Friday, January 23, 2015

Experience of God


Taken from the book “The Gurus, a young man , and Elder Paisios”,

“Whereas we receive benefactions from God every minute, we ourselves don’t
benefactor even once our neighbor.” - Saint Basil the Great
I still wonder and am amazed! My mind stops and I cannot contain it. If I try to
understand the depth, I go crazy. As soon as I feel a bit that goodness and the mercy, I
am crushed. The certain feeling of my unworthiness and my ungratefulness before all
these things which were granted to me makes me freak, tremble and go out of my
mind because of the condescension and warm welcoming. How much do God and His
saints condescend to our unworthiness!!
Once I had the great honor and blessing to transport elder Paisios somewhere with my
car. In his great simplicity and humility, I would forget myself and be swayed into a
familiarity. I could see before me my father and would forget that God permanently
dwelt within him. I would forget that he had realized to the uttermost degree the
capabilities of human nature and that he had become a godbearer. I would forget that
with his word he would chase out the demons, that with one word of his incurable
illnesses disappeared, that his face shone like the sun before my eyes that, with
unending gifts he had been honored and adorned by the Holy Spirit, the Grace of God.
I know well all these things and I guard them deeply within the depths of my soul and
ask God with agony and tears to not ever let my raging enemy, the Devil steal them
from me. And nevertheless when I was with the elder, many times his simple and
unpretentious behavior, full of kindness and humor, would sway me to familiarity,
from familiarity I would slide down to rudeness and audacity, and I opened my mouth
with all my senseless and my stupidity and said.
“Elder, tell me about God, speak to me, how is he?”
The elder did not speak and I continued to drive, on curves furthermore on the
mountain.
My God! I began suddenly feeling God everywhere. In the car, outside on the
mountains, far in the distant galaxies. He was everywhere, he filled everything, but he
was nothing of all of these things. An essence which pierced through all the other
ones, without getting mixed up or being confused with these. A power present
everywhere, which nevertheless no one perceives, outside of every viewpoint. Someone
cannot discover it with this own…haughty effort. A power which only is self revealed.
All these mountains, stars, trees, people, existed and were maintained alive thanks to
His power. He could in one moment annihilate them, for them to cease existing
without noise or thunder or resistance. Just as we turn the switch and in one moment
the light disappears.
He’s so almighty and nevertheless so courteous. He does not pressure anyone with his
almightyness or his presence. He is so near us and so unseeable simultaneously, so
that we do not feel any burden, some obligation from his presence alone. So that he
does not burden us at all, to not create any obligation to us, to leave us completely
free, to do whatever we want. Not for us to be forced by his beauty to some degree. He
could easily impose his love not with fears and power and strength, but simply with the
sweetness of His presence, which no one could resist. Yet, He does not do it, out of an
infinite…, incomprehensible respect for man’s freedom.
He doesn’t do it, out of love for man. He loves us so much, he desires us so much
strongly that his innards are burned, out of desire and love for us. For this reason he
limits himself, he disappears from our perception and tries in a thousand ways, with
infinite wisdom with dreadful attention and interest, as a “raging” lover to draw us to
his love. To wake us up, to motivate our interest, to make us understand and love Him.
He sits and occupies himself with each one of us personally, and simultaneously with
the whole universe, the infinitely powerful one. And because he has interest for this
infinite universe the love and interest he has for each one of us personally is not
lessened not even to the slightest degree, does not subside even in thought.
God wants our love. He does not demand it. Love is an emotion which is born and lives
only in the air of freedom, outside of it, it ceases existing, it is perverted, altered, it
dies. For this reason, God leaves us completely free to gain our love, which can be born
only in this freedom.
What do we have and God loves us? Some beauty, some smartness, some power, some
virtue? Nothing! We are nonexistent before Him and His gifts. And not only do we not
have something worth it for one to love us, but we also have very many things which
stink and push away and strongly urge someone to be averted from us and to hate us.
We are fainthearted to His generosity. Of very slight intelligence before a vast intellect.
Wicked before His smartness. Grabbers, at the moment when He wholeheartedly offers.
That which He grants us richly, overflowing, we want to grab. We respond to His
kindness with grabbing and mockery. Ungrateful to His benefactions. Haughty in
behavior before His almightyness. Sly and insufficient before His Wisdom. He wants to
grant us His Grace, He wants to give us beauty, life, Wisdom, power. We do not want to
take them as gifts. Our egotism destroys them, our pride makes them filthy. We cannot
keep any of His gifts due to our evil disposition. And if something of these remains in
our soul, we immediately get puffed up from pride, as if we obtained them with our
value, as if it is not a gift, without toil. We lift up our eyebrow and look down at our
neighbor. The gift is lifted up and leaves from our soul. God opposes the prideful,
while to the humble He gives grace” “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above coming down from the Father of Lights” (James 1:17).
What can I say? Where should I stop? A big bunch of horribleness we are. Our fallen
human nature, which voluntarily remains fallen and sunk in the filth of the passions,
only regurgitation and asphyxiation it calls forth from its filth.
As the prophet Isaiah also used to say. It does not refer to a wound which is rotting, of
a deep wound which man.. has wholly from head to fingernails he is one wound. Where
can you put gauze? Where medicine?…God Himself, Christ was needed to recreate from
the beginning, with His birth, our nature which voluntarily and with rage we destroyed
on our own. He out of kindness and love to reform it from the beginning.
This is human nature today. It was not thus always. We were not created thus, we
ended up thus. Our choices formulated us thus. We constantly choose evil and thus
destroy ourselves. And whereas we were created beautiful, bright, almighty, wise and
honored, dominating the material world, immortal, we ended up today mortal, dark,
subject to the needs of material life, to pain, to illness, to affliction, to corruption, to
death. We do not have knowledge, we do not have wisdom, as blind people we go
about in the world, we rip and fall and are wounded and don’t know where we tripped,
because we fell, who puts us obstacles to trip on and he tries to throw us into wild
valleys and to kill us, to laugh mockingly, and to celebrate in his wickedness, the man
hater, the inventor of wickedness, the father of falsehood, the ancient dragon, our very
ancient enemy, the devil.
And God loves us. He still loves us. With a love which burns, with a love which trembles
with longing, with a love which overlooks the pain which we cause it, with a love which
accepts to enter into our toil, which accepts to suffer from the craziness of our evil. O
my God! How much pain do we cause you!
God loved us so much, that He accepted to become a man. He moderated His majesty
in our humility. He accepted to ascend on the Cross. He accepted to leave the devil
with his sly plots to put Him up on the Cross and there, to crush the head for the
snake. Now henceforth we can defeat the devil whenever we want. And all these for our
sake. For me and for you.
I continued feeling God and to understand Him with my heart. A deep calmness
flooded me. Every fear was annihilated. Since the almighty God exists, since He knows
everything, since He is so good, since He is so wise, since He loves me so much, what
should I fear?
I am in His embrace! I am in His palm. Who can do anything to me?…I was certain of
the beginning, the course and the end of the world. I rejoiced, because in the end, as
always He will be the victor and kindness and holiness will triumph.
God is Spirit! The world is matter. The spirit surpasses matter, supports it in existence,
brings it into existence, maintains it in existence, however it is a completely other
thing from matter. Matter is destined to disappear. The spirit always exists. Time is a
result, a quality of matter. In the matter the spirit exists time does not exist. Eternity is
the manner of existence of the Spirit. Past and future coincide in a vast present. It is
simultaneously everywhere from the infinite universe and in my car.
He is very simple in nature, however so mysterious. How deeply my soul was satisfied!
How much I rejoiced! How much I was comforted! How much do I want to relive it
again! I rejoice in the thought that when I die I will begin, I hope, to live near Him. So
much that…I long to die. I would like to die today, if I knew that I would meet Him. I
fear my sin, my evil, that it might separate me from Him.
I remember that I read in Saint John Damascene “We believe in one God, immaterial,
unlimited, infinite, without beginning, eternal, almighty, immortal, timeless, noetic
light…” (Saint John Damascene, “Precise Exposition of the Orthodox Faith”).
I don’t think that this state lasted a lot. If I judge from the road the car did, 3-4
kilometers probably, but due to the many curves I was going slowly.
I certainly was not, as I am now that I am writing. I had suffered a change… distinct.
Man is altered from many things. From drink, from narcotics, from pleasure, from the
climate, from water, from pain, affliction, fear, however… this alteration… does not
have a match. It is unique.
I lived in a form of… ecstasy, a type of intoxication, without however having lost my
senses and my contact with the material world. A “vigilant intoxication” as the ancient
ascetics and Saints characterize it in their writings.
As if someone pulled away a curtain from my mind, from my soul, and I began living in
the same world on the one hand, but in the whole world, whereas first I lived in a part
of it.
Imagine a deaf person who suddenly begins hearing. He lived in the same world, but
without the sounds. Now he hears too.
Imagine a blind person who suddenly begins seeing. The same world now has images
and colors too.
So thus I also lived in the same world, just that I felt God also and within Him many
many, deep, important, and beautiful things. I was suddenly a partaker of the material
and of the spiritual world. I imagine somewhat thus must people have been. Adam and
Eve in Paradise must have been much better, because as the Holy Scripture also says,
they saw, heard and spoke with God. Then human nature had not yet suffered the
destruction, which I have today. The sensorial spiritual instruments worked well. My
own “spiritual eyes” no longer see. They were covered with the thick scales of my evil.
“My spiritual ears” no longer hear. They were plugged up from the mud of my sin. “My
spiritual language” became paralyzed from the laziness of the soul. I am wholly buried
in the filth of my passions.
Someone took me out for one moment from in there, and I also lived as a human. Now
I again live like a filthy and sick man, deaf, blind and senseless.
Do I truly desire I wonder to live thus? If they granted it to me again, I would accept it
joyfully. Now I know the path to go there on my own. However I don’t walk this path
and no one is at fault outside of my laziness. I know well, that, if I work in the vineyard
of my Lord Jesus Christ, I will certainly arrive there. And the work is for me to keep His
commandments. The keeping of the commandments produces a spiritual work. Some
effort of soul mainly is needed. Keeping the commandments the soul learns many
things and simultaneously is cleansed and the spiritual instruments begin slowly slowly
functioning.
Unfortunately I don’t do that which each of you probably did. For this reason I believe
that I am worthy of every shame and am responsible also before you and the whole of
humanity that a treasure was granted to me and I don’t utilize it. So I am a useless and
ungrateful person. The only thing that remains for me to do is to ascertain it, to admit
it, to confess it. I don’t despair however, because I know His mercy and love. I hope to
be honor loving… a bit… sometime… with His help.
If I were truly a man with love of honor, with good disposition, I would be struggling
now with fervor and zeal, as the elder does.
Make notice of something else, too. Did you pay attention to the generosity of the
elder, who imitates God, our Lord Jesus Christ?
What did I ask of him? A few words… Some discussions. How did he respond to my
request? With a wholehearted fiery prayer, which moved God, and I the wretched one
lived this incalculable experience. What wealth! What generosity! My God, forgive me!!
How much must he love me to pray so fervently for me?
All these things I write without toil, without thought. I am not sitting to construct
thoughts, soap bubbles of the mind without content. Usually the people of our age
work with the… head. They sit, they think-think, pressure their mind, to produce
thoughts and knowledges.
Because they think that the instrument of knowledge is only logic. Leave that some
from the great pressuring they do to the mind… get unscrewed. Others less others
more, and they run afterwards to the psychiatrists. Sunk in ignorance and darkness, we
are ignorant not only of the outer world but also of the inner world, of our own self.
Inside there, there is another instrument of knowledge. Faith. Within faith one lives
many things. He lives them and does not think of them. Afterwards comes the mind,
logic to arrange them, to make them thoughts, words, letters, whichever of these can
become thoughts and words. Most things cannot be “translated” into human language.
The soul is much more wealthy, deeply, penetrating and sensing than our language.
I pray all of you to want to live these things. To not just read them, to think of them, to
discuss them, to criticize them and to consume them only. I pray that you will seek
them in your life, as others seek money, glory. If you toil more than a merchant, if you
show the same persistence as an athlete or dancer, you will achieve, I think. The Holy
Mountain is a very good door, to enter into Orthodoxy, but there also exist “Athonites”
aside from the Holy Mountain, people with gifts and love. Just as there exist
non-Athonites, people outside of the Haghioritic Tradition, inside the Holy Mountain.
“Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened
to you” (Math. 7:7).
I get frustrated and grieve that I cannot describe this experience. I read them and it
does not resound even one-thousandth from this experience from within this text.
How can I describe? How can I say how true, how deep, how intense, how calm, so
joyous, so satisfying, so healing how tender, how warm, how friendly, how protective,
how life-giving… how joyous… how, how, how of all the good things it was.
I remember phrases from Christian ancient texts. “God becomes all things for those
who love Him: he becomes nourishment, garment, comfort, consolation, knowledge,
power… all things.
At some moment I began telling the Elder these things I am feeling. He was not
speaking. He did not want me to speak of these. He did not want me to realize that he
was the cause. What was I telling him the lost one? Come, dear father, to show you
your vineyards, which our race also says.
Slowly slowly, little by little, it went out,.. it was lost… it pulled back… or rather my
perception closed. The gift finished…. What did it leave behind? Gratitude, deep
satisfaction, but also unhealable thirst for Him. How can one be simultaneously deeply
satisfied also, but also feel His deep lack? To be very joyous that he met Him, but also
unto writing saddened that he lost Him? How poor the yogis and the Gurus seem! How
false! How wretched! Sunk in the most basic ignorance, deceived in false imaginations,
they praise themselves and get puffed up for these things they know… for their
experiences! But if you don’t know God, then what do you know? If you don’t possess
the most basic, the most central thing, then what do you possess?
They resemble some gypsies who dress themselves with flashy colors, with loud
jewelry, with a loud and badly showing offing manner, far from coordination and
fashion. And once they dress up thus, they go to an atmosphere aristocratic from many
generations, to be praised without imagining the poor ones how much more they are
humiliated.
We have a God who is a true aristocrat. We have a god who gave us the right to call him
Father. We have a God who calls us His children. We have a God who became man for
us, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is not ashamed not to call us, but to become our
brother.
The poor things don’t have anything… Just false, lifeless, idols, thousands of imaginary
deities, theories and practices, which don’t lead anywhere. They turn in the emptiness
and don’t encounter anything except the false sense and the delusion with which the
devil keeps them imprisoned. Until he destroys them or makes them his instruments…
and both for their eternal hardship.

Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov


O God the Father, Almighty Master:
Who hast created us and brought us into this life:
Vouchsafe that we may know Thee,
The one true God.
The human spirit hungers for knowledge- for entire, integral knowledge. Nothing can
destroy our longing to know and, naturally, our ultimate craving is for knowledge of
Primordial Being, of Whom or What actually exists. All down the ages man has paid
instinctive homage to this First Principle. Our fathers and forefathers reverenced Him
in different ways because they did not know him ‘as he is, (I John 3.2). Some (surely
they were among the wisest) set up ‘an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN
GOD’ (Acts 17.23). Even in our day we are continually made aware that reason per se
cannot advance us over the threshold to the ‘Unknown’. God is our only means of
access to this higher knowledge, if He will reveal Himself.
The problem of knowledge of God sends the mind searching back through the
centuries for instances of God appearing to man through one or other of the prophets.
There can be no doubt that for us, for the whole Christian world, one of the most
important happenings recorded in the chronicles of time was God’s manifestation on
Mount Sinai where Moses received new knowledge of Divine Being: ‘I AM THAT I AM’
(Exos. 3.14)- Jehovah. From that moment vast horizons opened out before mankind,
and history took a new turn. A people’s spiritual condition is the real cause of
historical events: it is not the visible that is of primary importance but the invisible, the
spiritual. Perceptions and ideas concerning being, and the meaning of life generally,
seek expression and in so doing instigate the historical event.
Moses, possessed of the supreme culture of Egypt, did not question that the revelation
that he was so miraculously given came from Him Who had indeed created the whole
universe. In the Name of this God, I AM, he persuaded the Jewish people to follow him.
Invested with extraordinary power from Above, he performed many wonders. To Moses
belongs the undying glory of having brought mankind nearer to Eternal Truth.
Convinced of the authenticity of his vision, he issued his injunctions as prescripts from
on High. All things were effected in the Name and by the Name of the I AM Who had
revealed Himself. Mighty is this Name in its strength and holiness- it is action
proceeding from God. This Name was the first ingress into the living eternity; the
dayspring of knowledge of the unoriginate Absolute as I AM.
In the Name of Jehovah Moses led the still primitive Israelites out of their captivity in
Egypt. During their wanderings in the desert, however, he discovered that his people
were far from ready, despite the many miracles they had witnessed, to receive the
sublime revelation of the Eternal. This became particularly clear as they approached
the borders of the Promised Land. Their faint-heartedness and lack of faith caused the
Lord to declare that none of those impregnated with the spirit of Egypt should see the
‘good land’ (Deut. 1.32, 35, 38). They would leave their bones in the wilderness, and
Moses would encourage and prepare a new generation more capable of apprehending
God- Invisible but holding all things in the palm of His hand.
Moses was endowed with exceptional genius but we esteem him more especially
because he realised that the revelation granted to him, for all its grandeur and validity,
was not yet completed. He sensed that He Who had revealed Himself was the ‘first and
the last’ (Is. 44.6); that there could be no one and nothing before Him or after Him.
And he sang: ‘Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of
my mouth’ (Deut. 32, 1). At the same time he continued to pray for better knowledge
of God, calling to Him out of the depths: ‘Shew me Thyself (as Thou art), that I may
know thee’ (Exos. 33.13; 1 John 3.2). God heard his prayer and revealed Himself in so
far as Moses could apprehend, for Moses could not contain the whole revelation. ‘I will
make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord
before thee… (and) while my glory passeth by, I …will cover thee with my hand…And I
will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be
seen’ (Exos. 33.19, 22, 23).
That the revelation received by Moses was incomplete is shown in his testimony to the
people that ‘the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of
thee… unto him ye shall hearken’. Also: ‘And the Lord said unto me … I will raise them
up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his
mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him’ (Deut. 18.15, 18).
According to the Old Testament all Israel lived in expectation of the coming of the
Prophet of whom ‘Moses wrote’ (John 5.46), the Prophet par excellence, ‘THAT
prophet’ (John, 1.21). The Jewish people looked for the coming of the Messiah who
when he was come would tell them ‘all things’ (John 4.25). Come and live among us,
that we may know Thee, was the constant cry of the ancient Hebrews. Hence the name
‘Emmanuel being interpreted is, God with us’ (Is. 7.14; Matt. 1.23).
So for us Christians the focal point of the universe and the ultimate meaning of the
entire history of the world is the coming of Jesus Christ, Who did not repudiate the
archetypes of the Old Testament but vindicated them, unfolding to us their real
significance and bringing new dimensions to all things- infinite, eternal dimensions.
Christ’s new covenant announces the beginning of a fresh period in the history of
mankind. Now the Divine sphere was reflected in the searchless grandeur of the love
and humility of God, our Father. With the coming of Christ all was changed: the new
revelation affected the destiny of the whole created world.
It was given to Moses to know that Absolute Primordial Being is not some general
entity, some impersonal cosmic process or supra-personal, all-transcending
‘Non-Being’. It was proved to him that this Being had a personal character and was a
living and life-giving God. Moses, however, did not receive a clear vision: he did not
see God in light as the apostles saw Him on Mount Tabor- ‘Moses drew near unto the
thick darkness where God was’ (Exos. 20.21). This can be interpreted variously but the
stress lies on the incognisable character of God, though in what sense and in what
connection we cannot be certain. Was Moses concerned with the impossibility of
knowing the Essence of the Divine Being? Did he think that if God is Person, then He
cannot be eternally single in Himself, for how could there be eternal metaphysical
solitude? Here was this God ready to lead them but lead them where and for what
purpose? What sort of immortality did He offer? Having reached the frontier of the
Promised Land, Moses died.
And so He appeared, He to Whom the world owed its creation; and with rare
exceptions ‘the world knew him not’ (John 1.10). The event was immeasurably beyond
the ordinary man’s grasp. The first to recognise Him was John the Baptist, for which
reason he was rightly termed the greatest ‘among them that are born of women’ and
the last of the law and the prophets (cf. Matt. 11.9-13).
Moses, as a man, needed obvious tokens of the power and authority bestowed on him,
if he were to impress the Israelites, still prone to idol-worship, and compel them to
heed his teaching. But it is impossible for us Christians to read the first books of the
Old Testament without being appalled. In the Name of Jehovah all those who resisted
Moses suffered fearful retribution and often death. Mount Sinai ‘burned with fire’, and
the people were brought ‘unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest’, to ‘the sound of
a trumpet, and the voice of words, which… they could not endure’ (Heb. 12.18-20).
It is the opposite with Christ. He came in utter meekness, the poorest of the poor with
nowhere to lay His head. He had no authority, neither in the State nor even in the
Synagogue founded on revelation from on High. He did not fight those who spurned
Him. And it has been given to us to identify Him as the Pantocrator precisely because
He ‘made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant’ (Phil.
2.7), submitting finally to duress and execution. As the Creator and true Master of all
that exists, He had no need of force, no need to display the power to punish
opposition. He came ‘to save the world’ (John 12.47), to tell us of the One True God.
He discovered to us the Name of Father. He gave us the word which He Himself had
received from the Father. He revealed God to us as Light in Whom is no darkness at all
(cf. 1 John 1,5).
The world continues to flounder in the vicious circle of its material problemseconomic,
class, nationalistic, and the like- because people refuse to follow Christ. We
have no wish to become like Him in all things: to become His brethren and through
Him the beloved children of the Father and the chosen habitation of the Holy Spirit. In
God’s pre-eternal Providence for man we are meant to participate in His Being- to be
like unto Him in all things. By its very essence this design on God’s part for us
excludes the slightest possibility of compulsion or predestination. And we as
Christians must never renounce our goal lest we lose the inspiration to storm the
kingdom of heaven. Experience shows all too clearly that once we Christians start
reducing the scope of the revelation given to us by Christ and the Holy Spirit, we
gradually cease to be attracted by the Light made manifest to us. If we are to preserve
our saving hope, we must be bold. Christ said: ‘Be of good cheer; I have overcome the
world’ (John, 16.33). He had overcome the world in this instance not so much as God
but as Man for He did in truth become man.
Genuine Christian life is lived ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4.23), and so can be
continued in all places and at all times since the divine commandments of Christ
possess an absolute character. In other words, there are and can be no circumstances
anywhere on earth which could make observance of the commandments impossible.
In its eternal essence Christian life is divine spirit and truth and therefore transcends
all outward forms. But man comes into this world as tabula rasa, to ‘grow, wax strong
in spirit, be filled with wisdom’ (cf. Luke 2.40), and so the necessity arises for some
kind of organisation to discipline and co-ordinate the corporate life of human beings
still far from perfect morally, intellectually and, more important, spiritually. Our fathers
in the Church and the apostles who taught us to honour the true God were well aware
that, though the life of the Divine Spirit excels all earthy institutions, this same Spirit
still constructs for Himself a dwelling-place of a tangible nature to serve as a vessel for
the preservation of His gifts. This habitation of the Holy Spirit is the Church, which
through centuries of tempest and violence has watched over the precious treasure of
Truth as revealed by God. (We need not be concerned at this point with zealots who
value framework rather that content). ‘The Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is liberty…Beholding….the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the
same image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3.17-18)’. The Church’s function is to lead the
faithful to the luminous sphere of Divine Being. The Church is the spiritual centre of
our world, encompassing the whole history of man. Those who through long ascetic
struggle to abide in the Gospel precepts have become conscious of their liberty as sons
of God no longer feel impeded by formal traditions- they can take general customs
and ordinances in their stride. They have the example of Christ Who kept His Father’s
commandments without transgressing the law of Moses with all its ‘burdens grievous
to be borne’ (Luke 11.46).
In Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit God gave us the full and final revelation of
Himself. His Being now for us is the First Reality, incomparably more evident than all
the transient phenomena of this world. We sense His divine presence both within us
and without: in the supreme majesty of the universe, in the human face, in the
lightning flash of thought. He opens our eyes that we may behold and delight in the
beauty of His creation. He fills our souls with love towards all mankind. His
indescribably gentle touch pierces our heart. And in the hours when His imperishable
Light illumines our heart we know that we shall not die. We know this with knowledge
impossible to prove in the ordinary way but which for us requires no proof, since the
Spirit Himself bears witness within us.
(The revelation of God as I AM THAT I AM proclaims the personal character of the
Absolute God which is the core of His Life. To interpret this revelation the Fathers
adopted the philosophical term hypostasis, which first and foremost conveys actuality
and can be applied to things, to man or to God. In many instances it was used as a
synonym for essence. (Substance is the exact Latin translation.) In the second Epistle to
the Corinthians (2 Cor 11.17) hypostasis denotes sober reality and is translated into
English as confidence or assurance. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the term describes
the Person of the Father: ‘Who being …the express image of his person’ (Heb. 1.3).
Other renderings to be found in the same Epistle are substance- ‘Now faith is the
substance of things hoped for’ (Heb, 2.1)- and very being- ‘the stamp of God’s very
being’ (N.E.B. Heb. 1.3.). So then, these three words, Person, substance, very being,
taken together impart the content of the Greek theological expression hypostasis, to
be understood as comprising, on the one hand, the notion of Countenance, Person,
while, on the other, stressing the cardinal importance of the personal dimension in
Being. In the present text the terms Hypostasis and Person(a) are identical in meaning.)

The Orthodox Teaching on God


1. General
Energies comprise the third “difference” in God, according to the terminology of Saint
Gregory of Nyssa (“Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 107). The Orthodox teaching on the
energies of God essentially constitutes a reliable evolvement of the New Testament
witness regarding the reality of the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ. This God does
not manifest Himself only as a trinity of hypostases - that is, as Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. He also manifests Himself as the One who has (the congenital and not acquired)
fullness of all good things - of “power, glory, wisdom, philanthropy” etc.; in other
words, “all the good things that the Son has are the Father’s, and everything that the
Father has, is made visible in the Son” (Gregory of Nyssa, “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’
126). This means that God is not only a triple-hypostasis reality, but that He also has
essence and “circum-essence”, which are essential virtues and distinctive features. God
is a reality that exists, as well as one that possesses. He is a reality “in person”, who
possesses the fullness of life and its bounties, in other words, “the true life” (Gregory
of Nyssa, “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 126). “For, just as the Father has life within Him,
thus did He also give the Son to have life within Him” (John 5:26). As we have already
said, God is a reality “in person”, Who has life (or, as otherwise called, “essence”) and
Who also has the fullness of all the good things peripherally related to this essence,
that is, the “circum-essence”.
These “differences” of God that exist within Himself are apparent in the Holy Bible.
The Bible does not make mention of the three Hypostases only - that is, of the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit – but also of a multitude of qualities that the divine
hypostases have and transmit; for example the power, the wisdom, the love, the grace
of God etc., through which qualities God acts and transmits to the world all good
things (otherwise known as “charismas” (Greek=gifts)). We must not construe these
qualities as being a neutral or impersonal reality, existing in parallel to the hypostases
within God. We should preferably see them in an ”inter-embracing” with the divine
hypostases, or, rather, as a sublime unity, identity and coincidence, in the following
context: “The triunal God IS life, truth, love, wisdom,” etc. That is, by coinciding the
“being” and the “possessing” in the person of God, the Bible often represents God not
only as a reality “in person”, but also as an impersonal reality, -that is, as “something
Divine” - thus denoting the grace, the justice, the wisdom etc. that are manifested
upon mankind. Besides, the very Bible itself distinguishes between the divine
hypostases and their qualities – something that gives a legal right to have a theology
on the qualities or energies of God. Even the theology of the West has not omitted to
include chapters on the “attributes” of God in its Dogmatics, which by Orthodox
Theology however are seen as unusual and extremely “human-prone” portrayals of the
Triadic God. Orthodox dogmatics however has never developed any teaching on
God’s “attributes”. Any relative chapters that may perhaps be found in Orthodox
Dogmatics have originated from the influence of western theology.
As mentioned previously, the “personal” and the “impersonal” element – or, rather, (as
we shall see further along) – the “hypostatized” element are interwoven and
inter-embraced in God in such a way, that God at times appears as “the One acting
within us” (Phil. 2:13) and elsewhere as “His energy, that is potentially acting within
me” (Colos. 1:29)
However, the Bible at times relates the divine hypostases to their qualities, as in the
familiar verse of 1 Cor. 1:24: “Christ : the power of God and the wisdom of God”. The
fact that Christ Himself is not that wisdom per se, but that He contains within Himself
the wisdom of God, is educed from other relevant Scriptural passages, such as
Coloss.2:3, where mention is made of “Christ, in Whom all the treasures of wisdom and
of knowledge are hidden”.
The theology of the first Christian centuries did not preoccupy itself particularly with
the matter of divine energies and their association to the divine hypostases, instead, it
conveyed in its works the relative testimonies of the Bible, more or less without
suspecting that a problem existed. [Compare with article «Energeia» by Ε. Fascher, in
the “Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum”, V (1962), 4-51]. A formulated teaching
on the energies of God did not exist in the theology of the ancient Church. (P. Martin
Strohm had a different opinion, in his article: “Die Lehre von der Energeia” (Gottes. Eine
dogmengeschichtliche Betrachtung, in the volume Kyrios, VIII (1968), p. 63 onward).
Whenever the ancient ecclesiastic authors made use of the excerpt 1 Cor. 1:24 (and
they used it frequently), they aspired to one thing only: to show that the Son is not a
creation, but that He in fact belongs to the Divine reality. However, they never posed
the question, nor did they confront the problem, regarding the association between
hypostases and energies in God. This problem had not as yet appeared. What had
preoccupied the theologians of the three first Christian centuries was mainly the
divinity of the Son and His association to God the Father. The problem of an
association between the divine hypostases and energies appeared particularly during
the era of the major Cappadocian Fathers who, after the divinity of the Son had been
formally secured by the 1st Ecumenical Synod in Nice, found themselves in the need to
confront the equally huge heresy (as compared to the Arian one) of Eunomius, who
maintained precisely this: that the Son is the work of God’s energy, and that the Spirit
is the work of the Son’s energy [ (Gregory of Nyssa), “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 123:
«the Son is the work of the precedent essence’s energy, and the Spirit is likewise
another work of that work». Similarly on p.72 onwards ]. In this way, he was
alienating the Son from the essence of the Father and the Spirit from the essence of
the Son, by accepting three beings just as Arius had, except that each being was
supposedly of “another essence”. [ (Gregory of Nyssa), “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ p.92,
according to which, Eunomius maintained the following with regard to the three
hypostases: “instead, the essences are rent apart from each other, disintegrated into a
sort of isolated nature”. And on p.91: Eunomius accepted that “the Son is different in
nature and dissimilar to the essence of God and thus in every way does not partake of
the Father through any natural familiarity”.]
In view of the introduction of the term “energy” by the heretic Eunomius in his
speculations regarding God, the major Cappadocian Fathers were forced to focus on
the term “energy” in more depth and to determine the relationship between this divine
aspect and the essence and the hypostases of God. Thus, all the Cappadocian Fathers
(that is, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great and John the Chrysostom) came to
refer to the energies of God as “divine attributes”; but the one who preoccupied
himself especially with the matter of divine energies was saint Gregory of Nyssa in his
series of works “against Eunomius”, whom we shall mainly follow here. However, it is
not a true assertion that Gregory of Nyssa was the one who introduced the teaching on
the energies of God, given that the main theologian on divine energies is in fact Basil
the Great. Gregory of Nyssa merely developed this teaching of his brother more
systematically. The subject of divine energies constituted both an opportune and a
central chapter during the time of the major Cappadocian theologians, and for some
time thereafter. This is testified, not only by the works of these theologians, but also
by the texts of the great theologians who followed, whose texts were attributed to
predominant theological and ecclesiastic personalities so that they could claim a
greater prestige. Such personalities were: Dionysios the Areopagite, Athanasius the
Great, Basil the Great, Justin, etc.. (Check against Library of Hellenic Fathers, 4, 11
onwards, 36, 11 onwards). It is in these works – which quite possibly came from the
same school – that the subject of divine energies is posed most vividly.
Consequently, the conflict regarding the divine and uncreated energies which appeared
during the 14th century between the Latin monk Varlaam and his student Akindynus
on the one hand and saint Gregory Palamas on the other, was not the first instance
where the issue of divine energies was brought up. On the contrary, it was rather a
rekindling of the very ancient quarrel regarding the Holy Trinity – naturally now in a
new form and a different variation thereof. Gregory Palamas had undertaken the
heavy burden of completing and systematizing the teaching on energies, based on the
overall Orthodox dogmatic tradition which was precedent to his time. The existence,
therefore, of divine energies – which are distinguished apart from the essence and the
hypostases of God – constitutes a teaching that has existed from the time of the major
Hellenic Fathers. And this is the teaching that is recognized, at least by Orthodox
Tradition.
Prior to the Cappadocian Fathers, theology was rife with commentaries on divine
energies; nevertheless, the issue of how they related to the divine hypostases was
never brought up. The authors of this period made references to the divine energies,
without concerning themselves with whether the energies related to the divine
hypostases or if they comprised a separate kind of reality in God, or in what kind of
relationship they were to the essence and the hypostases of God. One such example
is Makarios the Egyptian, who, in his homilies made frequent references to divine
energies and to other meanings that relate to energies (for example, Grace). Makarios
the Egyptian would present divine energies personified, as though acting on their own [
for example in one place he says: “in various ways does Grace mingle with them and in
many ways does it guide the soul” (Library of Hellenic Fathers 41, 252) ] and elsewhere,
he presents the divine energies as though dependent on the divine hypostases [
example: “the Lord gives Grace, when He comes and dwells within us” (Library of
Hellenic Fathers 42, 87)] and elsewhere he presents them as “one” energy [example:
“…by the three hypostases of the one godhood…” (Library of Hellenic Fathers 42, 144)
etc.] This is why Gregory Palamas rightly acted, by never (or at least rarely) making
mention of any authors prior to the Cappadocian theologians, when consolidating the
teaching on divine energies.
The sole exception in this case was Athanasius the Great, who albeit not making any
special mention on divine energies, nevertheless speaks very clearly on discerning not
only between the three hypostases, but also between nature and its volition (compare
with Athanasius’ “Against Arians” B’ 2,3, C’ 62, Library of Hellenic Fathers 30,
180-181, also “On the Nicene Synod”, 31, Library of Hellenic Fathers 31, 171). Thus,
according to Athanasius the Great, the “sequels” and the works of nature and those of
volition are entirely different things. That which is “born” belongs to nature, and that
which is “made” belongs to volition.
Without any actual discerning between divine nature and its volition, it would not be
possible to discern between the “products” of nature and the “products” of God’s
volition, that is, between the Son and the Spirit on the one hand and the works of
nature on the other. Volition, however, does not relate to nature, but differs from it
and is discernible. It is “the energy and the power of nature” (Patrologia Graeca C’,
127). The “difference” between nature and volition in God constitutes one of the
foremost arguments in Orthodox theology, whenever it supports the true distinction
(between divine essence and its energy) that it professes. [ Basil the Great (MB),
“Against Eunomius” B’ 32, Library of Hellenic Fathers 52, 216-217 ]. Volition is not an
essence; it is something “instrumental to the essence” (“On the Holy Spirit”, H’21,
Library of Hellenic Fathers 52, 248). Similarly, Cyril of Alexandria: “to make belongs
to energy, whereas to give birth belongs to nature. Nature and energy are not the same
thing” (“Treasures” 18, Patrologia Graeca 75, 312C). Also, (Athanasius the Great,
pseudepigraphed), “Dialogue on the Trinity”, Library of Hellenic Fathers 36, 48, 49,
70-73. An extremely in-depth, philosophical-theological analysis of the “difference”
between essence and volition is made by the unknown author of the texts which have
been attributed to the apologete Justin: “Christian Questions addressed to Hellenes”
C’1, Library of Hellenic Fathers 4, 160 onwards; also John the Damascene, in: “Precise
edition of the Orthodox Faith”, I 8, published by B. Kotter, 1973, 18 onwards. Finally,
also according to Gregory Palamas: “energy is the volition of nature” (C’ 53; compare
with B’ 167).
However, the theology on the existence of divine energies, which are truly discerned
from the divine essence and the hypostases, is based exclusively on the Oros of the
4th and 5th Ecumenical Synods, where mention is made of the two natures and the two
volitions and the two energies of Jesus Christ – that is, the divine and the human
(compare to the Oros of the 4th, 5th and 6th Ecumenical Synods, in the work
“Monuments” by John Karmiris, 1 (1960), pp.175, 185-200, 222-224). This was
expressed by saint John the Damascene as follows: “Thus, when referring to the one,
“god-human” energy of Christ, we understand it as implying the two energies of His
two natures, that is, the divine energy of His godhood, and the human energy of His
humanity”. (compare with John the Damascene, ref. III 19, B. Kotter 1973, 162.
Similarly, pseudep. Athanasius the Great, “Sermon on the Annunciation”.. 6 Library of
Hellenic Fathers 36, 209).
All the above have all been brought up in order to avoid the heretics, who “have mixed
things together and have drawn into the same place the essence and the energy of the
Only-begotten One” (Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius B’ I, 331). Therefore, when
expounding the present chapter on the energies of God, without neglecting the
remaining related witnesses of Orthodox dogmatic tradition, we should firstly base
ourselves on the two shapers of the Orthodox teaching on divine energies, that is, on
Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Palamas.