Dan Everiss
<oregdan@hotmail.com> | Tue, May 9, 2017 at 5:52 PM |
|
|
CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD, TRAMPLING DOWN DEATH BY DEATH, AND UPON THOSE IN THE TOMBS, BESTOWING LIFE! ALLELUIA!
PASCHA OF INCORRUPTION
New Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky), Archbishop of Verey
Listen to the triumphant
chants of the Church! Not only on the days of Holy Pascha, but on all
the great feasts, you often hear the word, “incorruption.” The whole
matter of salvation of the human race is
expressed in living Church theology as the gift of incorruption. It
means that we need incorruption. We are in a state of corruption. The
synaxarion for the Holy and Great week of Pascha [Bright Week] is of
course only read in monasteries, and not even in
all of them. Meanwhile, the meaning of the events we celebrate during
this week is described thus: “Then He came down from the heavens and
made His dwelling in the womb of the Virgin; now He has stolen human
nature from the treasury of hell, raised it to heaven,
and brought incorruption—man’s ancient inheritance.” There are two
remarkable details here: Pascha is positioned next to the events of the
Nativity of Christ, and corruption is called the ancient inheritance.
When you hear the chants
in Church, you become more and more convinced that they are truly rich
in a treasure of ideas, and are greatly important for a truly Orthodox
understanding of life today. Our dogmatics
courses taught in the theological seminaries and academies are in this
respect on an immeasurably lower level than that theology taught to the
faithful by our readers and chanters from the church cliros.
The Pascha of
incorruption… The ancient inheritance is returned… Our seminary theology
talks about some legal accounts between God and man. Sin is called for
the most part a crime against God, an offense against
God, for which God’s justice must take revenge against the despicable
offender. But the Church first of all calls sin corruption, the loss of
our ancient inheritance: incorruption. In this there are no legal
accounts to settle with the Lord God. Man fell away
from God, and his spiritual and physical corruption began. Self-rule in
spiritual life led to slavery to sin and passions. Man began to decay in
seductive passions. The soul rots and decays. This may sound strange,
but that is really how it is. The process
of spiritual corruption can be compared to any kind of decay. If an
organism decays, everything breaks down in it, and with time, poisonous
and foul smelling gases rise from it. It is the same with spiritual
nature that has been harmed and infected by sin,
which is as if rotting. The soul loses its chastity, its integrity, and
decays; its will is weakened, along with everything connected with it
and everything subject to it. Passionate thoughts and evil deeds
continually break forth from the sinful soul. Anyone
with an attentive relationship to his own spiritual life would not be
surprised at how difficult it is to instill all that is good and
beautiful into the soul, and how easily and quickly everything dark and
evil takes root and grows in it. Therefore, wouldn’t
we say that there is something bad living in our soul? Our soul is not
healthy, it is sick. Corruption reigns in our soul, and our body is
quite obviously subject to corruption. Many do not notice their
spiritual sickness; they stifle the inner groaning and
cry of the soul with the noise of life. But death and bodily decay are
irrefutable, and all life’s vivid color pales before this decay. They
can reject the works of the ascetics who expound upon spiritual death,
and perhaps even laugh at them. But find me
a nihilist who could not understand the funeral services and St. John
Damascene’s lamentation over the grave!
Humanity has always seen
the inner corruption of its spiritual nature, and has always beheld with
its own eyes the destruction of the temple of its body. To admit that
you are spiritually rotting and to know
that your body is the inheritance of worms—that is the lot of sinful
man! Where is the joy? What can we hope for in the future? Sin is
essentially linked with unhappiness and suffering. Sinful awareness
paints the future in dark, joyless colors. The Hebrew
Sheol, the kingdom of shadows in the murky Hades of the Hellenes and
Romans—both depict a disconsolate future.
Salvation is healing.
Salvation is freedom from corruption. Salvation is a return to the
original goodness of incorruption; for man was created in incorruption.
Needed was the restoration to health of human
nature. This restoration is given in the incarnation of the Son of God.
“We could not have become incorrupt and immortal, had not the Incorrupt
and Immortal One not been first made what we are.” The Incorrupt and
Immortal One, in His unity of persons, has
assumed “the corruption and death of my stolen nature.” The nature of
corruption received the inoculation of incorruption, and the process of
creation’s renewal, the process of man’s deification, has begun, as has
also begun the creation of God-humanity. The
sting of death has been blunted. Corruption is conquered, for the
antidote for the illness of corruption is given. All those born of earth
have inevitably come to those gates of death and hid behind them,
trembling with horror. But now, Christ is resurrected!
What does this mean? This means that salvation is truly wrought. For,
human nature has joined with Divine nature in the person of Christ,
“unmingled, unchanged, undivided, and inseparable.” It is not God Who
has passed through the gates of death, and not before
God were the “eternal chambers open wide,” not for God’s sake was the
stone rolled away from the doors of the tomb, but for the sake of the
God-Man. Together with Christ, our human nature has passed through the
mysterious gates of death. Death reigns, but
not forever!
Death was terrible to the
human race before Christ’s death, but after Christ’s resurrection, man
became terrible to death, for One of us has conquered death; He did not
remain in the tomb, and did not see corruption.
Passover was the freeing of Israel from Egypt. Our Pascha frees us from
the slavery of death and corruption. Christ is risen! I now know that my
salvation is truly wrought. I know that God truly appeared on earth.
There have been great people, conquerors of
the elements, conquerors of nature; but death cut them all down and
revealed our common nothingness. Who has passed through the doors of
death? It can only be God. This means that God was truly incarnate on
earth, truly brought the healing cure against the
corruption that corrodes and torments me. Incarnation and resurrection
are united into one. The incarnation gave meaning to the resurrection,
and the resurrection irrefutably convinces us of its truth and reality
as something that is not a phantom or a dream.
Now I am no longer
frightened by death, for I have seen the victory over corruption. I also
see a different law other than the law of life working in me—I see the
law of death and corruption. I see how sin reigns
over me at times. But I know that this reign has been shaken, that my
situation is not hopeless. I can now hope for victory, I can hope to
overcome sin, I can hope for freedom from slavery to corruption. Now I
can look with joy upon the podvig of struggle
with sin and passions, for the enemy has been conquered many times by
ascetical strugglers. The saints of God shine in the heavens of the
Church like stars—those who lived on the earth, conquered sin, attained
purity and chastity, which is incorruption, and
therefore departed rejoicing upon the way of all the earthly.
Incorruption, that is, purity and chastity, gives joy. Blessedness is
not an external reward, as unfortunate Catholic hirelings reason with
their minds. Blessedness is the inner consequence of virtue.
Virtue is a healthy soul, and a healthy person is always happier than a
sick one. My sinful illness is curable—the resurrection of Christ
convinces me of this. To me is opened the blessedness of paradise. Let
no one lament his poverty when entering the Kingdom
of all! Joy has come to all, because hope for incorruption, for
redemption from sinful corruption, has also come. Christ God has brought
us out of death into life. Egypt is left behind, Pharaoh has perished,
and the Promised Land and incorrupt Kingdom lay
ahead—where there are many abodes, and where the rejoicing is endless! O
Pascha of incorruption! O Salvation of the world!
CHRIST IS RISEN!
Translated by Nun Cornelia (Rees)
============================== ============================== ============================== ============================== =========
Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece Week of the Paralytic in Mandra (Attica).
ФОТО A PHOTO
Автор: Монахиня Вера вкл. Author: Nun Vera incl.
09 Май 2017 09-May-2017
. .
Опубликовано в
ИПЦ Греции (Просмотров: 15) Published in the
CPI of Greece (Views: 15)
2017 г.
В Неделю о расслабленном в церкви святых бессребреников
Космы и Дамиана (Агион Анаргирон) в Мандре (Аттика, ИПЦ Греции) отслужил
Божественную литургию Митрополит Хризостом Аттикийский и Беотийский.
2017. In the Week of the Saints of Cosmos and Damian (Agion Anargyron) in Mandra (Attica, Greece, Greek GOC,) and in the Week of the
Paralytic, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Metropolitan Chrysostom of Attica and Boeotia.
В
своем слове Его Высокопреосвященство, рассказывая о Евангельском
событии об исцелении
расслабленного, подчеркнул, что в нашей жизни мы должны чувствовать
радость, душевные силы и оптимизм, если мы верим в Воскресение Господа.
In
his sermon, , His Eminence, was speaking about the Gospel event about
the healing of the paralytic, wherein he stressed that in our life we
should feel
joy, spiritual strength and optimism, if we believe in the Resurrection
of the Lord.
Тот
из нас, кто просит лучшей жизни, вначале должен сам исправиться и не оставаться в состоянии духовного паралича.
The one who wishes for a better life must first correct himself and not remain in a state of spiritual paralysis.
По окончании Божественной литургии настоятель храма, о.
At
the end of the Divine Liturgy, the rector of the church, Fr.
Афанасий,
и члены церковного комитета организовали праздничную трапезу для всех
присутствующих, после чего состоялось конструктивное обсуждение текущих
приходских вопросов.
Athanasius,
and members of the church committee, organized a common festive meal
for all those present, after which a constructive discussion of current
parish
issues took place.
=================================================================================================================================
Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece:
Paschal greetings in the parishes of Attica and Boeotia, Greece:
ФОТО- PHOTOS
Автор: Монахиня Вера вкл. Author: Nun Vera incl.
09 Май 2017 09-May-2017
. .
Опубликовано в
ИПЦ Греции (Просмотров: 10) Published in the
CPI of Greece (Views: 10)
Приходы Святого Иоанна Крестителя в Лутуфиу и Благовещения в Фивах (ИПЦ Греции) посетил
с пасхальными приветствиями в понедельник 8 мая (н. ст.) 2017 г. Митрополит Хризостом Аттикийский и Беотийский.
In
the parishes of St. John the Baptist in Lutufiu and the Annunciation
parish in Thebes, they were visited with the Paschal greetings on
Monday, May 8 (n.),
In 2017., by Metropolitan Chrysostom of Attica and Boeotia.
Храм Св. Иоанна Предтечи:
Church of St. John the Baptist:
Благовещенская церковь:
Annunciation Church:
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Guest comments MAYBE can be made by email.
joannahigginbotham@runbox.com
Anonymous comments will not be published. Daniel will not see unpublished comments. If you have a message for him, you need to contact him directly.
oregdan@hotmail.com