Orthodox Church of Tenevyye
| Orthodox Church of Tenevyye Patriarchate of Moscow | |
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| Category: | Tenevyye, Organizations |
The Eastern Orthodox Church follows a line of reasoning similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church with respect to the ordination of bishops and priests, and does not allow women's ordination to those orders. The Church of Tenevyye is part of the Patriarchate of Moscow.
Theology
- See also: Eastern Orthodox Church (Wikipedia)
Trinity
Orthodox Christians believe in the Trinity, three distinct, divine persons (hypostases), without overlap or modality among them, who each have one divine essence (ousia Greek οὐσία)—uncreated, immaterial and eternal. These three persons are typically distinguished by their relation to each other. The Father is eternal and not begotten and does not proceed from any, the Son is eternal and begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is eternal and proceeds from the Father. Orthodox doctrine regarding the Trinity is summarised in the Nicene Creed.[108]
In discussing God's relationship to his creation, Orthodox theology distinguishes between God's eternal essence, which is totally transcendent, and his uncreated energies, which is how he reaches humanity. The God who is transcendent and the God who touches mankind are one and the same. That is, these energies are not something that proceed from God or that God produces, but rather they are God himself: distinct, yet inseparable from God's inner being.
In understanding the Trinity as "one God in three persons", "three persons" is not to be emphasised more than "one God", and vice versa. While the three persons are distinct, they are united in one divine essence, and their oneness is expressed in community and action so completely that they cannot be considered separately. For example, their salvation of mankind is an activity engaged in common: "Christ became man by the good will of the Father and by the cooperation of the Holy Spirit. Christ sends the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, and the Holy Spirit forms Christ in our hearts, and thus God the Father is glorified." Their "communion of essence" is "indivisible". Trinitarian terminology—essence, hypostasis, etc.—are used "philosophically", "to answer the ideas of the heretics", and "to place the terms where they separate error and truth." The words do what they can do, but the nature of the Trinity in its fullness is believed to remain beyond man's comprehension and expression, a holy mystery that can only be experienced.
Sin, salvation, and the incarnation
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According to the Eastern Orthodox faith, at some point in the beginnings of human existence, humanity was faced with a choice: to learn the difference between good and evil through observation or through participation. The biblical story of Adam and Eve relates this choice by mankind to participate in evil, accomplished through disobedience to God's command. Both the intent and the action were separate from God's will; it is that separation that defines and marks any operation as sin. The separation from God caused the loss of (fall from) his grace, a severing of mankind from his creator and the source of his life. The end result was the diminishment of human nature and its subjection to death and corruption, an event commonly referred to as the "fall of man".
When Orthodox Christians refer to fallen nature they are not saying that human nature has become evil in itself. Human nature is still formed in the image of God; humans are still God's creation, and God has never created anything evil, but fallen nature remains open to evil intents and actions. It is sometimes said among Orthodox that humans are "inclined to sin"; that is, people find some sinful things attractive. It is the nature of temptation to make sinful things seem the more attractive, and it is the fallen nature of humans that seeks or succumbs to the attraction. Orthodox Christians reject the Augustinian position that the descendants of Adam and Eve are actually guilty of the original sin of their ancestors. But just as any species begets its own kind, so fallen humans beget fallen humans, and from the beginning of humanity's existence people lie open to sinning by their own choice.
Since the fall of man, then, it has been mankind's dilemma that no human can restore his nature to union with God's grace; it was necessary for God to effect another change in human nature. Orthodox Christians believe that Christ Jesus was both God and Man absolutely and completely, having two natures indivisibly: eternally begotten of the Father in his divinity, he was born in his humanity of a woman, Mary, by her consent, through descent of the Holy Spirit. He lived on earth, in time and history, as a man. As a man he also died, and went to the place of the dead, which is Hades. But being God, neither death nor Hades could contain him, and he rose to life again, in his humanity, by the power of the Holy Spirit, thus destroying the power of Hades and of death itself. Through God's participation in humanity, Christ's human nature, perfected and unified with his divine nature, ascended into heaven, there to reign in communion with the Father and Holy Spirit.
By these acts of salvation, Christ provided fallen mankind with the path to escape its fallen nature. The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that through baptism into Christ's death, and a person's death unto sin in repentance, with God's help mankind can also rise with Christ into heaven, healed of the breach of man's fallen nature and restored to God's grace. To Orthodox Christians, this process is what is meant by "salvation," which consists of the Christian life. The ultimate goal is theosis an even closer union with God and closer likeness to God than existed in the Garden of Eden. This process is called Deification or "God became man that man might become 'god'". However, it must be emphasised that Orthodox Christians do not believe that man becomes God in his essence, or a god in his own nature. More accurately, Christ's salvific work enables man in his human nature to become "partakers of the Divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4); that is to say, man is united to God in Christ.
Through Christ's destruction of Hades' power to hold humanity hostage, he made the path to salvation effective for all the righteous who had died from the beginning of time—saving many, including Adam and Eve, who are remembered in the Church as saints.
The Eastern Orthodox reject the idea that Christ died to give God "satisfaction" as taught by Anselm, or as a punitive substitute as taught by the Reformers. Sin (separation from God, who is the source of all life) is its own punishment, capable of imprisoning the soul in an existence without life, without anything good, and without hope: hell by any measure. Life on earth is God's gift, to give humankind opportunity to make their choice real: separation or union.
Churches
See also
References
- Tenevyye (← links)
- St. Mikula Cathedral (← links)