Man’s true nature and true life do not emanate from earthly data, but from the Triune God Himself, because man is the image of God. If we want to seek man’s true life, we must draw near to God and savor His life. Only life close to God is “natural,” that is, life that corresponds to man’s true nature. As for distance from God, it is “unnatural.”

The life of the saints is the life of Christ himself, continuing throughout the ages. We are united to them on the basis of the human nature that Christ reformed through his incarnation, death and resurrection. In the divine liturgy, and especially the Eucharist, we participate in the life of Christ and its events and in the life of the saints, because we are all one body, Christ, the saints and ourselves, and we are all “one in Christ Jesus.”

The Word of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, entered the heart of the world, sanctified it, and made it live in a new era or a new age, the age of the Kingdom of God. The Lord Himself confirmed that the Kingdom of God does not pertain to the future alone, but that the believing Christian lives in it from now on. But the present time is different from the comprehensive Kingdom of God, and is only a picture or introduction to it. The Kingdom will shine in its full glory in the last times, at the coming of the Lord.

Death is the result of the new state into which man passed after the fall, and its cause is sin. Thus it became man's enemy. But this life is only an inn. We enter it and spend our whole present life in it. But we strive to leave it with good hope. We must not leave here anything that we might miss there.

The Church's war, then, is not against the body but against its passions. If the man of the new creation is freed from his corrupt passions, his senses and his entire body will become pure and enlightened, and everything around him will shine with the love and glory of God. In the lives of the saints of our Church there are examples of liberation from the slavery of passions.

It is clear that the Old Testament foreshadowings point not only to the event of Christ’s crucifixion, but also to the sign of the cross itself, the “sign of the Son of Man,” which will be the banner of victory at the Lord’s triumphant coming. The cross of the Lord is an expression of God’s infinite love and of man’s infinite value. There is no greater expression of God’s love than the cross, and there is no greater elevation of man than his elevation to the reality of the cross.

The people of the Old Testament were forbidden to make and worship idols. There are several texts that explain this, but some heretics separate the first part of those texts from the second and distort their interpretation. In the Old Testament, God appeared through actions and spoke through the mouths of the prophets. In the New Testament, the Word of God became incarnate, “and we have seen his glory,” and established a personal relationship with us. Therefore, we can depict the person of Christ in the icon.

The person who is enlightened by the uncreated divine actions “has the knowledge of the glory of God, that glory which is on the face of Christ, shining in his heart, and he becomes a “partaker of the divine glory” and a “participant in the holiness of God.” The Christian who lives in the grace of God becomes a “member of the body of Christ,” that is, a part of the body of the incarnate God, living the life of Christ himself and radiating the divine light.

ُبدع الإنسان على صورة الله، فكان منذ البدء زوجاً، أي رجلاً وامرأة. وكما أن الله المثلث الأقانيم لم يكن مفرداً، فكذلك الإنسان. فعقيدة الثالوث القدوس التي يعبَّر عنها بوحدة في الجوهر وتثليث في الأقانيم، هي حقيقة أساسية تعبِّر عن حقيقة الإنسان أيضاً. لذا خُلق الإنسان منذ البدء زوجاً، أي رجلاً وامرأة.

إن سرّ المسحة المقدّس لا يتعلّق بعلاج الجسد وحده، بل بعلاج النفس أيضاً. فنحن ننال بسرّ المسحة قوّة روحيّة، فتُغفر خطايانا التي نسيناها ولم نتمكن من الاعتراف بها. إلاّ أن أهميتها الأولى تبقى في الصلاة من أجل صحة الجسد. لذلك ترتبط الكنيسة الأرثوذكسية بين هذين السرّين، وتحثّ الذين يُقام سرّ المسحة من أجلهم، على الاعتراف أيضاً.

المعمودية تُدخل الإنسان حلبة روحية، فيُدعى إلى الجهاد ضد قوى الشر التي تهاجمه من الخارج بواسطة حواسه التي تولِّد الأهواء. فلا بدّ له إذاً من أن يطرح جانباً كل ما يبعده عن محبة الله، وكل ما يقوده إلى المظاهر الأنانية التي تشوِّه محبة الله والإخوة، حتى يبقى منتصراً في معركته ضد الأهواء والميول الأنانية.

The Church is formed and manifested in the celebration of the mystery of Divine Thanksgiving and our participation in it, because it is the mystery that transforms the community, that is, the parish, into a Church. In the mystery of Divine Thanksgiving, the parish is a universal Church, because Christ Himself is present in it. The faithful must know that every time they gather to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, “their Church gathers,” that is, the entire Church. Every member of the parish is a member of the universal Orthodox Church.