ORTHODOXY AS
KNOWLEDGE OF LOVE
God came to the earth for the sinners. The
people who had lived on this earth — pagans who had worshipped idols and had
not known the true light, could finally see it, and, getting to know God,
ultimately fell in love with Him.
Christ
established the Church on earth. It is a place where one leaves the temporary
world and proceeds to the eternity. The Church is the Last Supper that the Lord
had before his suffering on the Cross, and that He celebrates every day as He
calls the faithful to his wedding feast. People come to the Church, crippled
and disfigured by sin though they are. The Lord washes, sanctifies, and
cleanses their souls with His Love, and people start to see, hear, and love God
in their midst. The holiness that God gives empowers one to struggle with the
whole world, with the devil, with sin — that terrible disease of the humankind
that fell out of the unity with God. We all are ill but we have the Great
Doctor who treats us. His treatment is holiness, and He pours it on us
abundantly, entrusting us with His own Body and Blood, with Himself. As He
tries to break us loose from sin, from all temporary and transitory things, as
He shows us the Heaven, God helps us to come to Him now, in this life. The Lord
humbles down before us to save us. He humbles before the sinful, the proud, the
ungrateful people that we are. He does not argue with us, He does not condemn
us, but instead patiently waits for us to come around. He has to wait for a
very long time. However, when a person responds to God's love with love, the
person starts to resemble God.
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| St John the Theologian |
What is Orthodoxy? Come and see (John 1:46), as we read in
the Bible. In Orthodoxy, God is so close that He is united with human. The
purpose of an Orthodox person's life is theosis, holiness, sanctification of
her life, not temporary comforts and material assets but the eternity. Only Love
will continue into the eternity; knowledge and prophecies will be
ceased (Cf. 1 Cor.13:8). So Orthodoxy is the knowledge of Love, it is
the Love that lives inside human beings. Apostle John the Theologian says, “By
this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”(Cf.
John 13:35). It is impossible to love in this world without God. The human that
hid from God in the paradise, must approach God and sanctify herself with the
Light of Love that Christ brought to the earth. The Lord gives this love
abundantly in the Orthodox Church. Everything that we see in a church: the
church itself, the worship — everything is a revelation of the life to come, a
revelation that is hard for us to comprehend because we are deafened by the
world, our reason is blurred, and our hearts are anxious.
The Lord takes
us onto His shoulders, carries us into the Church, washes, cleanses, and feeds
to us His Body and Blood from a spoon. When we receive the Holy Sacraments, we
start to perceive (albeit for a short moment) our neighbor, ourselves, our
lives, and realize the Holy Divine Providence behind all that.
Love is hard to
preserve. We suffer from many sinful illnesses but we believe that God triumphs
over sin. We are now in the Church that fights with the sinful world
and the devil, and if we remain within its ranks, we will go on to become part
of the Triumphant Church.
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| Scene from Last Supper: Christ and St.John the Theologian |
When we want to
tell someone about Orthodoxy, it is very difficult for us to talk about it. Why
is it so? It is because Orthodoxy is to be seen.We realize that if God dwells
inside us, if the grace of the Holy Spirit is present within us, words are
unnecessary. The life and the image of a person who found the Love of Christ
will be a testimony of God's victory and God's truth. We do not know what our
way in this world will be like but when we enter the church; we must keep that
grace that we receive from God and from His Holy Church. Let us thank God for
His love towards us and ask Him to reveal to us the truths that we should
always bear in mind: that God is always near; He loves us and never abandons
us; He forgives us and is waiting for us.
Archpriest Andrew
Lemeshonok
November 11, 2014
CONVERSATION