1. SalvationSalvation – delivering a person from eternal death, that is, from sin and its consequences, and granting him eternal holy life in communion with God. It consists of restoring unity with God, the Source of life.
This connection was dissolved by the Fall of the first people, due to which humanity was damaged by evil - subject to sin, damnation and death. In this damaged, dilapidated state, people are unable to correct themselves, powerless against the sin living in them.
But the Creator, who before creation foresaw the fall of man, out of His boundless love and ineffable mercy, determined in the eternal Council of the Most Holy Trinity to save him, restore him to his dignity and value, revive him to true life, direct him to his destiny.
For the sake of saving people, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came down from heaven and became incarnate from the Virgin Mary. Having united in Himself the divine and human natures, being true God and true Man, the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished the work of salvation in all its fullness: he preached the doctrine of true life, performed miracles, took upon himself the cross of suffering for all humanity, was crucified and died on the cross , resurrected and became the Leader and Performer of new life for people.
Having no personal sin, Christ took upon Himself the entire lot of humanity expelled from paradise - humanity, to which it was said: “Cursed is the earth for your sake.” He Himself became a Man and, as the Lamb of God, took upon Himself all human sins and became a Sacrifice, redeemed them. Thus, the incarnation on earth of the God-man Jesus Christ opened the way for humanity to overcome sin.
As God, he powerfully crushed the power of the devil, bringing with him from hell to paradise all the righteous held there, starting with Adam himself, and was resurrected. As Man, He revived humanity in Himself, making it capable of a new eternal life in God. Through His life and teaching He instructed believers and provided a model for them to follow. He revived people, brought new, blessed forces into the world.
The Lord opened the way for eternal blissful life to those who believe in Him: He founded His Church, sent down the Holy Spirit and through Him gave the gifts of grace necessary for rebirth, spiritual improvement and to achieve entry into the open eternal Kingdom of Heaven.
Thus, He established the New Covenant of God with people, according to which humanity will live until the Second Coming of Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ took upon Himself the sins of the whole world, took upon Himself the guilt of all people. But only those who believe in Him, who assimilate the salvation of Christ, enjoy this salvation. God does not want people to perish, but many perish without accepting “the love of the truth for their salvation” (2 Thess. 2:10). To achieve salvation, one must know and truly understand the Gospel. You need to believe in God, openly confess your faith and act in accordance with Christ’s commandments: fight sin within yourself, become part of the Church of Christ and participate in its sacraments that revive a person, heal him from sin and help him grow spiritually.
St. Theophan the Recluse writes about salvation:
“God created us and honored us in His image, so that we would live in God. We were in a living union with Him. That was how it was in paradise. The fall of our first parents dissolved this union. But God took pity on us and did not want us to be outside of Him, to remain in falling away, but was pleased to invent a method of reunification, which consists in the fact that the Son of God and God came to earth and became incarnate, and in His person united humanity with the Divine, and through this gave us all the opportunity to unite through Him with God. Those who believe, others are baptized and receive the sacraments, united alive with the Savior, and through Him with God. And this is our goal - life in God, but there is no other way to God than the Lord Jesus Christ. and men, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2, 5). So you must believe in Christ the Savior, accept the sacraments, fulfill the commandments and everything that the Holy Church contains and prescribes. , and you will be on the saved path.
...The grace of the Holy Spirit for salvation is necessary for us and it alone is powerful to bring about our salvation in us... the grace of the Holy Spirit can be given and received in no other way than through the sacraments established by the Lord Himself in the Church by the hands of the apostles.”
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov):
Here is the true teaching on this subject, the teaching of the Holy, Universal Church: Salvation lies in the return of communion with God. This communication was lost by the entire human race through the fall of our forefathers. The entire human race is a category of lost beings. Destruction is the lot of all people, both virtuous and evildoers. We are conceived in lawlessness, born in sin. “I will go down to my son, lamenting to hell,” says the holy Patriarch Jacob about himself and his holy son Joseph, the chaste and beautiful! Not only sinners, but also the righteous of the Old Testament descended into hell at the end of their earthly journey. Such is the power of human good deeds. Such is the price of the virtues of our fallen nature! In order to restore man's communication with God, otherwise, for salvation, atonement was necessary. The redemption of the human race was accomplished not by an angel, not by an archangel, not by any other of the highest, but by limited and created beings - it was accomplished by the infinite God Himself.
Venerable Macarius of Egypt. Spiritual conversations:
. About the kingdom of darkness, that is, sin, and that God alone can take away sin from us and deliver us from slavery to the evil prince
. That the power of the Holy Spirit in the human heart is like fire; also about what we need to discern the thoughts arising in the heart; also about the dead serpent, which Moses nailed to the top of the tree, and served as an image of Christ. This conversation contains two conversations: one of Christ with the evil Satan, and the other of sinners with Satan.
. About the spiritual anointing and glory of Christians and that without Christ it is impossible to be saved or become a partaker of eternal life
. About the treasure of Christians, that is, about Christ and the Holy Spirit, leading them in various ways to achieve perfection
. Christ alone, the true physician of the inner man, can heal the soul and adorn it with the robe of grace
. This conversation teaches that not a single person, unless supported by Christ, is able to overcome the temptations of the evil one, shows what those who desire divine glory for themselves should do; and also teaches that through Adam’s disobedience we fell into slavery to carnal passions, from which we are delivered through the sacrament of the cross; and finally, it shows how great the power of tears and divine fire is
. That it is not any art, not the wealth of this world, but the coming of Christ alone that can heal a person. This same conversation shows the very great affinity of man with God.
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How does the Evangelical Protestant doctrine differ from the Orthodox one? As a minister of the Evangelical Church, I often encounter such questions. These questions have become especially relevant in recent years, among believers who have little understanding of the essence of the Evangelical faith. Seeing the main difference between churches in the area of traditions and forms of worship, they often miss the point. Traditions and forms of worship are not directly prescribed by Scripture, and therefore may change at different times in history and in different places. They are not the basis, but an expression of faith. The foundations of faith lie in the area of theological principles that explain who God is, who man is, what the results of sin are, and how man can be saved. It is in the theological sphere that the most significant difference between the teaching of the Orthodox Church and the teaching of the Evangelical Churches lies. This article focuses on one such important issue—the doctrine of salvation. It presents an attempt at a critical analysis of the book by Sergius of Starogorodsky “Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation.” I hope that this article will help the reader see the key differences between the two systems of doctrine of salvation and compare them with what is presented in Scripture.
Introduction
Obviously, the question of salvation is the central point of most religions. Every denomination and virtually every church has developed its own approach to this issue, and, as a result, its own theology about salvation. While recognizing the authority of the Bible as a whole, many Christian churches have varying approaches to the interpretation of passages of Scripture dealing with this topic. This gives them the opportunity to find, of a certain kind, support for their views and positions on this issue.
The Western theological world is well aware of the basic soteriological concepts that have been developed, carefully studied and criticized from various angles during the two thousand year history of the Christian Church. Among them are Roman Catholic Theology, Reformed Theology, Arminianism, Liberal Theology, Neo-Orthodox Theology, and various subsystems within these major soteriological schools. However, there is another fairly common soteriological position that is still insufficiently studied by theologians of the Western world. This is the doctrine of salvation put forward by the Orthodox Church.
Evangelical theologians, most often, consider the positions of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches on the issue of salvation to be identical, thus uniting them into one soteriological system. However, most theologians within the Orthodox Church itself consider their own approach to the doctrine of salvation to be radically different from that of the Roman Catholic Church. They, in turn, consider the entire range of soteriological teachings presented in the world as divided into two camps. On the one hand, this is the Orthodox teaching on salvation, which is adhered to by various movements of the Eastern Orthodox Church. On the other hand, there is Western soteriology, which, according to Orthodox theologians, includes both the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and the teaching of various Protestant Churches. The soteriology of the Evangelical churches is considered by Orthodox theologians as a derivative of the Roman Catholic teaching on salvation and a failed attempt to resolve the obvious problems of the latter.
The purpose of this article is to characterize the doctrine of salvation of the Orthodox Church in comparison with the main existing soteriological systems and, finally, with the position of the Bible itself. Eastern Orthodox theologians have written many works on the subject of salvation. However, due to the lack of systematization in theology and the mystical nature of Orthodoxy in general, most of these works were not written systematically, which greatly complicates the task of presenting a comprehensive picture of all aspects of Orthodox teaching, including soteriology. For this reason, this research work focuses primarily on one book, which, in the opinion of the author, represents one of the best explanations of the doctrine of salvation of the Orthodox Church. This book was written by Archbishop Sergius of Starogorodsky at the end of the nineteenth century and republished by the official publishing house of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow in 1991. The title of the book is “Orthodox Teaching on Salvation.” This work was originally written by Archbishop Sergius as a thesis for his master's thesis in theology. Later, apparently, it was published in book format.
Key elements of the book
In his book, “Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation,” Archbishop Sergius of Starogorodsky tried to present a study of the Orthodox doctrine of salvation, relating it to similar teachings of the Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations. Finding some similarities in the provisions of Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, the author tries to present the main shortcomings of the Western approach to theology in general and to the problem of saving the human soul in particular. In contrast, he asserts the apparent superiority of the Orthodox position on this issue. Among the long list of doctrinal weaknesses of Catholics and Protestants given in the book, three points play a dominant role: the author especially emphasizes the method of forming Orthodox theology through the prism of accumulated experience, insisting on its superiority in theology. The second key element he puts forward is found in the very source of Orthodox theology (oral tradition, in his opinion, more accurately conveys the true essence of Christian life than the written word). These two elements, (despite the fact that they reveal the author's understanding of the subject quite well) are only mentioned and briefly assessed in this work. In fact, they have more to do with issues related to the field of theology and bibliology. The third key element of the book is the author's argument that the Orthodox doctrine of salvation is superior to Roman Catholic and Protestant soteriological positions simply because the latter are based on a legal model of worldview, while the former is based on a moral or ethical model. This position clearly prevails in Orthodox theology. It was this that became the main point of the book of the Archbishop of Starogorodsky, and will be studied in more detail in this article.
Experience confirms theology
As is customary among theologians of the Orthodox Church, already at the very beginning of the book the author emphasizes that his approach to the issue of salvation will not be theoretical in its basis. Accusing Western theologians and philosophers of speculating on speculative conclusions that are far from real life, he argues that the truth of any worldview can and should be confirmed only by the practical result of the life of its follower. In other words, every doctrine must reflect the reality of life that it explains. If this does not happen, then the entire system of doctrines is wrong. “Life” in the understanding of Archbishop Sergius is the highest arbiter who makes a determination about the viability or failure of any theological or philosophical system. He writes: “Life is the best means for determining and clarifying the true worldview of a person or one or another philosophical system, as well as for evaluating this worldview.” The author finds support for this opinion in 1 John 2:4 “Whoever says, ‘I know Him,’ but does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
At first glance, his position seems correct: theology should bring real fruit to the lives of believers. Starting from this obvious fact, the author, however, concludes that life experience is something more than just a reflection or fruit of correct theology, it is its essence and measure. In other words, theology as he understands it must relate to and correspond to life experience. Jesus clearly taught that commandments and doctrine should influence and shape the lives of believers. At the same time, this statement, being true in one part (a person’s theology influences the way he lives), is false in another (it is wrong to reshape one’s theology in order to fit it to certain aspects of life).
The Canonized Authority of the Church Fathers
The second element of the author's argument is based on the assertion of the high authority of oral tradition, especially such an aspect as the life of the church fathers. He considers this tradition a more accurate reflection of real Christianity than any discussion of Christian doctrine.
“We know that Jesus Christ brought us first and most importantly new life and taught it to the apostles, and that the task of church tradition is not just to pass on teaching, but to pass on from generation to generation precisely this life conceived with Christ, to pass on precisely what is not passed on no word, no letter, but only direct communication between individuals."
Again, as with experience and theology, this idea is sound enough on its face. Indeed, it is true that Jesus Christ did not bring the dead letter of some speculative doctrine. He brought real life from God, which found its practical expression in the life and ministry of His disciples. However, to claim that Jesus' words did not express the fullness of God's revelation to people, that there was something else that complemented His word that made Christianity real, is to create some serious problems. (1) First of all, this approach is in direct opposition to the clear teaching of Scripture. The Bible declares in a tone that cannot be contradicted that the written word of God is the only and absolutely sufficient source of true Christian life (John 17:17; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Peter 1:23-25). (2) The second problem is that the author’s understanding of the life and teachings of the church fathers also comes from written works (which, at the same time, are not inspired by God, unlike biblical texts). A fair question arises: if certain truths could not be written down by the apostles of Christ at the dawn of the church, then on what basis did this become possible thanks to the later participation of the church fathers? Turning to the teaching or life experience of the church fathers, the author continues to draw information from the same written sources. Moreover, these works are less authoritative and therefore much more limited in conveying truth than the biblical text. This makes the author's argument about the superiority of oral tradition in the process of forming correct theology completely meaningless.
Moral model of worldview versus legal
As mentioned above, the main argument used by the author of the “Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation” is a worldview model based on an ethical rather than a legal approach. This is how it is presented in his book:
“Before me stood two completely different worldviews, not reducible to one another: legal and moral, Christian. I called the first legal, because the best expression of this worldview is the Western legal system, in which the individual and his moral dignity disappear, and only individual legal units and the relations between them. God is understood mainly as the first cause and the Ruler of the world, closed in his absoluteness - His relations with man are similar to the relations of a king with a subordinate and are not at all similar to a moral union."
Archbishop Sergius of Starogorodsky correctly defines the essence of Christian life: “My general conclusion is this: the true life of a person is in communion with God.” It is true that the Christian life is not simply the result of a court decision officially exonerating a person. Christian life consists of a radical change in the state of the human heart, its essence; this is what connects a person with his Creator and God in an inextricable union. The main question is how does this happen? How to correlate these things: the inner change of a true Christian and the righteousness of Christ, His death and His resurrection. Answering this question, Sergius Starogorodsky downplays the role of justification in the process of salvation in its legal sense and insists on the absolute primacy of the moral aspect, i.e. moral transformation of man. It is this, in his opinion, that plays the leading role in the process of salvation:
It is possible to be a partaker of this eternal life only through assimilation to God (hence the need for good deeds, that is, spiritual and moral growth), but this assimilation is possible only when God comes to man, and man recognizes and accepts God.
The purpose of this article is to evaluate the position of Orthodox theology on the nature of salvation, comparing it with biblical teaching, both in its legal and moral aspects. What is the biblical understanding of the role of the legal aspect of salvation? How does it relate to the moral aspect of salvation? These and other related questions form the essence of our conversation.
Overview of the Orthodox position
Although Orthodox theology is quite isolated from the rest of the religious world, it did not develop in a vacuum. The culture and philosophy of the eastern peoples, with their traditions and worldview, significantly influenced the formation of Orthodox theology. One of the key differences between Orthodox theologians and their Catholic and Protestant colleagues is their open rejection of the legal or judicial aspect of justification. The role of law and legal institutions is, in general, minimal in Eastern countries. This is clearly seen in the cultural and political life of Russian society, in which the majority of the population is always skeptical of the law and the legislative system, preferring to believe in a “good” tsar or ruler more than in justice. This perception also influenced the formation of an experimental approach in Orthodox theology, which downplays the role of legal relations between people and exalts the ethical, moral component, contrasting this with everything else.
Disadvantages of the legal approach in soteriology
To demonstrate the superiority of Orthodox teaching on the issue of salvation, Sergius Stargorodsky begins his book with a long argument of why the legal approach to the question of salvation is incorrect. He gives several reasons: (1) the legal approach was a consequence of the Roman socio-political system; (2) it is contrary to Scripture; (3) it goes against our conscience.
Historical and theological issues
Sergius Stargorodsky sees the first problem in the historical development of Western churches. He believes that the main reason for Western churches' adoption of the judicial model of salvation was the high status of law and the dominance of a highly developed legal system in Roman society. The legal system of Rome was so deeply ingrained in the Western way of life that it inevitably affected the Christian local church.
From its very first historical steps, Christianity collided with Rome and had to reckon with the Roman spirit and the Roman way or way of thinking, while ancient Rome, rightly, is considered the bearer and exponent of law, the law. Law was the main element in which all his concepts and ideas revolved: law was the basis of his personal life, it also determined all his family, social and state relations. Religion was no exception - it was also one of the applications of law. Becoming a Christian, the Roman tried to understand Christianity precisely from this side - he sought in it, first of all, legal consistency.
His logic is simple: Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, among a population in whose life a highly developed legal system played a significant role. This attitude towards civil justice in society was transferred to religious life, which formed their doctrine of salvation. The legal approach to the issue of spiritual justification, adopted from Roman society, according to the author, became not just a mistake of the West, but brought confusion into the entire theology of Catholic, and later Protestant churches.
In his book, the Archbishop of Stargorod insists that the judicial approach is not only erroneous, but also very dangerous. In his opinion, Western theology is concerned only with the legal status of man, and not with his moral, i.e. present state. If we assert that a person is justified on the basis of a legal procedure occurring outside him, then he does not require any moral change. The Western focus on achieving the status of righteousness before God, instead of focusing on living a righteous life, makes the entire Christian experience, according to Stargorodsky, a fake. When people consider themselves justified before God, but in reality their inner essence has not been changed, when they do not practice godliness of heart, expressed in the good works of their souls, they only deceive themselves, believing that they are saved, when in fact they are not saved. Sergius Stargorodsky considers the moral and legal aspects of salvation as mutually exclusive:
The moral union requires moral conformity and penetrates with its demands and instructions into the very sanctuary of human conscience. The legal system never penetrates there, being content with observing the externally agreed framework and leaving a person as a complete master within himself...
The adoption of a legal theory of salvation instead of a moral one, according to the author, ultimately leads the Western Church to incorrect theology. He believes that judicial justification, and by extension the theology based on this idea, goes against the reality of spiritual experience and the conscience of man.
Without penetrating into the inner work of those being saved, the mind stops at the external side and bases its conclusions on it alone. It is not surprising if in this way he arrives at positions that are absurd from the point of view of spiritual experience and before the judgment of human conscience
Rejecting the legal view of justification, Sergius Stargorodsky considers both the Catholic and Protestant doctrines of salvation to be erroneous because they are both based on a legal worldview. In his opinion, the theology of both views salvation as a legal act, and not as a moral transformation of the soul. The difference between Catholic and Protestant doctrines of salvation is only a different interpretation of who pays the price for human sin. The author believes that Protestants and Catholics have the same problem: while Catholics insist that a person is obliged to do good deeds in order to at least partially pay for his sin; Protestants claim that Christ Jesus was the one who paid the full price for human sin on the cross. The latter is considered by the author as worse and more dangerous than the first. “If Christ paid for our sins even more than they were worth, why still think that we need to work for this satisfaction ourselves?” Quoting the German theologians of his time, Brettschneider and Hollatz, Sergei Stargorodsky presents the Protestant position as follows:
“Justification is not understood in a physical sense, but in an external and judicial sense. It means not making the wicked righteous, but in a judicial sense, declaring righteous, considering, declaring righteous, and this for the sake of the merit of Jesus Christ, i.e. for the sake of an extraneous event, having no connection with my inner being. Justification in this way is a completely external act, an act that acts not in a person, but outside and around a person. Therefore, the consequence of this act can only be a change in the relationship between God and man himself. man does not change. We are sinners before, but God treats us by virtue of Christ’s merits, as if we had not sinned, but, on the contrary, fulfilled the law, or as if Christ’s merit were ours.”
In his approach to the theological understanding of salvation, Sergei Stargorodsky, like most Orthodox theologians, says that real salvation must grow from the internal moral change of a person in the process of achieving righteousness as an integral property of his soul. Instead of seeking outward righteousness, man must work hard to change the inner being, beginning with the germ of "good" that resides in everyone, and trusting that the grace of Christ will provide all necessary assistance in the process. He believes that all other ways of salvation, whether declaring a person righteous based on the merits of Christ (Protestants) or on the merits of a person (Catholics), ultimately deal with an external factor.
Sergei Stargorodsky considers all attempts to combine imputed righteousness with the internal process of moral transformation of the soul to be a useless addition that does not change anything. Since a person is not actually righteous, but is only considered righteous, this is nothing more than self-deception. Catholics and Protestants must be mistaken simply because the positions of both have as their starting point only an external recognition of righteousness, which in reality is not connected with the internal transformation of a person.
Contradiction to Scripture
Sergius Stargorodsky considers the second problem of the non-Orthodox view of salvation to be its alleged inconsistency with Scripture. This is an interesting question, because, as a rule, Orthodox theologians themselves much more often refer not to the Bible as such, but to the works of the church fathers. It must be admitted that, although the author himself does not often turn to the interpretation of the Biblical text, he does consider several passages of Scripture that, in his opinion, speak of a moral rather than a legal model of salvation. However, even these few texts are mostly either taken out of context or quoted from the writings of the church fathers, looking at these passages through their eyes and interpreting them according to the arguments of the church fathers. Most of the texts that, in his opinion, support the Orthodox position testify to the need for sincere performance of good deeds and the need for a heart directed toward God. These include passages such as Matthew 11:12 “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who use force take it by force...”, Gal.6:7-10, Matt. 24:24, Rom.13:10, Matt. 25:34, Isa. 66:1-4, etc. All of these verses focus on the inner condition of the human heart and the importance of expressing godliness in one's relationship with God. Although none of these passages directly teach that sincerely doing good works will lead to salvation, and there are many other passages that directly teach the opposite, the author still comes to the desired conclusion by looking at these passages of Scripture through the eyes of the church fathers. All this is the basis for the claim of Sergius of Stargorod that Scripture supports his position.
Contradiction of conscience and religious experience
Sergius Stargorodsky finds the next reason for refuting the legal approach to salvation in what he calls the contradiction with the voice of conscience and religious experience. He believes that the best part of the human soul is always looking for real life and salvation and therefore will never be satisfied with a formal judicial justification, which in fact is only an external declaration of righteousness, not related to its inner goodness and fear of God. This, according to the author, is confirmed in the religious experience of many saints, “and experience and tradition alone said that good deeds are necessary not only in the sense of a consequence, but also in the sense of a condition of salvation.” He views Catholic theology as an attempt to combine the meaning of tradition and religious experience with his legal worldview. In his opinion, they created a system that, although it leaves room for human participation in salvation, but due to the Western legal worldview, is still focused on external works, which are regarded as the price in the transaction for human righteousness. Regarding the Protestant doctrine of good works as the result or fruit of righteousness, he says that connecting good works with imputed righteousness in any case would contradict the very essence of the Protestant idea of substitutionary justification. If Protestants allow this to some extent, they do so only because they are unable to resist the pressure of the voice of conscience and the demands of human nature, which cannot be silenced. He is convinced that it is a truism that a righteous or holy person must actually be a saint, and not just call himself a saint. Sergius Stargorodsky believes that if good deeds coming from the heart are not a vital part of salvation, then salvation becomes simply an external declaration of a person’s righteousness, which does not reflect the actual state of his heart. Contrary to this statement, the need for good deeds remains unfounded, because in this case the motivation for a God-fearing life comes not from salvation itself, but from outside: from the call to duty, from the need to thank God, etc. This leads him to the conclusion that the personal desire to do good must be an integral part of human salvation.
The Excellence of the Moral Approach in Theology
Instead of an external, legal model of salvation, which, according to Sergius of Stargorodsky, only declares, but does not make a person truly righteous, Orthodox theology takes a position that concentrates on the moral state of a person. The main meaning of human salvation, according to Sergius of Stargorod, is the knowledge of God, and this is not just an intellectual understanding of certain facts, but a personal, intimate knowledge of God, which comes through cleansing oneself from sin and through communication with God. As a person grows in the knowledge of God, he learns to live morally and godly, becoming more and more godlike. By learning the essence of good deeds, a person comes to know God through his own experience as He is. This leads Sergius of Stargorod to the conclusion: “The concepts of Godlikeness and virtue, thus, ultimately turn out to be identical.” Following the affirmation of this principle, he takes the next step: “Cleansing yourself from sinful filth, achieving heartfelt purity, therefore, means preparing yourself, becoming capable of God-knowledge and God-likeness.” Thus, the logic is simple, since God is just and righteous, a person can become righteous only through achieving godlikeness. Since achieving Godlikeness and doing good deeds are equivalent ideas, in order for a person to truly become righteous, he needs to focus on doing good deeds, which is only possible with the assistance of God's grace. Salvation, therefore, becomes a gradual process of growth in Godlikeness that brings more and more of God's righteousness into the life of the Christian.
Receiving eternal life does not mean moving from one area of existence to another, but means acquiring a certain spiritual disposition. Eternal life, therefore, does not work out, but gradually grows in a person.
Since the process of salvation is aimed at making a person righteous, and not simply at declaring him so, it must include his full, free and voluntary participation and cooperation. If this happens against or regardless of his will, then he will not be truly righteous, i.e. God-like. Thus, the only way for a person to be saved is through his personal conscious efforts, which, with God's help, will ultimately make a person a saint.
If a person is to become righteous, he must become free from sin. Therefore, it is very important whether he will be simply a passive recipient of the influence of supernatural power, or whether he will participate in his own liberation. This is why the Holy Scriptures and the works of the church fathers reflect a constant desire to convince a person to achieve his salvation, because without personal efforts, the salvation of not a single person is possible.
The logic of the above leads the author to a direct denial of the possibility of the substitutionary nature of salvation. Since, real holiness must be built on the moral virtue of a person: it requires the voluntary rejection of evil and personal, constant choice of good. This makes him godlike and therefore holy and righteous. Sergius Stargorodsky says:
Holiness, if it is an involuntary property of nature, will lose its moral character and turn into an indifferent state. You can't be kind out of necessity. Therefore, it is equally wrong to imagine salvation as a matter imputed to a person from the outside, as well as a supernatural transformation occurring in a person apart from the participation of his freedom.
He continues:
“Every good thing that happens in a person, every moral growth, every turning point that occurs in his soul, is necessarily accomplished not outside of consciousness and freedom, so that it is not someone else, but the person himself who changes himself, turning from the old into the new. Salvation is not may be some external judicial or physical event, but it is necessarily a moral action and, as such, it necessarily presupposes, as an inevitable condition and law, that a person himself performs this action, albeit with the help of grace...
Thus, starting with the obvious need for moral transformation of the sinner for his salvation, Orthodox theologians move on to the complete denial of Christ's imputed righteousness and substitutionary sacrifice, making human efforts essentially the foundation of salvation.
An assessment of the Orthodox teaching on salvation. General observations
Comparison of Orthodox soteriology with the doctrine of salvation of the Pelagians and Catholics
Although the soteriological positions of the Eastern Orthodox Church appear similar to the Pelagian doctrine of salvation, there are nevertheless some significant differences. While the Pelagians completely deny the destructive effect of Adam's sin on man, Orthodox theologians believe that the fall of Adam affected all humanity, making it difficult for them to come to God. Another important difference is that Orthodox theology is not based on self-realization or self-righteousness, as in Pelagian teaching, but on man's voluntary desire to imitate and reflect God's righteousness expressed in His goodness.
This is why, when speaking about good deeds, Orthodox theologians talk more about the inner aspiration of the human heart towards God and His will, which is recognized as the highest good. Unlike Catholics, they focus not so much on the fact of external fulfillment, but on the importance of growing in God's likeness through imitation of His virtue and piety, the desire for which is truly present in the heart of every person.
Comparison with Protestants
To evaluate the Orthodox doctrine of salvation in comparison with the Protestant or evangelical position, it is first necessary to make several important observations. Perhaps the biggest and most important difference between these two theological approaches lies precisely in their position in relation to Adam's sin and its effect on man. While Protestants are convinced that every person has inherited a sinful nature and personal guilt before God, Orthodox theologians insist that the guilt of Adam's sin is not passed on to subsequent generations, because otherwise God would have to punish people for their guilt another person (in this case for the sin of Adam). Another aspect of the difference of opinion regarding the influence of sin is that, according to the Orthodox position, although man was seriously wounded by sin, he did not become dead as a result of the Fall.
Apart from these differences in assessing the influence of sin, the Orthodox, unlike Protestants, do not make much of a distinction between the three main stages of salvation: conversion - rebirth, sanctification and glorification. Without making this distinction, Orthodox theologians interpret the texts of Scripture that speak of sanctification as speaking of the initial stage of salvation. Those passages that Protestants consider as an appeal to regenerate people, speaking about the importance of good works and piety in their growth in salvation (as in 1 Peter 1:9; 2:1-3), Orthodox theologians interpret as a general characteristic of the process of salvation, which thus becomes directly dependent on human efforts. Archbishop Sergius of Stargorod presents the Orthodox position of the inseparability of the process of salvation as follows:
“Thus, the whole work of salvation is presented in the following form: a person here on earth works, works on himself, creates the kingdom of God in himself, and through this now begins, little by little, to become a partaker of eternal life, to the extent that he has the strength and ability for this communion ".
Another important element of Orthodox soteriology lies in their artificial separation of the moral aspect of salvation from its legal and other aspects. When speaking about salvation, Scripture covers this issue from different angles. Salvation certainly clearly entails a moral or ethical transformation of a person, however, at the same time, it has its legal or legal side, which deals with the consequences of a person's crime and his guilt. In addition, Scripture speaks of salvation as a restoration of family ties, as a matter of repentance, conversion and spiritual rebirth. Other passages speak of salvation as a matter of faith and sanctification. Focusing on one (moral) element of salvation and downplaying others makes the approach of Orthodox theologians to this issue one-sided. To gain a complete understanding of salvation, it would be logical to try to obtain a complete picture that would take into account all aspects of salvation as they are presented in the Bible.
Another important observation that needs to be made is that Sergius of Stargorodsky at times misrepresents the Protestant doctrine of salvation. Therefore, speaking against the Protestant doctrine of salvation, Archbishop Sergius of Stargorod often fights against a view that, although some Protestants adhere to, in reality this view cannot characterize all evangelical believers, or even the majority of them, and, of course, it cannot be presented as Biblical view. Arguing against the supposedly incorrect position of Protestants regarding the process of salvation, he presents a point of view that certainly cannot express the position of evangelical believers:
According to Protestant teaching, it turns out that God was angry with man all the time, all the time he could not forgive him for the insult that man inflicted on Him through sin. Then, suddenly, seeing a person’s faith in Jesus Christ, God is reconciled with the person and no longer considers him his enemy, although the person may still sin after this, but with impunity.
Misunderstanding the Nature of Sin
One of the main elements on which Orthodox soteriology is based concerns their view of the nature of sin. What is the root of the problem from which man must be saved? Orthodox theologians believe that although sin has had a negative impact on man, he continues to retain within himself a source of goodness, a kind of inner desire to seek God and seek communion with his Creator. The sin inherited from Adam makes human life difficult, but despite this, he has enough of his own internal abilities to turn to God. The second relevant question is: is man guilty before God? What is the nature of the conflict between God and man? Is there only enmity on the human side or also anger on the divine side in this conflict? Representing the Orthodox position, Sergius Stargorodsky decisively rejects the possibility of God's wrath and with the same conviction defends the opinion that a person is capable of independently turning to God:
Is it possible to imagine that God would be at enmity against a person for his sin, so that God could not be reconciled with a person, even though the latter thirsted for God with all his soul and prayed for communion with Him? Remaining faithful to the Word of God and the teachings of the fathers, we can only say: no.
Explaining this thesis, he points to God's patient work with fallen man throughout human history, quoting John Chrysostom: "God is never at enmity with us, it is we who oppose Him." Sergius of Stargorodsky also finds support for this position in some texts of the Old Testament, such as Is.57:15-16, which speaks of the need for humility of the human spirit as a prerequisite for God’s relationship with man. After quoting Isaiah 57:15-16, he writes:
Therefore, God’s love does not place sin as an absolute obstacle to the rapprochement of God with man; Wherever there is a humble and contrite person, where there is a noticeable desire to give up sin and be with God, God’s love does not leave without help.
Although such a conclusion seems quite logical for the Archbishop of Stargorod, it can hardly have support in Holy Scripture. Yes, indeed, God loves a humble and contrite heart. However, the Bible is very clear that the true essence of sinful man is the pride and stubbornness of his heart.
Sinful man is spiritually dead
In describing the condition of fallen man, the Bible teaches that he is neither more nor less than dead in his sins and trespasses (Eph. 2:1-2). God warned Adam on the day of his creation about the inevitable consequences of sin. This warning was expressed with a strong statement: “You will die.” At this point, the Bible talks about death for the first time. Death is clearly presented in Genesis as an inevitable consequence of sin. The Apostle Paul in Romans 6:23 speaks of death as the wages of sin, i.e. as its direct result. Recognizing that the Bible clearly teaches about spiritual death as a result of the Fall, but also not wanting to deviate from the belief that a person remains “good” within himself, Orthodox theologians define the mortality of a sinful person more as the ability to die physically, but not as a spiritual inability to create good. Orthodox theologian John Meyendorff writes: “The inheritance of the Fall is essentially the inheritance of physical mortality, not sinfulness.” However, this definition of spiritual death, with reference to Genesis 2:17, contradicts some clear passages of the Bible that teach that spiritual death actually means a person's lack of desire and ability to choose good. The meaning of Adam's sin was that he began to consider himself "god", thus the essence of sin was manifested in an attempt to achieve independence from God and put himself at the center of everything. Human selfishness has become the main element of his fallen nature. This selfish nature of man has no need of God. Man's self-centeredness after the fall is simply incompatible with the desire to recognize God as Master and Master. It is unnatural for fallen man to thirst for God and seek a relationship with Him. Even if this selfish person accepts the obvious existence of God, he will do everything possible to suppress the truth. (Rom. 1:18). In order for a sinful person to want to seek God, his very essence must change. This is why Jesus clearly teaches the absolute necessity for man to be born again. (John 3:5). Thus we can conclude that fallen man is self-centered in his natural tendencies. To leave his position of superiority, he must die to himself and be born again, which the Bible teaches is accomplished in him, through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Sinful man is guilty before God
The Orthodox Church rejects much of the idea that Adam's sin was passed on to his descendants. It teaches that humanity is guilty only in the sense that in sinning it imitates Adam and thus acquires its own guilt. Supporting this position, Sergius of Starogorodsky argues that it is impossible for God to be angry with a person. God loves man, he says, and the problem of enmity between man and God lies only in man's enmity towards God, which he must change. Recognizing that God hates sin, the Archbishop of Stargorod, nevertheless, insists that despite this, God loves sinners: “The sinner, as an individual, has never ceased and will never cease to be the object of God’s strongest love.”
The main problem with this approach is that sin is seen as a certain kind of object that a person possesses; he has the right to keep it or throw it away. However, the Bible teaches that the essence of human sin lies not so much in anything a person has or does, but in who he is. This is a characteristic of his fallen nature. Sin is a state of rebellion against God. As was shown above, human sin, his self-centeredness, his rebellion against God, all this shows the main characteristic of his fallen nature. This makes it impossible to separate a person from his sin. From this follows the following conclusion: God's holiness does not tolerate sin in any of its manifestations, and it will not tolerate the sinner either.
One of the reasons why Orthodox theologians cannot accept the reality of God's wrath towards sinful man is due to a misunderstanding of the nature of His wrath. They rather view it as divine dissatisfaction with what man is doing. However, the Bible teaches that God's warmth is a response of His absolute holiness, which does not tolerate anything sinful or rebelling against Him. Sergius of Stargorodsky presents God's wrath only as God's dissatisfaction with man, as a kind of whim that needs to be satisfied. Having such a caricatured view of God's wrath, he says that He cannot be characterized by such feelings. Defining God's anger as an ordinary emotion, Sergius of Stargorod is convinced that since God's love is greater than His displeasure with man, He will easily step over this feeling when man turns to Him. He can forgive, forget and pretend that nothing happened, if only a person changes his attitude towards God. This means that there is no need for reconciliation and atonement to satisfy God's just wrath.
To understand this aspect more clearly, it is necessary to return again to the topic of the nature of sin. The Bible does not present sin as a specific passive condition or disease inherited from Adam. She rather describes it as active resistance to God! Yes, if sinfulness were only a passive state in which man was born, then the punishment of man for the sin of his forefathers would be dishonest and unjust. However, man inherited from Adam an active position of opposition to God. This means that everyone who comes from Adam's family is full of self-centeredness and claims to their own divinity, and actively opposes the true God, challenging their rights as opposed to God's sovereignty. Thus, man's sinful condition is not simply something that man (or his forefathers) did in the past, and therefore God must simply forget it. Since God is a perfect and absolute being (Matthew 5:48), His holiness protects His perfection, and therefore, without proper protection, it is impossible for sinful man to approach Him. Because man's sin cannot be separated from his nature, man must inevitably die, because "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins" (Heb. 9:22). That is why the perfect sacrifice of Christ was so necessary when He took upon Himself the sin of man and with it God's wrath for this sin. A correct understanding of man's guilt before God is not only critical to understanding the need for Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice, but it also explains why God holds man responsible for his unbelief when he himself is unable to believe. He is deprived of the ability to believe, not because God created him that way, but because he himself openly and actively rebels against his Creator.
Misunderstanding the Nature of Salvation
As shown above, the Orthodox understanding of the issue of salvation is based not on declaring a person righteous, but on the basis of his internal moral change. The problem of separating two such important questions will be considered in this chapter a little later, but now it is necessary to look at how Orthodox theologians explain the starting point in the process of salvation. One of the key questions in this regard is: what made it possible for a sinful person who is at enmity with God to admit his guilt, turn to God and begin to change into His image? Archbishop Sergius of Stargorod is convinced that this kind of change occurs at the moment of the sacrament of baptism.
The essence of baptism or the sacrament of repentance consists, therefore, in a radical revolution accomplished in the soul of a person, in a change in his entire life. Man was a slave to sin, fulfilled the lusts of the devil, was an enemy of God - now he decides to stop sin and be in communion with the Holy Lord. This decision, of course, is a matter of human freedom, but it is made in the soul, only under the influence and with the help of grace, which is communicated in the sacrament.
This quote quite accurately illustrates the general view of the Orthodox Church on salvation. Such salvation is undoubtedly rooted in man himself. If you follow the logic of Sergius of Stargorod, man was an enemy of God and then simply decided to become His friend. With this desire, he turned to the church, which provides him with access to the grace of God, which in turn helps him in his path to please God. Man-initiated and man-centered salvation, along with the artificial separation between its moral and legal aspects, plays a major role in the formation of Orthodox soteriology.
Is salvation rooted in man or in God?
The man-centered approach to the question of salvation stems from the desire to find something in a person that will prompt God to help him on his path to salvation. The Orthodox believe that there must have been something in man's pre-Christian life that made his coming to God possible. Sergius of Stargorod presents the classic view of Orthodox theology on the relationship between salvation and human life before conversion. He, like many other Orthodox theologians, insists that life before conversion should be the determining factor in this story. Its basic premise is the belief that all people must have equal access to salvation, otherwise God would be an unjust God. Disagreeing with the Roman Catholic understanding of righteousness earned by works, Sergius of Stargorod attempts to create a system that could help him avoid recognizing human works as some kind of merit and basis for salvation, and, at the same time, would justify God saving only some, in while the rest are doomed to destruction. Here's how he reveals the reason for this:
In fact, if the grace of justification is the action of God in man, independent of man, then how to explain its appearance in man? Why does God renew one and deprive another of this mercy? Catholics, as we have seen, did not want and did not have the right to recognize the basis for this as the previous life of a person, since this, translated into legal language, would be salvation through one’s own merit, and not through the merit of Christ. To avoid this, it was necessary to recognize all people without distinction as undeserving of salvation and justification by an exclusively Divine work, as Catholics do. But in this case, why does God renew those and not others?
Rejecting the Roman Catholic view that people can earn their salvation by living before conversion, the Orthodox insist that God does not look for external reasons for saving a person, but for a certain disposition of the heart that precedes his salvation.
The Bible, however, presents salvation in exactly the opposite way. She says that fallen man is completely enslaved by his sinful desires. Bruce Demarest summarizes the Bible's teaching on conversion and repentance, calling it nothing more and nothing less than "a change of mind, absolute consecration, and conduct by which a person who has not yet become a Christian turns from sin to God." To become a Christian, a person requires a complete inner change. As was shown above, this kind of change is completely unnatural for fallen man. His natural desires are aimed at establishing himself, and he does not condemn these desires. Therefore, there must be some factor external to man that would come and revive his soul, making him able to respond to God’s call. This truth is clearly demonstrated in the Old Testament history of God's dealings with His people Israel. Jeremiah 31:31-33 explains this:
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that covenant They broke mine, although I remained in covenant with them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law within them, and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God. and they will be My people."
The history of God's first covenant with Israel showed that when that covenant was dependent on the behavior of the people, they broke it, and as a result the covenant was broken. Terer, God promises the coming of a new covenant, which will differ from the old one in that God will make a major change in the heart of man. He said, “I will put My law within them and write it on their hearts.” This verse says that God will take the initiative and change the inner being of a person, making him able to have a relationship with Him. This proclamation was repeated in several other passages of the Old Testament (Jer. 32:40; Ezek. 11:19; 36:26, etc.), and is also clearly presented in the New Testament as the fulfillment of these prophetic words (Heb. 10:16 ). Jesus presents salvation as the second birth (John 3:5), which is initiated by the Father (John 6:44). Paul repeatedly points out that salvation is God's work in the human heart. (Rom. 2:4; 2 Tim. 2:25)
It is quite obvious that there are enough texts in the Holy Scriptures to support the belief that salvation cannot be brought about by fallen man, but is given by God. The only explanation why Orthodox theologians adhere to a man-centered approach to the question of salvation is their absolute conviction that salvation must be based on moral change in man, which seems impossible to them within the framework of a God-centered model. This is mainly because they view human moral transformation as self-initiated, most significant, and completely divorced from other aspects of salvation.
The problem of separating the moral and legal aspects of salvation
According to Sergius of Stargorod, the asserted superiority of the Orthodox doctrine of salvation lies in the fact that it is based on the moral transformation of the believer, which, with the help of grace, makes him truly righteous. The legal approach to salvation, in his opinion, focuses only on declaring a person righteous, thanks only to the externally imputed righteousness of Christ to the sinner, without the real need for a change of heart of the sinner. In his opinion, these two positions are mutually exclusive and, therefore, cannot be true at the same time. However, Biblical teaching presents a completely different opinion. The Bible does not look at salvation only from a moral or legal perspective; it takes into account a number of different factors. When dealing with such a wonderful idea as salvation, man is limited by the lack of words in his language and ideas in his imagination, which makes him unable to present heavenly concepts like salvation in a complete, comprehensive picture. For this reason, the biblical authors, when explaining various aspects of the complex truth of salvation, presented each of these aspects from different angles, as an inseparable part of the overall picture. Thus, when speaking of salvation, the Bible speaks of atonement, conversion, renewal, repentance, comparing it to the restoration of the family, the second birth, death and resurrection, etc. Indeed, salvation involves the moral change of a person, but there are also many passages of Scripture that teach about salvation as a legal act (Rom. 3:28; 4:2-6; 10:10; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor.5:21; Phil. 3:8-9, etc.). This means that one provision does not need to be pitted against another, but rather that one provision is intended to complement the other. To see in salvation only the aspect of moral change in the inner essence of a person means to oversimplify this issue, ignoring other extremely important components.
The Biblical Nature of Salvation
As has been mentioned many times in this work, the real meaning of salvation lies in the liberation of man from sin and its conditions. Archbishop Sergius of Stargorod, along with many other Orthodox theologians, believes that in order to get rid of sin, a person must humble himself, turn to God and begin the process of acquiring piety in achieving godlikeness. This sounds attractive and understandable enough, but it creates a bit of a problem. The Bible teaches that it is only possible for a person to become truly humble, to deny himself and turn to the service of God, if he is already freed from sin. This puts him in a vicious circle that he is unable to break. Being by his fallen nature filled with sin, selfishness, self-centeredness and enmity with God, man is simply unable to even experience the right desire to be saved. In order to gain the desire for salvation, he needs a radical change, which can only be accomplished by God alone. This is why Jesus taught that man needs a new nature and a new birth (John 3:5). The old sinful nature must die, and a new nature given by God himself must be born (John 1:12-13). This is why the Old Testament prophets foretold that the time would come when God would establish a new covenant, which would be based on a change of heart (Jer. 31:31-33). Both the Old Testament prophets and also Jesus Christ clearly show that this process is initiated and carried out by God. During the Old Testament, God already gave man a chance to build and maintain a relationship with Him. However, man turned out to be unfaithful, breaking his covenant with God. It is for this reason that God establishes a new covenant, which does not depend on sinful man, but is established in the unchangeable God (Jer. 32:40). Recognition of the dominant role of God in the matter of salvation, in the author’s opinion, reconciles all possible disagreements in the best possible way. However, even after such a rather lengthy discussion, there are still a number of questions that require explanation. One of these questions is: “Why does God save some and not others?” It must be recognized that, of course, there are things that we are not able to understand while living here on earth. The process of salvation itself is a great mystery. Therefore, there will inevitably be tension in man's attempt to understand salvation in all its minute details. Anyone who has attempted to combine all the elements of the doctrine of salvation has been forced to admit in the end that some of these elements are an inexplicable mystery. Thus, Sergius of Stargorodsky, presenting the Orthodox doctrine of salvation, begins from the very beginning with a certain tension:
“We believe that we are saved by Jesus Christ alone, that only through Christ alone can we be accepted by God, but we also believe (and of this we find constant testimony in our conscience) that God honors everyone with a portion according to his good works.”
However, the constant witness of the Bible as God's word must surely take precedence over the constant witness of such a subjective phenomenon as one's conscience.
© Alexey Kolomiytsev, www.site
Orthodox teaching, 17.
Ibid., 21.
Orthodox teaching, 24.
Ibid., 25
The idea of likeness to God or theos plays a leading role in pre-Glorious theology. This is well presented by Christopher of Stavropol in “Partakers of Divine Nature” In Eastern Orthodox Theology, A Contemporary Reader, ed. Daniel B. Clendenin (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995), 183-192.
Orthodox teaching, 20.
Ibid., 38.
This definition is not true for all Protestants. There are some evangelical groups that agree with this statement to some extent. Similar ideas can be found in those Protestant circles where the Lordship of Christ is not accepted in salvation. Zane Hodges believes that the essence of saving faith is limited only by the mental acceptance of the fact of Christ's substitutionary sacrifice. In no case can this be associated with human works, otherwise salvation will be made somewhat dependent on works, and not be entirely a gift of grace. Zane Hodges, Absolutely Free! (Dallas: Redencion Viva, 1989).
This is stated in many texts of Holy Scripture. One of these is Isa. 6:1-7.
ABOUT FAITHFULNESS TO THE CROSS OF CHRIST. ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE KILLING OF WARRIOR EVGENY RODIONOV Archpriest Alexander Shargunov Warrior-Martyr Evgeny Rodionov Constantly turning to the memory of new martyrs and confessors of Russia, we pray that the Lord would grant His Church the grace of repentance at the same depth as the righteousness of its saints. . And we remember not only those who suffered during the years of communist persecution, but also those who suffered for Christ in our days. We know the names of the murdered Hieromonk Nestor, the murdered Hieromonk Vasily and other Optina monks, the murdered Archimandrite Peter and many other innocently murdered Orthodox Christians, among whom there are many priests, monks, girls and children. 20 years have passed since the murder of a new martyr and confessor - the warrior Evgeniy, who accepted death for Christ on May 23, 1996, on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, in the village of Bamut in Chechnya. The day of his death was on his birthday, when he turned 19 years old. We have already heard about other Christian martyrs of Chechen captivity - about the murdered archpriest of Anatolia, about three young soldiers crucified on Good Friday several years ago, about other martyrs of this war. And now - Evgeny Rodionov. All of Russia should see that this is its national hero, and this event should be placed in the middle of the Church, on the candlestick, so that it shines on everyone in our house. What happened? What did his killer tell Evgeniy’s mother in the presence of OSCE representatives? The young soldiers captured were told: “Whoever wants to stay alive should take off his pectoral cross and call himself a Muslim.” When Evgeniy refused to take off his cross, they began to beat him severely. Then they were subjected to bullying and torture, which continued for three months. Then they killed him by cutting off his head. The Chechens themselves pointed out his grave to his mother at great expense. The mother identified her son's body by a cross on his body. It’s amazing that they didn’t even remove the cross from the dead man - they didn’t dare. What is a pectoral cross? Why does Satan hate it so much and does everything to ensure that no one wears it, or wears it simply as a meaningless decoration? Many have probably heard the story about young Lenin, about how as a child, in a fit of rage, in response to persistent invitations to go to church, he ran out of the house into the snow, tore off his cross and began to trample on it. What happens next with Russia will be connected with this episode of his biography. I remember how in the sixties a young woman experienced attacks from the devil after being baptized. At night, in her sleep, such a weight fell on her that, realizing the presence of the unclean, she could not move her hand to cross herself. A gentle and hypnotically commanding voice told her: “Take off the cross, it’s so small.” She was already obediently reaching for the cross, but when she touched it, she came to her senses, read the “Our Father,” crossed herself and heard the devil leave her with a heavy groan. Another young man in the same years told what temptations he experienced after baptism. The devil began to inspire him that external appearances are not necessary, let there be faith in the heart: why wear a cross around your neck, one might say, for show? When he was ready to take off his cross, the Lord told him in a dream: “The cross is a bell on the neck of a sheep, so that the Shepherd can quickly hear it when it is in trouble.” However, even after this he continued to go to church extremely rarely. Even on Easter one day, having returned tired from a business trip, I decided not to go and went to bed. But in the middle of the night he suddenly woke up from a fire burning his chest, and when he involuntarily grabbed the place where the fire came from, he found himself in his hand with a cross on his body, which continued to burn his hand and enveloped his whole body in joyful fire. He looked at his watch: it was exactly twelve. The Easter religious procession began in churches. He jumped up and ran to the nearest church, and from then on his life changed. We do not know what spiritual experiences Eugene had with his pectoral cross. It is quite possible that there were no special ones. Except for the belief that this is the Cross of Christ. The martyrs of Christ are depicted on icons with the Cross of Christ in their hands. And what happened to those who took off their crosses? The devil will never rest until he has completely taken possession of a person. They were ordered to shoot their own prisoners if they wanted to save their lives. And then, after that, one of them was forced in front of a television camera to renounce his own mother, in front of the whole world, to say: “I don’t have a mother, I only have Allah.” Lyubov Vasilyevna, the mother of the new martyr Eugene, said: “What could be harder for a mother than the loss of her son! But the fact that he turned out to be a worthy Christian consoles me. If he had renounced Christ, the Orthodox faith, Russia, his mother, I could not have survived it.” Let's try to comprehend the feat of the new martyr Eugene. First of all, the very picture of the torture of prisoners reveals a lot. There was no torture, physical or mental, that they did not go through. If they yielded, they were lowered even lower. No one can imagine all the horrors to which they were subjected. As one young man who survived Chechen captivity said: “At first they forced me to torture another. And then this one, the other one - me.” Only the devil can think of such a thing. Make people kill each other one by one in order to destroy all communication between people. We are called to be united in Christ, but here we are united in the devil. So that no one believed anyone, no one trusted anyone and everyone was afraid of each other. So that no one resists the triumphant evil - this is what the devil strives for in today's world. So that a person feels that he is absolutely alone, alone as the devil, as one who is in hell. So that there would be a scorched desert all around, so that people would not know where they were going, so that everyone would be gripped by mortal fear. The martyrdom of Eugene and the circumstances of his death make us think, firstly, that the accumulation of evil is so great in the world that we cannot avoid new persecution of the Church. And secondly, about how we must adequately prepare for new challenges. Who were these Chechen murderers who had lost their human appearance and Russian traitors who had cowardly forgotten human dignity? If it weren’t for “perestroika”, they would all have been Komsomol members, like their fathers and grandfathers. But in today's world, evil reaches even greater depths. Don’t you know that through television, through pornographic videos, through rock music, which is extremely demonic, through computer games, young people are taught from childhood how to torture and shoot other people? For many young men raised on this culture, it seems normal and possible to make entertainment out of torture. A woman approached one priest in the temple and told him that she had four children, and two of them - the youngest - had already become involved with a satanic sect. She tearfully asked the priest to pray for these children so that they would return to Christ. The most amazing thing, the priest said, when he blessed them with the cross, it made them angry with him. How the mother suffers! Children are small, and Satan already has them firmly in his power. We are called upon to perceive the feat of the martyrs of our days as a special call to youth, because youth, as we know, is always full of passions, and the atmosphere around us today is destructive. Our enemies want to destroy everyone. If a person does not want to limit himself in anything (and this principle is being introduced into mass consciousness today throughout the world), where will he get the strength not to give in to Satan without hesitation when the hour of testing comes? We are all soldiers of Christ. But rather like those warriors who are bold in their speeches, but have not yet really smelled gunpowder, and things will show what they really are like. We sometimes, perhaps too easily, without thinking, repeat the words that during the years of persecution not only the great glory of the new Russian martyrs appeared, but the shame of an apostasy unprecedented in the history of the Church was revealed. A person can go through any torture and death and be saved. But renounce the faith, renounce everything that is the cornerstone of the soul, say that my whole life is a complete lie, that I don’t believe in Christ God, don’t love my parents, that I don’t care about my Fatherland and the Church, and stay alive - What should a person do with his life after this? To make it clearer what trials Eugene went through (let us repeat once again that he was tortured for three months) and other martyrs, we will cite the testimony of an Orthodox man who went through the Gulag and could not withstand the torture, and then repented. “The hardest part is not the torture,” he said. - They can start torturing you today, and tomorrow someone else, and you will have time to rest. But they are always, like demons, carefully watching you, and want to force you to tell a lie or blaspheme against God at any cost. They don't have time to beat you every day from morning to evening, but they can make you say something against your friend or against God. When you are tortured, after an hour or two hours of suffering, the pain begins to subside. But after renouncing God from the mere consciousness that you have betrayed God, the pain does not stop. Spiritual pain is incomparably more painful than physical pain. What should a person do after this so as not to go crazy? Just pray. It is impossible to survive without repentant prayer.” Many times, this man said, he began to murmur against God: “If You exist, why do You allow all this to happen?” But there were moments when God’s mercy touched him, and he could say: “Lord, forgive me. God help me." And this was enough to know that God exists and that He does not leave him with His love. This man said that it was difficult for him to remember what happened - not torture, not executioners, he forgave them. But it was difficult to forgive himself, although he knew that God would never remind him of his apostasy. By the way, Evgeniy’s mother said that she personally does not find the strength to forgive the killers and pray for them after everything she saw enough when she was looking for her son in Chechnya. And only after the famous poems, rewritten in captivity by the Grand Duchess Olga, fell into her hands, something began to change in her: ...And at the threshold of the grave, put superhuman powers into the mouths of Your slaves to pray meekly for enemies. She began to ask God to let her understand the meaning of the words of the Tsar-Martyr in a letter sent from Tobolsk by the Tsar’s daughter: “Father asks to tell everyone on whom he can have influence, so that they do not avenge him, that the evil that is in the world will still be stronger, but it is not evil that will win, but love.” The most significant thing that can be said about the warrior Eugene is that he participated in suffering for Christ. They killed him because he was a Christian. His feat is the justification for our stay in today's hell. All the gold in the world, all the lies of the media, all the military power of the haters of Russia is behind the war in Chechnya, behind what is happening to our Motherland today. And he showed that the Orthodox faith is stronger. “Thy martyr, Lord, Eugene, in his suffering, received an imperishable crown from You, Christ our God. Having Thy strength, overthrow the tormentors, crush the demons of weak insolence. Save his souls through his prayers.” It is impossible to find more precise words than this general troparion to the martyrs, which we sing every day in church. The significance of his martyrdom is that it shows what Christian dignity is and what human dignity is in a world where the desecration of the Church goes as far as showing a blasphemous film throughout the country, to the public blasphemy of icons in the center of Moscow and the desecration of a person in the total corruption of children and youth. His feat speaks of something very important for our time - the mystery of the inextricable unity of chastity and courage, without which there is no martyrdom. They hit him in the chest, on the back, they knocked out his lungs and kidneys. Our body is a tool through which the enemy wants to get at our soul. He needs to corrupt the body in order to make the soul yielding to evil. Voluptuous people cannot be martyrs for Christ, but only those who love purity, as evidenced by the life of the Church from the holy martyr Boniface to the venerable martyr Elizabeth. This feat today gives everyone the opportunity to see that there is a spiritual world, and that the spiritual world is more important than the material one. That the soul is more valuable than the whole world. His martyrdom, as it were, lifts the curtain from all events and reveals the essence: he reminds that trials come when a person cannot live according to conscience and truth, cannot simply be an honest citizen, a warrior faithful to his oath, cannot help but be a traitor to everyone, if he is not a Christian. I know a person can become a devil; I know that I too can become the devil. Therefore, I have to be very careful and attentive to myself. I must watch myself, stop every slightest deviation towards evil, because evil, once accepted and unrepentant, growing imperceptibly, can fill the entire soul. The devil is very cunning. Christ says that we should be ready to cut off our arm or leg, or pluck out an eye, but only not to give in to the devil’s temptation. These are difficult times for Christians. But those who seek purity and truth, by the grace of God, acquire the ability to resist. God will shorten, is shortening these times, and we must understand that spiritual resistance in today's Russia is more important than any other. We should not prepare for torture, or famine, or anything like that. But we must spiritually and morally prepare ourselves to keep our soul and our face, God’s image in man, unclouded. We must trust God and know that He will not abandon His own. These are not words, not just beautiful words - this is life, which is testified to by thousands of new Russian martyrs and confessors, the new martyr Eugene and all the holy martyrs of our days, and to which we are called to testify. Archpriest Alexander Shargunov
“According to the action of the evil one,” says St. Ephraim the Syrian, everyone was exhausted by evil: the damage became so severe and could not be healed that neither the prophets nor the priests were able to completely heal the ulcers. For this reason (this is the reason) the Holy Only Begotten Son, seeing. that everything naturally becomes exhausted in evil (this is the essence of disaster), by the will of the Father, descending from heaven, ... came with grace and generosity to heal those possessed by various infirmities and with His word to heal all diseases, He delivered everyone from the stench of their own ulcers". The goal of salvation and meaning is “getting rid of the stench of a person’s own ulcers.” I, says Rev. Ephraim the Syrian in another place, was saved from many debts, from a legion of sins, from the grave bonds of unrighteousness and from the snares of sin. Saved from evil deeds, from secret iniquities, from the filth of corruption, from the abomination of delusions. I rose from this mud, came out of this ditch, came out of this darkness; Heal, O Lord, according to Your false promise, all the infirmities that You see in me.” In these words, Rev. Ephraim not only expresses the essence of salvation from the side of its content, but also makes it clear its very form, the way in which it is accomplished: it is not some external judicial or magical action, but a development gradually accomplished in man by the action of God’s grace, so that there may be degrees of atonement. “Perfect, St. expresses the same thought. a father, a Christian, produces every virtue and everything that surpasses our nature, the perfect fruits of the spirit... with delight and spiritual pleasure, as natural and ordinary, without fatigue and easily, no longer struggling with sinful passions, as completely redeemed by the Lord" .
The same idea can be found in very clear form in St. Athanasius of Alexandria. “Because,” he says, human nature, having undergone a change, abandoned righteousness and loved lawlessness; then the Only Begotten became man, so that in Himself he could correct this, inspire human nature love the truth and hate lawlessness. This was the reason for the incarnation. For this sake of the anointing of Thee, O God.” For what exactly? So that those who have become Your partakers may rejoice; as those who received mercy because they learned from you to love truth and hate lawlessness.”
Christ is called, according to St. Gregory the Theologian, “Deliverance” (I Cor. 1:30), as liberating us who are contained under sin. as having given himself for us as a ransom, as a cleansing sacrifice for the universe.”
So, from the Orthodox point of view, the essence, meaning and final goal of a person’s salvation is to deliver him from sin and to grant him eternal holy life in communion with God. The Orthodox Christian by no means forgets about the consequences of sin, death, suffering, etc., and is by no means ungrateful to God for deliverance from them, but this deliverance is not the main joy for him, as it is in the legal understanding of life. Like the Apostle Paul, the Orthodox lament not so much that he is threatened with punishment for sin, from which (sin) he cannot in any way free himself, but rather that he cannot “get rid of this body of death” in which “another law” lives , opposing the “law of the mind” that delights him (Rom. YI, 22 - 25). It is not fear for oneself, but the desire for holiness, for life according to God, that makes a true ascetic of piety grieve.
If this is the essence of salvation, then the very method of it becomes definite for us.
If you think only about freeing a person from suffering, then it is completely indifferent whether this deliverance is free or not free on the part of the person: the whole point is in the person’s complacency. But if a person needs to be done righteous it is necessary to free one from sin, then it is not at all indifferent whether a person will only be a passive object for the action of supernatural power, or whether he himself will participate in his own deliverance.
That's why, in St. Scripture and in the works of the Fathers of the Church and one notices a constant desire to convince people commit your own salvation, because no one can be saved without their own efforts. It is certain that “man is nothing without God; while God contains, controls and enlightens it, something is and is shown to be: but when God hides His light and takes away its vital force, it immediately disappears; and that, therefore, salvation can only be attributed to the grace of God. However, “God adorned man with the gift of freedom” and gave him the opportunity to do by free choice what is a gift of nature for animals. And this is in order to make a person a participant in true life, that is, holy, Divine, since involuntary holiness cannot be holiness and the highest good of a person, and the goal of his aspirations. “Good cannot be pleasant to people and communication with God will not be dear to them; they could not particularly seek goodness if it existed in people without their own effort or diligence, if it were innate by nature and without their participation... For how can those who do not know what good is rejoice in goodness? What value would it have in the eyes of those who do not strive for it? And could it be a crown for those who did not at all pursue it like victors in a lists? That is why the Lord said that the kingdom of heaven is the destiny of those who use effort (Matt. XI, 12). Holiness, if it is an involuntary property of nature, will lose its moral character and turn into an indifferent state. “You can’t be kind out of necessity.”
Therefore, it is equally wrong to imagine salvation as a matter imputed to a person from the outside, as well as a supernatural transformation occurring in a person apart from the participation of his freedom. In both cases, a person would turn out to be only a weak-willed subject of someone else’s influence, and the holiness he received in this way would be no different from innate holiness, which has no moral dignity, and, therefore, not at all the highest good that a person seeks . “I,” says St. I. Chrysostom, heard many who said: why did God create me autocratic in virtue? But how can you be raised to heaven when you are slumbering, sleeping, devoted to vices, luxury, and gluttony? You wouldn’t have kept up with the vices even there.” A person would not accept the holiness forcibly imposed on him and would remain the same. Therefore, although the grace of God does a lot in the salvation of man, although everything can be attributed to it, it “also needs the believer, like a writing reed or an arrow in the active one.” “It is not through violence and arbitrariness, but through persuasion and good nature that a person’s salvation is prepared. Therefore, everyone has full authority over his own salvation.” And this is not only in the sense that he passively perceives the influence of grace, so to speak, presents himself to grace, but in the fact that he meets the salvation offered to him with the most ardent desire, that he “jealously directs his eyes to the light (of God).” “The hero of heroism,” says St. Ephraim the Syrian, is always ready to give you His right hand, and will raise you up from your fall. You will be the first to stretch out your hand to Him, He will give you His right hand to raise you up." And this determination to accept the help of grace necessarily presupposes that in the subsequent moment, at the moment of the very influence of grace, a person does not remain idle, does not only feel his salvation, but “helps with the grace acting in him.” Every good thing that happens in a person, every moral growth, every change that occurs in his soul, is necessarily accomplished not outside of consciousness and freedom, so that it is not someone else, but “the person himself changes himself, turning from the old into the new.” Salvation cannot be some kind of external judicial or physical event, but must necessarily be a moral action; and, as such, it necessarily presupposes, as an inescapable condition and law, that man himself performs this action, albeit with the help of grace. Grace, although it acts, although it accomplishes everything, is certainly within freedom and consciousness. This is the main Orthodox principle, and it should not be forgotten in order to understand the teaching of the Orthodox Church about the very method of human salvation.
