The God of the Church
The triadological theology of the Church is the theology of the Divine Scripture. We believe in the trinitarian God, in the God whereof the incarnate Son of God spoke to us. About the same God speaks and the Divine Liturgy. Fact for which, the orthodox godliness is a theological godliness, is a practical theology.
In Church, its Services are in the service books and after them we serve. And our sermon must resemble with the Services of the Church, ie the sermon to be an icon of Scripture. But the Scripture was and is expounded in the Church by Saints of God. And if the Scripture is understood patristicly and the Liturgy is full of Scripture, then our preaching must be scriptural and patristic in the same time.
When I make scriptural exegesis or when I preach about a specific theme, I go to texts and I let the texts speak to me. I stand before them and let on God speak to me. And when God enlightens me with something certain, I remain at that thing and on it I deepen it.
Thus I know that God spoke to me and that He sent me in a certain direction. And when I preach about Him and His Evangel, I preach about a living God, Who speaks and leadeth us personally.
But God reveals on Himself to us in His Church, at His Church Services, when we serve and pray and we are in liturgical communion. Sitting with all in the face of Him and waiting His mercy, the Church sees on the Lord as its source of life and joy, but and on the One who unites us with one another.
And if, in Church, some no longer wait on the Lord to enlighten and they trust in themselves, then those get to philosophize about God and not to live theologically. But a philosophical God is a God who does not speak to us, but only we speak about Him. A philosophical God is a God built by us.
And the gods of men are lamentable as their passions. In comparison with them, the God of the gods, the only God is of incomparable. And the God of the Church is this God, Who is incomparable and Who keeps in hand the whole creature. He created everything there and He keeps them in existence. And how keeps them in existence? Through His glory.
And His glory is uncreated. And His glory is everlasting. Because the uncreated glory of God gushes eternally from God. But, in comparison with those who imagine on God, we, in the Church of His glory, in the Orthodox Church from everywhere, we live this glory of Him in ourselves. We live the glory of the living God. And for this motive, I must not to fable, to say phantasmagorias about God, but I must just to confess on Him.
But I can talk about God, because I live theologically. For me, He is not far, but He is even in me. His glory is in me and, through it, He Himself is in my being. Therefore, when someone wants to talk to me about faith, I do not ask texts from Scripture or from the Holy Fathers, but I ask him to tell me about him and his life. Because our life is a mirror of our theological knowledge.
And if we pray, if we fast, if we read, if we are people open the dialogue, then we have a relation with God, with His Church and with our fellowmen. If we are ecclesiastical, then we talk and we manifest as men of God. But if we mime the ecclesiastical life, we will flaunt with verses, with stories, with words and not with deeds.
And the impostors rely on words, on academic titles, on ecclesiastical distinctions and they want to believe them on word. Only that the theological experience is born from life, from life with God, ie the words are being born from life.
Therefore, the words do not say anything by themselves, but the facts speak from themselves. And the ghostual man, the man full of God’s glory, speaks and through his facts and through his silence and through his face and through his whole life. Because he is a church of God, is an intim of Him, is a living theology, in motion.
For this motive, the orthodox theology speaks about the Mysteries of the Church, but, on the other hand, the man is a mystery, together of cosmos, in its integrality, who and it is a mystery.
But what is the Mystery? It is the encounter between God and men. For, in the Holy Baptism, we are immersed in holy water, of three times, on behalf of the trinitarian God, but He fills us with His glory. And the content of the Mystery is this the filling of ours with His glory.
If one who is baptized is a baby, he lives the Mystery like a baby. If he is an adult, he lives it as an adult. But at any age you receive the Mystery of the Church, it exceeds on you altogether. Because the Mystery of the Church means the descent of God in us, through His glory. And without this descent does not exist salvation. For that the Mysteries of the Church impart us the oeconomy of salvation of Christ the Lord.
And Christ the Lord impart us the glory which is common of the Divine Trinity. For that He does not a special grace, separate from the Father and the Holy Ghost, but the Son imparts the same grace with the Father and the Holy Ghost.
For that the Son never does things separate from the Father and the Spirit, but only in union and communion with Them. Learning this thing from God, nor the Church does things without God. But, when the Church serves to God, it asks always from Him His glory. And when the Church gathers in synodal mode, it judges the things together with God.
But how regards, for example, a „reformer” the Church, if he thinks that the Church can be „reinvented”? With the eyes of a blind man and uppish, too full of himself. For if the foundation of the Church is the glory of the Trinity, who can „reinvent” the Church? And Martin Luther believed that he „changed” the Church in this way: by destroying it.
But the Church does not „alter” over centuries, it does not need of „change”, for that we, the believers, are the ones who have to change interiorly. And who changes ontologically, that one deifies himself. Ie he fills of the uncreated and eternal glory of God. Which is alive and is our ghostual life.