suffering. So, if we do not think in Christ and by Christ about society, the person,
the family, the na�on or mankind, we will never discover their true meaning or truly solve any of their
problems.

To think, in all things, in Christ and by Christ: these are the two greatest commandments for every
Chris�an. It is our Chris�an categoric impera�ve, Our Chris�an gnoseology. We are able to think in Christ
if we have the mind of Christ. The holy Apostle asserts about the Chris�ans: We have the mind of Christ (1
Cor. 2:16). How have we acquired it? By living in His theanthropic Body, the Church, of which He is the
Head. Living in the Church, by means of the holy mysteries and virtues, unites our being with that of the
Church, unites our mind with the theanthropic mind of the Church and enables us to reason according to
Christ, to think according to that which was also in Christ Jesus. Thinking with Christ’s mind, the conciliar
Mind of the Church, Chris�ans can be like-minded, having the same love, and be of one soul and one heart,
of one accord, of one mind (Phil. 2:2. 3:16; 4:2; Rom. 15:5; 1 Cor. 1:10). Christ our God and Lord descended
from the divine, heavenly heights and Himself became man so that men might think according to that
which is in Christ Jesus (Philip. 2:5) and live a life worthy of God (I Thess. 2:12). God became man so that
man might become god, as the holy Fathers delight in saying. In this lies the whole truth of the Church,
the truth of the Theanthropos, the truth of heaven and earth, immortal and eternal.

In all respects, the organism of the Church is the most complex known to man. Why? Because it is
a unique theanthropic organism in which all divine and human mysteries and all divine and human powers
cons�tute one body. Only the omniscient omnipotent Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, could unite and
assemble all this into one Body, His own, of which He is the eternal Head. He, the miraculous and
wonderworking God and Man, guides and directs the whole of life in this miraculous and wonderworking
Body. Every �ny part of this Body lives by the whole Body, and the whole Body lives in its every part. All
live through each and in each, and each lives through all and in all. Every part grows by the general growth
of the Body, and the whole Body also grows by the growth of each �niest part. All these numerous, �ny
parts of the body, all these organs, limbs and senses, all these cells, are united in one eternally-living
theanthropic Body by the Lord Christ Himself, who co-ordinates the ac�on of each part with the conciliar
life of the Body. Each part works according to the measure of its powers. The strength of each member of
the Church comes from the evangelical virtues. The evangelical ac�vity of each member of the Church,
although separate and personal, is always ul�mately conciliar, common and general; it is integrated into
the general ac�vity of the whole Body. While man is transformed by this evangelical ac�vity, growing into
Christ, the Lord Christ turns this ac�vity into general, conciliar, theanthropic energy and thus maketh
increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love (Eph. 4:16). The ac�vity of each member of the
Church is, therefore, always at the same �me personal and conciliar, personal and collec�ve. Even if it
appears that a member acts only on his own behalf (for example, in the ascesis of hermits), each member
of the Church always works for the whole. Such is the dispensa�on of the theanthropic organism of the
Church which is constantly led and guided by the Lord Christ Himself.
 The lives of angels and men, of the righteous and unrighteous, of the departed and those living
on earth, are interwoven in the conciliar life of the Church. Those who are more righteous and holy help
those who are less so to grow by divine growth into greater and greater righteousness and holiness. The
holy power of Christ the Theanthropos flows through all these members, even the smallest and most
insignificant, according to the measure their incorpora�on by grace into the organism of the Church,
through the ascesis of faith, love, prayer, fas�ng, repentance and other holy virtues. Thus, we all grow
together unto an holy temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:21), organically linked through grace with each other by
one faith, the same holy mysteries and virtues, one Lord, one Truth, one Gospel. We all partake in the one
theanthropic life or the Church, each in his place in that Body, the place alloted to him by the Lord, the
Head of the Church, for the Body or the Church grows from Him and is by Him harmoniously joined and
assembled. The Lord determines the place each according to his spiritual ap�tude and Chris�an character,
especially according to the evangelical love that each freely nurtures in himself and by which he acts. In
this conciliar life of the Church, each edifies himself in love through all, and all through each. Hence, even
an apostle needs the prayers of the ordinary members of the Church.

The members of the Church, completely united with the God-Man by grace and the virtues, live
by all that is in Him, have all that is in Him and know by His knowledge. They reason with the conciliar
mind of the Church, feel with the conciliar heart of the Church and live by the conciliar life of the Church.
All that they have is primarily and always His, and they are their own only through Him and by Him.

All of us, the faithful, are one body in the Church, but to what purpose? To live the one, holy and
conciliar life of the Church by the holy conciliar faith, soul, mind and will of the Church. Thus, all is conciliar
and collec�ve for us: faith, love jus�ce, prayer, fas�ng, truth, sorrow, pain, salva�on, deifica�on becoming
like the God-Man, immortality, eternity and bea�tude. The grace of the Holy Spirit leads, directs and unites
through all this. We are not our own; we belong to all who are in the Church, and above all to the Soul of
the Church, the Holy Spirit. The awareness of this is the principal, the unceasing, evangelical awareness of
every true member of the Church. Nothing belongs to any one person in the Church, but to each is given
as much as the Holy Spirit has determined according to his place in the theanthropic Body of the Church
and the measure of his faith.

A sense of conciliarity, of personal responsibility, is a mark of every Chris�an. He knows that when
he falls, he pulls others down with him; when he rises, he li�s others as well. His life is not his alone but is
interwoven with the lives of his brethren in the Faith, because we all cons�tute the one Body of the Church.
We have all in common in the Church: God, God’s holy things, the soul, the conscience and the heart.
Through prayer and grace, each is in all and all in each. No one knows how much each of us owes to God’s
saints and their prayers: our soul, our faith, our very salva�on. If you are a member of the Church, it means
that you are organically bound together with the holy apostles, martyrs and confessors and the heavenly
powers of the angels. Love of holy conciliarity unites the members of the Church in a theanthropic way.
Each and all live the conciliar life of the Church. This holy love of conciliarity depends on their faith in Christ
and their life in Him. Hence the divinely-wise Apostle proclaims to the Chris�ans: As ye have therefore
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him (Col. 2:6). Do not change anything in the Lord Christ; do
not add anything to Him. He, as He is, is divinely and humanly perfect. We, the apostles, have thus
preached and handed down the Lord Christ, the Theanthropos; thus, you have received Him, so live in him.
 Walk ye in Him, live in Him: this is the supreme commandment. Do not adapt or change Him to
yourself, but yourself to Him; do not mold Him in your image, but yourself in His. Only vain here�cs and
those who foolishly lose their souls mold, adapt and change Christ the Theanthropos according to their
desires and understanding. This is why there are so many ‘false Christs’ in the world and so many false
Chris�ans. The true Lord Christ the Theanthropos, in the fullness of His evangelical historicity and reality,
is wholly in His theanthropic Body, the Orthodox Church: He was in the �me of the holy apostles, is today
and will be forever. His life con�nues in the theanthropic Body of the Church through all ages and all
eternity. Living in the Church, we live in Him, as the Christ-bearing Apostle commands and as the saints
live most fully. They preserve the image of Christ the Theanthropos in its wondrous, life-giving fullness, in
full truth, beauty and changelessness. At the same �me, the Savior’s Christ-like saints also preserve, in its
perfec�on and changelessness, the theanthropic goal of man and of life that the Lord Christ commanded
us, and which is atainable only in His theanthropic Body, the Church. However, any altera�on, diminishing,
simplifica�on or anthropomorphizing of this Chris�an goal en�rely destroys Chris�anity and takes away
its substance, dragging it down to the earth and transforming it into an ordinary, human, sickly-humanis�c
religion and philosophy, an ethics and teaching, a humanis�c edifice, a sickly humanis�c community.

Every new member represents an increase and growth of the Body of the Church. Each becomes
a part of this Body of the Church according to his capacity. The Lord Himself allocates him an appropriate
place in the Body of the Church making him a living, integral part of it. Truly, only in the theanthropic
organism of the Church do all work for each and each for all; all live for each and each for all. Indeed, the
problems of personality and society have been solved in a perfect way only in the Church, and only in the
Church have perfect personality and perfect society been realized. In fact, outside the Church, there is
neither true personality nor true society.

Saint John Damascene proclaims: ‘Christ, our Head, imparts Himself to us (μεταδιδωσιν ημιν
εαυτον) . . . and thus unites us with Himself and with each other; as a consequence, we are in reciprocal
union and harmony, although each one is helped by the Holy Spirit inasmuch as he is able to receive His
help.’12
12. St John Damascene: In Ephes, PG 95:844A.

The Lord Christ is the Head of the Church, and He is also the Savior of the Body of the Church (Eph.
5:23). As the Head of the Church, the Lord Christ unceasingly gives the Body of the Church all it requires
for its life in Him and the salva�on of its members from sin, death and the devil. The Church is always the
Church through Christ; He is always its Head, and it His Body. Everything in it depends on Him: it lives,
exists by Him and brings salva�on and immortality by Him, obeying Him in all things and serving Him with
all its being God is all in all for man in the Church. The Church is the most perfect organiza�on because it
is the most perfect organism; the theanthropic organism God and man are united in it in a spirit-inspired
and grace-filled theanthropic organism. God lives in and through man, and man lives in and through God.
Man voluntarily submits to God in everything; he is perfected in God, he increaseth with the increase of
God; unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:13),
but he does not stop being a man. All this is theanthropic symbiosis, co-opera�on, balance, and fullness.
For this reason, the Church is the only real and true community, the only real and perfect society. In it, the
person is perfected by society and society by the person. Each receives power for such spiritual endeavor
from the wondrous Lord Christ, who is both the Head of society as a whole and of each individual as a
person. There is therefore neither true society nor true personality outside the Church.

Sanc�fica�on comes from the Holy One, as enlightenment comes from light. The Church, which
encompasses all worlds, could only be sanc�fied by such an all-holy all-encompassing being as the God-
Man, the Lord Christ. That He might sanc�ty it He gave Himself for it (Eph. 5:25), He le� Himself to it and
founded it upon Himself. The whole life of the God-Man is nothing other than the salva�on of the world
from sin, death and the devil through the crea�on and sustaining of the Church. He filled the being of the
Church with Himself, with His holy divine powers, and thus sanc�fied it. It therefore, by its holy mysteries
and virtues, saves men from sin, death and the devil, as no other power under heaven is capable of doing.
He did this specifically by bap�zing the Church with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, so that it also
could sanc�fy through bap�zing by the Holy Spirit and water (Eph. 5:26; cf. Tit. 3:5; Jn. 3:5). Only by this
perfect and omnipotent divine holiness does it cleanse a human being from all that is unholy, sinful, and
diabolical. So now every man is cleansed and sanc�fied in it with the washing of water by the word (Eph.
5:26). The Word of God sanc�fies the water through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is invisible, but the
sanc�fied water is visible. Both are given because man is a dual being, of an invisible spirit and a visible
body. When the Word of God is able to sanc�fy the dead water, how could it not sanc�fy the living, God-
like and immortal soul of man? That He may sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word
(Eph. 5:26), for only the holy and sanc�fying power of Christ, present by the divine Word in the bap�smal
water, cleanses man from every sin impurity and devil, filling him with divine holiness and with God, for
as many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). Everything in the Church is from
Christ and in Christ; He is in it, and it in Him.

Because Christ is wholly in the Church, and it wholly in Him it is glorious, holy and without blemish
(Eph. 5:27). In order to make it so, He incarnated into it, as His Body, His whole Person as God and Man,
both His life and all His ascesis. In its purest aspect, the Church is fully Christ the God-Man extending
through all ages and all eternity. It has therefore no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing (Eph. 5:27). What
does it in truth lack; for what could it be blamed? Does it not cleanse from all sins, great and small? Does
it not liberate from all deaths and all devils? Does it not receive all who turn to it? Is there any limit to its
power? All this is brought about in it by the divine, ever-holy, and omnipotent power of Christ (cf. Col.
1:29).

The Lord has made the Church thus by His Cross, by His blood shed as the Theanthropos on the
Cross. This blood is the purifying of the Church and its salva�on. It is also the union of the God-Man with
it, and its union with God and with men. The blood of Christ the Theanthropos is the ever-new, redeeming
saving, totally crea�ve and unifying power of the Church. The human and the divine natures, God and
man, are perfectly united in the Person of the God-Man, so that men, �ll then alienated from God by sin,
are brought close to Him by the God-Man’s blood, being made one with God (Eph. 2:13-14); becoming
members of His Body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph. 5:30). An unimaginable actuality was realized on
earth by Christ the God-Man: we men, we sin-loving mammals, were brought by Him into blood-
rela�onship with God. His theanthropic blood, the source of eternal life and our immortality in Him, unites
us most closely with Him, the only true God, in whom is eternal life (cf. 1 Jn. 5:20; 5:11; 1:2). The divine
blood of the Lord Christ is the theanthropic power that sanc�fies, purifies, and transforms into the image
of Christ, of the Church, of the Trinity: the power that saves. Hence the New Covenant is a Covenant in the
blood of Christ the Theanthropos. This eucharis�c Testament is perpetuated in the theanthropic Body of
the Church, uni�ng us men with God and one another through the God-Man’s blood. By uni�ng man with
the God-Man, this all-holy blood unites us with all men through Him. It is an evident historical fact that
the real, true, immortal unity of man with men is through the God-Man; God is closer to any man than a
man is to himself, closer to all men than they are to themselves. For this reason, there can be no unity of
man with himself and with those around him without God, the God-Man, without becoming related by
blood and united with Him. This blood-rela�onship and uni�ng of man with God and the rela�onship and
uni�ng of man with men, is brought about in the theanthropic Body of Christ, the Church. It is concretely
lived in the Holy Eucharist, in Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ.

The God-man’s blood unites man with God; as on the Cross of Golgotha, so in the theanthropic
Body of the Church through the life-giving blood of the holy mystery of Communion in the Holy Liturgy.
Moreover, as it is the God-man’s blood, and the Church is His Body, this blood is the uni�ng power which
joins all members of the Church into one body, one life, one soul and one heart, into one theanthropic
community (κοινωνια). The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion (κοινωνια) of the
blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion (κοινωνια) of the Body of Christ? For
we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are partakers of that one bread (1 Cor. 10:16-17).
These words of the Christ-bearing Apostle express the very mystery of the Church, its eucharis�c mystery
and eucharis�c nature. The Holy Eucharist, the Holy Communion unites us not only with Him, the
Irreplaceable, but also with one another. Ea�ng His holy Body, we being many, become one body. Being
united with Him, we are joined in holy union with one another. This is the holy unity of men in Christ, the
theanthropic unity, the only true and eternal unity of men. For in the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, we
are not only eternally alive but eternally one; one as the body is one. Is there a closer union than this?
Furthermore, as this body is eternal, is there a more eternal unity than this? This is how it is in the
theanthropic Body of Christ, the Church; we are, in it, one body. Through Him, the God-Man, we being
many are one body. The expression of this theanthropic reality is the Holy Eucharist, the Holy Liturgy, the
Holy Communion. The wondrous and ever-historical God-man first, by His incarna�on, united God and
man in Himself in an eternal unity. He, as God and Man, handed, and s�ll unceasingly hands, all this on to
all men. For He has founded the Church on His theanthropic Body, on the earthly reality of theanthropic
life and His presence in our world. The All-merciful became incarnate in order to incarnate us in Himself
(Eph. 3:6), and thus deify us, giving us all that is His. He does this chiefly through Holy Communion in the
Holy Eucharist of the Church.

We, being many, are one body, for none of us cons�tutes a whole body, but just a �ny part, so that
we always feel and know how much we depend on one another; all on each and each on all. Also, how
much we are indispensable to one another: all to each and each to all, as well as each to each. Our power
life, immortality and bea�tude are given to us only in this unity by the Body of Christ, the Body of God.
The wondrous Lord Christ is indeed our food and our drink (cf. Jn. 6:55-56, 48). He is the one bread that
feeds us, and we are, through Him, all partakers in that one bread. He is this very union, and the power of
this holy union, the holy conciliarity of the Church. By partaking of the holy bread and the holy blood of
the Lord Christ, we partake of His holy Body which is always and everywhere one. So we, being many, are
one body in Christ, and every one members one of another (Rom 12:5; see also 1 Cor. 12:27).

This is God’s wisdom through the holy Apostle. It is con�nued by the fi�h Evangelist, holy
Chrysostom: ‘By calling the Holy Communion the communion of the Body of Christ, the Apostle wished to
express something even closer. This is why he added: “Because the bread is one, we being many are one
body.” Why do I say “communion”? We are that very body. For what is that bread? The Body of Christ. And
what do those who partake become? The Body of Christ; not many bodies, but one body. Just as bread
made of many grains becomes one, so that the grains are not dis�nguishable when they are made into
one dough, so we become united both with Christ and one another.’13
13. St John Chrysostom: in Epist, I ad Corinth, Homily 24,2; PG 61:200.

Divinely-wise Cabasilas says of this theanthropic reality: ‘The Church reveals itself in the mysteries
(the Body and Blood of Christ), not as symbols but as the limbs are present in the heart, as the twigs are
present in the root, and, as our Lord has said, the branches are present in the vine (Jn. 15:1-5). For here is
no mere sharing (κοινωνια) of name or a likeness of analogy, but an iden�ty (ταυτοτης) of reality. For these
mysteries are the Body and Blood of Christ, which are the Church’s true food and drink. When it partakes
of them, it does not transform them into the human body . . . but is itself changed into that Body and
Blood of Christ ... And if one could see the Church of Christ insofar as it united to Him and shares His sacred
Body, one would see nothing other than the Body of the Lord.’ Saint Paul therefore wrote: Ye are the Body
of Christ, and members one with another (1 Cor. 12:27).’14 ‘If Christ is one,’ says Saint Gregory the
Theologian, ‘then the Head of the Church is one and the Body is one,’15 ‘In this way, we are, in and through
Christ, one body and members one with another, together with all the holy apostles, prophets, martyrs
and confessors, and all the saints (cf. Eph. 3:18; 4:11-16). There is nothing beter for a human being than
this communion with all the saints in Christ, nothing brighter, more blessed, more eternal, or more
precious in all known or all imaginable worlds. It is joy above all joys to be with all the saints: one body,
the Body of Christ.
14. Nicholas Cabasilas: A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy. 38: PG 150:152C-153A.

15. idem Orat 37:8; PG 36:292B

If all the mysteries of the New Covenant, the God-Man’s Covenant, and all the mysteries of the
Church of Christ, could be summarized in one, then that mystery is the holy mystery of Communion, the
holy mystery of the Eucharist. It reveals and gives to us the fullness of the Lord Christ in all the wondrous
glory of His theanthropic Person and His theanthropic Body, which is the Church. For Holy Communion,
the Holy Eucharist, is indeed His divine Body and His divine Blood; it is He, Himself, with His Church, in the
indescribable fullness of His divinity and His humanity, His theanthropism. The New Testament is indeed
new in a unique and excep�onal way: a Testament in God’s Blood, in God’s Body. And this covenant
between God and man is made a reality for all eternity by the wondrous God-Man, the Lord Christ, and
His Church.

Holy Communion is always the Body of the living Christ: This is My Body, and through it we are
always His, always His afresh. We are also made one with those who partake of His Body. Thus we all
cons�tute one holy, theanthropic community: the Church. In fact, the whole Church, with all its mysteries
and all in it that is sacred, is to be found in the Holy Eucharist. In it is the whole Lord Christ, the whole New
Testament, the Testament in the life-giving Blood of God: The New Testament in My Blood (1 Cor. 11:25).
Through Holy Communion, we perpetually renew our link with the Lord Christ, both as individuals and as
God’s people (cf, Tit. 2:14; Heb. 2:17; 8:8-10; 2 Cor. 6:16). We are con�nually confirmed in this covenant,
and it is indeed always new to us, the New Testament in Christ the Theanthropos. We should never forget
this, but always remember and renew it, and thus con�nually renew ourselves through the theanthropic
life of the Church. For this reason, the Savior gives us the evangelical commandment: This do ye in
remembrance of Me (1 Cor. 11:24-25; Lk. 22:19).

This liturgical and eucharis�c “memorial’ commemorates the en�re ascesis of the salva�on of the
world accomplished by the Lord Christ, the Theanthropos. According to the divinely inspired words of Saint
John Damascene: ‘The performing of the holy mysteries (in the Liturgy) fulfils the en�re spiritual and
supernatural dispensa�on of the incarna�on of God the Logos.’ 16 This holy eucharis�c ‘commemora�on’
is, in fact, the sacramental gi� to us of the Lord Christ Himself in His fullness as God and Man. Nothing
pertaining to the New Testament gives us such a fullness of the Lord Jesus as the Holy Eucharist and Holy
Communion. It gives us all of Him, the Eternal, Living and Life-giving always the same, yesterday, and today,
and for ever (Heb. 13:8). Through Holy Communion, we experience as our own the Savior’s theanthropic
ascesis of salva�on, and most especially His death and resurrec�on. We are led into the very heart and
eternity of theanthropic salva�on. Hence the holy Apostle proclaims: For as often as ye eat this bread, and
drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death (and resurrec�on) till He come (1 Cor. 11:26).
16. St John Damascene: On the Most Pure Body, 2; PG 95: 408.

The body of the incarnate Lord Christ, which He received from the most holy Mother of God and
the Holy Spirit, His Body in the Holy Eucharist and His Body the Church, is one unique and redeeming body.
For the Lord Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever (Heb. 13:8). Saint John the golden-
mouthed evangelist, with a vision as that of the cherubim, tes�fies to this: ‘You who partake of the body
and blood of Christ, remember: we partake of the body which differs in no respect from the one that sits
on high, to which the angels bow in worship; we taste that very body (τουτου απογευομεθα) . . . Oh, how
many paths to salva�on are revealed to us! The Lord has made us His Body; He has given us His body . . .
For as the body is united with Christ, so we are united with Him through this bread. ‘For it was not enough
to Him to become man and be scourged and crucified for us, but He also unites Himself with us, not just
by faith, truly making us His Body.’ 17
17. St John Chrysostom: In Epist. ad Ephes., Homily 3:3; PG 62:27: In Matt. Homily 82:5; PG 58: 743.

The Body of the incarnate God the Logos is the most precious thing in all worlds to mankind. All
eternal divine, human and theanthropic values and reali�es are within it. The Second Person of the Holy
Trinity, God the Logos, was incarnate and became the God-Man in order to become the Church. In it, He
performed, and unceasingly performs, the ascesis of the salva�on of the world, of men from sin, death,
and the devil. God became man, was incarnate, in order that man could, through the God-Man in His
theanthropic Body, the Church, become god. This is the whole Good News of the Theanthropos and His
Church. God and all that is divine, man and all that is truly human, is, in the Church, organic and real as a
body. In the Church, there dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (σωματικως) (Col. 2:9). Being co-
corporeal with Christ, with His theanthropic Body, the Church, we receive from the Savior’s divine fullness
all that we need for eternal life in both worlds: grace and the fullness of divine Truth with all its everlas�ng
riches, values and joys (Col. 2:9-10; Eph. 3:19; Jn. 1:17).

This is a great mystery, the greatest in all our worlds: Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:32). Mankind
lacks both the mind and the words to express, even approximately, this most holy and great mystery. Christ
is, at the same �me, both God the Logos and man; God the Logos bodily in heaven and divinely man in His
Body the Church on earth. Is this not a great mystery? The members of the Church cons�tute one
organism, one body, yet each remains a completely dis�nct person. Everything in the Church is conciliar
yet all is personal; each one lives in all, yet each one’s life and personality are his own. Is this not a great
mystery? There are many sinners in the Church, yet it is en�rely holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:27). And
so, from the smallest to the greatest, everything is a great mystery in the Church, for in everything the
wondrous Lord Christ, the Theanthropos, is present with all His innumerable mysteries. Hence the Church
represents the greatest wonder in all created worlds, a wonder that the angels in heaven regard with awe,
Even the angels desire to look into its unique Good News, its divine Gospel, for to them also is made known
by the Church the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. 3.10; 1 Pet. 1:12).

Christ the Theanthropos has united in His Church all things . . . both which are in heaven, and
which are on earth (Eph. 1:10); all the mysteries of heaven and earth are poured into one, forming the
great mystery, the mystery of mysteries: the Church. This great mystery permeates all the members of the
Church, all their lives, all their rela�onships. For this reason, everything in the Church is a miracle, a
mystery beyond understanding. Nothing here is plain or simple, nothing inconsequen�al or unimportant,
for everything is theanthropic, all linked together in one organism, one all-encompassing great mystery,
the ul�mate mystery: the Orthodox Church.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHURCH

The Church’s characteris�cs are innumerable, being as they are those of the Theanthropos, the
Lord Christ, and through Him the characteris�cs of the Triune Godhead. The holy Fathers of the Second
Ecumenical Council, full of God’s wisdom and guided and led by the Holy Spirit, reduced them in the ninth
ar�cle of the creed to four: ‘l believe in one, holy, conciliar (catholic) and Apostolic Church.’ These
characteris�cs of the Church: unity, holiness, conciliarity and apostolicity, derive from the very nature of
the Church and its purpose. They clearly and accurately determine the character of the Orthodox Church
of Christ, thus dis�nguishing it, as a theanthropic ins�tu�on, from all human ins�tu�ons and communi�es.

1. The Unity and Uniqueness of the Church.

As the Person of Christ the Theanthropos is one and unique, so the Church that is founded by Him
and in Him is one and unique. The unity of the Church inevitably follows from the unity of the Person of
the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ. Organically one unique theanthropic organism in all worlds, the Church
cannot, according to all heavenly and earthly laws, be divided. Any division would be its death. Wholly in
the Theanthropos, it is primarily, in all respects, a theanthropic organism, and secondly a theanthropic
organiza�on. Everything in it is theanthropic: its nature, faith and love, its bap�sm, its eucharist, all its holy
mysteries and holy virtues; all its teaching, its life, its immortality, its eternal nature, and its organiza�on.
Yes, everything in it is indeed theanthropic, one and indivisible; it is sanc�fica�on, deifica�on, and
salva�on, making man like Christ and the Holy Trinity. Everything in it is organically linked by grace in one
theanthropic Body, under one Head: the God-Man, the Lord Christ. All its members, although whole and
inviolable as persons, are united in one by the grace of the Holy Spirit through the holy mysteries and
virtues, cons�tu�ng one Body and confessing the one Faith that binds them to one another and to the
Lord Jesus.

The God-inspired and Christ-bearing apostles proclaim the unity and uniqueness of the Church,
basing this on the unity and uniqueness of its Founder: the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ and His
theanthropic Person, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1 Cor.
3:11).

Like the holy apostles, the holy fathers, and teachers of the Church, with a godly wisdom and zeal
like that of the cherubim and seraphim, confess the unity and uniqueness of the Orthodox Church. It is in
the light of this that the fiery zeal of the Church Fathers in cases of separa�on and falling-away from the
Church is to be understood, as is their strict treatment of heresies and schisms. The holy Ecumenical and
Local Councils are, in this respect, of excep�onal importance. According to their Christ-given spirit and
assessment, the Church is not just a Church but the only Church. As the Lord Christ cannot have several
bodies, there cannot, in Him, be several Churches. According to its theanthropic nature, the Church is one
and one only, as the God-Man Christ is one and one only. Hence, the par��on, the division, of the Church
is ontologically and essen�ally impossible. The Church has never been divided, nor can it ever be, but
fallings away from the Church have taken place and will again, as the dry and barren branches fall away by
themselves from the eternally-living theanthropic Vine, the Lord Christ (Jn. 15:1-6). At various �mes,
here�cs and schisma�cs have separated and fallen away from the one and only indivisible church of Christ
and have thus ceased to be members of the Church and parts of its theanthropic Body. The Gnos�cs first
fell away, then the Arians, the Nestorians, the Monophysites and the Iconoclasts, the Roman Catholics,
Protestants and Uniates, then, in their turn, the other adherents of the here�co-schisma�c legion.
2. The Holiness of the Church.

By its theanthropic nature, the Church is undoubtedly a unique organiza�on here on earth. Its
whole holiness is contained in this nature. It is, in fact, a theanthropic workshop for the sanc�fica�on of
men and, through them, of all crea�on. It is holy as the theanthropic Body of Christ, of whom the Lord
Christ Himself is the immortal Head and the Holy Spirit the immortal Soul. Hence everything in it is holy:
its teaching, its blessing, its sacraments, its virtues, its powers, and all that it has. All this is at its disposal
and is treasured in it for the sanc�fica�on of men and crea�on. Through His incomparable love for
mankind in becoming the Church through His incarna�on, our God and Lord Jesus Christ has sanc�fied it
by His suffering, His resurrec�on and His ascension, His teaching, His miracles, His prayer and fas�ng, His
sacraments and His virtues, in brief: by His en�re theanthropic life. This is why the God-inspired
proclama�on was made: Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse
it with . . . water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or
wrinkle, or any such thing: but that it should be holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:25-27).

The evangelical reality through history has, however, been that the Church is full to overflowing
with sinners. Does their presence in the Church diminish, ruin or destroy its holiness? By no means and in
no way, because the Lord Jesus is its Head, and the Holy Spirit is its Soul. In them, its divine teaching, its
sacraments, and its virtues, are undiminishably and unalterably holy. The Church bears with sinners. It
protects and teaches them, in order to arouse them and move them to repentance, to spiritual healing
and transfigura�on; they are therefore no obstacle to the sanc�ty of the Church. Only unrepentant sinners,
persistent in evil and atheis�c hatred, are cut off from the Church, either by the visible ac�on of the
theanthropic authority of the Church or by the invisible act of God’s judgement, thereby preserving the
sanc�ty of the Church. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person (1 Cor. 5:13).

The holy Fathers, in their wri�ngs and in their Councils, proclaimed the holiness of the Church as
one of its unchanging characteris�cs. The Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council defined this fact
dogma�cally in the ninth ar�cle of the Creed, and the other Ecumenical Councils gave it confirma�on with
their seal of agreement.

3. The Conciliarity, Catholicity (καθολικοτης) of the Church.

The theanthropic nature of the Church is in itself totally universal and conciliar: theanthropically
universal, catholic, and conciliar. The Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, has, through and in Himself, united
God and man in the most perfect and complete way and, through man, has united all worlds and all
crea�on as well. The des�ny of crea�on is fundamentally bound up with that of man (cf. Rom. 8:19-24).
The theanthropic organism of the Church encompasses all things ... that are in heaven and ... on earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities or powers (Col. 1:16). By Him
all things consist and He is the Head of the Body, the Church (Col. 1:17-18). In the theanthropic organism
of the Church, each lives with the fullness of his personality as a living, God-like cell. The law of
theanthropic conciliarity encompasses all and acts through all, the balance between the divine and the
human being thus maintained throughout. In the Church, as parts of its body, we experience all the fullness
of our being in all God-like dimensions. Moreover, in the God-Man’s Church, man experiences his being as
a fullness of being, a theanthropic fullness of being; he experiences himself not only as an integrated man,
but also as an integrated creature. In brief: he experiences himself as a grace-filled god-man.
 The theanthropic conciliarity of the Church is, in fact, the ceaseless chris�fica�on of man by grace
and through the virtues. Everything is centered in Christ and is experienced through Him as our own, as
one indivisible theanthropic organism. Life in the Church is the path to conciliarity through the
Theanthropos, the endeavor to become, through grace and the virtues, like Him, the ascesis of becoming
Christ like, God-like, like the Holy Trinity; of sanc�fica�on and transfigura�on, of being made immortal and
endowed with eternal life; of becoming one with the Church. Theanthropic conciliarity in the Church is
maintained and realized through the eternal Person of Christ the Theanthropos. He unifies, in a most
perfect way, God, man and all crea�on, which the most precious blood of the God-Man, the Savior, washes
clean of sin, evil and death (cf. Col. 1:19-22). The theanthropic Person of the Lord Christ is the very soul of
the Church’s conciliarity. The God-Man constantly maintains the theanthropic balance between the divine
and the human in the conciliar life of the Church. The Church is full to overflowing with the Lord Christ it
is the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:23). This is why it is universal in every person that is in it
and its every �niest cell. This universality, this conciliarity (καθολικοτης), echoes most strongly through the
holy apostles, the holy fathers and all the ecumenical and local councils.

4. The Apostolicity of the Church.

The holy apostles are the first god-men through grace. Each of them, like the Apostle Paul, can say
of himself with reference to his whole life: I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (Gal. 2:20). Each of them
is another Christ, or, more correctly, an extension of Christ. Everything in them is theanthropic, coming as
it does from the God Man. Apostolicity is nothing other than the theanthropy of the Lord Christ, willingly
adopted through the ascesis of the holy virtues: faith, love, hope, prayer, fas�ng and so forth. Everything
human in them willingly lives in a theanthropic way, thinking, feeling, ac�ng, and willing by the
Theanthropos. For them, the historical Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the supreme value and
yards�ck. Everything in them is from the God-Man for His sake and in Him; this is so at all �mes and in all
places. This is their immortality even in earthly �me and space. By this, they are already, here on earth,
linked with the whole theanthropic eternity of Christ.

This theanthropic apostolicity is con�nued in its fullness in the Christ-bearing apostles’ successors
here on earth: the holy Fathers. There is no essen�al difference between them, the one and the same
Theanthropos, Christ, equally lives and acts in eternal deathlessness in them; He who is the same
yesterday, and today and for ever (Heb. 13:8). The life of the holy apostles is con�nued through the holy
fathers with all their theanthropic riches worlds, holy things, mysteries, and virtues. The holy fathers, in
fact, constantly fulfil the role of the apostles as being especially close to the Theanthropos, as bishops of
the local Churches and as par�cipants in the holy ecumenical and local councils. There is only one Truth,
one ul�mate Truth, for them: the Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the holy ecumenical councils,
from first to last, confess, defend, believe, proclaim, and watchfully guard one single most precious thing:
The Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The greatest Tradi�on of the Orthodox Church is, in fact Christ the living Theanthropos, fully
present in the theanthropic Body of the Church, of which He is the immortal, eternal Head. This is not just
good news but the supreme Good News of the holy apostles and the holy fathers. They know nothing but
Christ crucified, risen and ascended. With their en�re life and teaching, they all tes�fy with one voice:
Christ the Theanthropos is fully in His Church, His Body. Each of the holy fathers can truly say along with
Saint Maximos the Confessor: ‘In no way will I say anything of my own, but what I have learned from the
Fathers, altering nothing of their teaching.’18
18. St Maximos the Confessor, Epist. XV PG 91: 544D.

The conciliar confession of all the God-glorified Fathers echoes in the immortal words of Saint John
Damascene: ‘All that is handed on to us (τα παραδιδομενα ημιν) through the Law and the Prophets, the
Apostles, and Evangelists, we accept, know and deeply reverence, and beyond this we seek nothing . . .
Let us be completely sa�sfied with this and remain within it, removing not the ancient landmark (Prov.
22:28), nor overstepping Divine Tradi�on.’19 This is followed by the touching patris�c appeal by holy
Damascene to all Orthodox Chris�ans: ‘Therefore, my brethren, let us stand on the rock of faith and in the
Tradi�on of the Church, not removing the landmarks set by our holy Fathers, not giving room to those who
wish to introduce novel�es and destroy the edifice of God’s holy, universal and apostolic Church. For if
everyone is allowed to do as he pleases the en�re body of the Church will, litle by litle, be destroyed.’20

Holy Tradi�on comes en�rely from the Theanthropos, from the holy apostles, from the holy
fathers; from the Church, in the Church and by the Church. The holy fathers are nothing other than ‘the
guardians of apostolic tradi�on’. They are all, as are the holy apostles, only ‘witnesses’ of the one and only
Truth, the ul�mate Truth: Christ the Theanthropos. They, ‘the all-golden mouths of the Logos’ (τα
παγχρυσα οτοματα του Λογου),21 unceasingly confess and profess this Truth. The Theanthropos the Lord
Christ is one, unique and indivisible. The Church, the incarna�on of Christ the God-Man perpetuated
through all the ages and all eternity, is also unique and indivisible. Being such by nature and through its
earthly history, the Church cannot be divided. One can only fall away from it. This oneness and uniqueness
of the Church is theanthropic in nature from the beginning, through all ages and all eternity.
19. St. John Damascene: De Fide I:1, PG 94: 792A
20. ibid: De imagin., Orat. III:41; PG 94:1356CD
21. Seventh Sunday a�er Easter: the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, at Ma�ns, s�chera on ‘Praise the Lord’, of the
Holy Fathers.

Apostolic primacy, the apostolic succession, is, from first to last theanthropic in nature. What do
the apostles hand down to their successors? The Theanthropos, the Lord Christ Himself, with all the
everlas�ng riches of His wondrous theanthropic Person; Christ the Head of the Church, its only Head. If
this is not handed down, the apostolic succession ceases to be apostolic; there is, in fact, no apostolic
Tradi�on, no apostolic hierarchy, no apostolic Church.

Holy Tradi�on is the Gospel of the Lord Christ, and is the Lord Christ Himself, whom the power of
the Holy Spirit brings into every believing soul, into the en�re Church. Everything that is Christ’s becomes,
by the power of the Holy Spirit, ours in the Body of the Church. The Holy Spirit, the Soul of the Church,
builds every believer, as a cell, into the Body of the Church, making him of the same body with the
Theanthropos (Eph. 3:6). In effect, the Holy Spirit, by His grace, makes every believer a god-man. What,
then, is life in the Church? Nothing other than the process of turning every believer, by grace, into a god-
man, through his own evangelical virtues, his entering into Christ and the Church and becoming one with
them. The en�re life of a Chris�an is an unceasing Christocentric Pentecost: The Holy Spirit gives Christ the
Savior to every believer through the holy mysteries and virtues, so that He is living Tradi�on in us, our very
life: Christ . . . our life (Col. 3:4). Everything that is Christ’s thus becomes ours for all eternity: His Truth, His
Jus�ce, His Love and His Life, His en�re divine Person.
 What is Holy Tradi�on? It is the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself with all the riches of His
divine Person and through Him and for His sake, the Holy Trinity. This is most fully given and expressed in
the Holy Eucharist in which, for our sake and for our salva�on, the Savior’s en�re theanthropic
dispensa�on of salva�on is performed and renewed. The whole God-Man, with all His wondrous and
wonderworking gi�s, is here present, as He is in all the Church’s prayer and liturgical life. The Good News
of the Savior’s love for mankind constantly echoes within it: lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world (Mat. 28:20), all in and through apostolicity with all the faithful to the end of the world. This is
the fullness of the Holy Tradi�on of the apostolic Orthodox Church: life in Christ, life in the Holy Trinity, our
becoming one with Christ and with the Holy Trinity (cf. Mat. 28:19-20).

It is of par�cular and far-reaching significance that, in the Orthodox Church of Christ, Holy
Tradi�on, ever alive and life-giving, embraces the Divine Liturgy, all the divine services and the holy
mysteries. Together with these, it contains the virtues, whole of divine truth, jus�ce and love and eternal
life in its fullness, The Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, the Holy Trinity, the en�re theanthropic life of the
Church, together with the most the holy Theotokos and all the saints, themselves also enter into it and
become the Church’s Holy Tradi�on.

The Person of the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, transformed into the Church, immersed in the
boundless prayerful and liturgical sea of grace, wholly present in the eucharist and in the Church: this is
Holy Tradi�on. This truth is proclaimed and confessed by the holy fathers and the holy ecumenical councils.
Holy Tradi�on is preserved, by prayer and piety, from every human demonism and diabolic humanism.
The Lord Christ, who is the eternal Tradi�on of the Church, is present in His fullness. Great is the mystery
of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16); manifest as man, as the God-Man, as the Church.
By His philanthropic asce�c act of saving man and making him a god-man a theanthropos, He magnified
and exalted humanity above the holy cherubim and seraphim.
PENTECOST

What is Christ the God-Man? What in Him is God and what man? How is God known in the God-
Man, and how is man? What has God given to us men in and with the God-Man? The Holy Spirit, the Spirit
of Truth, tells us all the truth there is about Him, about God in Him and man in Him and all that is given us
through Him. All this immeasurably transcend everything that the human eye has ever seen, the ear has
ever heard, or has ever entered into the heart of man (1 Cor. 2:9; cf. Jn. 15:26; 16:13; 1 Cor. 2:4; Eph. 3:5).

Through His life in the flesh on earth, the God-Man founded His theanthropic Body, the Church,
and in this way prepared the earthly world for the Holy Spirit’s coming into the world, and His life: and
ac�vity in the Body of the Church as the Soul of that Body. On the holy Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit
descended from heaven into the theanthropic Body of the Church and remains, eternally in it as its life-
giving Soul (Acts 2:1-47). This visible theanthropic Body of the Church was cons�tuted by the holy apostles
with their holy faith in the Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus, the Savior of the world, as perfect God and
perfect Man. The descent and ac�vity of the Holy Spirit in the theanthropic Body of the Church is because
of, and for the sake of, the Theanthropos (cf. Jn. 16:7-13; 15:26; 14:26). ‘For His sake the Holy Spirit entered
into the world.’22 Everything in the dispensa�on of salva�on is brought about by the theanthropic Person
of the Lord Christ, and everything comes about in the framework of theanthropy. This is also the case with
the ac�vity of the Holy Spirit. All His ac�vity is of one essence with the theanthropic ascesis of the salva�on
of the world by the Lord Christ. Pentecost is, with all the immortal gi�s or the Triune Godhead, Of the Holy
Spirit Himself, intended for the holy apostles; the holy apostolic Faith and Tradi�on, the hierarchy and
everything that is apostolic and theanthropic.
22. Prayer at the end of the Akathist to the Most Sweet Jesus.

The Day of the Holy Spirit, which began on the holy Day of Pentecost, is ever present in the Church
in the inexpressible fullness of all the divine gi�s and life-giving powers (Acts 10:44-48; 11:15-16; 15:8-9;
19:6). Everything in the Church comes about through the Holy Spirit, from the least to the greatest. When
the priest blesses the censer before censing, he prays to the Lord Christ to ‘send down the grace of the
Holy Spirit’. The clearest tes�mony that the en�re life of the Church comes from the Holy Spirit is at the
consecra�on of a bishop, when God’s indescribable miracle, holy Pentecost, is repeated and the fullness
of grace is given. There is no doubt that the Lord Christ is in the Church through the Holy Spirit, and that
the Church is in the Lord Christ through the Holy Spirit. The Lord Christ is the Head and Body of the Church;
the Holy Spirit is its Soul (cf. 1 Cor. 12:1-28). From the very beginning of the theanthropic dispensa�on of
salva�on, the Holy Spirit has made Himself a part of the founda�on of the Church, the founda�on of the
Body of Christ, by ‘bringing about the incarna�on of the Logos in the Virgin’ (τοῦ Λόγου κτίσαν τὴν
σάρκωσιν).23

ln fact, every holy mystery and holy virtue is a litle Pentecost; in them, the Holy Spirit descends
upon us, into us. He descends in His essence (ουσιωδως),24 He, ‘the richness of the Godhead’, ‘the grace
of the open seas’,25 ‘from Him come grace and life for every creature’.26
23. The Octoechos, Tone I. on Sundays at the Midnight Office: Canon 10 the Holy Trinity, Ode 1, Theotokion.
24. The Pentecostarion, in the Apos�cha at Ma�ns on Pentecost Tuesday.
25. idem, on the Tuesday a�er Pentecost, the Three-Can�cled Canon, Can�cle 9: also, on Friday of the same week, Can�cle 8 (in
the Slavonic Pentecostarion).
26. The Octoechos, Tone 3, on Sunday morning, Hymn of Degrees, An�phon 3.
 The Lord dwells in us by the Holy Spirit, and we in Him. This is tes�fied to us by the presence of
the Holy Spirit in us. We live by the Holy Spirit in Christ, and He in us. We know this by the Spirit which He
hath given us (1 Jn. 3:24). Through the Holy Spirit, our human spirit is brought to a true and a right
knowledge of Christ. That which is in God, and in the God-Man, we know by the Holy Spirit that He hath
given us (cf. 1 Jn. 4:13; 1 Cor. 2:4-16).

To come to the knowledge of Christ the Theanthropos, one of the Holy and Divine Trinity, we need
the help of the other Holy Two: God the Father and God the Holy Spirit (cf. Mat. 11:27; 1 Cor. 2:12). The
Holy Spirit is the Spirit of wisdom (Eph. 1:17); if we receive Him, we are filled with the wisdom of God. The
Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of revela�on (Eph. 1:17). By God’s wisdom, He reveals and proclaims the
mystery of Jesus the Theanthropos in the heart of the believer, and thus the spirit-bearer acquires real
knowledge of Christ. No human spirit can, by any imaginable effort, comprehend the mystery of Christ in
its divine and saving perfec�on and completeness. This is revealed to the human spirit only by the Holy
Spirit, and this is why He is referred to as the Spirit of revela�on (Eph. 1:17; 3:6; 1 Cor. 2:10). The Apostle,
enlightened by the Holy Spirit, therefore proclaims: No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy
Ghost (1 Cor. 12:3). The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of revelation, leads us into all the truth
of Christ’s Person and His theanthropic dispensa�on of salva�on, and teaches us all that is Christ’s (Jn.
16:13; 14:26; 1 Cor. 2:6-16). This is the reason why the en�re Gospel of Christ, with all its theanthropic
reali�es, is called the Revela�on. This is the reason why every office, labor, service, sacrament, and act in
church is performed with the invoca�on of the power and grace of the Holy Spirit.

The en�re life of the Church, in its innumerable theanthropic reali�es and aspects, is led and
guided by the Holy Spirit, who is ever the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Theanthropos. This is why it is said in
Holy Scripture: If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His (Rom. 8:9). Saint Basil, angelically
immersed in the theanthropic mystery of the Church as the loveliest and greatest of God’s mysteries,
proclaims the truest good �dings: ‘The Holy Spirit builds up the Church of God’ (Το Πνευμα το Αγιον
αρχιτεκτονει Εκκλησιαν Θεου).27
27. St. Basil the Great: In Isai., PG 30: 289D.
GRACE

All divine reality, incarnate in Christ the Theanthropos, unceasingly pours forth the innumerable
and immeasurable divine powers indispensable to men for salva�on, for their deifica�on, their life in
Christ, in the Church, in the Spirit, in the Holy Trinity. All this, put in one word, is grace. All these divine
powers are en�rely theanthropic in character, and are, thereby, en�rely contained within the theanthropic
Body of the Church; of it, in it, and through it. In the Church, everything is theanthropic because everything
is from the Theanthropos. Nothing in the Church is other than theanthropic and divinely human. Our
salva�on, our becoming like the Theanthropos, is nothing other than our unceasing growth in grace. In
the Church and through the Church, grace is like a limitless ocean of divine powers that are unceasingly at
work in the theanthropic organism of the Church, making us like Christ and the Holy Trinity. Through Christ
the Theanthropos, who is the Church, we are endowed with all the divine powers necessary for life and
godliness in both worlds (cf. 2 Pet. 1:3-4).

Man, with his God-like nature, mirrors the Theanthropos, both as a person and as the Church.
Having been created God-like, man possesses God-like freedom. This freedom is vast and unmeasurable.
According to his free will, man is capable even of rejec�ng God and embracing the devil. Moreover, man
can, by his free choice, become a ‘god by grace’ or a devil. Used with divine wisdom, free will brings man
to God and unites him with Him; misused, it brings man to the devil and unites him with him. The history
of mankind bears eloquent witness to this. God therefore became man, in order, as the God-Man, in His
theanthropic Person, to show and teach man how to use his free will with divine wisdom, and thus
completely refine his God-like nature by grace, becoming Christ-like. To give man the divine powers
necessary for the achievement of this goal, He founded the Church, with all Her holy mysteries and virtues,
on Himself, Theanthropos. By becoming of one body with the theanthropic Body, the Church (Eph. 3:6),
by means of the holy mysteries and virtues, man achieves his God-given goal: to become a ‘god by grace’.
All the saving divine wisdom that a Chris�an has consists in the voluntary subordina�on of his free will to
the divine will of the Lord Christ, according to the example of Christ Himself, who, in His theanthropic
Person, voluntarily subordinated His human to His divine will. This theanthropic rela�onship between
human and divine will is the most perfect and most indispensable law in the theanthropic Body of Christ,
the Church. It demands of us that we voluntarily subordinate our human will to the divine will of Christ
the Theanthropos, and thus, by means of the holy mysteries and virtues, ensure our salva�on and
deifica�on, our growing like the Theanthropos and our inheri�ng of eternal life in the Kingdom of Christ’s
love.

All the grace that comes from the Triune Godhead is given in the theanthropic Body of the Church.
This grace saves from sin, death, and the devil, giving us new life, transfiguring us, sanc�fying us,
chris�fying us, deifying us, trini�fying us. However, this grace is given to each of us according to the
measure of the gi� of Christ (Eph. 4:7). And the Lord Christ measures His grace to each according to his
own labor (1 Cor. 3:8), according to his ardor in faith, love, charity, prayer, fas�ng, vigils, meekness,
repentance, humility, and long-suffering, and in the other holy virtues and holy evangelical mysteries.
Foreseeing, in His divine omniscience, how each of us will avail himself of His grace, His holy gi�s, the Lord
Christ distributes His gi�s to every man according to his several abilities (Mat. 25:15). However, our place
in the lifegiving, theanthropic Body, the Church, which stretches from earth to above all heavens as an
indivisible earthly and heavenly en�ty, depends on our own effort and our mul�plying of Christ’s divine
gi�s. The more a man lives by the fullness of Christ’s grace, the more gi�s he receives and is permeated
by, as a part of the Body of Christ and of the theanthropic powers of the Church of Christ, His Body; the
powers that cleanse us from every sin, that sanc�fy and deify us and make us like the Theanthropos. Thus,
each one of us lives in all and for all, for we are all one Body. For this reason, each rejoices at the gi�s of
his brethren, par�cularly when they are greater than his own.
THE HOLY MYSTERIES

All God’s mysteries are holy. All that has been created was created by the all-holy God the Logos,
and all that is from God the Logos is holy. Without God the Logos was not any thing made That was made
(Jn. 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 2:10). Everything is holy in all God’s worlds except sin, and sin is the misused
freedom of created beings. The devil and man are an example of this. Freedom is misused when it is used
against God. Commited sin engenders death. The devil has two principal powers: sin and death. He uses
them to win men to him and rule over them. The kingdom of sin and death is indeed hell for God-like
creatures such as man.

The Creator of all, God the Logos, became man in order to free man from sin and death, and
thereby free him from the devil and hell. God the Logos accomplishes this by His en�re theanthropic
ascesis on earth, from His incarna�on to His ascension. By all these acts He founds, through and on Himself,
the Church in which He accomplishes the salva�on of men through the Holy Spirit’s holy mysteries and
virtues. He, the Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Church, is indeed the great and all-holy mystery,
in which and from which all the holy mysteries take their origin, beginning with the Holy Mystery of
Bap�sm.

Everything in the Church is a holy mystery, from the smallest to the greatest, because everything
is immersed in the unuterable holiness of the sinless Theanthropos, the Lord Christ. As the Church, the
Theanthropos encompasses all worlds, for all worlds are His crea�on; through Him and for Him were all
things created (Col. 1:16-20). He is the Creator and the goal of all creatures and all crea�on; He is the Head
of the Body, the Church (Col. 1:18); and again: the Church is His Body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in
all (Eph. 1:23). For this reason, everything is in Him, the All-Encompassing: salva�on, deifica�on and
chris�fica�on, and everything most perfect that is necessary to men in all worlds and lives. This is the
reason for all the holy mysteries of Church and all the holy virtues, with the holy Mysteries of Bap�sm,
Chrisma�on, and the Eucharist in first place.

In Holy Bap�sm we clothe ourselves in the Lord Christ, and in Holy Communion we receive the
whole Lord Christ for our salva�on through our deifica�on, chris�fica�on and growth likeness to the
Theanthropos. For the gentle Lord has appeared in our earthly world as the God Man and remains in it as
the God-Man through the Church. And in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (σωματικως)
(Col. 2:9), with one purpose that we may all be filled with all the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:10); that
we may all become God-like, Christ-like, like the Theanthropos, like the Holy Trinity: that we may all
become ‘gods’ through grace, god-men by grace.

The Theanthropos is the great mystery of godliness (1 Tim. 3:16), the great mystery of
theanthropic faith. The whole mystery of the Church is in the Theanthropos. One and the same divine
mystery of the Second Person of the all-holy Trinity permeates all the sacraments of the Church, everything
in it and of it. Every holy mystery originates from and flows into the Holy Mystery of the Church, into the
mystery of the Incarna�on, of the God-Man of theanthropy. In fact, every holy mystery is fulfilled in the
Church, as is the Church in every holy mystery.

Everything in the Church is a holy mystery. Every office is a holy mystery. Even the smallest one?
Yes, for each is as great as the very Mystery of the Church; even the smallest one in the theanthropic Body
of the Church is in living, organic rela�onship with the en�re Mystery of the Church: the Theanthropos
Himself, the Lord Christ. To give just one example: the Office of the Lesser Blessing of the Waters. A small
office, but such an enormous holy miracle, as great as the Church itself. This treasured miracle has passed
down through millions of souls of Orthodox Chris�ans for two millennia, cleansing them, sanc�fying, and
healing them, endlessly giving them immortality, and never ceasing as long as heaven and earth endure.
The holy water is only one of many holy mysteries which ceaselessly work miracles in the Orthodox Church
of Christ.

Every holy virtue in the soul of an Orthodox Chris�an is a holy mystery, for each of them has an
organic link with the Holy Mystery of Bap�sm and, through it, with the en�re theanthropic Mystery of the
Church. Thus, faith is a holy virtue and thereby also a holy mystery by which an Orthodox Chris�an
constantly lives. Our holy Faith, by the power of its holiness, engenders all the other holy virtues in his
soul: prayer, love, hope, fas�ng, charity, humility, meekness and so forth. Each of these is also a holy
mystery. Each nurtures the other and abides through all eternity. Hence, there is no specific number of
holy mysteries in the Church of Christ, in the all-encompassing earthly and heavenly, holy, and sublime
mystery of the Theanthropos. Its every ‘Lord have mercy’ is a holy mystery, as is every tear of repentance,
every prayerful sigh and every plain�ve cry.

a. THE HOLY MYSTERY OF BAPTISM

Bap�sm is the holy mystery of chris�fica�on, of growing into likeness with the Theanthropos, and
thus of trini�fica�on. The bap�zed one clothes himself in Christ by experiencing His death and
resurrec�on; he surrenders himself to Christ and receives His fullness, he becomes of one body with Him
and all that is Christ’s becomes his. In Holy Bap�sm, man’s God-like being receives the en�re, immortal
program of his life: he is called to live in the Lord Christ and unceasingly experience himself as a Christ-like
being, to be unceasingly filled with the God-Man’s divine powers. A Chris�an’s life in the Church begins at
the moment of bap�sm. It is a life of grace-endowed, voluntary chris�fica�on by means of the holy
mysteries and the holy virtues. His en�re life from then on consists in the mul�plying of the talents
received in Holy Bap�sm. Through bap�sm, we become temples of the all-holy Trinity; our en�re life
comes from the Father, through the Son in the Holy Spirit. All the powers of grace and of the virtues are
at work in us, making our being to Christ and the Holy Trinity. Through the God-Man, the poten�al god-
man becomes indeed a god-man by grace in the Church. Christ is all, and in all (Col. 3:11): this is the goal
and program of the Chris�an’s life, both in �me and in eternity.

b . THE HOLY MYSTERY OF CHRISMATION

Although given within the theanthropic ascesis of the only Lover of mankind, the Lord Christ,
chrisma�on is primarily a sacrament of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the holy Mysteries of Bap�sm and
Chrisma�on are one twofold sacrament. Having been received by bap�sm into the Church, the Body of
Christ the Theanthropos, a Chris�an receives ‘the seal of the gi� of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Mystery of
Chrisma�on. He receives divine sanc�fica�on, anoin�ng and strengthening by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
According to divinely-wise Cabasilas, a Chris�an, through bap�sm, receives a new being and existence in
Christ (το ειναι και ολως υποστηναι κατα Χριστον),28 and receives, through grace in Holy Chrisma�on, all
the chris�fying powers, gi�s and energies of the Holy Spirit for new life in Christ, for theanthropic life.
Through Holy Chrisma�on, the human person is anointed by the Holy Spirit in the image and likeness of
God’s Anointed: Christ the God-Man. This Holy Mystery is a con�nua�on of Holy Pentecost, which has no
end in the Church of Christ.
28. Cabasilas: Life in Christ, Book I, PG 150: 504A.

c. THE HOLY MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST

The holy program and ascesis of the Holy Mystery of Bap�sm is realized in the most perfect
manner in the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist; a complete making Christ-like, like the Theanthropos. The
whole theanthropic dispensa�on of salva�on is experienced, from the Incarna�on to the Ascension, as life
of our life and soul of our soul. The Holy Liturgy is, according to the divinely-wise words of Theodore the
Studite, ‘the renewing of the whole theanthropic dispensa�on of salva�on,”29 This is par�cularly
emphasized at the end of the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great: ‘O Christ our God, all the mystery of Thy
dispensa�on of salva�on is accomplished and fulfilled.’30 The essence of the Holy Liturgy, in the eyes of
the Fathers, is: ‘God became man, that man might become god.’ The humble communicant confesses
before the Holy Eucharist: ‘The body of God deifies and nourishes me; deifies the spirit and nourishes the
mind in a wondrous way.’ As this is a most terrible and great mystery, the awe-filled communicant reminds
himself and other partakers: ‘Man, be fearful at the sight at the blood that makes divine.’ The
communicant experiences the unique good �dings of all human worlds, being filled with all the fullness of
God (πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ Θεοῦ) (Eph. 3:19; cf. Col. 2:10).
29. According to St. Theodore the Studite, the Eucharist is ‘the center of the whole dispensa�on of salva�on’. See The Works of
Saint Theodore, Vol. 1 (in Russian), St Petersburg 1907
30. This is also expressed indirectly at the end of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

The Holy Eucharist is the high peak of theanthropic realism. Since the incarna�on of God the
Logos, Christ the Theanthropos has become the clearest, the uterly immortal and eternal reality of all
worlds and par�cularly of our human worlds. Christ with us; Emmanuel . . . God with as; the eternal God
with us (Mat. 1:23). The Church, the theanthropic Body of Christ, gives most convincing tes�mony to this.
The Church is the Body of Christ; the Eucharist is the Body of Christ. This is a fundamental iden�ty: the
Church in the Eucharist and the Eucharist in the Church. Where the God-Man is not, the Church is not, and
where the Church is not, there is no Eucharist. Everything outside this is heresy non-church, an�-church,
pseudo-church. As the Body of Christ, the Church is a conciliar unity and also a unity of conciliarity. The
same is true of the Eucharist as the Body of Christ: we being many are one bread, and one body; for we
are all partakers of that one bread (1 Cor. 10:17). Yes, we being many are one Body under one Head: Christ
the Theanthropos. For this reason, He is all in all both in the Eucharist and in the Church: And He is before
all things, and by Him all things consist (Col. 1:17).
THE HOLY VIRTUES

Un�l the incarna�on of God the Logos, un�l the coming of Christ the Theanthropos into our
earthly world, the virtues were unreal mirages; they were unrealizable, lifeless ideas. They were thus in all
non-Chris�an religions, in all non-theanthropic philosophies, ethics, sociologies, cultures and civiliza�ons.
The Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, is the supreme personifica�on of all the holy virtues and their perfect
realiza�on on earth. The virtues and the Lord Christ are one. This truth is proclaimed by Saint Maximos
the Confessor: ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the essence of all the virtues.’31 The Lord Christ alone gave
a body to all the virtues, as He did to the Church. However, as the Lord Christ dwells in the Church in His
fullness - it His Body, and He its Head - so also all His virtues live in the Church. The members of the Church,
by living in it, live in these holy virtues and achieve their salva�on, chris�fica�on, deifica�on and likeness
to the God-Man according to the measure of their zeal.
31. St. Maximos, Ambig. lib.; PG 91: 1081D.

In the Church, the Theanthropos enters into us through the holy mysteries and virtues, and lives
in us. A man enters into Christ through Holy Bap�sm, becoming chris�fied throughout his life by means of
the other holy mysteries and virtues. Every holy virtue is a many-branched ascesis. The chief of all of them
is faith, which is the root and essence of all the holy virtues. From it stems all the other holy virtues: prayer,
love, repentance, humility, fas�ng, meekness, mercy, and the others. This truth is proclaimed by the holy
Apostle as he exhorts the Chris�ans: Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue (εν τη πιοτει υμων την
αρετην) (2 Pet. 1:5); or, more to the point, the supreme virtue: the Lord Christ, for your life should shew
forth the virtues and perfec�ons (τας αρετας) of Him (1 Pet. 2:9). All the virtues are essen�al to man for
salva�on. To atain salva�on, man must strive for the ascesis of faith, love, prayer, fas�ng, and every
evangelical virtue. There is no salva�on without faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb.
11:6) In the same way, there is no salva�on without love, prayer, fas�ng, mercy, and the other holy virtues.
This is evident from the Holy Gospel which the Savior proclaimed personally, as well as through the
apostles and the fathers. Hence the divinely-wise Orthodox asce�c Nikitas Stethatos, a disciple of Saint
Simeon the New Theologian, states in his Confession of Faith: ‘I believe in the necessity of pure and
virtuous living, which, together with true faith, is essen�al for salva�on.’32

‘God is perfect virtue (η παντελης αρετη).’33 This is apostolic and patris�c teaching and the Holy
Tradi�on of the Church of Christ. ‘God’s nature is the source of every virtue.’34 ‘Conforming to God’s
likeness (η προς το Θειον ομοιωσις) is the goal of virtuous Life.’35 Therefore, ‘there is only one limita�on
to perfec�on in virtue: the absence of limita�on.’
32. Προεκθεσις ομολογιας και πιστεως, Opuscules et letres, Sources Chrétiennes No 81, p 460 (reference not found Tr.).
33. St Gregory of Nyssa: De vita Moysis; PG 44: 301A.
34. OH, De Anima et Resurrect; PG 46: 104A.
35. Idem, De Beatitud.; PG 44: 1200C.

For all these reasons, there can be no salva�on. deifica�on or chris�fica�on, no Paradise, no
Kingdom of Heaven, without the holy virtues. The holy mysteries are, without doubt, the holy dogmas of
our faith, our salva�on. But so also are the holy virtues. Without Holy Bap�sm, there is no salva�on. This
is the unalterable dogma of salva�on in the Savior’s theanthropic Church. But neither is there salva�on
without faith and love, and they are ae therefore also unalterable dogmas of salva�on. Every holy mystery
is a dogma, as is every evangelical virtue. Together, the holy mysteries and virtues cons�tute an organic
and indivisible ascesis of salva�on, the theanthropic ascesis of salva�on.

The Lord’s commandments in the Gospel are nothing other than ethical dogmas. For instance,
every Bea�tude in the Sermon on the Mount is a dogma. There is no salva�on without the first Bea�tude,
because there is no salva�on without humility. Equally, there is no salva�on without prayer, fas�ng and
love. All of these are evangelical, ethical dogmas, forever essen�al, immutable, and binding on all. Every
holy virtue is a holy dogma of Chris�an life. First comes faith, which worketh by love (Gal. 5:6) All the
virtues, all the commandments, have their origin in, and grow from, faith. All the ethical dogmas are
essen�al for salva�on, deifica�on, and growth in likeness to the Theanthropos. These grace-giving, life-
giving, divine forces are the means of salva�on; he is deified through them. They grow stronger and
become all-powerful through the holy mysteries of Repentance, Confession, Communion and so forth.

The evangelical virtues are holy forces which have their origin in Christ the Theanthropos and
possess theanthropic power. As such, they are deifying forces which transform and deify a Chris�an,
making him like the God-Man.

This is the basic difference between these evangelical, theanthropic virtues and all non-Chris�an
virtues, regardless of whether they are based on philosophy, religion, science, culture, civiliza�on, or
poli�cs. God and man act in parallel in every evangelical, theanthropic virtue. Theanthropic synergy and
co-opera�on are the law of every evangelical virtue. According to the holy Apostle’s immortal Good News,
we are laborers together with God (Θεου εσμεν υνεργοι) (1 Cor. 3:9) The God-like freedom of the human
being ensures God-like co-opera�on with God. Every theanthropic virtue is an asce�c act of man’s free will
through grace. The theanthropic balance in the ascesis of virtue is maintained by the Lord Christ Himself,
the Head of the Church and all its members, so that the divine does not detract from the human, nor the
human from the divine.

In the ascesis of the salva�on of man, God reveals Himself by means of His saving powers through
the holy mysteries, and man reveals himself in the ascesis of salva�on through the holy virtues. Faith is
the first among the holy virtues, both in origin and place. All the other virtues flow from it: love, prayer,
hope, fas�ng, humility, meekness, mercy, repentance, and the others. They are supported throughout by
the holy theanthropic powers of the holy mysteries. The holy mysteries and the holy virtue cons�tute one
theanthropic whole in the ascesis of salva�on. The co-opera�on of divine grace and God-like human
freedom in the ascesis of salva�on follows the laws of the Person of Christ, which are supreme in the
theanthropic Body of Christ: the Church, and are to be observed by all members of the Church. Divine
grace and God-like human freedom act in equilibrium, for God does not force anyone to be saved. If a man
does not desire virtue - faith and the other holy virtues - there is no salva�on; he is dead, a corpse. Also,
if a man will have nothing of the holy mysteries, there is no salva�on; he is dead to God, a corpse, for all
men have not faith (1 Thess. 3:2).

The prayerful wisdom of the Church unceasingly proclaims that God is the God of mercy, the God
of goodness, the God of philanthropy. In brief, God is the God of every virtue. In the whole of our earthly,
human history, only Christ the Theanthropos is such a God. He is the supreme expression of every one of
the holy virtues. As love, He is perfect Love; as goodness, He is perfect Goodness; as love of mankind, He
is perfect Philanthropy. In brief, He is the theanthropic perfec�on of every virtue. We can posi�vely state
that the Theanthropos is the Virtue of virtues. The holy mission of every Chris�an’s life is therefore to
become perfected in virtue; to become like Christ, like the Theanthropos, like the Holy Trinity. Yes, like the
Holy Trinity: for where the Son is, there are the Father and the Holy Spirit, the en�re indivisible Godhead
in three Persons.

Every virtue is divinely perfect in Christ the Theanthropos: perfect through both His divinity and
His manhood, so that it is accessible and atainable to man. As man was created God-like, Christ-like, he
possesses the seed of these Christ-like divine virtues through the very nature of his likeness to Christ. And
the Lord Christ, our God, by becoming man, shows us in Himself and His life all these virtues in their
theanthropic fullness and perfec�on. Every man, therefore, led and guided by Christ the Theanthropos,
can develop these virtues to perfec�on in his Christ-like nature. If man had not been created God-like, the
divine virtues would be against his nature: unnatural, imposed, and mechanical. As it is, the divine virtues
are completely natural and achievable for man’s God-like nature and, thus, completely characteris�c of his
human nature. By becoming man, God has, as the God-Man in our earthly reality, shown this truth in a
humanly obvious and convincing way: the God-Man is virtue, the fullness of virtue. In Him and by Him,
man, as a God-like being, can achieve every virtue and live in fullness of virtue by the exercise of his free
will, helped by the grace of the holy mysteries. In the theanthropic Body of Christ, the Church, all that is
Christ’s becomes ours, including His virtue, the fullness of virtue. This is the totality of evangelical,
theanthropic morals and ethics.
THE CHURCH’S HIERARCHY

The hierarchy, in all its theanthropic values and dimensions, comes essen�ally from the eternal
High Priest, the priest forever (Ps. 109:4), the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, the Second Person of the Holy
Trinity. Theanthropy is, therefore, the essence and criterion of hierarchy. It is from Him and He is in it (cf.
Eph. 4:11-13). For this reason, He iden�fies Himself with it as He says to the holy apostles: He that heareth
you heareth Me; and he that despiseth you despiseth Me . . . And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the
end of the world (Lk. 10:16; Mat. 28:20). Where the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, the eternal High Priest
is, there is the hierarchy and there the eternal priesthood (cf. Heb. 7:21-27). The Church, as Christ the
Theanthropos, is indeed the only true possessor and guardian of the eternal, theanthropic priesthood and
hierarchy which, through the holy mysteries, unceasingly pours forth all the divine powers that men
require for piety, for theanthropic life in both this world and the next, for deifica�on, for becoming like the
God-Man (cf. 1 Pet. 1:2-4). This all comes to pass naturally and logically in the Church as the theanthropic
Body, the organism, in which the laws of the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ the Theanthropos, are supreme.
This truth in apostolic-patris�c Tradi�on therefore prevails: ‘The bishop is in the Church and the Church in
the bishop.’37 And again: ‘Where Christ is, there is the Universal Church.’38 Saint Igna�us the God-bearer,
a disciple of the apostles, commands the Chris�ans: ‘Respect the deacons, all of you, as Jesus Christ, the
bishop as being a type of the Father, the priests as God’s council, as the company of the apostles. Without
these, one cannot Speak of a Church.’39
37. St. Cyprian: ‘Episcopus est in Ecclesia, et Ecclesia in episcopo. Epist. 66 (& 69).
38. Igna�us the God-Bearer: οπου αν η Ιησους Χριστος, εκει η καθολικη εκκλησια - Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, VIII:2.
39. idem, Epistle to the Trallaeans: III

Both as an organism and as an organiza�on, the Church is in all respects a unique being in our
earthly world. It is, as an organism, theanthropic: the Lord Jesus Christ Himself perpetuated through all
ages and all eterni�es. As an organiza�on, it is a theanthropic organiza�on of clergy and laity, as well as
having other earthly characteris�cs. The Theanthropos and divine humanity are the supreme value and
standard throughout. The Theanthropos is always the only Head of the Church as an organiza�on. Where
He, the God-Man, is replaced by man even if he is hundred �mes infallible, there the God-Man is beheaded
and the Church is no more. The theanthropic, apostolic hierarchy disappears, and along with it apostolic
primacy and succession.

The holy Tradi�on of the holy Orthodox Church, in its en�rety, is Christ the Theanthropos Himself.
What could men add to holy Tradi�on, to Christ the all-perfect Theanthropos? In comparison with the
supreme riches of the Theanthropos, all men of all �mes on this planet of God’s, and every man in
par�cular, are mere paupers. They are mere paupers who have, through sin, completely impoverished
themselves by death, which deprives them of everything divine, heavenly, immortal, and eternal. And the
supremely rich and merciful Lord Christ endows every man, in exchange for apostolic faith in Him, with all
eternal and incorrup�ble divine riches: eternal truth, jus�ce, love, life, and everything that only the God
of love, the only true Philanthropos, can give to man. For this reason, there is only one true grace and one
immortal joy for human beings in all the worlds: the Theanthropos the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him lies the
whole mystery of both God and man. Great and sweet is the mystery of our faith, our piety: God was
manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16), in man. This is the first half of eternal Truth. The other is that man is
manifest in God (cf, 1 Tim. 3:16). For all these reasons, the wondrous Lord Christ, the Theanthropos, is the
one thing needful to a man and to mankind in all worlds, visible and invisible (cf. Lk. 10:42).
THE CHURCH’S DIVINE WORSHIP AND THE FEASTS

The church’s whole life is composed of the unceasing service of God unceasing divine worship,
and for this reason, every day in the Church is a feast. God being praised in the Church every day, and one
or more saints being celebrated, the Church’s life is unceasing service, an unceasing living with all the
saints (Eph. 3:18). Today’s saints hand us on to those of tomorrow, and the saints of tomorrow to those of
the day a�er, and so on; the yearly cycle has no end. Celebra�ng the feasts and the saints in prayer, we
truly experience their grace and their holy virtues, according to the measure of our faith, for the saints are
nothing less than the personifica�on and incarna�on of the holy, evangelical virtue’s, the immortal dogmas
of our faith and our salva�on.

The eternal truths of the holy virtues are transformed into our lives, primarily and most completely
through prayer and divine worship. Prayer is the best climate for the growth of every evangelical virtue.
My words are spirit, and they are life (Jn. 6:63). Divine worship brings grace into our freedom, so that
divine grace and our freedom come together to transform dogma�c and ethical evangelical truths into life.
The whole Church, as the Body of Christ, par�cipates in this through the Eucharis�c Body, which is the
supreme theanthropic ‘Holy of holies’, in our earthly world and all human worlds. Everything in the holy
Body of the Church par�cipates, co-operates, always with all the saints. Through the most holy Mother of
God and all the saints, we commend ourselves, and each other, and all our lives unto Christ our God.
Everything that is of heaven and earth, all that is theanthropic, is here; all that unites God with man,
heaven with earth and eternity with �me. Everything earthly lives by heaven, the temporal is nourished
by the eternal and man in his fullness lives by God. There thus unfolds the never ceasing theanthropic
ascesis of salva�on, deifica�on, and growth in likeness to the Theanthropos. For the Church is heaven on
earth, God in man and man in God.

Who tes�fies to this? All the saints of the Church of God, from the first to the last. The holy service
books most eloquently and irrefutably prove that, to every saint, the holy virtues are warp and we�; each
has built and formed himself by the holy virtues; each has transformed and transfigured himself by them.
This is also the case with the holy apostles, martyrs, confessors, and prophets, the righteous and the
unmercenaries and the saints in general. The holy virtues, beginning with faith, are present and ac�ve in
each of them. Every holy virtue is a voluntary asce�c act of our God-like free will. Our personal co-
opera�on with the Savior in our salva�on has its roots in our holy virtues. All the virtues cons�tute an
organic whole, one organism: a theanthropic organism. They grow one from the other, live one in the
other, grow strong one in the other and are immortal one in the other. Every virtue, in some way, embraces
all the others. Thus, faith is an all-embracing virtue, for, in order to live, it must draw its nourishment from
love, hope, prayer, fas�ng, mercy, repentance and the other holy virtues. It is the same with prayer, love,
hope, fas�ng and the rest; all are nourished by the others; all become alive, perfected, and immortal in
the others.

All God’s saints: ‘the sanc�fied hierarchs, the prophets of God, the choirs of the blessed, the holy
women and the others, all gained glory by pleasing God through virtuous deeds (εναρετοις πραξεσιν).’40
‘Christ’s hierarchs, the congrega�on of the blessed, the prophets and all the righteous together, shining
with the beauty of the virtues, reached the heavenly abode.’41
40. On Saturday, at the Liturgy; Bea�tudes, third Troparion, Octoechos Tone IV.
41. των αρετων ταις ιδεαις αστραπτομενοι . . . Octoechos, Tone VI, second Troparion of the first Ode of the first Canon at Ma�ns
 In the Orthodox Church, the Theanthropos is Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the
First and the Last (Rev. 1:8,10,17; 21:6). The laws of the Theanthropos prevail in it.

God is the norm and goal for man, and the divine is the norm and goal for all that is man’s. In the
Church, man is always turned prayerfully towards God. As a theanthropic organism, it is house of prayer,
as it is also as a temple. Every member of the Church is a God-like cell in the theanthropic Body of the
Church. Salva�on is, in fact, the unceasing experience of the life of prayer in the Church. This is the ascesis
of becoming one with the Church. Every member lives the full, theanthropic life of the Church, according
to the measure of his faith and its holy mysteries and virtues. Every faithful member is the Church in
miniature.

The theanthropic life and all the truths of the Church are most perfectly and faithfully expressed
in divine worship through the prayerful experience of all that is theanthropic, thus molding a prayerful
theology. The divine worship of the Church is its most faithful Tradi�on, the living and immortal Tradi�on
in which dwells the fullness of the miraculous Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus Christ, and, with Him, by Him
and following Him, the holy apostles, the holy fathers and all the saints, from the first to the last.

Orthodox divine worship is the life of the Church in which its every member par�cipates by
experiencing all that is theanthropic, apostolic and patris�c. In brief: all that is Orthodox. The whole
theanthropic past of the Church is always present as an immediate reality. ln the Church, the past is the
present and the present is the past. In fact, there exists in the Church one only and unconfined present.
Everything is immortal and holy, apostolic, and conciliar, catholic, and universal. Each belongs to all and all
to each, by the grace-given power of holy theanthropic love, which stems from faith in the Theanthropos
and is immortalized through all the other virtues, with prayer in first place.

This tradi�on in the Church of divine worship and prayer preserves for us, with devout fear and
trembling, the most precious thing of all human worlds: the Lord Christ and all that pertains to Him. He,
in the fullness of His theanthropic Person, is the perfec�on of the eternal Holy Tradi�on of the Church. ln
Him and with Him, we are given His en�re Gospel and all His truths of salva�on and forming into likeness
to the Theanthropos. The holy, theanthropic mystery of the dispensa�on of salva�on is enacted in all the
divine services, and especially in the Holy Liturgy. One of the prayers at the end of the Liturgy of Saint Basil
the Great says: ‘The mystery of Thy dispensa�on of salva�on is accomplished and fulfilled (το της
οικονομιας μυστηριον).’ In our living, prayerful par�cipa�on lies our salva�on and deifica�on, and our
achieving of full likeness to the Theanthropos through the Church; our full integra�on into the Church. The
voluntary ascesis of becoming like the Theanthropos through grace and the virtues is, quite simply, the
ascesis of incorpora�on into the Church.

Man’s salva�on consists of conciliar life with all the saints (Eph. 3:18) in the theanthropic Body of
the Church. This life follows an unceasing daily cycle, as each day is a feast of one or more saints who work
together for our salva�on. Our prayerful communion with the saints ensures our salva�on. It is therefore
essen�al to celebrate all the feasts: those of the Lord, of the Mother of God, of the angels, the apostles,
the martyrs and all the others. In the same way, all the day and night offices are of help to our salva�on.
And through and in them all, Christ the Theanthropos, as the Church, as the Head of the Church, and His
Body with all the saints and the holy and eternal truths, and the fullness of theanthropic life in its endless
reality.
 It is by prayer that we grow in the boundlessly mysterious theanthropic Body of the Church, and
we live in it by prayer. Each of us carries out his ascesis of chris�flca�on, transfigura�on, deifica�on and
trini�fica�on by prayerful par�cipa�on in the services; never alone, but always with all the saints. This life
is always fully personal as well as fully conciliar. In the company of the saints, we live mostly by prayer and
communicate through prayer. Prayer is therefore the most essen�al virtue of every Chris�an. Prayer is the
choirmaster in the choir of the virtues. It determines the place of every virtue and endows it with its spirit
and breach. Every virtue grows and develops through prayer, maintaining its place among the other holy
virtues and coordina�ng their theanthropic work on the ascesis of salva�on.

The divine worship of the Orthodox Church is composed of the Holy Gospel and Holy Tradi�on
translated into prayers, poe�cally rendered in troparia, kontakia, canons, verses, songs, sighs, cries, and
tears. All the truth, jus�ce, love, wisdom, immortality, and eternity of the Theanthropos are offered to us
as prayer, as Holy Communion, as the holy commandments, the holy mysteries, and the holy virtues.
Wherever we stretch out our hands, we touch living Holy Tradi�on; its bloodstream, nerves, bones, heart,
eyes, conscience, mind and reason. When a soul opens itself in prayer to the God-Man’s own truth and
life, all the virtues grow with the increase of God (Col. 2:19), and the soul grows by grace to be a god-man,
a true Chris�an.

Through the living of the liturgical life of the Church, a Chris�an personality is built up, a god-man
by grace, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). This is
the surest way, the most saving ascesis. Theanthropic upbuilding through grace is an unceasing process
through every prayer, supplica�on, tear, sob, and confession. The saints are our guides and teachers in this
process. They are ‘the eyes of the Church of Christ’;42 they lead and guide us to the theanthropic goal of
our human existence.
42. Troparion of the Holy Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus, Menaion, October 7th (Slavonic Menaion).

An Orthodox Chris�an’s every thought and feeling begins and ends in prayer, becoming a prayerful
a�tude towards himself and the surrounding world, and above all towards our Lord and God Jesus Christ.
Everything becomes theanthropic and has God as its final goal. Thought is transformed into pondering on
God, for this is the divine and immortal meaning of thought. Emo�on becomes the sense of God, as this
is the divine and immortal meaning of the emo�ons. The same stands for the mind (the divine mind) and
the will (the divine will), for this is their divine and immortal meaning. In brief: man is built up into a god-
man, for this is the divine and immortal meaning of man.

Let us reiterate: in the theanthropic Body of the Church, every member lives, as a cell in God’s
image, in the whole theanthropic life of the Church according to the measure of his faith and other virtuous
acts; every day, every moment, with all the saints. There are many and varied powers of life in the
Theanthropos, ever-present and ever-ac�ve through the saints in the daily cycle of their commemora�on;
the apostles, martyrs, confessors, asce�cs, the unmercenaries and the blessed. Christ is all in all through
the saints as we commemorate them each day. He, through them, as the Head of the Church, rules and
governs in the theanthropic world of the Church.

Every holy dogma of our faith in the Theanthropos has its feast: the Incarna�on: Christmas; the
Resurrec�on: Easter; faith has the feasts of the holy martyrs; all the other holy virtues have the various
saints. Each of the faithful experiences the truths of the holy dogma in the Body of Christ, the Church.
Every dogma�c truth is experienced as life, eternal life, as an organic part of the Eternal Person of the
Theanthropos: I am the truth and the life (Jn. 14:6). Divine worship is nothing other than the experiencing
and living of eternal dogma�c truth. What of the dogma that the Lord Jesus is both God and Man? It is
strongly experienced in the Feasts of the Lord: Christmas, the Theophany, the Transfigura�on, Easter and
the others. This eternal truth is con�nually experienced throughout our being, and so becomes our daily
life, every moment of our life. Hence the proclama�on our life is in heaven ... hid with Christ in God (Phil.
3:20; Col. 3:3).
ON GOD AS JUDGE

The eternal, evangelical truth of God as Judge is neither imposed knowledge nor is it unnaturally
added to divinely-revealed truths. It is a natural, integral part of holy Revela�on in theanthropic Body of
the Church. The logic of Revela�on would not be divine without it and the theanthropic dispensa�on of
salva�on would not be complete. Without it, Divine Revela�on would be like the world without the heaven
above. It is roof that covers and completes the resplendent temple of theanthropic truths about man and
the world. It is of the same nature and essence as the other holy dogmas: they are found within it as it is
in them. It has the same value and life-giving powers. It cannot be separated from them, as together they
cons�tute one indivisible theanthropic organism. It is natural for God, who is the Creator, Savior, and
Sanc�fier, also to be the Judge. As Creator, He brought us from non-being into being, ordaining that, as
the goal of our existence, we become God-like with the help of the soul He gave us in His likeness, and to
increase with the increase of God . . . unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ (Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:13). As Savior, He saved us from sin, death, and the devil by introducing into
human nature, rendered mortal by sin, the principle and the power of resurrec�on and immortality. As
Sanc�fier, He has given us by grace, in His theanthropic Body, the Church, all the means and powers
necessary for the adop�on of His theanthropic ascesis of salva�on and the fulfilment of the purpose of
our existence. As Judge, He appraises, judges, and determines our a�tude towards Him as Creator and
ourselves as His God-like crea�on, towards Him as Savior and ourselves as the subject of salva�on, towards
Him as the Theanthropos, the Church, the Sanc�fier, and ourselves as the object of sanc�fica�on,
deifica�on, and likeness to the Theanthropos. In this four-fold act, God worketh all things after the counsel
of His own will (κατα την βουλην του θεληματος συτου) (Eph. 1:11), according to the plan for the world
and man which He made before �me with one purpose: to gather together all things, both which are in
heaven, and which are on earth, into their Head (ανακεφαλαιωσασθαι), into Christ (Eph. 1:10; cf. Col. 1:16-
17,20).

God placed the yeast of desire for Christ into the dough of the human being, so that man, and
with him all crea�on, should rise to Christ. For this reason, all crea�on is essen�ally Christocentric and is
strongly drawn towards Christ as its natural and eternal Center and Goal (cf. Rom. 8:19-23; Col. 1:16-17;
Eph. 1:4-5). Whilst God, in His crea�ve, saving, and sanc�fying role, appears as a �ller, sower, and
cul�vator, He acts in His role as Judge as a reaper and winnower. It is natural for the heavenly Sower, who
has abundantly sown the seed of eternal, divine truths in the earth of the human soul, to come and see
how much of that seed has roted in the mire of lust, been strangled by the thorns of passion or withered
by the coals of sinfulness, and how much has grown and yielded divine fruit, and, also, to reap and winnow
the ripe ears of corn. As He is the Tiller, Sower, and Cul�vator, He is en�tled to be also the Reaper and
Winnower. Because He gave men all the means necessary to atain the God-given goal of their lives, it is
right that He also be the Judge. It would be unpardonably unjust, insul�ng, and tyrannical if God were to
act as Judge without having previously appeared as Savior and Sanc�fier. A God who would not reveal the
way to eternal life and eternal truth or give men the means of salva�on from sin, death, and the devil,
who would not be their Savior, would have no right to judge mankind. Mankind would be right to say with
one soul and one voice to such a tyrannical God what the wicked servant said in the Parable of the Talents
(Mat. 25:24-25).

lf Christ were such a God, it would not be right to believe in Him. In that case, He would not truly
be God, but one of the powerless so-called gods in the pi�ful pantheon of human idols. But because the
Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, manifested Himself as the Savior of man and mankind and, through His
inexpressible love for mankind, fulfilled the exceedingly difficult asce�c task of salva�on; because He gave
men all the heavenly gi�s which only the God of love can give, He rightly judges man and the world.

If the Lord Christ is of the same essence with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, then the
judgement of mankind is an act of the whole Holy Trinity. But, so that man, being rebellious and sinful by
nature, cannot protest that a God who has not been through human suffering in the earthly nest of vipers
has no right to judge men, the Father . . . hath committed all judgement unto the Son (Jn. 5:22), and He
will judge the world (την οικουμενην) in righteousness by [that] man (εν ανδρι) whom He hath ordained;
whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead (Acts 17:31).

By appoin�ng the man Jesus, God the Logos incarnate, to judge the world, God has done mankind
the final jus�ce. He, in His love for mankind, brought His heavenly jus�ce on earth full circle, so that men
cannot jus�fiably protest against divine judgement. The Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, is not only the
Founder of the Faith (ο της πιστεως αρχηγος), but also the Fulfiller (ο τελειωτις), the author and the
finisher (Heb. 12:2; cf. 2:10) of [our] faith, of the en�re divine plan for the world and mankind.

The whole crea�on hastens through its changes to its end. Through all days and nights, all
mankind, and with it all crea�on, hastens towards the Last Day, when the mystery of this world and all
human history will reach its fulfilment. All days, like clear streams, and all nights, like black torrents, break
through the gorges and abysses of existence carrying all beings and all crea�on towards the last day into
which they must flow and end their course. Everything that has lived and lives in the confines of �me must
enter that last day and land at its shore. There is no being or created thing which the stream of �me will
not bring to that last day. Time will end its existence on that day and this is why it is, in the Revela�on,
called the Last Day (Jn. 6:39,40,44; 11:24; 12:48), the great and notable day (Acts 2:20; Jude 6); and
because it is the divinely-ordained day in which He will judge the world (Acts 17:31), it is called the Day of
Judgement (ημερα κρισεως) (Mat. 10:15; 11:22,24; 12:36; 2 Pet. 2:9; 1 Jn. 4:17), the Day of wrath and
the revelation of the righteous Judgement of God (Rom. 2:5). But, as all judgement has been committed to
the Son (Jn. 5:22), and He is to be manifested in glory as the Judge on the Last Day, it is also called the Day
of the Son of Man (Lk. 17:22,24,26), the Day of the Lord (2 Pet. 3:10; 1 Thess. 5:2; see Ezek. 15:5; Is. 2:12;
Joel 2:31; Zeph. 1:14; Mal. 4:1), the Day of Christ (2 Thess. 2:2; Phil. 1:10; 2:16), the Day of the Lord Jesus
(2 Cor. 1:14; 1 Cor. 1:8; 5:5), the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men (2 Pet. 3:7; 2:9).

On this all-important day, the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, will pronounce His last Judgement,
the final judgement on the en�re history of the world and men; all men together and each man in
par�cular. And as, a�er He completed the crea�on, He surveyed every created being and thing and
pronounced His judgement that it was very good (Gen. 1:31), so on the Last Day shall the Triune Lord
survey all beings and crea�on at the end of their journey through history and pronounce His judgement
on everything and everyone. He shall then finally separate good from evil and set an impassable barrier
between them. He shall then pronounce His infallible judgement on all human values. He shall weigh all
human acts, thoughts, emo�ons, and words on the unerring scales of His Jus�ce and Love. Then shall the
mystery of God (το μυστηριον του Θεου) of man, of crea�on, the world, the universe, be finished (Rev.
10:7). All who are righteous and all that is good shall then inherit eternal bea�tude, eternal Paradise in
the heavenly kingdom of the sweet Lord Jesus, and all that is evil shall inherit eternal suffering, eternal
hell in the biter realm of the wicked and fallen angels.
 PART TWO: ECUMENISM

ECUMENISM

The historical Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus Christ, has supremely demonstrated that He is everything in
all worlds to the human being the essence and being, the life, the mind, the understanding, the heart and
conscience, the good, the virtue, the love, the light, the way and the truth, the jus�ce, the joy, the
salva�on, the resurrec�on and ascension, the immortality, eternity and paradise. He is all this through His
theanthropy, through His theanthropic Body, the Holy, Apostolic and Patris�c Church, the Church of Holy
Tradi�on: The Orthodox Church. Outside the Church, outside the God-Man’s Body, man exists with all his
human reali�es and weaknesses in and around him: sin, death, and the devil, and – with them and in them
– every evil, every hell, every disease and vice, every torment and misfortune. Man strives ac�vely to save
and free himself from torment, evil and terror; he strives through science, faith, and philosophy, through
culture and art, through agriculture, industry, technology and so forth. He con�nually suffers on crosses
of his own making. Man has dreamed up all kinds of surrogates for salva�on from the various torments
with which his life on earth is richly endowed. He has dreamed up various humanisms to himself by his
own efforts and make his own happiness, but as history bears witness, all in vain. He s�ll remains a slave
to every sort of torment and evil and, what is most terrible, an eternal slave to death. This is valid for every
man on this planet of God’s, and par�cularly for European man. It is, therefore, necessary, and helpful to
follow man along the main paths of his many humanisms.
HUMANISTIC AND THEANTHROPIC PROGRESS

If we examine the fundamental principles and metaphysics of European humanis�c progress, it is

obvious to all normal eyes that European humanis�c culture systema�cally dulls man’s sense of
immortality, un�l it is completely blunted and the man of European culture resolutely asserts, a�er
Nietzsche: ‘I am flesh, and flesh alone’, meaning ‘I am mortal and only mortal.’ ‘Man is a mortal being’
became the dominant moto of humanis�c Europe. It is the formula of humanis�c man, the essence of his
progress. The realiza�on that man is totally mortal was, at first unconsciously and then consciously,
systema�cally, and deliberately, injected into European man through science, philosophy, and culture. This
realiza�on became a firm convic�on: death is a necessity. Death a necessity? Is there a greater horror,
insult, or ridicule than this: man’s greatest enemy a necessity? Tell me, is there any logic here - the very
least, that of a child or an insect? Has European man, suffocated and ground by the mill of death named
Earth, lost the last ves�ge of reason and begun to rave? Humanis�c man is uterly devastated, for all
knowledge and sense or personal immortality has been purged from him. Without this, can a man be
whole? European man is diminished, horribly diminished, dwarfed and reduced to a frac�on and fragment
of man, because all sense of boundlessness, of infinity, has been driven out of him. Can a man exist as a
man without infinity? And if he can so exist, is there any purpose in his existence? Without this sense of
infinity, is he not just another dead thing, an ephemeral animal? Paradoxically, I hold that some animals
are more infinite in their feelings and immortal in their desires than the man of European progress.
Shriveled, stunted, alienated and degenerate humanis�c man has rightly claimed, through his sages, to be
descended from apes. Having made himself equal in descent to the animals, what reason has he not to
make himself equal to them in morality? Being one with the animals, with the wild beasts, in the nature
of his being, he is also one with them in morality. Are sin and crime not more and more accepted by the
present-day judiciary as an inevitable consequence of social environment, a natural inevitability? As there
is nothing immortal and eternal in man, all ethics are ul�mately reduced to ins�nc�ve desires. As
humanis�c man has equated himself with his forebears, the apes and the beasts, his life is ruled by the
principle: homo homini lupus (man is a wolf to man). It could not be otherwise, as only a sense of man’s
immortality can be the basis of a higher and beter morality than that of the animals. If there is no
immortality, no eternal life, either in man or around him, then animal morality is uterly natural and logical
for the beast-man: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (1 Cor. 15:32).

Rela�vism in the philosophy of European humanis�c progress necessarily resulted in rela�vism in

ethics, and rela�vism is the source of anarchism and nihilism. Consequently, the prac�cal ethics of
humanis�c man are nothing other than anarchy and nihilism. They are the inevitable, terminal, and
apocalyp�c phase of European humanis�c progress. Ideological anarchism and nihilism, ideological decay,
were inevitably manifested in prac�cal anarchy and nihilism, the prac�cal decay of European humanis�c
man and his progress. Are we not eyewitnesses of the ideological anarchism and nihilism that are ravaging
the con�nent of Europe? The ingredients of European progress are such that, in any combina�on, they
inevitably result in anarchy and nihilism. As proof of this look at the two World Wars that were, in fact,
European wars.

European man is catastrophically stupid if he is able, while not believing in God and the
immortality of the soul, to believe in progress as the purpose of life, and work on that. What good is
progress to me if it ends in death? What good are all worlds, constella�ons, or cultures, if death is lurking
and will catch me up in the end? Where there is death, there is no true progress; and if it does exist, it is
only the progress of the damned in the mill of death and must therefore be destroyed without trace.

The anguish of European humanis�c development was sensed by the prominent Czech writer,
Karel Capek, and ar�s�cally expressed in his tragedy: Rossum’s Universal Robots. In it, the dialogue
between Alquist and Helena goes as follows:

Alquist: Does Nanny have a Prayer Book of any sort?

Helena: Yes, a very large one.
Alquist: There must be prayers in it for all sorts of situa�ons in life. Against disaster? Against illness?
Helena: Yes, against tempta�on, against flood.
Alquist: And is there one against progress?
Helena: I guess not.
Alquist: Ah well, that’s a pity.

Humanis�c man and his progress are confronted by Christ’s man and his theanthropic progress.
The basic principle of theanthropic growth is: man is truly man only in God, in the God-Man. In other
words, man is truly man only through immortality, through the overcoming of all that is mortal and all
mortality, through victory over death. Conquering sin and evil in himself, Christ’s man thereby conquers
death and mortality in his awareness and his senses, and unites himself with the only Immortal One, Christ
the God-Man. By uni�ng himself with the immortal God-Man, he is already immortal, immortal in this
world: his mind already thinks Christ’s immortal and eternal thoughts, and his heart already senses Christ’s
immortal and eternal life.

How is this achieved? By faith in the risen Lord Jesus. If a man wholeheartedly and sincerely
believes in the risen God-Man, his soul immediately experiences a sense of immortality and resurrec�on,
of the conquest of death, and sin and evil with it. This sense of personal immortality delights and
encourages the Chris�an to perform evangelical feats of ascesis, gladly fulfilling Christ’s commandments
and joyfully going through life from non-being to the fullness of being, from mortality to immortality. As a
point that grows to infinity, such is a man who grows in the God-Man. His whole being radiates divine
infini�es, and he feels immortal in all aspects of his being. Thus, the tragic principle of humanis�c progress:
‘death is a necessity’, is replaced by the joyful principle of theanthropic growth: immortality is a necessity.

Theanthropic progress has its own morality. In it, the en�re life of a man is guided and given its
dynamic by the Theanthropos. That which is Christ’s is good; apart from this, there is no true goodness.
Immortality is the primary characteris�c of Christ’s goodness. For this reason, immortality is indispensable
in the morality of Christ’s man, as feeling, knowledge, ac�on, and prac�ce. Man’s immortality lies in the
experience of the Lord Christ as the Soul of his soul, the Life of his life, because this ensures the
boundlessness and infinity of thought, feeling and life. For a true Chris�an, immortality is natural and
logical and, with it and in its boundlessness and infinity. This is what enables and ensures never-ending
moral perfec�ng, never-ending moral progress towards God who is the sum of all infinity, all
boundlessness, and all perfec�on. The categorical impera�ve of theanthropic growth is therefore en�rely
natural, logical, and jus�fied: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven (God) is
perfect (Mathew 5:48).
 Christ’s man follows the way of divine perfec�on, overcoming, by means of the evangelical virtues,
sin and evil in himself and in the world around him. He is always advancing from good to greater good,
from the greater to the greatest, never stopping, never pausing, because every pause means spiritual
paralysis and death. Through every pure thought, every holy feeling, every good wish, and kind word, he
grows towards resurrec�on, towards immortality and eternal life.

In his conquest of sin and death, Christ’s man passes through three phases of Chris�an evolu�on
in this life: birth in Christ, transfigura�on in Christ and resurrec�on in Christ. The final goal of his struggle
is to rise with Christ, to conquer death. You have indeed already vanquished death if you have believed
with all your soul in the risen Theanthropos, for He said: He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life . . .
he is passed from death into life (Jn. 6:47, 5:24).

Only by faith in the risen Theanthropos does man begin to be man, for he thereby frees himself
from sin and death and acquires a sense of immortality. Sin is a disease that dulls, stunts, paralyses, the
sense of immortality, so that a man cannot reach the living and true God either through feeling or through
thought. Such a man is crippled; he is a half-man, sub-human. The Theanthropos vanquished sin and death
by His Resurrec�on, in order to awaken man to immortality and eternal life, to rejuvenate the stunted and
paralyzed sense of immortality in man, so that he can sense that God and eternal life are the purpose of
his life on earth and in heaven. Indeed, the theanthropic Church is nothing other than a divine workshop,
in which man’s sense and knowledge of personal immortality and infinity are ceaselessly rejuvenated,
refreshed, and invigorated. Does prayer not make the soul infinite by uni�ng it with God? Does love not
immortalize the soul by li�ing it up to God? Do charity, goodness, humility, and righteousness not
immortalize man by transla�ng his being into the realm of Christ’s truth? Let us not deceive ourselves:
man partly overcomes death in himself by every evangelical virtue, un�l he finally completely overcomes
it and ensures his immortality and eternal life.

In theanthropic growth, a man always follows Christ as the divine Way, through divine Truth to
eternal and immortal Life. Christ the God-Man gave all this to mankind through His Resurrec�on. All the
truth of all worlds, all the purpose of all creatures, all the joy of all beings, have been given to mankind
through the Resurrec�on of Christ the Theanthropos. Christ’s Resurrec�on is therefore the most fateful
event in the history of the world; the eternal, divine importance not only of every individual man, but also
of all mankind, depends upon it.
HUMANISTIC AND THEANTHROPIC CULTURE

European culture is based on man. Man is its program and its goal, its means and its content.
Humanism is its chief architect. It is totally constructed on the sophist principle and criterion that man –
European man – is the measure of all things, visible and invisible. He is the supreme creator and giver of
values. The truth is whatever he proclaims as true; the purpose of life is whatever he proclaims it to be;
good and evil are what he pronounces good and evil. To put it briefly and bluntly: he makes himself God.
Have you not no�ced how immensely he loves to play God, in science and technology, philosophy and
culture, religion and poli�cs, art and fashion; to play God at any price even by inquisi�on and Papism, by
sword and fire, by savagery and cannibalism? In the language of his humanis�c-posi�vis�c science, he has
pronounced that there is no God. Guided by that logic, he confidently concludes that, as there is no God,
he is God.

European man loves nothing beter than to present himself as God, although he is caught in this
universe like a mouse in a mousetrap. To parade and prove his godhead, he announces that all higher
worlds are barren, with neither God nor any living being. He strives to rule over nature, whatever the cost;
to subjugate it to himself. To this end, he has organized a systema�c campaign against nature, calling this
campaign ‘culture’, and has harnessed his philosophy and science, his religion and ethics, his poli�cs and
technology, to that end. He has managed to polish some patches on the surface of mater, but has not
transformed it. By struggling with mater, man has not managed to humanize it; it has succeeded in making
him narrower and more superficial, in reducing him to mater. And he, surrounded by it, perceives himself
as mater and mater alone.

Who, then, has won? Irony has, for culture has made man a slave of mater, a slave of things. The
truth is clear: European man is enslaved by things; he does not rule over them as a god. This self-
proclaimed god bows down in worship to things, idols that he himself has made: In his campaign against
all that is supernatural, he has subs�tuted the products of his culture for all supra-material aspira�ons:
heaven, the soul, immortality and eternity, the living and true God. He has thus promoted culture as a god,
for man cannot exist on this darkened planet without a god, any god, even a false god. Thus is the fateful
irony of man disposed.

Do you not no�ce that, in his mania for culture, European man has transformed Europe into an
idol-factory? Almost every cultural item has become an idol. Our era is, above all, an era of idol-worship.
No other con�nent is so engulfed by idols as is contemporary Europe. Nowhere else are material things so
revered or people live for them as much as in Europe. This is idol-worship of the worst kind, for it is the
worship of clay. Tell me, does a man not worship clay when he selfishly loves his earthen flesh of clay, and
persistently asserts: I am flesh, and flesh alone? Tell me, does European man not worship clay when he
takes as his ideal a class, a na�on or mankind as a whole?

Europe is undoubtedly suffering, not from atheism but from polytheism. It is not suffering from a
lack of gods but from a surfeit. Having lost the true God, Europe has striven to sate its hunger for Him by
crea�ng many false gods, many idols. It has idols from science and its hypotheses, from technology and
its inven�ons, from religion and its proponents, from poli�cs and its par�es, from fashion and its models.
In the midst of all these idols, European man, the European Dalai-Lama, has been seated on the cosmic
throne of ego�sm.
 In its essence, European culture is a vampire fe�shism, fe�shism European-style, in European
dress. An insa�able appe�te for things is the chief characteris�c of European man. Fe�sh metaphysics are,
furthermore, expressed in prac�ce in European culture by fe�shist ethics. Ancient pagan fe�shism was
characterized by cannibalism. And is not modern European fe�shism also characterized by cannibalism: a
veiled, cultured cannibalism? Has European culture not pronounced, with its own mouth, with science as
its mouthpiece, that the chief principle of life is the struggle for self-preserva�on? What is this if not a call
to cannibalism? Does this not mean that man must fight for self-preserva�on by every means, if necessary,
by cannibalism? The most important thing is to stay alive. How? This is not under the conscience’s control.
Life is a slaughterhouse in which the stronger has the right to cut the throat of the weaker, and weaker
men are simply resource-material for the stronger. As there is neither God nor immortality, a man is
allowed anything for the sake of self-preserva�on. Sin is permited, as are evil and crime. Posi�vist science
has pronounced that whatever happens does so by natural laws. And the law of necessity rules supreme
in nature. It rules men. It rules their thoughts, feelings, aspira�ons, and ac�ons. When men sin, they do
so through necessity. O man, even your greatest transgression is not your fault; you are not guilty because,
whatever you do, you do by natural necessity. Do not be surprised; sin cannot exist for the man for whom
God does not exist, for sin is sin against God, and if there is no God, then there is no sin, evil or crime.

The metaphysical nihilism of European culture, as it is expressed by the principle ‘there is no God’,
was inevitably manifested as prac�cal nihilism with its principle: ‘there is no sin, and therefore everything
is permited’. Take note that, through its philosophy and science, its technology and poli�cs, European
culture has been systema�cally suppressing in man all that is immortal and eternal, de�ly paralyzing his
sense of immortality and diminishing his soul un�l it is reduced to nothing.

To get rid of God is the desire, expressed or unexpressed, of many of the builders of European
culture. They are working on it through humanism and through the Renaissance, through a naturalism and
unkempt roman�cism reminiscent of Rousseau, through posi�vism and agnos�cism, ra�onalism, and
voluntarism, through parliamentarism and revolu�onarism. The more daring among them have coined the
moto: ‘God must be killed!’ In the end, Nietzsche, the most consistent architect and proponent of
European culture, proclaimed from the apex of the anthropomanic pyramid of ego�sm that God is dead.

When there is neither the eternal God nor an immortal soul, then there is nothing absolute; there
are no universal values. Everything is rela�ve, ephemeral, and mortal. Indeed, all absolute values have
been driven out and rela�ve ones established. Without a doubt, rela�vism is the logic, nature, and soul of
humanism. Einstein’s theory of rela�vity is the ul�mate consequence of humanism and all its
philosophical, scien�fic, technological, and poli�cal offshoots. But that is not all. In the last instance,
humanism is nothing other than nihilism.

Karl Joel, the German philosopher, sketches the crisis of the European spirit in these words: ‘Our
view of the world lacks a general sense of comprehensiveness and totality. We lack the comprehensiveness
of witness and, with the power of witness, the power of belief. Our morality has no true character. Our
history has no personali�es through whom the people and the �mes are comprehensively and powerfully
expressed. We lack great poetry, because our imagina�on has been rent away from the cosmic whole. It
grabs at minu�ae and dabs at great concepts, because our poets are not borne by the cosmic sense that
the classicists had, which gave their verse a higher note and their heroes an inner purpose. We have the
most stupefying representa�ons of tone without melody, the most opulent pathos without ethos, the
most colorful instrumenta�on, illustra�on and se�ng, the cleverest technical achievement, devoid of any
sort of soul. We have the most visible environment, the richest stage, the liveliest ac�on without heroes,
with crowds and puppets as heroes. We have the director’s art as the most effec�ve art-form, the art of
insubstan�al phenomena. We have the richest life, but it has no peace or roundedness, no inner harmony,
because it lacks a sense of comprehensiveness, of the reconcilia�on of man with the world. Thus, the crisis
of philosophy becomes the crisis of our �mes.’

Yes, humanism could not fail to develop into nihilism. If a man does not recognize any absolute
values, how can he fail to become a nihilist? Follow the path of logic to the end, and you will be forced to
conclude that rela�vism is the father of anarchism. As all beings are rela�ve, no one of them has the right
to assert itself over the others. If one atempts this, there must be war to extermina�on. As all values are
rela�ve, by what right can any one of them be imposed as the greatest, the supreme? On what grounds
does your truth, my friend, suppress mine if both are rela�ve? As there is nothing absolute in the human
worlds, then there is no hierarchy, either of beings or of values. There is only anarchy.

It is indeed the ul�mate reality that nihilism and anarchism are the logical end of European culture,
the inevitable final form of European humanism and rela�vism. Humanism inevitably develops into
atheism, and through anarchy ends in nihilism. If a man is an atheist today, then surely, if he is consistent,
he will be an anarchist tomorrow and a nihilist the day a�er. Every nihilist has followed the path from
humanism through atheism.

What is le� of a man when the soul is removed from his body? A corpse. What is le� of Europe
when God is torn from its body? A corpse. With God banished from the cosmos, has it not become a
corpse? What is a man who denies the soul within him and in the world around him? Nothing but molded
clay, a walking coffin of clay. The result is devasta�ng. Enamored of things, European man himself finally
becomes a ‘thing’. Personality is devalued and destroyed. What is le� is a man-thing. There is no whole,
integrated, immortal and God-like man, but simply fragments of a man, a bodily husk from which the
immortal spirit has been driven out. Although this husk is burnished and adorned, it is s�ll a husk.
European culture has deprived man of his soul; it has made him ar�ficial and mechanical. It is like a
monstrous machine that devours men and makes them into things. The end result is touchingly sad and
movingly tragic: man, a soulless thing among soulless things.

***
Such, in its main features, is the culture of European man. And what is the culture of the
evangelical, historical, Orthodox Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus? What is it based on? It is based en�rely on
the Person of Christ the Theanthropos. God became man in order to li� man up to God. This is the
beginning and the end between which Orthodox theanthropic culture moves. Its moto is: The God-Man
must be pre-eminent in all things. Neither God alone nor man alone, but the God-Man. This personifies
and actualizes the closest unity between God and man: God is not degraded on man’s account nor is man
on God’s. An ideal balance is thus achieved, and an ideal harmony between man and God is found. Man
achieves the fullness and perfec�on of his personality through unifica�on with the God-Man. Theanthropy
is the only category through which the manifold ac�vity of Orthodox culture is revealed. Beginning with
the God-Man, it concludes with the ideal, integrated, theanthropised man. In the center of the worlds
stands Christ the Theanthropos. He is the axis around which all worlds, both high and low, revolve. He is
the mysterious center towards which all souls that hunger for eternal truth and life gravitate. He is both
the project and the source of all the crea�ve forces of Orthodox theanthropic culture. Here God works and
man collaborates; God creates through man and man creates through God; here the divine crea�on is
con�nued through man. To this end, man brings out of himself all that is divine and puts it into ac�on,
crea�on, and life. In this crea�vity, all that is divine, not only in man but also in the world around him, is
expressed and brought into ac�on; all that is divine is ac�ve, and all that is human joins in this ac�vity.
But, in order to collaborate successfully with God, man must accustom himself to thinking, feeling, living
and crea�ng by God. All this reveals to us the goal of Orthodox culture.

What is this goal? To bring more of the divine into man and realize it in him and in the world
around him. In other words: to incarnate God in man and the world. Orthodox culture is, therefore, the
cult of Christ our God, the service of Him. Indeed, Orthodox, theanthropic culture is the unceasing service
of Christ our God, unceasing divine service. Man serves God through himself and all crea�on around him.
He systema�cally, deliberately, brings God and the divine into all his work, all his crea�vity. He awakens all
that is divine in nature around him, so that nature, led by man with his yearning for Christ, can serve God.
In this way, crea�on par�cipates in the universal, divine service, for nature serves man, who serves God.

Theanthropic culture transforms man from within, moving from the inner to the outer. It refines
the soul and, through the soul, the body. For it, the body is the soul’s twin, a twin that lives, moves and
has its being through the soul. Remove the soul from a man, and what is le� but a putrid corpse? The God-
Man transfigures the soul and then the body. The transformed soul transforms the body, transfiguring
mater.

The goal of theanthropic culture is to transfigure, not just man and mankind, but, through them,
the whole of nature. How can this goal be achieved? Only by theanthropic means: through the evangelical
virtues of faith and love, hope and prayer, fas�ng and humility, meekness and compassion, love for God
and one’s fellow-man. Theanthropic, Orthodox culture is built by exercise in these virtues. By prac�cing
them, a man makes his ugly soul beau�ful, his dark soul light, his sinful soul holy and Christ-like. The body
is transformed into a framework for its Christ-like soul.

Through the prac�ce of the evangelical virtues, man gains control over himself and nature around
him. Driving sin out of himself and the world around him, he drives out the savage and destruc�ve forces,
completely transfiguring himself and the world, taming nature in and around him. This is best exemplified
by the saints. By sanc�fying and transforming themselves through the prac�ce of the evangelical virtues,
they sanc�fy and transform nature around them. Many of the saints were served by wild beasts and, by
their mere presence, tamed lions, bears and wolves. Their rela�onship with nature was prayerful, gentle,
meek, and compassionate, not rough, cruel, inimical, and savage.

The Kingdom of God on earth, Orthodox culture, is not created by external, forcible, and
mechanical intrusion but by an internal, willing, and personal acceptance of the Lord Christ through the
constant prac�ce of the Chris�an virtues. The Kingdom of God does not come in outward, visible ways but
internally, invisibly, and spiritually. The Savior proclaims: The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation.
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or Lo there! For behold, the Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20-21),
inside the God-created and God-Like soul, the soul sanc�fied by the Holy Spirit. For the Kingdom of God is
. . . righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Rom. 14:17). Yes, in the Holy Spirit, not in the spirit
of man. It can be in the spirit of man only insofar as man is filled with the Holy Spirit through the prac�ce
of the evangelical virtues. The first and greatest commandment of Orthodox culture is therefore: Seek ye
first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you (Mat. 6:33).
All bodily needs will be added: food, clothing, and shelter (Mat. 6:25-32); all in addi�on to the Kingdom
of God. Western culture seeks this addi�on first, and this is its paganism as, according to the Savior’s
words, this is what pagans do. In this lies its tragedy, for it has worn out the soul with worry about material
things. The sinless Lord has said once and for all: Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what
ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on . . . (for after all these things do the nations of
the world seek); for your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things ... But seek ye
first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you (Mat.
6:25,32-33; Luke 12:22-31).

The list of needs that modern man has invented for himself is unending. For the sa�sfac�on of his
numerous senseless needs, man has turned this precious planet of God’s into a slaughterhouse. The Lord,
who loves mankind, has long ago revealed the one thing necessary to each man and to mankind. What is
this one thing? Christ the Theanthropos and all that He brings with Himself: divine truth, divine
righteousness, love, goodness, holiness, immortality, eternity, and every other divine perfec�on. This is
the one thing needful to man and mankind, and all other human needs are so peripheral in comparison
with them as to be almost unnecessary (Luke 10:42).

When man seriously contemplates the mysteries of his life and the world around him in the light
of the Gospel, he is forced to conclude that his ul�mate need is to renounce all needs and resolutely to
follow the Lord Christ, being united to Him by the prac�ce of evangelical ascesis. If he does not do so, he
remains spiritually sterile, insensate, and lifeless; his soul withers, dissipates and decays, and he dies
gradually un�l he is completely lifeless, and nothing remains. The divine lips of Christ have pronounced:
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.
I am the Vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit;
for without Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered;
and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned (John 15:4-6).

Man can extend his life and his being into eternity only through spiritual, organic unity with the
Theanthropos. The man of theanthropic culture is never alone; when he thinks, he thinks by Christ; when
he acts, he acts by Christ and when he feels he feels by Christ. In brief: he unceasingly lives by Christ our
God. What is man without God? Ini�ally a half-man; ul�mately a Brute. Only in the Theanthropos does
man find the fullness and perfec�on of his being, his model, his boundlessness and infinity, his immortality
and eternity, his absolute value. The Lord Jesus is the only one among men and beings who has
pronounced the human soul to be the most precious thing in all the worlds, high and low: For what is a
man profited, asks the Savior, who never jests, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
(Mat. 16:26).

All the suns and stars are not worth as much as one soul. If a man were to wear out his soul with
vices and sins, he would not be able to redeem it, even if he became master of all the solar systems. In
this case, man has only one way out, one and no other. And it is this: Christ the Theanthropos is the only
insurance for the human soul, the only insurance for immortality and eternity. The soul is not insured by
things, but enslaved by them. The Theanthropos frees men from the tyranny of things. They hold no sway
over Christ’s man; he holds sway over them. He gives all things their proper value, for he measures them
by Christ’s yards�ck. As, on Christ’s price-list, the human soul has an incredibly much higher value than all
beings and things, the Orthodox man cares about his soul and devotes all his aten�on to it. Orthodox
culture is, primarily, the culture of the soul.

Man is great only through God; this is the moto of theanthropic culture. Without God, man is just
twelve stone of bloody clay. What are men without God, if not one grave set next to the other? European
man has condemned both God and the soul to death. Has he not, in doing this, condemned himself to a
death from which there is no resurrec�on? Take honest and impar�al stock of European philosophy,
science, poli�cs, culture, and civiliza�on, and you will see that they have killed God and the immortality of
the soul in European man. But, if you take a serious look at the tragedy of human history, you will be forced
to realize that deicide ends in suicide. Remember Judas. He first killed God and then destroyed himself.
This is the implacable law that rules the history of this planet.

Dostoevsky the prophe�c and Gogol the melancholic predicted more than a century ago that the
edifice of European culture, that had been built without Christ, was bound to fall down. And the
prophecies of these Slav prophets are unfolding before our eyes. The building of the European Tower of
Babel took ten centuries, and it is our des�ny to behold the tragic vision: lo, they have built an enormous
zero! Great chaos reigns: one man does not understand another, one soul, one na�on does not understand
another. One man has risen over another, one empire over another, one na�on over another, even one
con�nent over another.

European man has come to experience a fateful ver�go. He took the superman to the top of his
Tower of Babel, to be the crown of his edifice, but the superman went mad just below the top and plunged
down from the tower. It fell with him, shatered by wars, and revolu�ons. Homo europaeircus has
inevitably had to go mad at the end of his culture: deicide has had to become suicide. Wille zur Macht (the
longing for might) has turned into Wille zur Nacht (longing for the night). Deep night has descended upon
Europe. Its idols are tumbling, and the day when not a single stone of the European culture that has built
ci�es and destroyed souls, that has worshipped created things and rejected the Creator, will be le� upon
another, is not far off.

A hundred years ago, near the end of his life, the Russian thinker Herzen, who was entranced with
Europe and had lived within it for a long �me, wrote: ‘We have inves�gated the roten organism of Europe
long enough. ln all classes, everywhere, we have seen the finger of death . . . Europe is approaching a
terrible cataclysm . . . Poli�cal revolu�ons are crumbling under the burden of their impotence; they have
accomplished great deeds, but have not completed their task. They have toppled faith but have not
achieved freedom. They have kindled desires in hearts that they could not fulfil . . . l am the first who is
fading away, and I am afraid of the dark night that is descending ... Goodbye, O dying world; goodbye,
Europe!’

Heaven is barren, for there is no God in it. The earth is barren, for there is no immortal soul on it.
European culture has turned its slaves into graves. It has itself become a graveyard. ‘I am going to Europe,’
says Dostoevsky, ‘and l know I am going to a graveyard.’

The melancholic Slav prophets alone foretold the fall Europe before the First World War. A�er the
war, even some Europeans began to be aware of this. The boldest and most frank of them was,
undoubtedly, Spengler, who alarmed the world a�er the First World War with his book: Untergang des
Abendlandes (The Fall of the West). He shows, by all the means provided by European science, philosophy,
poli�cs, technology, art, and religion, that the West is falling to its destruc�on. It has, since the First World
War, been in its death-ratle. Western, or Faus�an, culture, according to Spengler, began in the tenth
century a�er Christ and is now decaying and falling apart, and will disappear completely at the end of the
twenty-second century. European culture, concludes Spengler, will be succeeded by the culture of
Dostoevsky, of Orthodoxy.

Through all his cultural inven�ons, European man suddenly dies and becomes ex�nct. European
humanity’s self-love is the grave from which it has no desire to rise, and therefore cannot. Love of its
ra�onal faculty is the fatal passion that ravages European humanity. ‘The only salva�on from all this is
Christ’, asserts Gogol. But the world, ‘distracted by millions of glitering objects that disperse its thoughts,
has no strength to encounter Christ directly.’

The type of European man, faced with the basic problems of life, has become bankrupt. The
Orthodox Theanthropos has solved all the problems. European man has resolved the problem of life by
nihilism, Orthodox man by eternal life. Self-preserva�on is the most important thing for the Darwinian-
Faus�an man, but for Christ’s man the most important thing is self-sacrifice. The first says: sacrifice others
to yourself; the other says: sacrifice, yourself for others! European man has not solved the accursed
problem of death, but the God-Man has solved it by resurrec�on.

There is no doubt that the principle and forces of European culture and civiliza�on are an�-
Chris�an. The type of European man was developing for a long �me, un�l he replaced Christ the God-Man
with his philosophy and science, his poli�cs and technology, his religion, and ethics. Europe has used Christ
‘only as a bridge from cultureless barbarism to cultural barbarism, from unconscious to conscious
barbarism.’43
43. Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović: (Words on Man in His Fullness). p. 334.

There are many catastrophic elements in my conclusions about European culture. Do not let this
surprise you, because I am talking here about the most catastrophic period of human history, the horrors
of a European apocalypse which breaks its body and its spirit. There is no doubt that the whole of Europe
booby-trapped by volcanic contradic�ons, which, if they are not removed, can soon explode in a final
cataclysm resul�ng in the destruc�on of European culture.
HUMANISTIC AND THEANTHROPIC SOCIETY

If the European con�nent is, by anything, especially dis�nguished in the history of this planet, it is
probably by the fact that it has been capable of inven�ng numerous problems but been in no state to
resolve any of the gravest of them to the advantage of mankind as a whole. Among these are, primarily,
so-called social problems. Solving them has become a mania of nearly all Europeans. But, let me ask: who
is solving them without fire and the sword, without inquisi�on and autos-da-fé?* European man is in
disarray, confused and insane, in the face of the social problems and also the problem of man. Why?
Because the problems of society, when they are reduced to their basic elements, are the problems of the
person simply mul�plied by the number of all the individuals who make up society. Man, by the fact of
being a man, is a member of a social community and he contributes both his psycho-physical make-up and
his problems to it. But the problems of one man and of mankind as a whole are fundamentally the same.
The problems of truth and jus�ce, life, and death, good and evil, immortality and eternity, heaven and
earth, torment both man and mankind. They first atack a man as an individual, and then mankind as a
collec�ve. There is a logical conclusion: whoever solves the problem of a single man solves the problem of
society, any society, from the smallest community to the largest, from the family of mankind.
 autos-da-fé – Portuguese “act of faith” - a public ceremony during which sentences where pronounced against those
brought before the Spanish Inquisi�on. A�erwards the sentences were executed by the secular authori�es, including
whipping, burning at the stake, etc.

The solving of the problems of man and of society in a humanis�c manner led to two extremes in
Europe: either man was devalued, ill-treated, overlooked and negated to the advantage society, or man
was given value and society was overlooked. We desire, however, complete jus�ce for both man and
society, a jus�ce that would, at all �mes, keep the balance between man’s divine worth and the enduring
values of society. We want a society in which the divine inviolability and majesty of the human person (in
which man would not be devalued, disfigured, stunted, mechanized, or robo�zed to the benefit of either
class, na�on, state, culture, civiliza�on, science or religion) would be preserved. We want a society in
which the person and society complement and support each other, grow one through the other and come
to perfec�on with each other’s assistance; a society in which every single person is spiritually united with
all the others and all with each, in which each one lives through all and by all, and all live through and by
each. This means that we want a society that is, in effect, a single organism, one single body, and the
members of that society organic members of one another: you are an eye, he is a hand, I am a leg, and
none of us can say to the other: I do not need you, I can do without you. In order to func�on, a hand needs
an eye to guide it and a leg to bear it; also, in order to see, an eye needs a hand to feed it and a leg to carry
it; and again, in order to walk, a leg needs an eye to guide it and co work together with it. All of us are
parts of the organism of society, large and small, visible and invisible, parts that live with and by one
another: each works together with all the others, and all with each. This is how it works in the body: for a
hair to grow on the head, the whole body is involved. The hair has a func�on that is necessary to the body,
as it protects the head and conduces sweat. Take a look at the human body; we have in it the best example
of society, of companionship, co-opera�on and symbiosis, of serving one’s neighbor: each part serves all
the others, and all serve each part; the litle finger is served by as refined an organ as an eye, and an even
finer one: the brain, but the finger also serves the eye and the brain. The more important the organ, the
more responsible a service it performs, and it serves all that is lesser than it in the body. The heart is the
most important organ in the body and is its greatest servant: it constantly serves every molecule
individually and the body as a whole.

Do not be surprised at this; the body is cons�tuted in this way. The greater parts are greater in
order to serve the lesser. Can you not see that humility is the chief virtue, that regulates all rela�onship
within the human body? The greater humbles itself before the lesser by serving it, and the greatest
humbles itself the most. Thus, it is also in our imaginary, ideal society: the greater serves the lesser; the
learned serve the ignorant, the wise the simple, the rich the poor. The greatest is the greatest by virtue of
being a willing servant of all. According to the natural, divine and theanthropic law, whosoever will be
great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant
(Mat. 20:26-27). Why? Because that is the law even for the most perfect of men, Christ the God-Man,
who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister (Mat. 20:28). Indeed, is there a greater servant of
mankind than the meek God-Man? He proclaims to His disciples: I am among you as He that serveth (Lk.
22:27); as a servant who, by serving you humbly, teaches you divine truth, divine righteousness, love,
goodness and power, so that you will be able to recognize and overcome sin, evil and death and become
divinely good, immortal and eternal. He unceasingly serves men through the sun, air, light and the whole
of nature, through the whole cosmos, and serves them perseveringly and humbly, not only as incarnate
man, but also as God the Logos, simply in order to teach them the supreme cosmic and natural divine law
that the greater serves the lesser with joy and gentleness. His theanthropic lips have therefore expounded
this law: He that is greatest among you, let him be . . . as he that doth serve ... For every one that exalteth
himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Lk. 22:26; 18:14). Indeed, the en�re
theanthropic Gospel, from beginning to end, is nothing other than a perfect illustra�on and an undeniable
proof of this cosmic law, this supreme law.

Does it not seem to you that, according to this evangelical, supreme law, the God-Man, ideally and
in reality, simultaneously solves the problem of man and mankind and that of the person and society?
Man and mankind, the person and society, are not only of the same psycho-physical material, but are also
imbued throughout by the same goal and the same fi�ngness, that flows through all that makes up its
essen�al being. If, however, their purpose is not the same, they are divided by an unbridgeable chasm and
torn by irreconcilable contradic�on. Only unity of purpose can provide the ideal solu�on both of this
problem of man and mankind and of the problem of the person and society. But what is the nature of this
purpose? It is certainly not transient, opportunis�c, conjectural, or u�litarian, but is everlas�ng and
immortal: the des�ny that accompanies a human being through all the worlds through which he or she
passes. The God-Man has set this immortal goal by drawing it out of the God-Like essence of human
nature. What is this goal? It is this: to incarnate God and all His divine perfec�ons in man and mankind, in
the person and in society.

Is this possible? It is possible for two irrefutable reasons: first, because man is a God-like being;
second, because God the Logos was incarnated as man and has shown, as the God-Man, how divinely and
ideally perfect, and humanly truly natural, is man in whom God is incarnate with all His divine perfec�ons.
Furthermore, the God-Man has brought the divine virtues and powers and is sharing them among men,
so that every man can, if he wants, incarnate in himself, to the ul�mate degree, both God and the divine
perfec�ons. By fulfilling this goal, men transform themselves into immortal beings and become members
of the immortal God-Man’s society - God-humanity. As humanity logically and naturally develops from
man, so God-humanity equally logically and naturally develops from the God-Man. In this, the God-Man’s
society, men live and behave as immortal beings according to evangelical laws, which are valid both in this
world and the other. On this planet alone, the society of true immortals and God-bearers, as well as those
who, at least, strive to become such, is nothing other than His theanthropic Body, His Holy Church.

Stop and take a breath here, as we have come already into the sanctuary of the theanthropic
philosophy of society. This is a new, theanthropic society that in no way resembles those offered in theory
or prac�ce by European man’s humanis�c sociology in the theanthropic society, everything relates to the
life-giving Person of Christ the Theanthropos. He is, of all things, most valuable and most precious to us.
All other values, individual or collec�ve, derive from Him like rays from the sun. Make no mistake:
Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy only through the Theanthropos, for Chris�anity is Chris�anity only through the
Theanthropos; in this lies His unique importance, His value, and His power. The Lord Christ has le� Himself,
His theanthropic Person, as the Church, and the Church is thus the Church only by and in the
Theanthropos. All that is evangelical and Orthodox flows together into one enormous, all-encompassing
truth: the God-Man is the essence, the goal, the purpose, and the supreme value of the Church; or, more
correctly, the Church is nothing other than Christ the God-Man con�nuing through all the ages. The God-
Man is the Head of the Body of the Church, the only head. The Body of the Church grows by Him to all the
infinity of divine life; it grows with divine growth unto the measure of the stature of theanthropic fullness,
for everything was created through and for Him. By His divine power, He mysteriously guides all the
members of the Church towards theanthropy, for this is the goal and the purpose of the existence of the
Church: to bring all unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ through faith and ascesis, to
theanthropise all things.

You are aware that I am talking about the Orthodox Church. What is its essence? Christ the
Theanthropos. For this reason, all that is Orthodox has a theanthropic character: in knowledge, feeling,
will, thinking, life and society. God is, in all things, in the first place, man in the second; God leads, man is
led; God acts, man is His fellow-worker. This is not some transcendental, abstract, imaginary God, but the
God of the most immediate historical reality, the God who became man, who lived in the context of our
human life and was manifest in all aspects in an earthly, clearly visible way to be absolutely sinless, holy,
good, just and true. He became man, whilst remaining God, in order, as God, to give human nature the
divine powers that could bring men into the most in�mate, theanthropic unity with God. This divine power
of His works incessantly in His theanthropic Body, the Church, uni�ng men with God through grace and
holiness of life. For the Church is a miraculous, theanthropic organism in which, by co-opera�on between
divine grace and free human ac�vity, all that is human becomes immortal and theanthropic, all except sin.
In the theanthropic organism of the Church, every believer is like a living cell that becomes a �ny
cons�tuent part of Him and lives by His life-giving, theanthropic power. According to Orthodox
understanding, to be a member of the Church means to become co-incarnate with the God-Man, to
become part of His Body, an organic part of His theanthropic Body, in brief: to become theanthropic in the
en�re reality of one’s human personality.

These are the fundamental principles of the Orthodox philosophy of society: the Church is, in all
respects, primarily a theanthropic organism, and secondly a theanthropic organiza�on. From this there
logically follows its theanthropic ac�vity in the world: to incarnate in man and mankind all that is the God-
Man’s: Christ’s love, righteousness, goodness and wisdom, His humility and every one of His virtues.
Through them, Christ enters man’s being and becomes incarnate in him. Such a man lives by Christ, thinks,
feels, and acts by Christ. Where does he get that power? From Christ Himself. As the holy Apostle Paul
says: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me (Phil. 4:13). A man of Orthodox faith, by
living in the theanthropic organism of the Church, always lives in union with all the saints (Eph. 3:18),
which helps him in a mysterious way to fulfil all the evangelical commandments. For this reason, a member
of the Orthodox Church has a vivid sense of being of the same faith as the apostles, martyrs, and saints of
all ages, that they are ever alive, and that they also are permeated by the same theanthropic power, the
same theanthropic life, the same theanthropic truth. In the Church, the past is always contemporary, for
Christ the Theanthropos, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, lives unceasingly in His
theanthropic Body by the same truth, the same holiness, the same goodness, the same life, ever making
all the past present. Hence a man of Orthodox faith is never alone but is in the company of all the holy
members of the Church. When he thinks, he thinks with fear and prayerful trembling, for he knows that
all the saints are also par�cipa�ng in a mysterious fashion. The Orthodox are Orthodox through having
this sense of unbroken theanthropic conciliarity, nurturing and preserving it by prayer and humility. They
never preach themselves, never boast by man, never stop at sheer humanity, never idolize humanism.
Wherever they go, they confess and profess the God-Man, not man. Their guiding principle is that
theanthropic goals can be achieved only by theanthropic means; evangelical goals can be reached only by
evangelical paths. A theanthropic ideology of Chris�anity can be preserved only by a theanthropic
methodology of Chris�anity. The Lord Jesus is both the Truth and the Way; not only the Truth but also the
Way, the only Way that leads to the Truth. The abandoning of theanthropic methodology inevitably leads
to the abandoning of theanthropic ideology, of Christ the Theanthropos.

***
In the European West, Chris�anity has gradually been transformed into humanism. The
Theanthropos has, for a long �me and with deliberate inten�on, been diminished, altered and narrowed,
un�l He was reduced to a man: to an infallible man in Rome, and no less infallible men in London and
Berlin. Papism was thus created, which robs Christ of everything, and Protestan�sm, which seeks very
litle, o�en nothing, of Christ. In both Papism and Protestan�sm, man has displaced the Theanthropos as
the greatest value and the highest criterion. A sickly edi�ng of the Theanthropos, His work and His
teaching, was undertaken. Papism has determinedly and persistently worked at replacing the God-Man by
a man, un�l it has replaced Him forever with the ephemeral ‘infallible’ man, with the dogma of papal
infallibility. By this dogma, the Pope was clearly and decisively pronounced to be not only somewhat higher
than a man, but also higher than the holy apostles, the holy fathers, and the holy Ecumenical Councils.
With such distancing from the Theanthropos, from the universal Church as a theanthropic organism,
Papism has outdone Luther, the creator of Protestan�sm. ln fact, the first, radical protest in the name of
humanism against Christ the God-Man and His theanthropic organism, the Church, can be traced to
Papism, not Lutheranism. Papism is actually the first and earliest Protestan�sm.

Make no mistake: Papism is the most radical Protestan�sm, for it has transferred the founda�ons
of Chris�anity from the eternal God-Man to ephemeral man. It has proclaimed this as its central dogma,
as the highest truth, the highest value, the highest norm for all beings and things in all worlds. The
Protestants only accepted the essence of this dogma and worked it out to a fearsome extent and in
fearsome detail. In fact, Protestan�sm is nothing other than generally applied Papism, for in Protestan�sm
every man individually lives-out the main principle of Papism. Following the example of the infallible man
in Rome, every Protestant is an infallible man, for he pretends to personal infallibility in maters of faith. It
could be said that Protestan�sm is vulgarized Papism, devoid of mys�cism, authority, and power.

The reduc�on of Chris�anity, with all its endless theanthropic truths to man has turned Western
Chris�anity into humanism. This may appear paradoxical, but its truth is upheld by its undeniable historical
reality. Western Chris�anity has, in its essence, the most decided humanism because it has pronounced
man infallible and turned the religion of the Theanthropos into a humanis�c religion. This is seen by the
God-Man’s having been exiled to heaven and a deputy appointed in His vacant place on earth: Vicarius
Christi - the Pope. What tragic illogic: to appoint a deputy to Christ, our omnipresent God and Lord! But
this illogic has become incarnated in Western Chris�anity: the Church has been transformed into a state,
the Pope has become a ruler, the bishops have been proclaimed princes, priests have become leaders of
clerical par�es, the faithful have been proclaimed papal subjects, and the Gospel has been supplanted by
the Va�can’s codex of canon law. Evangelical ethics and the methodology of love have been replaced by
casuis�cs, jesui�s�cs and the ‘Holy’ Inquisi�on. This means the systema�c removal of all that does not
submit to the Pope, even to forcible conversion to the Papist faith and the burning of sinners to the glory
of the meek and gentle Lord Jesus!

Without a doubt, all these facts lead to one inescapable and logical conclusion: that there is no
Church in the West, no Theanthropos, and there is, therefore, no real theanthropic society in which one
man is an eternal and immortal brother to another. Humanis�c Chris�anity is, in fact, the most decisive
protest against Christ the Theanthropos and all evangelical, theanthropic values and criteria. This truth
permeates the desire of European man that all should be reduced to man as the founda�on of all values
and criteria. Behind all this stands an idol: Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (human, all too human). By its
reduc�on to humanism, Chris�anity was, undoubtedly, simplified, but was, at the same �me, ruined. A�er
the comple�on of this gleichschaltung (blending) of Chris�anity with humanism, there are today, in
scatered parts of Europe, calls for a return to Christ the Theanthropos. The calls of individuals in the
Protestant world of Zuruck zum Jesus! (Back to Jesus!) are only cries in the darkness of humanis�c
Chris�anity which has abandoned theanthropic values and criteria, and is now drowning in despair and
impotence. From the depth of the ages, there echo the biter words of the melancholic Prophet of God,
Jeremiah: Cursed be the man that trusteth in man (Jer. 17:5).

In the broad historical perspec�ve, Western dogma on the infallibility of man is nothing other than
an atempt to revive and immortalize dying humanism. It is the final transforma�on and glorifica�on of
humanism. A�er the ra�onalist Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century and the shortsighted posi�vism
of the Nineteenth, European humanism was le� with no alterna�ve but to fall apart in its impotence and
contradic�ons. But religious humanism came to the rescue at the cri�cal moment, with its dogma of the
infallibility of man, and saved Western Chris�an humanism from an ugly death. But, although it was now
dogma�zed, Western Chris�an humanism was unable not to retain in itself all the destruc�ve
contradic�ons of European humanism that unanimously aim to exile the Theanthropos from earth to
heaven. The most important aspect of humanism is that man is of the highest worth and is the highest
criterion; man, not the Theanthropos.

According to our Orthodox understanding, Chris�anity is Chris�anity through the God-man; it is

His theanthropic ideology and methodology. This is a fundamental truth that cannot be compromised. It
is only as the Theanthropos that Christ is the highest value and the highest criterion. We must be
completely honest and consistent: if Christ is not the Theanthropos, He is the most insolent impostor,
proclaiming Himself to be God and Lord. But evangelical, historical reality irrefutably shows and proves
that Jesus Christ is, in all respects, the perfect Theanthropos. It is, therefore, impossible to be a Chris�an
without faith in Christ as the God-Man and in the Church as His theanthropic Body, the Church in which
He has le� His en�re miraculous Person. The saving and life-giving power of the Church of Christ lies in the
God-Man’s eternal and omnipresent Person. Any subs�tu�on of the Theanthropos by any man whatever,
and any picking and choosing of those aspects of Chris�anity that suit an individual taste, reduces
Chris�anity to a superficial and helpless humanism.

The excep�onal importance of Chris�anity for all mankind consists in its life-giving and
irreplaceable theanthropy, which gives purpose to humanity in general, leading it from the darkness of
non-being into the light of All-Being. Only by its theanthropic power is Chris�anity the salt of the earth,
the salt that protects man from decay in sin and evil. If it is dissipated into sundry humanisms, the salt of
Chris�anity loses its savor and becomes tasteless, fit only to be spilled and trampled underfoot.

Any tendency towards the equa�ng, the gleichschaltung, of Chris�anity with the spirit of the
�mes, with ephemeral movements and regimes of par�cular historical periods, detracts from Chris�anity
the specific value that makes it the unique theanthropic religion of the world. The supreme rule of the
Orthodox philosophy of society is: we must not adapt Christ the Theanthropos to the spirit of the �mes,
but adapt the spirit of the �mes to Christ’s eternity, Christ’s theanthropy. Only thus can the Church
preserve the life-giving and irreplaceable Person of Christ the Theanthropos and remain a theanthropic
society in which men live and interact with the help of divine love and righteousness, prayer and fas�ng,
meekness and humility, goodness and wisdom, mercy and faith, love for God and our fellow-men, and all
the other evangelical virtues.

According to the theanthropic philosophy of life and the world, man, society, and the state must
adjust to the Church as the eternal ideal, but the Church must never adjust to them, and, most especially,
not be subservient to them. A people has true values only if it lives by the evangelical virtues and embodies
theanthropic values in its history. What is valid for a people is also valid for a state. The goal of a people as
a whole is the same as that for each individually: to embody evangelical righteousness, love and holiness;
to become an holy people, the people of God that proclaims, through its history, the divine values and
virtues (1 Pet. 2:9-10; 1:15-16).

***
We shall be asked: Where are the concrete fruits of this theanthropic society? Why has ‘the most
radical secularism in history’ (Joseph Piper) appeared on Orthodoxy’s own ground? Is there not also an
eastern ‘humanism’ (Caesaro-Papism and others, for example)? ls the prospering of godless social
humanism on the soil of Orthodoxy not an example of the ‘inability of Orthodoxy’ to solve the most
elementary problems of society? The fact is that this world is steeped in evil and sin. The reduc�on of
everything to man is, in fact, the atmosphere in which sinful human nature, and man in general wherever
he may be, lives and breathes, and towards which it tends. It is not, therefore, surprising that the �des of
that sinfulness, as well as the �des of European pseudo-Chris�an toxins, have in the past and s�ll do, wash
over Orthodox peoples as well. It is, however, irrefutably true that the Orthodox Church has never
dogma�cally accepted any form of humanism, whether Caesaro-Papism, or any other ‘ism’. By the power
of its true and uncorrupted theanthropy and evangelical reality, and its unceasing call to repentance for
all that is not of and according to the Theanthropos, it has, by the power of the Holy Spirit, preserved the
wisdom and purity of its heart and soul. It has thus remained the ‘salt’ of the world, of man and of society.
However, the tragedy of Western Christendom consists precisely in its having atempted, whether by
revising the image of the Theanthropos or denying Him, to reintroduce the demonized humanism that is
characteris�c of sinful human nature into the heart of the very theanthropic organism, the Church, the
purpose of which is to liberate from it; and through the Church into all spheres of life, by pronouncing it
to be a dogma, a universal dogma. Man’s demonized pride, under the auspices of the Church, in that way
becomes a dogma of faith without which there is no salva�on. It is terrible even to contemplate, let alone
say, that in this way the only ‘workshop of salva�on’ and theanthropisa�on in this world is gradually being
transformed into a demonized ‘workshop’ of violence against the conscience and of dehumaniza�on, a
workshop of the disfigurement of God and man through the disfigurement of the Theanthropos.

The Orthodox Church has never declared any toxin, sin, or humanism, or any earthly social system,
to be a dogma, either through Councils or through the ‘Body’ of the Universal Church. But, alas, the West
does just that. The most recent example is the Second Va�can Council. In the Orthodox faith, repentance
is an essen�al virtue, and it is constantly calling to repentance. In the West, the pseudo-Chris�an faith in
man does not call to repentance; on the contrary, it ‘clerically’ compels adherence to its man-destroying
man-worship, its pseudo-Chris�an humanisms, its infallibili�es, and heresies. And it blithely considers that
these are not maters for repentance.

Contemporary, godless social humanism is, ideologically and methodologically, engendered and
invented by a pseudo-Chris�an Europe bound by our sinfulness. How did it get onto the soil of Orthodoxy?
God tests the forbearance of the righteous, visits the sins of the father on the children and confirms the
strength of His Church by leading it through fire and water. According to the words of Macarios of Egypt,
wise in God, this is the only path for true Chris�anity: ‘Wherever the Holy Spirit is, there follows, as a
shadow, persecu�on and strife . . . It is necessary that the truth be persecuted’.44 What are the fruits of
theanthropic society? The saints, the martyrs, the confessors. This is its goal and its purpose, and is also
the proof of its indestruc�ble strength, not the books or libraries, systems and ci�es that exist today and
are gone tomorrow. Various pseudo-Chris�an humanisms fill the world with books, but Orthodoxy fills it
with saints. Thousands and hundreds of thousands, millions, of martyrs and New Martyrs who have
perished for the Orthodox faith - these are the fruits of theanthropic society. Hence the famous François
Mauriac, a Roman Catholic, sees on the dark horizon of the contemporary world, that is sinking more and
more into the darkness of European soul-destroying man-worship, one single bright point that gives hope
for the future of that world: the Orthodox faith, washed by the blood of martyrs and New Martyrs. And in
the West? They neither knew the Church, the way, nor the solu�on for hopelessness; everything is mired
in soul destroying idolatry, pleasure-seeking, narcissism, and vice. This is the reason for the renaissance of
paganism in Europe. ‘False Christs’, false gods, have swamped Europe and are exported from there to all
the markets of the world with the purpose of destroying man’s soul, that unique and precious possession
of man in all the worlds, and, thereby, to make the existence of true society impossible.
44. Hom. XV, 11-12; P.G. 34: 584AB

In wri�ng this, we are not wri�ng either the history of Europe, of its virtues and faults, or the
history of the European pseudo-Churches. We are simply se�ng forth the en�rety of their ontology,
penetra�ng to the heart of European conceit, its demonic underground, where its dark sources lie and
with whose waters it threatens to poison the world. This is no passing of judgement on Europe, but a
wholehearted and prayerful call to the only way to salva�on: through repentance.

*
HUMANISTIC AND THEANTHROPIC EDUCATION

Educa�on represents a fact, tried, and constantly tested by sundry of mankind’s experiences: man
is an imperfect and unfinished being. All philosophies, religions, sciences, and cultures tes�fy to this. Man
is something that has to be perfected and completed. The main goal of educa�on is, therefore, to perfect
and complete man. But an irresis�ble ques�on mercilessly obtrudes: through what can man become
perfect and complete?

Observed from any aspect, man’s being is open to other beings and other worlds. He is by no
means Leibniz’s closed monad. With all his life, both physical and psychical, man consciously and
unconsciously, willingly and ins�nc�vely, constantly weaves himself into a grandiose fabric of cosmic
universal life that it is impossible to envisage. If it is truly human, educa�on must start from this obvious
fact as a basic logical assump�on. When one searches human history for a perfect and complete man, the
burning ques�on resounds: who is this perfect and complete man, who?

Plato? But, because of the consuming realiza�on of his own imperfec�on, Plato turned himself
into an arrow aimed at the higher worlds, the worlds of eternal ideas and ideals. He is, therefore, not a
perfect and complete man.

Buddha? But, tormented by a monstrous and merciless sense of his human imperfec�on, he
banished the aspira�ons of the human being for perfec�on into Nirvana, the realm of eternal insensi�vity
and absence of compassion. Neither is he, therefore, a perfect and complete man.

Moses? But, pursued by the terrible troubles of his people and his personal helplessness, Moses
constantly cried for help from heaven and hopelessly tried to sweeten the biterness of his humanity by
prophe�c visions of a future Messiah and Savior. Neither is he, therefore, a perfect and complete man.

Mohammed? But, tortured by the bloodthirs�ness of his hell and the lust of his heaven,
Mohammed rushed around this planet to fulfil his prophe�c dreams by sword and fire, trampling in a
fana�cal ecstasy over ‘heathen’ corpses. He is, therefore, not a perfect and complete man.

Kant? But, harassed by the imperfec�on and incompleteness of the human being, Kant cast all
that is human out of his cocoon of ra�onalis�c cri�cism into the abyss of ‘things per se’, and le� it at the
mercy of the uncertain, the unknown and dreadful. Neither is he, therefore, a perfect and complete man.

Shakespeare? But, in his insa�able yearning for the Perfect and the Finished, having experienced
human imperfec�on in countless tragic ways, Shakespeare took the human being into the higher worlds
and le� it there perplexed and astonished. Neither is he, therefore, a perfect and complete man.

Goethe? But, experiencing the breadth and depth of the drama of the human being in which
Mephistopheles plays the leading role, Goethe has clearly shown by his death cry: Licht, mehr Licht! (Light,
more light!) the unhappiness with which he went from this world to the other. Neither is he, therefore, a
perfect and complete man.

Tolstoy? But, in his constant and merciless struggle with human imperfec�on, Tolstoy fell into such
spiritual turmoil that the unbearable agony drove him just before his death to run away from home in an
atempt to escape from himself and his tragic imperfec�on. Neither is he, therefore, a perfect and
complete man.
 Nietzsche? But, in the cataclysmic sense of the tragic imperfec�on and unbearable
incompleteness of the human being in all the dimensions and reali�es of this world, Nietzsche lost his
mind in an unrestrained quest for the higher, perfect, and complete man. Neither is he, therefore, a perfect
and complete man.

And so on, from the first to the last, down the sad line of imperfect and incomplete men. In their
midst stands the mysterious and miraculous God-Man, divinely perfect and humanly real. His human
goodness truth and love are divinely perfect and complete, as are His righteousness, mercy and
compassion, His immortality, eternity, and beauty; all humanly real but also divinely perfect and complete.
Do not be surprised at this: He has transfigured the human into the divine; He has perfected and
completed it by the divine. In brief: in Him man is divinely perfected and divinely complete.

You do not believe this? Just try and imagine either a more perfect God than Christ or a more
perfect man. But you will not be able to do so, because no individual or collec�ve human thought can
imagine either a more perfect God than Christ or a more perfect man. What is excep�onal and unique in
all this is that all divine perfec�ons in Christ are humanly real and concrete. Divine truth and love,
righteousness, goodness, and beauty are given in Him as the clearest human and earthly reali�es. There
is no perfect good or perfect truth or beauty that cannot be found incarnate in His Person and realized in
His life. For all these reasons, He is that perfect and complete Man that mankind, human thought, and the
human heart seek through religion, philosophy, sciences, art, and culture. Regarding educa�on, this
conclusion can be stated thus: Christ is the ideal Man whom human educa�on seeks as its goal, its purpose
and its ideal. With Him and from Him, we men know what a real, ideal, and perfect man is. In Him we have
the model according to which any man can build himself up into an ideally good, righteous, perfect, and
complete man. All this is achievable without great and insurmountable difficul�es, for He gives divine
powers to all who strive to make all that is His their own: His divine righteousness, truth, love, and
goodness.

You can sense that we are already in the mainstream of the theanthropic philosophy of educa�on.
Examine closely and objec�vely the internal architecture of that educa�on: the plan, the fabric, the
program, the soul, the spirit: all is evangelical, all is theanthropic. All its values are divine and all its
methods evangelical. In it, God is always in first place, man in second; man lives, thinks, feels and acts by
God; i.e. man is educated and enlightened by God. Not by some kind of abstract, transcendent, super-
heavenly, Platono-Kan�an God, but the God of direct earthly and human reality, the God who became
man and, in the human context, has given us all that is divine, immortal and eternal. For this reason, only
He, Christ the God-Man, of all mankind, has the right to seek divine perfec�on of men: Be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Mat. 5:48), and to ins�tute this divine perfec�on
as the goal of life, as the goal of educa�on and culture and of all human ac�vity. At the same �me, in doing
this, He gives men all the necessary means and powers to achieve that divine perfec�on. What are these
means and powers? The evangelical virtues: faith and love, fas�ng and prayer, meekness and humility,
mercy and goodness, hope and longsuffering, righteousness, and truth. When they are realized, these
virtues produce a holy man; and that means a perfect and complete man. Such a man knows the real
purpose of the world and of life, and he strives with all his being to realize this set purpose in all spheres
of human ac�vity. Permeated by the holy virtues, he constantly draws immortal powers from the ever-
living Theanthropos with all his being. For this reason, he feels immortal and eternal even in this world,
and he sees in every other man an immortal and eternal being. Evangelical virtues are channels of divine
light, and each of them beams down rays of that light into man. This is why a saint radiates, shines, and
enlightens. He bears in himself ‘the Light of the world’; it illumines the whole world for him, and he sees
its eternal purpose and value. The Light of the world is at the same �me ‘the Light of life’; it illumines the
way that leads man to immortality and eternal life. In our human world, light and life are synonymous, just
as darkness and death are.

An example of this is the history of the Serbian Orthodox people: Saint Sava is the greatest Serbian
educator (enlightener, sanc�fier) because he is the greatest Serbian saint. Educa�on (enlightenment) is
simply the projec�on of sanc�ty, the radia�on of light; the saint shines and, thereby, enlightens and
sanc�fies. Educa�on is en�rely condi�oned by sanc�ty; only a saint can be a true educator and enlightener.
Without the saints, there can be no enlighteners; without holiness, there can be no educa�on; without
enlightenment there can be no sanc�fica�on. Sanc�ty is sanc�ty only by divine light. True enlightenment
is simply the radia�on of holiness; only the saints are truly enlightened and sanc�fied, for they have
poured out the divine light over all their being by the prac�ce of the evangelical virtues and have thereby
purged themselves of all the darkness of sin and vice. Evangelical sanc�ty, evangelical righteousness, lives
and breathes, radiates, and acts by light. In sanc�fying, it at the same �me illumines and enlightens. This
is clear from the etymology of the Serbian word for educa�on (prosveta) which is derived from the Church
Slavonic word prosuyeshchenie. Suyet means light, so that educa�on means enlightenment.

Yes, educa�on means enlightenment, and in par�cular enlightenment through sanc�fica�on by

the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, as the Creator, Bearer and Giver of sanc�ty and light. This is why the
saints, sanc�fied and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, are educators. Saint Sava has, by the Holy Spirit, given
birth and new life to his spiritual children, the Serbs, and sanc�fied them by the evangelical virtues. The
troparion to Saint Sava speaks eloquently of this. Taught by Saint Sava, our people have for all eternity
equated the concept of educa�on with that of sanc�ty, and the concept of an educator with that of a saint.
All this is personified in Saint Sava as our first and greatest saint and educator, ever the first and the
greatest. For this reason, in our tradi�on bequeathed by Saint Sava, the Church and the school are
indivisible twins. They live, exist, and grow with and by means of each other.

***
Educa�on without sanc�ty, without sanc�fica�on by the Holy Spirit, educa�on without the
perfec�ng and comple�ng of man by the God-Man, educa�on without God, was invented by Europe in its
humanis�c idolatry. It is immaterial whether this idolatry is manifested in the divinizing of the Pope or of
culture, science, civiliza�on, technology, poli�cs, or fashion. The chief aim in all this is to organize man,
society, and the world without God, without Christ. The same goes for educa�on, whose chief aim is to
educate man and mankind without Christ our God. To this end, humanis�c educa�on devoted itself to the
crea�on of a new man. The plan for such a man is classically plain and simple: neither Christ nor anything
pertaining to Him can have any part in this new man. So, Europe got to work: it started crea�ng man
without God, society without God, mankind without God.

The Renaissance fired many hearts with hope. Va�canism had desiccated European man with its
‘scholas�cism’ in philosophy and its ‘jesui�sm’ in ethics, and had drained his crea�ve life-force. The most
essen�al thing was to renew European man by the humanis�c spirit of ancient Greece, and so prevent his
demise. This could be achieved, in the first place, by distancing European man from Christ; secondly by
breaking all his connec�ons with the higher, invisible worlds.

Enter Rousseau. According to him, man has to be returned to nature and purged of everything
supernatural; all that is natural is good; the natural man is the best man: these are Rousseau’s ethics and
pedagogics.

Rousseau brought a great deal of nature into man. But the ques�on is: in what does man’s nature
consist? The senses, replies the sensualis�c philosophy personalized by Locke. Man as the senses: that is
the true man. The senses are the beginning and the end of man’s nature. When all that is inessen�al to
man is discarded, the senses are all that is le�, and they make man what he is.

Reduced to the senses, though, man is too primi�ve, too rough and direct. In contrast to this,
ra�onalist philosophy, headed by Descartes and Kant, suggests another type of man: man as reason. First
and foremost, man is a ra�onal being; reason is what makes man a man, and everything else is too
superfluous to be of primary importance in his being. Voluntarist philosophers led by Schopenhauer and
S�rner protested that the most important factor is excluded: man is neither the senses nor reason, neither
the one nor the other; he is primarily will. Yes, man as will is the true man, the new man.

Seeking this new man, Europe then ventured among beings lower than man and began to look for
the origins of man among them, in order somehow to create man without God by relying on the animal
kingdom. There was no litle joy, and even some hysterical cries, when a hypothesis that man is descended
from apes and other mammals thundered through Europe. Then Nietzsche descended on the world of
sluggish European thought with all his tempests and earthquakes. With the ecstasy of a prophet and the
flame of a poet, he proclaimed his gospel on the superman to the world. More passionate in thought than
in feeling, he drew a daring and logical conclusion from Schopenhauer’s voluntarism and Darwin’s
evolu�onism: if the ape is a stage of development towards man, why should not man be a transi�on
towards the superman? Yes, man is a transi�on towards, and the gateway to, the superman. Yes, man is
something to be conquered and transcended. ‘What is an ape to a man? Derision and sad shame. This is
also what man should be to the superman: derision and sad shame.’ The superman is the reason for the
earth’s existence and the goal of history. What does the superman consist of? He consists of four main
principles. The first is: God must be killed. ‘For you higher men, say Zarathustra to his disciples, this God
has been the greatest danger.’ But do not fear: ‘God is dead’, announces Zarathustra; there is no danger
for you, no obstacle remains to the appearance of the superman. The second principle is: Do not spare
your neighbor; that which falls should be pushed further. The third principle is: the most important thing
is the desire for power, a heedless, merciless thirst for power. The fourth principle is: everything is
permited; for the Superman, there is neither good nor evil; he lives beyond good and evil, beyond truth
and delusion, beyond conscience and responsibility.

Let us take a break. The drama of humanism is complete: a new man is created - the superman.
From Rousseau’s embryo, humanis�c man has developed into a superman; Renaissance man has
culminated in the superman. But what is the essence of the superman; in what does he consist? He comes
from a single ins�nct, the ins�nct of self-preserva�on. But can even the smallest beetle be built on only
one ins�nct, let alone man, the most complex being on earth? In all the animal kingdom, which comprises
over six hundred thousand species, there is not even a single �ny fly forged from only one ins�nct, even
the ins�nct of self-preserva�on. Nietzsche has, though, proclaimed that the superman is the product of a
single ins�nct. The superman is, hence, in fact subhuman, and therefore non-human. If you will, the
superman is the most brilliant caricature of man there is on this darkened planet.

What is valid for the superman is valid also for his humanis�c forebears. Rousseau’s natural man
is a half-man, because everything supernatural has been removed from him. Half-human is the same thing
as sub-human, for all natural evils grow in him undeterred, even pampered, by humanis�c educa�on.

Locke’s man as the senses, what is he? A fragment of a man is proclaimed a man. This is another
sub-man, another human monster. What are the senses without the soul? A violin with five strings but no
violinist. Kan�an man as reason, what does he represent? A piece of a man is pronounced to be a man.
Where is the infinite world of human feelings that contains both our heaven and our hell? Can a man be
man without that? No; indeed, Kan�an man is also a caricature of man.

And the Nietzsche-Schopenhauer man as will, how does he resemble man? Where is the soul in
him, with all its infinity, conscience, and compassion? Can a man be a man without all these? It also is a
caricature of man, just another caricature.

Examine this display of humanis�c new men: one half-man a�er another, one sub-man a�er
another, one non-human a�er another, and this means one caricature a�er another, one midget a�er
another. Do you not see that European humanis�c educa�on has created a host of midgets and populated
Europe with them? Rousseau’s natural man is a midget, man as the senses is a midget, man as reason is a
midget, the superman is also a midget. They are all stunted men, fragments, and frac�ons of men. A whole,
integrated man is nowhere to be found. We are witnessing a tragic display: without God, through
humanis�c educa�on, European man has degenerated into a midget, a dwarf.

Lamenta�on like that of Jeremiah is called for here. European humanism has accomplished its
mission; it has created a new man, a man without God and without a soul. But where is that new man,
that superman? He does not exist as an individual person but exists as a collec�ve force that devastates
Europe through humanis�c philosophy, science, educa�on, culture, technology, and civiliza�on. A specific
type of European man was thus developed: Holbach’s l’homme-machine, homo faber, homo technicus. In
all respects, this is a man without God and without a soul; in other words, a godless and soul-less man - a
robot. A robot is a robot by its non-recogni�on of either God or the soul. Do you know what par�cularly
supports him? Experimental psychology, Psychologie ohne Seele (German: psychology without soul). This
is the European humanis�c science of the soul, a science of the soul that does not recognize the existence
of the soul. Can there be a greater absurdity than this? But this absurdity is the inviolable palace inhabited
by his divine majesty, Psychologie ohne Seele, and many European robots worship it as an infallible, divine
being.

Yes indeed, a robot factory: that is what Europe has been being turned into from the Renaissance
to today and has finally become. A robot is the most miserable type of man. Whoever has eyes to see can
see that there never has on this planet, been a more miserable, monstrous, and non-human man than the
European robot. The shame and infamy, the eternal shame and infamy of Europe, this is her ‘new man’;
man, devoid of God and a soul is simply a robot.

A�er killing God and the soul within himself, European man has been gradually commi�ng suicide
over the last several decades, for suicide inescapably accompanies deicide. Educa�on without God has
drawn Europe into such darkness as no other con�nent has ever experienced. No one can recognize
anyone in that darkness; no one recognizes anyone else as a brother.

Let us ask what the goal of educa�on is, if it is not the enlightening of man, the illumining of all his
abysses and pits, the banishing of all darkness from him. How can man disperse the cosmic darkness that
assails him from all sides, and how can he banish the darkness from his being without that one light,
without God, without Christ? Even with all the light that is his, man without God is but a firefly in the
endless darkness of this universe. His science, his philosophy, educa�on, culture, technology, and
civiliza�on are but �ny candles that he lights in the obscurity of earthly and cosmic events. What do all
these �ny candles mean in the endless night and the darkness of individual, social, na�onal, and
interna�onal problems and events? Have they not already all gone out, and has not a dense, heavy
darkness already fallen over Europe?

This frivolous faith in the omnipotence of humanis�c science, educa�on, culture, technology, and
humanis�c civiliza�on borders on insanity. Under its tragic influence, European humanis�c educa�on has
created a conflict in us between Church and school, which has always spelled catastrophe for our Orthodox
people. Under its influence, even the man of our na�on and faith has begun to become mechanized and
robo�zed.

There is only one way to avoid this final catastrophe. Which way is that? To adopt theanthropic
educa�on and introduce it in all schools, from the lowest to the highest, in all educa�onal, na�onal, and
state ins�tu�ons, from the first to the last. Theanthropic educa�on radiates, illumines, and enlightens by
the only inex�nguishable light in all the worlds: Christ the God-Man. This light cannot be ex�nguished or
overcome by any darkness, even that of Europe. It alone banishes all darkness from man, society, the
na�on, and the state. It is the only true light, illumining every man to the core, and revealing to us in
everyone our immortal, divine, and eternal brother. It teaches us that the problems of the person, of
society, of the na�on and of mankind can be easily and clearly understood and solved only when the
person, society, the na�on, and mankind are viewed in the context of Christ the Theanthropos.

The main direc�on and characteris�cs of theanthropic educa�on can be formulated thus:

1. Man is a being that can be perfected and completed in the most ideal and realis�c way by the God-
Man;
2. The perfec�on of man by the Goel-Man is achieved by means of the evangelical virtues;
3. An enlightened man sees in every other man his immortal and eternal brother;
4. Every human ac�vity: philosophy, science, trade, agriculture, art, educa�on, and culture receive their
everlas�ng value when they are sanc�fied and given significance by the God-Man.
5. True enlightenment is achieved by a holy life according to Christ’s Gospel;
6. The saints are the most perfect educators; the more holy a man’s life, the beter an educator and
enlightener he is;
7. Educa�on is the second half of the God-Man’s heart, the Church is the first;
8. In the center of all centers, of all ideas and ac�vi�es, there stands the God-Man and His theanthropic
collec�ve: the Church.

*
MAN OR THE GOD-MAN, THE THEANTHROPOS

1. There is no doubt that man is, a�er God, the most mysterious and most puzzling being in all the
worlds known to human thought. Irreconcilable contradic�ons live and surge in the botomless infini�es
of man’s being: life and death, good and evil, God and the devil; and all that is in them and around them.
Through all its religions, philosophies, sciences, cultures and civiliza�ons, the human race has been trying
to solve a single problem, a universal problem: the problem of man. From all these trials and tribula�ons,
he has forged a supreme deity for himself and served it as his highest value and criterion. What is this
supreme deity? It is this: ανθρωπος μετρον παντων (man is the measure of all beings and things). But this
was not how his supreme deity - man - solved the problem of man, for by measuring himself by himself,
he did not understand either himself or the world around him (cf. 2 Cor. 10:12). In fact, he performed a
fu�le task: he reflected a mirror in a mirror. So all was combined in a distressing wail and a dreadful
confession: For I know nothing by myself (ουδεν εμαυτω συνοιδα - 1 Cor. 4:4): I do not know either what
man is or what God is, or death, or life. Together with this, I feel with all my being that I am a slave of
death, evil, and through sin, a slave of the devil. Through the varied ac�vi�es of men, one body was created
from the whole of mankind: the ‘body of death’, and every man has become a part of this body of death.
What is concealed in this body of death? Stench, putrefac�on, and a nest of worms. 0 wretched man that
I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death (εκ του σωματος θανατου τουτου - Rom. 7:24)?

No-one but the Theanthropos, for, by vanquishing death with His Resurrec�on, Christ the
Theanthropos has destroyed the ‘body of death’ as an ontological reality (Rev. 20:14,10). He has saved
mankind from death and given it eternal life, truth, love, righteousness, eternal joy and all the other
eternal divine treasures that only the God of love and philanthropy can give. He has thus solved the
problem, the supreme problem, of man. Indeed, since God became man and was manifest as the God-
Man, His Body, the Church, has remained in this earthly world. He has indeed become, and remains
forever, the supreme universal value and criterion of mankind: He, the one true God and only true Man,
the one perfect God and only perfect Man in all the known worlds. As such, He is the only supreme
universal value and criterion of man in his psycho-physical reality and his theanthropic poten�al, and of
everything pertaining to man. Only in the God-Man has man, for the first �me, beheld himself perfect and
eternal. He has come to know himself from top to botom. Hence the new axiological and gnoseological
ruling principle of mankind: the God-Man, is the measure of all being and all things – Θεανθρωπος μετρον
παντων. But the principle: ‘man is the measure of all beings and things’ s�ll holds sway, most frequently
fero ignique in the agnos�c, pagan and non-Chris�an world. For this reason, Saint Paul, the wisest in God
of all pertaining to man and the God-Man, sums up all the philosophies of mankind in two philosophies:
philosophy according to man and philosophy according to Christ the God-Man (Col. 2:8).

2. The God-Man alone is a perfect and complete man. He is simultaneously both perfect God and
complete Man. Here, the hypostasis of God the Logos has the most important role. This has been
confessed and explained by the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, wise in God and inspired by
Him. Man has atained all his perfec�on in Christ the God-Man: he has perfected and completed his soul
through God, as well as his conscience, his will, his mind, heart and body; in brief: his whole being. The
most important miracle has been wrought: the Theanthropos has le� Himself in our earthly world, and in
all worlds, as the Church, as His Body, so that every man could become of the same body with that of the
God-Man, and thus achieve all his perfec�ons (cf. Eph. 3:6). Every human being can become a real man, a
perfect man, a complete man only in and through the God-Man. Only by Him, through the Church and by
the Church, with all the saints, will he grow to a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ (Eph. 3:18; 4:11-16). ln Christ the Theanthropos dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily
(παν το πληρωμα της Θεοτητος σωματικως), so that every one of us in the Church may be filled with this
fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:8-10). Indeed, each one of us can achieve this only with all the saints,
through the holy mysteries and the holy virtues, with holy faith and holy love in first place (Eph. 3:17-20).

Without the God-Man, man is, in fact, without a head, and also without himself, without his
eternal, immortal and god-like self. Outside the God-Man, there is no man; there is only a subhuman,
semi-human or non-human. There is also this truth: without the God-Man, man is a slave of death, of sin
and the devil. Only by the God-Man can man atain the goal that is set by God: to become a ‘god by grace’,
thereby achieving the perfect fullness of his being and his person. He atains his divine eternity through
theanthropy. Living in the theanthropic Body of the Church with all the saints, man gradually becomes
theanthropised through the holy mysteries and the holy virtues. He is carried by the joy of the holy
proclama�on and precept of Saint Basil the Great: ‘Man is a being who has been ordered to become God’.45
Created as a poten�al god-man, man strives in the theanthropic Body of the Church to make his mind like
God’s, to transform it into a divine mind (we have the mind of Christ - 1 Cor. 2:16); to make his conscience,
will and body like God’s, to transform it into a divine body (The body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the
body - 1 Cor. 6: 13). By theanthropising himself through and in the Church, man returns to the likeness of
God46 that he had before he sinned, splendidly bringing it to comple�on with the divine beauty of likeness
to Christ (Gal. 4:19; 3:27; Rom. 8:29).
45. P.G. 36: 560A.
46. Panikhida or Requiem for the Dead, Evlovitaria, 5th Troparion, ‘restore me to God-likeness’ (εις το καθ ομοιωσιω επαωαγαγε).

Without the God-Man and outside Him, man is always in danger of becoming like the devil, for sin
is at the same �me both the force and the image of the devil. Being enslaved by sin outside Him, man
voluntarily becomes like the devil, becomes his own devil: He that committeth sin is of the devil (1 John
3:8). We must not forget that the devil’s chief goal is to take away man’s likeness to the God-Man, to God,
to distance him from God and thus turn him into a being like himself. Humanist anthropocentrism is, in
fact, devil-centrism, for both want one thing: to be their own, only in and for themselves. They thus move
into the realm of the second death, where there is no God or anything of His (Rev. 21:8; 20:14).

Everything said so far is nothing but evangelical, apostolic, patris�c, Orthodox theanthropism
(Θεανθρωπισμος), theo-humanism, theo-hominism.

3. All European humanisms, from the most primi�ve to the most subtle, from fe�shism to Papism,
are based on faith in man, man in his given psycho-physical and historical make-up. In fact, the essence of
every humanism is ‘man – homo’. Reduced to its ontology, every humanism is simply hominism (homo -
hominis). Man is the highest, the supreme value and criterion: ‘Man is the measure of all beings and
things.’ That is, in nuce, every humanism and every hominism. Hence all humanisms, all hominisms, are,
in the last instance, of atheis�c, pagan origin. All European humanisms: those of the pre-Renaissance, then
the Renaissance and further (Protestant, philosophical, religious, social, scien�fic, cultural and poli�cal),
have worked, consciously and unconsciously but incessantly, on one thing: to subs�tute faith in man for
faith in the God-Man, to subs�tute the gospel according to man for the Gospel according to the God-Man,
to subs�tute philosophy according to man for philosophy according to the God-Man, to subs�tute culture
according to man for culture according to the God-Man; in brief: to subs�tute life according to man for life
according to the God-Man. And so on for centuries un�l, in the last century, in 1870, at the First Va�can
Council, they all converged in the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope. Since then, this dogma has become
the universal dogma of Papism. For this reason, the inviolability and inalterability of this dogma has been
so skillfully and persistently defended in our day at the Second Va�can Council. This dogma is of the most
epochal importance for the whole des�ny of Europe, and firstly for its apocalypse, which has already
begun. With this dogma, all European humanisms have reached their ideal and their idol: man is
pronounced to be the supreme deity, the universal deity. The European pantheon has acquired its own,
its very own, Zeus.

Sincerity is the mouthpiece of truth. The dogma of the infallibility of the Pope, a man, is but a
renaissance of atheism and paganism; the renaissance of atheis�c axiology and criteriology. Horribile dictu,
but it must be said: atheis�c humanism, especially in its Hellenic expression, was given doctrinal form by
the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope. The supreme value and standard of Hellenic culture, civiliza�on,
poetry, philosophy, art, poli�cs, and science was dogma�zed: παντων χρηματων μετρον ανθρωπος. What
does all this add up to? Dogma�zed agnos�cism, and thereby the dogma�zed autarchy of European man
so long desired by all European humanisms.

The dogma of the infallibility of the Pope is a Nietzschean ‘Ja-sagung’ (affirma�on) of the en�re
crea�on of European humanis�c man; Ja-sagung of his culture and civiliza�on. And these are
predominantly atheis�c and pagan with respect to their goals and their methods. The God-Man’s Good
News and His commandment are: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these
things will be added unto you (Mat. 6:33). European humanis�c culture and civiliza�on have, however,
pronounced all sorts of other things to be the goals of man’s existence and the methods of his ac�on. The
God-Man is man’s only Savior from sin, death and the devil; He alone renews; He alone gives immortality,
resurrec�on and ascension; He alone has eternity and the deifica�on and theanthropising of man in all
worlds in His gi�, and He prescribes, explicitly and perfectly clearly, the universal goal of man’s being and
life: to become perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect (Mat. 5:48). What has European
humanis�c man not established and codified as the goal of man’s being? The evangelical truth is
irrefutable: the whole world lieth in wickedness, even a�er the God-Man’s ascesis in our earthly world (1
John 5:19-21). Moreover, according to the holy Apostle Paul, the devil is the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4).
Between such a world that willingly lieth in wickedness and the follower of the God-Man there is no
compromise. A follower of the God-Man cannot compromise, at the expense of evangelical truth, with the
humanis�c man who jus�fies and dogma�zes all these things. This is the ul�mately fateful dilemma: the
God-Man or man. Humanis�c man appears and acts autarchically in all respects, as the supreme value and
the supreme standard. There is no place for the God-Man here. For this reason, in the humanis�c kingdom,
the place of Christ the God-man is taken by Vicarius Chris� (Christ’s Deputy), and the God-Man is banished
to heaven. This is, surely, a kind of de-incarna�on of Christ the God-Man.

By the appropria�ng, through the dogma of infallibility, of all the power and rights belonging solely
to Christ the God-Man, the Pope, a man, has, in fact, by this act, proclaimed himself a Church within the
Papist Church and has become all-powerful in it. He has become his own version of the ‘upholder of all
things’. For this reason, the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope has become the universal dogma of
Papism. The Pope cannot give it up at any price, as long as he is the Pope of humanis�c Papism.
 4. There are three principal falls in human history: those of Adam, of Judas and of the Pope. The
essence of a fall into sin is always the same: the wish to become good, to become perfect, by one’s own
efforts, the wish to become a god by oneself. But, by this, man has made himself equal with the devil who
also wanted to become a god by himself and so supplant God. In his arrogance, he suddenly became the
devil, completely alienated from God and completely opposed to Him. In this arrogant self-decep�on lies
the essence of sin, the ul�mate sin. In this lies the essence of the devil himself, the ul�mate devil: Satan.
It is nothing but the desire to retain one’s nature, wan�ng nothing but oneself. The devil is what he is
because he will not have God in him; he wants to be always alone, always all in himself, totally for himself,
always herme�cally closed to God and all that is divine. What is this, then? Selfishness and narcissism
embraced for all eternity. Such is also, in essence, humanis�c man: he dwells in himself, by himself and for
himself; he is always arrogantly closed towards God. Every humanism, every hominism, is contained in it.
The pinnacle of demonized humanism is to wish to become good by evil means, to become a god with the
devil’s help. Hence the devil’s promise to our forebears in Eden to be as gods (Gen. 3:5) through him.

Our God, who so supremely loves mankind, has created man as a poten�al god-man, to build
himself up by God into a god-man on the founda�on of the divine image in his being. Man has, though, by
his own free choice, set out through sin into sinlessness, through the devil towards God. That way, man
would have surely become a species of devil if God, according to His immeasurable love for mankind and
His great mercy, had not intervened by becoming man, the God-Man, and leading man towards Himself:
He brought him, by the Church, His Body, into the ascesis of theanthropisa�on through the holy mysteries
and the holy virtues. He thus made it possible for man to grow unto a perfect man, unto the measure of
the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). In this way, man achieves his divine calling: to become, of
his free will, a god-man by grace. The Pope’s fall consists in the desire to supplant the God-Man by man.

5. In our human world, according to the words of the holy discerner of mysteries, John of
Damascus, the Theanthropos alone is ‘the only new thing under the sun’; eternally new, through His
theanthropic Person, His theanthropic ascesis and His theanthropic Body, the Church. Only in the
Theanthropos is man-made new, ever and eternally new, in all his theanthropic experiences along the way
to salva�on, sanc�fica�on, transfigura�on, deifica�on and theanthropisa�on. Everything in this world
grows old and dies; only a theanthropised man, of one body with Christ, does not grow old and die. He
has, through the God-Man, been ‘churched’, for he has become a living, organic part of the holy and
eternal theanthropic Body of Christ, the Church, in which he develops and is given unceasing growth with
the increase of God (Col. 2:19) unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ
(Eph. 4:13). This means that he grows and develops endlessly and infinitely towards the god-like
dimensions of divine endlessness and infinity given to the whole of humanity by the thrice-holy Lord when
He created man in His own image.

Christ the Theanthropos is so excep�onally new, excep�onally one and unique, that He is, in fact,
that truth that came by Him (John 1:17), and remained, through Him, in our human world. Un�l His advent
and in His absence, both now and always, it seems as if truth has no existence. And indeed, it has none,
for the theanthropic Hypostasis is alone the Truth: I am the truth (John 14:6). Man has no truth without
the God-Man, for man does not exist without the God-Man.
Everything is new in and from the Theanthropos: firstly, He Himself, and then salva�on, the teaching on
salva�on and the method of salva�on. This theanthropic Good News is unique in mankind by its novelty:
the separa�ng of sin from the sinner; the killing of sin and the saving of the sinner; the non-equa�ng of
the sinner with the sin; the not killing of the sinner because of his sin, but the saving of him from it. A
moving illustra�on of this is the woman caught in adultery. The all-merciful Savior, separa�ng her sin from
her God-like being, condemned the sin but pardoned the sinner: Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin
no more (John 8:11). This is the ‘dogma�zed’ method of Orthodoxy in saving sinners from sin; the method
of Holy Tradi�on wisely and devoutly elaborated and legalized by the holy fathers in the Orthodox Church.
It was expressed in inspired words by Saint Simeon the New Theologian: ‘Good deeds not done in a good
way (καλως) are not good.’

In the light of this holy, evangelical tradi�on in Orthodoxy, it is an an�-evangelical and an�-
Chris�an horror to kill a sinner because of his sin. No inquisi�on can be pronounced holy. In the last
instance, all humanisms kill sinners because of sin, destroying man along with his sin. This is because they
reject the Theanthropos, in whom is man’s only salva�on from sin, death and the devil. He who is not for
the Theanthropos is, by this very fact, against man; he is, furthermore, man’s murderer and himself a
suicide. He leaves man helpless before the mercilessness of sin, death, and the devil, from which only the
Theanthropos, and no one else under heaven, can save. By trea�ng the sinner in this way, humanis�c man
inevitably commits suicide: he kills his own soul and surrenders himself to hell for eternal companionship
with the devil, that murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). Throughout all this, the monstrous jesuito-
humanis�c dogma that ‘the end jus�fies the means’ exercises its absolute rule.

6. What is it that the God-Man gives to man that no one else can give? Victory over death, sin and
the devil, eternal life, truth, righteousness, goodness, love and joy: the fullness of the Godhead and the
divine perfec�ons. Apostolically said: the God-Man gives men what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him (1
Cor. 2:9). Indeed, He alone, the wondrous God-Man, is therefore the one thing needful to man in all his
worlds and in all his lives (cf. Luke 10:42). The God-Man alone is, therefore, en�tled to ask from men what
no one else has dared to ask: that every man love Him more than his parents, his brothers, sisters, children,
friends, the earth or the angels, more than anyone or anything in all the worlds, both visible and invisible
(Mat. 10:37-39; Luke 14:26; Rom. 8:31-39).

7. The Second Va�can Council was a re-birth of all European humanisms, a renaissance of corpses.
Ever since the God-Man’s coming to this earthly world, every humanism has been a corpse. This is all so
because the Council stubbornly upheld the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope, a man. From the
standpoint of the eternally-living God-Man, the historical Lord Jesus, all humanisms are like criminal
utopias, for, in the name of man, they kill and annihilate man in his psycho-physical being. They are all
doing the same insanely tragic thing: they strain away a mosquito and swallow a camel. This was
dogma�zed by the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope. It is all so terrible, because the very dogma of the
infallibility of a man is nothing other than a dreadful requiem for every humanism, from the Va�can’s
dogma�zed proclama�on to Sartre’s satanic defini�on. All the gods in the European humanis�c pantheon,
headed by Zeus, are dead. They are dead un�l there grows in their shriveled hearts a self-denying
repentance, with all the lightnings and torments of Golgotha, with their resurrec�on earthquakes and
transfigura�ons, with their frui�ul storms and ascensions. And then? Then there will be no end to their
praise of the ever Life-giving and miraculous Theanthropos, indeed the only Lover of mankind, the only
Philanthropos in all worlds.

8. What is the core of the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope, a man? The de-theanthropising of
man. All the humanisms are working on it, even the religious ones. They all return man to atheism, to
paganism, to a twofold death: spiritual and physical. By distancing itself from the God-Man, every
humanism gradually turns into nihilism. The present breakdown of all humanisms, headed by Papism
(which is both an indirect and a direct, an involuntary and a voluntary, parent of all European humanisms),
illustrates this. The catastrophic breakdown of Papism lies in the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope. This
dogma is the pinnacle of nihilism. European man has thereby, in a dogma�cally determined way,
proclaimed the dogma of the autarchy of European man, and has thus finally revealed that he does not
need the God-Man, that there is no place on earth for Him; Vicarius Christi replaces Him completely. Every
European humanism lives by this dogma, upholds it, and stubbornly confesses it.

All the humanisms of European man are essen�ally an unceasing rebellion against Christ the God-
Man. A harmful Umwertung aller Werle (re-evalua�on of all values) goes on in many ways: the God-Man
is everywhere placed by man; European humanis�c man is being enthroned on all Europe’s thrones.
Hence, there is not only one Vicarius Christi, but an infinite number of them, only in different vesture. Man
in general has ul�mately been pronounced infallible by the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope. Hence,
there are an infinite number of popes throughout Europe, both in the Va�can and in Protestan�sm. There
is no substan�al difference between them, for Papism was the first Protestan�sm, according to the words
of the truth-discerning Khomiakov.

9. Infallibility is a natural theanthropic characteris�c and func�on of the Church as the

theanthropic Body of Christ, whose eternal Head is the Truth, the supreme Truth: The Second Person of
the Holy Trinity: the Theanthropos Jesus Christ. By the dogma of infallibility, the Pope was, in fact,
proclaimed to be a Church, and he, a man, took the place of the God-Man. This was the final triumph of
humanism. It was also, though, the second death (Rev. 20:14; 21:8) of Papism and, through it, of every
humanism. But, according to the true Church of Christ, that has existed since the advent of Christ the
Theanthropos into this world as His theanthropic Body, the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope is not
only a heresy, but the ul�mate heresy. No other heresy has so radically and so comprehensively risen
against Christ the Theanthropos and His Church as Papism has through the dogma of the infallibility of the
Pope, a man. This is undoubtedly the heresy above all heresies. It is the horror above all horrors. It is an
unseen rebellion against Christ the God-Man. It is, alas, the most dreadful banishment of the Lord Christ
from the earth. It is the repeated betrayal of Christ, the repeated crucifixion of the Lord Christ, not on a
wooden cross this �me but on the golden cross of Papist humanism. All this is hell thrice over for the
wretched earthly being called man.

10. Is there any way out of these innumerable humanis�c hells? Is there resurrec�on from these
innumerable European graves? Is there a cure for these innumerable deadly diseases? There is, oh there
is: repentance. This is the deathless Good News of the God-Man’s eternal Gospel: repentance to the
acknowledging of the truth - μετανοια εις επιγνωσιν αληθειας (2 Tim. 2:25). There is no other way to
believe the God-Man’s saving Gospel: repent ye, and believe the Gospel (Mk. 1:15). Repentance before the
God-Man is the only cure for every sin, the only complete cure for all sins, even the universal sin. There is
no doubt that repentance is the cure even for this ‘ul�mate sin’ of Papism contained in the arrogant dogma
of the infallibility of the Pope. Consequently, it is undoubtedly the cure for each par�cular humanism and
for all humanisms in general. Yes indeed, ‘infallible’ European humanis�c man can be saved from his
precious sin of ‘infallibility’ only by wholehearted and completely transforming repentance before the
miraculous all-merciful and all-meek Lord Jesus Christ, the Theanthropos. He is indeed the only Savior of
mankind from every sin, from every evil, every hell, every humanis�c ra�onalism, and from every sin that
the human imagina�on can dream up. For these reasons, all the holy and God-bearing Fathers of all seven
holy Ecumenical Councils, in their godly wisdom, sum up all the problems within the Church in the problem
of the Person of Christ the Theanthropos, as the greatest and only supreme treasure for every human
being in this or any other of God’s worlds. Yes, for them Christ the Theanthropos is everything in all human
worlds. The Christological problem is their ul�mate problem. For them, Christ the Theanthropos is the one
and only value in Christ’s Church in all worlds. Their constant and immortal moto is: all for Christ; for
Christ, and for nothing else! And all around this holy moto of theirs resounds their Good News that cannot
be silenced: not humanism, but theo-humanism. Not man, but the God-Man. Christ before all and above
all.

*
HUMANISTIC ECUMENISM

‘Ecumenism’ is a collec�ve name for pseudo-Chris�ani�es, for the pseudo-Churches of Western

Europe. All European humanisms, headed by Papism, have given it their wholehearted support. And all
these pseudo-Chris�ani�es, all these pseudo-Churches, are nothing other than a collec�on of heresies.
Their common evangelical name is ‘the ul�mate heresy’. Why? Because, through the course of history,
divers’ heresies have negated or distorted certain characteris�cs of the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, and
these European heresies leave the Theanthropos in His en�rety on one side and put European man in His
place. There is, in fact, no substan�al difference between Papism, Protestan�sm, ecumenism and the other
sects whose name is legion.

Orthodox dogma, the universal dogma of the Church, has been rejected and replaced by the La�n
here�cal and universal dogma of the primacy and later the infallibility of the Pope, a man. This universal
heresy has engendered other heresies: the Filioque, the removal of the epiclesis, the introduc�on of
material grace, unleavened bread, purgatory, a repository of surplus deeds, a mechanical teaching on
salva�on and, thereby, a mechanical teaching on life, on Papo-centrism, on the Holy Inquisi�on,
indulgences, the killing of sinners because of their sin, jesui�cs, scholas�cs, casuis�cs, monarchis�cs, social
humanism and so forth.

Protestan�sm, the dearest and most loyal child of Papism, blunders from heresy to heresy through
its ra�onalist scholas�cism, constantly drowning in divers’ poisons of its here�cal fallacies. In all this, Papist
arrogance and ‘infallible’ insanity hold absolute sway and ravage the souls of their adherents. In principle,
every Protestant is an independent pope, an infallible pope, in all maters of faith. This inevitably leads
from one spiritual death to another, and there is no end to this dying, for man’s spiritual deaths are
innumerable.

This being the situa�on, Papo-Protestant ecumenism, with its pseudo-Church and its pseudo-
Chris�anity, has no way out of its death and torments without wholehearted repentance before the
Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, and His Orthodox Church. Repentance is the cure for every sin, a cure given
by the only Lover of mankind to the God-like human being.

Without repentance and entry into the true Church of Christ, it is unnatural and nonsensical to
speak of some sort of unifica�on of the ‘Churches’, about the dialogue of love, about intercommunion.
The most important thing is, above all, to become part of the theanthropic Body of Christ’s Church and,
thereby, become a partaker in the soul of the Church, in the Holy Spirit, and an heir to all the immortal,
divine treasures that the Theanthropos gives.

1. The contemporary ‘dialogue of love’, that is conducted in the form of empty sen�mentalism, is,
in fact, a faithless nega�on of the saving sanctification of the Holy Spirit and belief of the truth (2 Thess.
2:13), i.e. the solely-saving love of the truth (2 Thess. 2:10). The essence of love is truth, and love lives by
speaking the truth. Truth is the heart of every theanthropic virtue, including love. Every one of them
reveals and proclaims the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, who is the one incarna�on and personifica�on
of divine truth, the supreme Truth. If Truth were anything but Christ the Theanthropos, it would be small,
insufficient, ephemeral, and mortal. It would be such if it were a concept or an idea, a theory, a scheme,
reason or science, a philosophy, a culture, man or mankind, the world or all worlds, anybody, or anything
or all these put together. But the Truth is a Person, the Person of Christ the Theanthropos, the Second
Person of the Holy Trinity, and this is why it is perfect, enduring, and eternal. In the Lord Christ, the Truth
and the Life are of the same essence: eternal Truth and eternal Life (cf. Jn. 14:6; 1:4,17). Whoever believes
in the Lord Christ constantly grows by His Truth into its divine infini�es; he grows with all his being, his
mind, his heart and all his soul. We live in Christ by speaking the truth in love - αληθευοντες εν αγαπη, for
only in this way do we grow up unto Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ (Eph. 4:15). All this
comes about with all the saints (Eph. 3:18), always in and with the Church, for it is impossible otherwise
to grow up unto Him ... which is the Head of the Body of the Church, Christ. The Church directly receives
all these limitless powers, necessary for the growth of all Chris�ans, in its theanthropic Body from its Head,
the Lord Christ, for only He, God and Lord, has all these innumerable and limitless powers, and uses them
with supreme wisdom. Make no mistake: a ‘dialogue of lies’ also exists when nego�ators, consciously or
unconsciously, lie to each other. Such a dialogue is characteris�c of the father of lies, the devil, for he is a
liar and the father of it (Jn. 8:44). It is also characteris�c of all his willing and unwilling collaborators, when
they want to achieve their good by means of evil, to find their ‘truths’ by means of lies. There can be no
‘dialogue of love’ without a dialogue of truth. Such a dialogue is otherwise unnatural and false. Hence the
commandment of the Christ-bearing Apostle: Let love be without dissimulation (Rom. 12:9).

The here�cal, humanis�c division and separa�on of Love and Truth is simply the sign of a lack of
theanthropic faith and a loss of theanthropic balance and common sense. ln any case, it is never the way
of the holy fathers. The Orthodox, rooted and founded with all the saints in truth and love, have and
profess, from the �me of the Apostles to this day, this theanthropic saving love for the world and all of
God’s creatures. The barren moralis�c minimalism and hominis�c pacifism of modern ecumenism do only
one thing: they reveal their withered humanis�c roots, their sick philosophy, and their helpless ethics after
the tradition of men (Col. 2:8). Furthermore, they reveal the crisis of their hominis�c faith in the truth, and
their Doce�c insensi�vity towards the history of the Church and its apostolic and conciliar theanthropic
con�nuity in truth and grace. Godly apostolic and patris�c wisdom proclaims the truth of the theanthropic
faith through Saint Maximus the Confessor: ‘Faith is the founda�on of hope and love ... For faith gives
certainty to the truth itself’.47

Without doubt, the norm for our love of other men and our rela�onship with here�cs, that was
inherited from the apostles and the holy fathers, is en�rely theanthropic. This is expressed in a divinely-
inspired manner in the following words of Saint Maximus the Confessor: ‘I do not wish here�cs to suffer,
nor do I rejoice in any evil that befalls them; God forbid! - but I take the greatest joy and pleasure in their
conversion. For what can be dearer to the faithful than to see God’s scatered children gathered together?
I am not so insane as to suggest that mercilessness should be valued above love for mankind. On the
contrary, I advise that we should, with care and experience, do good to all men, and be all things to all
men according to their need. Together with this, I desire and advise that here�cs as such should not be
supported in their senseless beliefs, but in that case one must be firm and implacable. For I do not call it
love, but hatred and a falling-away from theanthropic love, when someone supports a here�cal fallacy to
the ruina�on of those who hold that fallacy.’48
47. Caplll. Cent., Ce111uria; P.G. 90: 1189A
48. Epfstol. XII; P.G. 91: 465C.

2. The teaching of the Orthodox theanthropic Church of Christ through the holy apostles, the holy
fathers and the holy Councils concerning here�cs is this: heresies are not the Church and can never be it.
They cannot, therefore, possess the holy mysteries, par�cularly the Holy Eucharist, that Mystery above all
mysteries. For the Holy Eucharist is everything in the Church: The God-Man, the Lord Christ, Himself, the
Church itself as His Body; everything that is theanthropic.

Intercommunion, partaking with here�cs in the holy mysteries, par�cularly the Holy Eucharist, is
the basest betrayal of the Lord Christ, Judas’s betrayal; and at the same �me the betrayal of the whole of
Christ’s Church, the God-Man’s Church, the apostolic, patris�c Church of Holy Tradi�on, the one Church.
At this point, our chris�fied consciousness and conscience should piously pause over several holy facts,
proclama�ons, and commandments.

First of all, we should ask ourselves: on what kind of ecclesiology, what kind of theological teaching
on the Church, is this so-called ‘intercommunion’ based? All Orthodox teaching on the Church of God is
based and founded, not on ‘intercommunion’ but on the theanthropic reality of communion, the
theanthropic community, the theanthropic κοινωνια (cf. 1 Cor. 1:9; 10:16-17; 2 Cor. 13:13; Heb. 2:14; 3:14;
1 Jn. 1:3); the concept of ‘inter-communion’, ‘inter-rela�on’, is in itself contradictory and completely
nonsensical for Orthodox ecclesiology. Another holy fact of the Orthodox faith is this: in the Orthodox
teaching on the Church and the holy mysteries, the only and unique mystery is the Church itself, the Body
of Christ the Theanthropos, and it is therefore the only source and content of all the divine mysteries.

Outside this all-encompassing, theanthropic mystery of the Church, the supreme Mystery, there
are and can be no ‘mysteries’, and, therefore, no ‘inter-rela�on’ (inter-communion) in the mysteries.
Hence, only in the Church - that unique universal mystery of Christ’s - can there be any mysteries. For the
Orthodox Church, as the Body of Christ, is both the source and the criterion of the mysteries, never the
other way round. The mysteries cannot be elevated above the Church and examined outside the Body of
the Church.

Therefore, according to Orthodox ecclesiology and in accordance with the whole of Orthodox
Tradi�on, the Orthodox Church does not recognize any mysteries outside itself, nor does it consider them
as mysteries un�l someone from a here�cal ‘Church’, i.e., a pseudo-Church, approaches the Orthodox
Church of Christ with repentance. As long as a man remains outside the Church, not united with it through
repentance, he remains a here�c as far as the Church is concerned, and inevitably remains outside the
saving fellowship, the κοινωνια, the communion, of the Church. For what fellowship (μετοχη), asks the
Apostle, hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion (κοινωνια) hath light with
darkness? (2 Cor. 6:14).

The supreme Apostle decrees, with total theanthropic authority: A man that is a heretic, after the
first and second admonition reject (Tit. 3:10). Whoever not only does not shun a here�c, but also gives
him the Lord Christ Himself in the holy Eucharist, how can he be in the apostolic holy theanthropic Faith?
Moreover, the Apostle of love, beloved by the Lord Christ, decrees: Whoever does not believe in the
incarna�on of the Lord Christ and does not confess the evangelical teaching of Him as the God-man,
receive him not into your house (2 Jn. 1:9-10).

Canon 45 of the Canons of the Apostles 49 thunderingly decrees: ‘Any bishop, presbyter or deacon
who prays with here�cs, should be barred; moreover, if he allows them to serve as clerics, he should be
deposed.’50 This commandment is surely clear, even to the obtuse.
49. The Apostolic Cons�tu�ons, PG. 1: 555-1156; Canons of the Apos1/es in F. D. Funk: Didascalia et Cons�tu�ones Apostolorum,
Paderborn 1905.
50. Cf. Canon 33, Laodicean Council.
 Canon 65 of the Canons of the Apostles decrees: ‘Any cleric or lay person who atends a synagogue
or a here�cal place of worship in order to pray, should be deposed and barred.’ This is, also, surely clear
even to the simplest of minds.

Canon 46 of the Canons of the Apostles. ‘We decree that a bishop or presbyter who acknowledges
here�cal bap�sm or sacrifice be deposed. What concord hath Christ with Belial, or what part hath he that
believeth with an infidel?’ (2 Cor. 6:15)

It is obvious even to those who have no eyes that this decree specifically orders us not to recognize
any of the here�cs’ holy mysteries, to consider them invalid and devoid of grace.

Saint John Damascene, the divinely-inspired spokesman for the apostolic and patris�c conciliar
Tradi�on of the Church of Christ proclaims from the heart of all the holy fathers, all the holy apostles and
all the holy Councils of the Church this holy theanthropic truth: ‘The bread of the Eucharist (the Holy
Communion) is not mere bread, but is united with the Godhead . . . Being cleansed by it, we are united
with the body of the Lord and His Spirit, and become the body of Christ - σωμα Χριστου [the Church] . . .
The mystery of the Eucharist is called par�cipa�on - μεταληψις, for by it we par�cipate in Christ’s divinity.
It is also called communion - κοινωνια, which it indeed is, for through it we are brought into fellowship
with Christ and par�cipate both in His flesh and His Godhead; we are also, through it, in fellowship and
unity with one other. Because we all partake of the same bread, we become one body with Christ and one
blood, and members one of another, for we are of the same body with Christ - συσσωμοι Χριστου (Eph.
3:6). We should, therefore, be on our guard not to accept par�cipa�on from here�cs - αιρετικων or give it
to them. For the Lord says: Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before
swine (Mat. 7:6), lest you become sharers in their false faith - κακοδοξιας (false teaching) and their
condemna�on. For if there is true union with Christ and with one another, then we indeed willingly unite
with those with whom we par�cipate, for this union is by choice, not without our consent. For we are all
one body, as we are all partakers of that one Body, as the Apostle says (1 Cor. 10:17).’51

The fearless Confessor of theanthropic Orthodox truths, Saint Theodore the Studite, proclaims to
all men in all worlds: ‘Communion received from here�cs alienates a man from God and associates him
with the devil.’52 ln the Eucharist, ‘the here�cs’ bread is not the Body of Christ.’53 ‘The difference between
Orthodox and here�cal Communion is the same as the difference between light and darkness. The
Orthodox one enlightens, the here�cal one darkens; the former unites with Christ the later with the devil;
the first revitalizes the soul, the second kills it.’54 ‘Communion from here�cal hands is poison, not simple
bread.’55
51. De Fide IV, 13; P.G. 94: 1149, 1152, 1153.
52. The Works of Saint Theodore the Studite, Vol. II, St Petersburg 1908, p. 332, Ep. 220, PG99: 1668.
53. ibid, p. 596, Ep. 91, PG 99: 1597.
54, ibid, p, 742.
55. ibid, p. 780.

***
Let us finish this walk of ours through heaven and hell with the theanthropic proclama�on of the
contemporary Orthodox Bishop, equal-to-the-Apostles and indeed the Chrysostom of the Serbian
0rthodox Church, Nikolaj of Źiča (+1956). We humbly pray that the evangelical light of his wise and godly
conclusions, in the tradi�on of the holy fathers, will illuminate and clarify the problems we are discussing.

Patris�cally immersed in the mysteries of the history of mankind, the holy Bishop proclaims:56

‘The glorious Prophet Isaiah spoke thus: When the Lord rises to purge the earth, the lofty looks of
man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be
exalted in that day (Is. 2:11).

‘In ancient days, the Lord arose many �mes to purge the earth of the worship of men in place of
Him, the only God, of the imposed and arrogant man-gods. He has arisen in our day also and has indeed
purged the whole earth in His righteous wrath, in order to break human arrogance and humble man’s
fabricated lo�iness.

‘Such an arising of God against men has frequently and inevitably followed uprisings of men
against God. Here�cal na�ons have, in our day, seated the Lord Christ in the lowest place at the table of
this world, like the meanest pauper, whilst they have seated their great men: poli�cians, writers,
philosophers, scien�sts, financiers, even tourists and sportsmen, in the highest place. All the eyes of these
na�ons were set upon those worthies, those modern gods, whilst hardly anyone paid any aten�on to
Christ the Vanquisher of death. Such a repulsive uprising of bap�zed but here�cal na�ons against almighty
God was inevitably followed by the arousal of the outraged God against lawless men and na�ons. God
indeed arose to purge the earth. The unprecedented suffering of the na�ons of the earth has come to pass
before our eyes and across our backs. Not only were all the deified human worthies shown as ex�nguished
fires at which no one even atempted to warm himself anymore, but it also came to pass as Isaiah further
prophesied: They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord,
and for the glory of His majesty, when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth (Is. 2:19). Did this not literally
happen in the last war? Did the people of several con�nents, and in our own country, not go into holes of
the rocks and caves of the earth to seek shelter and save their lives from the European sowers of death?
And these sowers of death were those great men, those human idols who sat at the head of the table of
this world and who derided Christ as the beggar at the foot of the table.
54, ibid, p, 742.
55. ibid, p. 780.
56. Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović: Кроз тамнички прозор (Through the Prison Window), Himmelsthür 1985, pp. 31-2

‘Isaiah further prophesies that men and na�ons will break up all their idols for fear of the greatness
of the one God, that they will cease to worship all their false gods and cast them, as he says, to moles and
bats. It is clear that the Prophet is visualizing, as moles, the great men who refuse to know either God or
the Kingdom of Heaven but teach men to live in the darkness of this world, thinking by earth and feeding
on earth; and as bats, those who are afraid of Christ’s light and retreat into the darkness of their conceptual
caves, cramped, dark and cold. Finally, Isaiah concludes his terrible tes�mony with this warning: Cease ye
from [contact with] man, whose breath is in his nostrils. He wishes to say to all those who want to hear
and understand: Abandon confidence in helpless and mortal men. Return to the living God, in whom is
salva�on. Who has tricked you Serbs into pushing Christ to the foot of your table and offering the best
places to the haughty and the worldly, to the empty-headed sowers of death? Are you going to let
yourselves be tricked again? Choose life or death. And know that, if you again rise against God for the false
gods of ‘culture’, God will rise against you. Your children will then recognize the glory and majesty of God
the Creator and Ruler whilst trembling from fear in the caves and holes in the earth. But it will cost them
dearer than it has cost you.’

The Christ-bearing Bishop sadly but hopefully proclaims:57

‘Our bap�zed brethren, misled by Popish and Lutheran heresies, were proud of their wisdom
without Christ. So, they scorned us Orthodox Chris�ans as unwise and uncultured. But they have, indeed,
fulfilled Paul’s words: Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools (Rom. 1:22). They rejected
spiritual wisdom according to Christ, which is clothed in humility and love, and clothed themselves in
corporeal and worldly wisdom a�er the pagan philosophers, which is wholly in arrogance and malice.
57. ibid, pp. 39-40.

‘And they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man
. . . and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator (Rom. 1:23,25). They removed all the
glory from Christ the Lord and put it on the shoulders of mortal men whom they extolled as new messiahs.
Such, through their ungodly wisdom, has become their concept of glory. Their concept of culture consists
of reverence for mater, of visible nature, and its service, more than that of the Creator of all nature. Mortal
gods and deified nature! This is, for the present, the last stop for Western mankind in its blind plunge from
Christ’s heights into Satan’s underworld. This is the apex of the equa�ng of Western men with ancient
Roman and modern Asian paganism. They publish thousands of books a year to the glory of great men
and the praise of their culture, and thousands of newspapers are daily at the disposal of the same false
and transient glory and in the service of the lauding of human deeds under the arrogant name of culture.
For this reason, God has surrendered them to shameful passions, so that they find pleasure only in things
of the earth and not of heaven, and only in what provokes laughter from demons and tears from Christ’s
angels. They take pleasure in looking a�er their bodies, plundering the property of others, stealing from
the small and weak, mul�plying their earthly treasures and extending their states and their rule, in the
wicked usurpa�on of the homelands of others, in merriment and dancing, in the rejec�on of every faith
as supers��on, in the denying of God, in full biological life, in shamelessly calling monkeys their ancestors,
in the drowning of anthropology in zoology.

‘You ask whether this wayward genera�on, the most wayward in history, is able ever to return to
truth and honors? It is. And may the outraged Christ bring this about as soon as possible. But when will it
come to pass?

‘It will happen when our Western brethren begin to write a thousand books a year to the glory of
Christ our God, and when thousands of their newspapers write daily praising Chris�an virtues and
Chris�an good deeds instead of wri�ng about crimes and insults to God’s majesty, about trade in carnal
ins�ncts. When this transforma�on occurs, then Western here�cal humanity will appear before the visible
heaven, washed, cleansed, and perfumed with heavenly fragrance.

‘Then we Orthodox will rejoice, for we shall regain our brethren.

Then the pagan na�ons will begin to love Christ and seek acceptance as His children. For Chris�ans
will no longer prevent their being Christ’s.
 ‘Then there will be neither malice between men nor wars between na�ons. Instead, Christ’s peace
will prevail, the peace that passes all understanding, as well as Christ’s glory that has no equal either in
�me or in eternity.’

The God-inspired Bishop tells the theanthropic truth:58

The manifesta�on of God in the flesh is an exceedingly great joy for men. The falling-away from
this God and the return to the service of Satan is an exceedingly great calamity. This calamity had its origins
in the Western unorthodox na�ons for two reasons. The first reason is the hatred of the here�cal
priesthood, and the second is the hatred of the Jew. Both of these hatreds have taken root in the hearts
of Western humanity from the same seed. This seed is the atempt of both the Chris�an clergy and the
Jews to take complete control of the lives of people and the state in all respects. Hatred towards such
clergy turned into hatred toward the Church, and hatred toward the Jews including the Lord Christ, a Jew’.
In fact, Christ was Jewish only through His mother and the people to whom He was first manifested. But
that very same people was the first to reject Him and murder Him in a terrible way. What then? If someone
is against the Jews, how can he be also against Christ, against whom the Jews have been waging war for
two thousand years? But where the satanic talons pierce, there is no place for logic.
58. ibid, pp. 43-4.

‘Carried away by the hatred of the clergy and the Jews, the Western peoples gradually rejected
Christ, un�l He has, in our �me, been excluded from all na�onal and state, region and ins�tu�ons, and
confined solely to churches. This has happened to Him who said, a�er His glorious Resurrec�on: All power
is given unto Me in heaven and in earth (Mat. 28:18). Not only that, but also any influence on earth, in
schools, in society, in the state, in poli�cs and art, in interpersonal and interna�onal rela�ons, in science,
literature, and everything else.

‘No, one cannot play games with God. Whenever men, as guests at God’s table, become too
insolent, a punishment as a warning from the Host is inevitable. Two terrible warnings from God to the
present genera�on were the last two World Wars within twenty years of each other. Let the Chris�an
na�ons kneel before the outraged Christ and return to Him the authority, honor, glory, and reverence that
are due solely to Him. Do this also, you Orthodox brethren, if you wish to be preserved from a third world
war, more terrible than both the previous ones.’

In the holy Bishop’s apostolic sorrow over Europe, he asks:59

‘What is Europe? Greed and reason, both human: human lust and human reason. These two are
personified in both the Pope and Luther. What, then, is Europe? The Pope and Luther. Human lust and
human reason, both sa�ated to the maximum. The European Pope is human lust for power. The European
Luther is man’s determina�on to explain everything by his reason. The Pope as the ruler of the world and
a scien�st as the ruler of the world. This is Europe in its essence, quintessen�ally and historically. One
stands for cas�ng mankind into fire, the other stand for cas�ng mankind into water, and both stand for
separa�ng man from God, because the one means nega�on of the Faith and the other nega�on of Christ’s
Church. The evil spirit has been ac�ng in this way in the body of Europe for several centuries already. Who
can cast out this vicious evil spirit from Europe? No-one but the One who is inscribed in red leters in the
history of mankind as the only Banisher of evil spirits from men. You guess whom I have in mind. I am
thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and the Savior of the world, born of the Virgin, murdered
by the Jew, raised by God, confirmed through the ages, jus�fied by heaven, glorified by the angels, tes�fied
to by the saints and adopted by our forefathers.
59. ibid, pp 57-8

‘As long as Europe held to Christ as the Sun of righteousness, and His apostles, martyrs and saints,
and the countless numbers of those who were pleasing and righteous in His eyes, it resembled a square
lit up by hundreds of thousands of lights, large and small. But when human lust and human reason struck
this Christ as two terrible winds, the lights went out before the eyes of men, and a darkness like that in
the burrows of moles enveloped the square.

‘Where human lust is concerned, every na�on and every man seek power, sa�sfac�on, and glory,
imita�ng the Pope of Rome. Where human reason is concerned, every na�on and every man find himself
the cleverest and the most deserving of all the good things of this world. How can there, then, not be wars
among na�ons and men? How can there not be madness and rage among men? How can there not be
diseases, droughts and floods, sores and consump�on, revolu�ons, and wars? All these things must exist
even as pus drips from a wound, and as a disgus�ng odor spread from accumulated filth.

‘Papism makes use of poli�cs, as that is the only way to power. Lutheranism uses philosophy and
science, for that is what it imagines is the way to reason. In this way, lust went to war against reason and
reason against lust. This Europe is the new Tower of Babel. But a new European genera�on has arisen in
our �me. It has married lust and reason in atheism and rejected both Pope and Luther. Now no-one either
conceals lust or praises reason. Human lust and human reason are married in our days and a marriage is
created that is neither Catholic nor Lutheran, but clearly and publicly satanic. Contemporary Europe is
neither Papist nor Lutheran. It is outside and beyond that. It is en�rely earthly, and lacks the desire to
ascend to heaven, either with the passport of the infallible Pope or up the ladder of Protestant reason. It
completely abjures travel out of this world and wishes to stay here. It desires that its grave be in the same
place as its cradle. It does not know any other world. It does not smell the heavenly ozone or see angels
and saints even in dreams. It cannot hear of the Mother of God, as lust confirms it in hatred of virginity.
The whole square is enveloped in darkness; all the lights are out. Oh, what a horrible darkness! One
brother puts another to the sword, thinking him his enemy. A father denies his son and a son his father.
One wolf is a truer friend to another than one man is to another.

‘Oh, my brethren, are none of you able to see this? Have you not all felt the darkness and evil-
doing of an�-Chris�an Europe on your own backs? Do you wish to cleave to Europe or to Christ? To death
or to life? Moses once put these alterna�ves before his people, and we put them before you. Know that
Europe is death and Christ is life. Choose Life, that you may live forever.’

A moving lament by the Bishop, who is equal to the Apostle, over Europe:60

‘Oh, my brethren, the Eighteenth Century fathered the Nineteenth, and the Nineteenth Century
fathered the Twen�eth. The father was deeply in debt. The son has not repaid his father’s debts, but has
gone deeper into debt, and the debt has fallen on the grandson. The father has been infected by a grave
disease, and the son has not cured his father’s repulsive disease in himself, but has made it worse, so that
the disease has struck the grandson with a triple strength. The grandson is the Twen�eth Century in which
we live.
60. ibid, pp. 61-2.

‘The Eighteenth Century stood for rebellion against the Church and the clergy of the Roman
pon�fex. The Nineteenth Century stood for rebellion against God. The Twen�eth Century stands for a pact
with the devil. The debts have grown, and the disease has worsened. And the Lord has said that He visits
the sins of the fathers unto the third and fourth genera�on. Can you not see how the Lord has visited the
grandsons for the sins of the European grandfathers? Can you not see the scourging of the grandsons for
the unpaid debts of the grandfathers?

‘The Emperor An�christ represents the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. The Pope An�christ
represents the middle of that century, and the European Philosopher An�christ (from the madhouse)
represents the end of it. Bonaparte, Pius IX, Nietzsche - the three fateful names of the three men most
gravely sick of an inherited disease.

‘Are they the victors of the Nineteenth Century? No, they are the chief bearers of the disease
inherited from the Eighteenth Century; they are the most seriously sick men. An emperor, a pon�fex, and
a philosopher, not in pagan ancient Rome, but in the midst of bap�zed Europe! They are not the winners,
but the greatest losers. When Bonaparte mocked the holy things in the Kremlin, when Pius IX proclaimed
himself infallible, and when Nietzsche made his service of An�christ known, the sun was darkened in the
heavens. Not one of them, even if there were a thousand of them, would be darkened from sorrow and
shame. Behold a miracle that the world has never seen: an atheist emperor, an atheist pon�fex, and an
atheist philosopher. In Nero’s �me at least one of them was not an atheist: the philosopher. The Eighteenth
Century was Pilate’s Century: it condemned Christ to death. The Nineteenth Century was Caiaphas’
Century: it crucified Christ afresh. The Twen�eth Century was the Century of a Sanhedrin comprising
bap�zed and unbap�zed Judases. This Sanhedrin pronounced that Christ is dead forever and that He never
rose from the dead. Why are you, then, surprised, my brethren, when scourges fall upon European
humanity, scourges to the blood and bones, even to the bone marrow, from rebellions and revolu�ons
and wars?

‘Who is then the victor, if not the emperor, the pon�fex, and the philosopher of de-Chris�anized Europe?

‘The victor is the Russian muzhik (мужи́ к) and the Serbian peasant, according to Christ’s words:
He that is least among you all, the same shall be great (Luke 9:48). Who was more unknown, more
insignificant, and smaller in the Nineteenth Century, the Century of the great Bonaparte, the infallible Pius
and the unreachable Nietzsche? Who, if not the Russian muzhik, the pauper ‘in the holy places’ and the
Serbian peasant, the warrior against the crescent and the liberator of the Balkans?

‘A satanic batlefield, a satanic clergy and satanic wisdom: this is the Emperor, the Pope, and the
Philosopher of the Nineteenth Century. The Serbian peasant represented everything in opposi�on to all
that: firstly: a cross-bearing heroism, secondly: a martyr priesthood, and thirdly: the fisherman’s apostolic
wisdom. To him also apply those prayerful words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus: I thank Thee, 0 Father, Lord
of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed
them unto babes (Mat. 11:25). What has God revealed to simple peasants? He has revealed manly
courage, heavenly sanc�ty, and divine wisdom to them. He had revealed to them all that is uterly other
than the Western Emperor, Pope, and Philosopher, en�rely opposite, as day is to night.’

The Bishop who yearned for Christ, on the deicidal idolatry of European culture:61

‘If Europe had remained Chris�an, it would have been praising Christ and not culture. Even the
great peoples of Asia, unbap�zed yet spiritually well-disposed, would understand this. For those peoples
also take pride in their faiths, their dei�es, and their religious wri�ngs: some of them in the Koran, some
in the Vedas, or others. They do not boast of the works of their hands, their culture, but by something that
they regard as higher than themselves, in fact the highest in the world. Only European peoples do not
praise Christ or Christ’s Gospel, but boast by their dangerous machines and cheap produces, i.e., their
culture. The consequence of this European self-praise through their intrusive culture is that all non-
Chris�an peoples came to hate Christ and Chris�anity. By ha�ng the lesser, they came to hate the greatest.
By ha�ng European products and people, they came to hate the European God as well. But, alas, Europe
does not care. It has, first of all, come to hate and reject its God. European humanity has been brought to
this unenviable situa�on by its erroneous development under the influence of an erroneous Church during
the past nine hundred years. This is not the fault of the European peoples; it is the fault of their spiritual
leaders. The flock is not at fault; the shepherds are.
61. ibid, pp. 67-8

‘If things had taken a more fortunate turn, Europe would be boas�ng by Chris�anity as its most
precious inheritance and greatest dignity. This should be so, and it was so in the first centuries a�er Christ.
Europe was synonymous with, equated with, Chris�anity. The praising and preaching of Christ to all
con�nents and all peoples was the divinely-ordained mission of the European con�nent. Apart from
Chris�anity, Europe has nothing to boast about. Without Christ, Europe is the poorest beggar and the most
impudent robber in this world.’

The Bishop enlightened by Christ tells the biter truth about European educa�on:62

‘European educa�on has been separated from faith in God. It has thus turned into a poisoner, and
is, because of this, the death of European humanity. Even in pagan cultures, science was never separated
from faith, although the faith was wrong and stupid. It has only happened in Europe, the same Europe
that received the most perfect faith. But, because of the conflict with ecclesias�cal leaders, Europe
became embitered and rejected the most perfect faith, while retaining the most perfect science. Oh, my
brethren, it has rejected divine knowledge and accepted human ignorance! What stupidity, and what
darkness!’

The God-minded Bishop, on the willful blindness of European humanity:63

‘The West has become childish. In this lies its ugliness and its tragedy. In its Chris�an period, when
the West was Orthodox, it saw by the spirit and observed by the mind. But the further it went from
Chris�an truth and virtues, the shorter its spiritual sight became, un�l in the Twen�eth Century it became
altogether darkened. It now has only corporeal eyes le� for sensual percep�on. It has equipped its physical
eyes with many formidable devices in order to observe the physical world beter and more precisely: its
shape, color, number, measure and distance. It looks through a microscope and sees �ny worms and
microbes as they were never seen before. It looks through a telescope and sees stars as if they were just
above the chimneys, as no man has seen them before. And that is as far as it goes. As far as mental sight
and spiritual insight into the hidden essence of things and the sense and the meaning of all crea�on in the
vast cosmos surrounding us goes, oh my brethren, European humanity is today more blind than Muslim
Arabia, Hindu India, Buddhist Tibet and Spiri�st China. Indeed, Christ has not suffered a greater shame in
the last two thousand years than this: the bap�zed are blinder than the unbap�zed.
62. ibid, p. 72
63. ibid, pp. 77-8.

‘What the Apostle Paul was cri�cizing about the bap�zed Gala�ans could be equally said today of
the senile West. He wrote thus to the Gala�ans: O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye
should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among
you? . . . Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? (Gal. 3:1-3).
Europe had also once begun in the Spirit but is now being made perfect by the flesh: by physical sight,
physical judgement, physical desires, and physical conquests. What bewitchment! All its life in our day
takes place in two dimensions, breadth, and length. It knows nothing of either depth or height. For this
reason, it fights for land, for space, for expansion. For space, only for space!

‘Hence one war follows another, one terror follows another. God has not created man to be just a
spa�al animal, but to plumb the depths of secrets with his mind and to rise to divine heights by his heart.
War for land is a war against truth. And a war against truth is a war against divine and human nature.

‘Oh, what biterness, more biter than wormwood! How many people perish, suffer and sacrifice
for the ephemeral and decep�ve earthly kingdom! If only they would endure only a hundredth of these
sufferings and sacrifices for the Kingdom of Heaven, wars on earth would become ridiculous to them. They
can hardly part with two mites for Christ, but they give all their possessions and all their children to the
temple of Mars, the devil.’

‘Let Europe cross itself and turn to Christ. Let it remember the most holy Mother of God and the
twelve great Apostles, and the scales will fall away from its eyes. And Christ’s Orthodox Europe will be as
beau�ful as it was a thousand years ago. It will be happy, and we with it. And the weeping European
peoples will rejoice and sing with us to the eternal glory of God: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth, heaven
and earth are full of Thy glory. Amen.”

The Bishop who is humble in Christ, on the arrogant peoples of Europe: 64

‘The power-hungry and arrogant peoples of Europe never admit their fault. They have lost the
concept of sin, of sin and repentance. They blame others for every wrongdoing in the world, never
themselves. How can they commit sin when they sit on God’s throne and have proclaimed themselves
infallible gods? First the irreligious leader, the Pope, proclaimed himself infallible. Western princes and
kings have followed his example in spite of him. They have all proclaimed themselves infallible; those who
bear the cross as well as those who bear the sword.’
The Bishop who yearns for Christ, on the case between Christ and Europe: 65

‘If the history of the last three centuries, the Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twen�eth, could be given
one true name, no name would be more suitable than The Protocol of the Court Case between Europe
and Christ. For nothing has occurred in Europe over the last three hundred years that has any significant
connec�on with Christ our God.
64. ibid, pp. 87-8.
65. ibid, pp. 91-2.

‘The case between Christ and Europe develops like this:

‘Christ tells Europe that it was bap�zed in His name and that it should remain faithful to Him and His
Gospel.

‘Accused Europe retorts:

“All faiths are equal. That is what the French encyclopedists have taught us. No-one can be forced
to believe one thing or the other. Europe tolerates all faiths as popular supers��ons for the sake of its
imperialis�c interests, but it does not give allegiance to any faith. When the poli�cal goals are achieved,
all these popular supers��ons will quickly be dealt with.”

‘Then Christ asks sadly:

“How can you men live by imperialism alone, by imperial, material interests, by bes�al greed for
bodily food? I intended to make you gods and sons of God, but you resist and hurry to make yourselves
equal to beasts of burden.”

‘Europe replies:

“You are old-fashioned. In place of your Gospel, we have discovered zoology and biology. Now we
know that we are not descended from you or your Father in heaven, but from orangutans, gorillas, and
monkeys. We are now grooming ourselves to be gods. We do not recognize any other gods but ourselves.”

‘Then Christ speaks:

“You are more stubborn than the Jews of old. l raised you from the darkness of barbarism into
heavenly light, but you want to go back into darkness like a buffalo into mud. I gave My blood for you. I
showed My love for you when all the angels turned their heads away from you, being unable to bear your
hellish stench. When you were in darkness and stench, I was the only one to stand by you, to sanc�fy and
cleanse you. Do not be unfaithful to Me now, or you will return to that unbearable darkness and stench.”

‘At this, Europe mockingly exclaims:

“Depart from us; we do not know you. We uphold Hellenic philosophy and Roman culture. We
want freedom. We have universi�es. Science is our guiding star. Our moto is: liberty, equality, and
fraternity. Our reason rules supreme. You are an Asia�c. We reject you. You are just an old legend of our
grandmothers and grandfathers.”

‘Christ says, with tears in His eyes:

“I shall go, but you will see. You have strayed from God’s paths and gone Satan’s way. Blessing and
happiness have been taken away from you. Your life and your death are in My hand, for I gave Myself to
be crucified for you. Nevertheless, I shall not cas�gate you, but your sins and your falling away from Me
your Savior, will. I have demonstrated the Father’s love for all men, and I desired to save you all by love.”

‘Europe retorts:

“What love? Rather a healthy, virile hatred for all who disagree with us, that is our program. This
love of yours is nothing other than a fairytale. In place of the fairytale, we have set na�onalism and
interna�onalism, sta�sm and progressivism, evolu�onism, evalua�onism, and culturism. In this lies our
salva�on; but you, depart from us.”

‘My brethren, the quarrel has come to an end in our �me. Christ has departed from Europe as He
did in the past from Gadara at the request of the Gadarenes. But no sooner had He departed than war
came, fury, horror, destruc�on, and annihila�on. Pre-Chris�an barbarism returned to Europe, the
barbarism of the Avars, the Huns, the Langobards (Lombards) and the Africans, but a hundred �mes more
horrible. Christ took His cross and His blessing and departed. The darkness and stench remain. Now you
decide with whom you will go: with dark and s�nking Europe or with Christ.’

The herald of the Good News, equal to the Apostles, on Europe, the realm of the White Demons: 66

‘What is your judgement on Europe? Africa and Asia call Europeans white demons. Europe could,
therefore, be called the realm of the White Demons. It could be called White according to the color of its
skin, but the realm of demons according to the blackness of its soul. For Europe has rejected the only God
and assumed the throne and outlook of the Roman Caesars. Just as the Caesars did shortly before the fall
of Rome, it has proclaimed to all peoples on earth that all can worship their gods as they please. Europe
will tolerate this as long as they worship it as the supreme deity, either under the name of Europe or that
of Culture.
66. Ibid, pp. 95-6.

‘So, my brethren, satanic Rome has risen again in our day like a vampire, the Rome of the �me
before the Emperor Constan�ne, that persecuted Chris�ans with sword and fire and prevented Christ from
crossing into Europe. But the realm of the White Demons has become more gravely sick than pagan Rome.
Whilst pagan Rome was tormented by one demon, the realm of the White Demons is tormented by seven
demons more fierce than that of Rome. Behold the new pagan Rome and the new martyrdom of
Chris�anity. Be prepared to be tortured for Christ’s sake by the realm of the White Demons.

‘The new pagan Europe does not boast by any dei�es above itself. It boasts only by itself, its
reason, its wealth, and its might. The bubble is about to burst, to the amusement of Africa and Asia; the
ripe pustule is about to burst and fill the cosmos with its stench. This is an�-Chris�an Europe today, the
realm of the White Demons.

‘Europe lives in an enchanted circle of inven�ons. Whoever comes up with a new inven�on is
pronounced a genius, and whoever describes the inven�ons of others is pronounced a Doctor of Science.
European inven�ons are numerous, even countless. But none of those inven�ons makes man beter, more
honorable or more enlightened. In the last thousand years, Europe has not come up with a single inven�on
in the purely spiritual and moral sphere, but they have all been only in the material realm. European
inven�ons have brought mankind to the brink of ruin; they have brought it into spiritual darkness and
black decay such as cannot be remembered in the history of Chris�anity. For Europe has aimed all its
inven�ons against Christ; whether by its own wrong intent or persuaded by the Jews, we do not know.

‘When a telescope for the observa�on of distant stars was invented, European scien�sts
interpreted this to the detriment of Christ’s Gospel.

‘When the microscope was invented, again derision of Christ followed.

'At the inven�on of the railway, steam factories, telegraph and telephone, the very air rang with
European self-praise, to the detriment of God and His Christ.

'When men invented machines that ran under water and through the air, for communica�on over
great distances, then Christ seemed to Europe as unnecessary and old-fashioned as Egyp�an mummies.

'All the inven�ons of the last two hundred years have been used by Europe for its own suicide in
world wars, crime, hatred, destruc�on, deceit, extor�on, desecra�on of peoples' holy things and customs,
in lies, dishonesty, debauchery and godlessness throughout the world. But Europe has deceived no one
but itself. Non-Chris�an na�ons have realized what Europe is, what it brings and what it wants and has
given it the name of 'the realm of the White Demons'.

'Listen to what King David says: Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will
remember the name of the Lord our God (Ps. 21:7). Those braggarts will fall asleep on the pillows of their
false glory, but we shall rise up and stand tall. If thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst
not received it (1 Cor. 4:7)? Take note that all inven�ons were discovered on God's property, before His
eyes, and learn shame and honor.'
THE WAY OUT OF THE IMPASSE

The way out of all the impasses: humanis�c, ecumenical, hominis�c, or Papist, is the historical
Theanthropos, the Lord Jesus Christ and His theanthropic crea�on, the Church, of which He is the eternal
Head and it His eternal Body. The apostolic, patris�c, tradi�onal, conciliar, universal Orthodox faith is, in
the Church, salva�on from all here�cal deaths, whatever their name. A�er all, every heresy is from man
and a�er the tradi�on of men; every one of them puts man in place of the God-Man, replaces the God-
Man by a man. It thus denies and rejects the Church, which is wholly in, from and according to the
Theanthropos. What salva�on is there from this? The apostolic, theanthropic faith; a return on all sides to
the theanthropic way of the holy apostles and the holy fathers;67 a return to their faultless Orthodox faith
in Christ the Theanthropos, to their life in grace in the Church by the Holy Spirit, to the freedom in Christ
that He has given us, to their blessed, theanthropic experience in the Holy Spirit, to their theanthropic,
holy virtues.
67. St Athanasius the Great, the ‘Thirteenth Apostle’ and ‘the Father of Orthodoxy’, proclaims the whole truth about the true
Faith, in the spirit of the apostles and with godly wisdom, saying: ‘We hold the Faith of the universal Church (της καθολικης
Εκκλησιας), which was given by the Lord, preached by the apostles, and preserved by the Fathers. The Church is founded on it (η
Εκκλησια τεθεμελιωται), and he who falls away from this Church is no Chris�an, nor can call himself one.’ (Lefler to Serapion I, p.
28; P.G. 26: 593C-596A.

This, and this alone, can save us from bondage to the various humanis�c-hominis�c form of the
sa�sfying and service of man and bondage to him, and wash away all sins. That bondage is equal to
idolatry, equal to the worship of the false gods of our anarchis�c-nihilis�c age. Otherwise, without the
apostolic-patris�c way, the determined following of the one, true and eternal God in all worlds, of the
service of the one, true and eternal God - the Theanthropos and Savior Christ - the Head of the Orthodox
Church, men will certainly sink in the dead sea of European cultural idolatry and, instead of the living and
true God, will serve the false idols of this world, in which there is no salva�on, no resurrec�on, no
deifica�on for the miserable being called man.

Delivered by the Theanthropos, the Lord Christ, from idolatry in all its forms, here is what the holy
Fathers of the holy Seventh Ecumenical Council proclaim and leave as a testament to us as the only
Orthodox way, the only theanthropic way, that must be followed with boldness through all the historical
obscurity and darkness of this age and this world:

‘Our holy Fathers, fulfilling the divine commandment of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, have not
hidden the light of divine knowledge under a bushel, but have placed it in the candles�ck of the most
helpful teaching, to give light to everyone in the house, everyone who glorifies God in the Orthodox,
Universal Church, so that none of those who in the Orthodox way (ευσεβως) confess the Lord may stumble
on the rock of here�cal false faith. The holy Fathers banish every here�cal fallacy and cut off roten limbs
if they are incurable. Having a spade in their hands, they clear the threshing floor and gather the wheat,
the nourishing word that sustains the heart of man, into the granary of the Orthodox Universal Church.
They throw out the chaff of here�cal evil teaching and burn it in the unquenchable flame. And we,
upholding in every way the dogmas and acts of these God-bearing fathers of ours, preach with one mouth
and one heart, adding nothing, and taking nothing away from that which they have le� us. We are
reinforced and reinvigorated by it; we confess it and teach it as the six Ecumenical Councils decreed and
confirmed. And we believe that we have been saved, not by an agent or an angel but by the Lord Himself
(cf. Is. 63:9).
 ‘Following Him and making His voice our own, we cry aloud: Neither a council, nor imperial power,
nor a plot of the damned has saved the Church from idols, as such nonsense was invented by the Jewish
Sanhedrin, but the Lord of glory alone - God incarnate - has saved and freed the Church from idolatrous
folly. To Him, therefore, be glory, to Him be grace, gra�tude, thanks, and majesty, for His redemp�on is
ours, His salva�on is ours, for He alone has the power to save completely, and no miserable man on earth.

‘So, as the prophets foretold, as the apostles taught, as the Church has received, as the teachers
put into dogma, as the universe agreed, as grace has illuminated, as the truth has proved, as the lie has
been banished, as Wisdom has boldly proclaimed and as Christ has confirmed: thus, we think, thus we
speak, thus we preach Christ our true God. This is the apostolic faith, this is the patris�c faith, this is the
Orthodox faith! This faith sustains the universe’ (Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, session 4, and
the Synodicon of Orthodoxy).