The answer of Father Stephen Freeman: An Exemple of Beauty!
To our item from here, Father Stephen written a very encomiastic item. Here is his post, in our library, and here is the original post. His answer is a good example, for all, about a universal perspective of Orthodoxy. Because the Orthodox Church is not a historical structure of believers, that doesn’t have a connection between them, but, on the contrary, the Church is the communion of the love and the prayer.
We are binded one to other through the love with that our Trinity loves us. How our God is Trinity of persons, again the unit of supernal being and the plurality of the persons, all like, we are on whole the earth, but in unity through love and prayer, in Christ. The authentic Orthodoxy is not a Church of peoples without ethnicity and, not of peoples of nations in separation.
In Church are many nations, the nations that have things in common but also many things that separate them, but, beyond all, what unites them fundamentally is same faith, same Tradition and same Holy Trinity. The Church is a focus of holiness. Our God is in us, He indwells in us through His gift and this event of His inhabitation in peoples is the Church.
Father Stephen remembers many times, that we must look of the mystery of Christ, that is the mystery of the Church, beyond the human limitations. The Church is our light if we see ourself through the love among us. If we don’t pray one for each other and love one for each other, we can not feel our ecclesiality. We must clean of our iniquities that we feel to belong to Christ.
That we be all as one, we must have the consciousness of the Church, namely of the Christ, that is the presence of Holy Ghost in our hearts. And if we are in the Christ we are new creatures, we are celestial peoples. In appearance this phrase is a metaphor but it is not at all such. To be into the Holy Ghost is an ontological reality, is a present reality in our being.
The Church belongs to everybody and we belong to the Church. But, in order to be the sons of the Church we have to make our lives holy, so that we can live, still from now, the dawn of everlasting Kingdom.
Father Dorin.
Father Dorin, This is very beautiful. Your language about the Church reminds me of what St. Paul wrote about how the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ in bodily form (Col. 2:9). It is Christ’s love that binds the church as His Body, which fills heaven (glorified Saints) and earth (militant Saints). But it is Jesus’ precious blood that has made this oneness possible.
This comes with thanks.
Our lady, Alice C. Linsley,
your generosity is very flattering for my. Yes, is true, St. Paul is very deep in my heart and in my theology.
Like you I am writer, I write to a doctorate in Theology about the sight of God in Theology of St. Symeon The New Theologian and in this blog is not my books, but many articles created special from online system.
I admired your blog and I am happy for comment, into a such holly day, the day in that we celebrating in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, on St. Dimitri from Basarabov.
Sf. Dimitri from Basarabov is commemorating at 27 October, namley after St. Dimitrios of Thessaloníki, and his Holy Relics are in Bucharest, in orthodox cathedral patriarchal of Romania.
In my blog is many article very interesting for the orthodoxies from Occident, but I have not much time and not many possibilities to speak in English for translating.
But, I shall tray, from tine in time, to writes texts in English for my brothers from everywhere.
The exultation is of our part!