What Does "Salvation" Mean?
Soma (body) is a human as a whole, as something indivisible
(as the synonyms we can take atomos in Greek and individuum in Latin). Some is
a-tomos (non-dividable), the denial of any tome (division)… However, in the
reality of this world, a human being is divisible; we get sick, suffer and
dissolve after death. It means humans do not have the true soma, the true body,
wholeness. “Making whole”, the restoration of a whole body is called soteria. “Soteria
means that I become sos – whole”. This word “soteria” is translated as “salvation”,
but in fact, it means “healing” (getting wholeness, getting the true body). Consequently,
Soter (Savior) means “Healer”. The miracles of healings that play such an
important role in the Gospel stories, were supposed to be a symbolic prototype
of the final “healing” of the human being. We reach the true wholeness, the
indivisible body, only in the corporally Resurrected Christ, in the “body of
resurrection”. In the Lord, a person is healed from the sickness of sin and
death.
By Archimandrite Januarius (Ivlev)
