The Orthodox Christian Faith - Lesson 1
Catechism
DISCLAIMER
The catechism lessons series is prepared by me (Qai) of Orthodox Shahada. I am not ordained clergy. However, I have the explicit blessing of my spiritual father (who has been a priest in the ROCOR jurisdiction for 40+ years) to conduct catechism classes. The lessons are delivered in person at the parish level and are now being made available online in the hope that they will benefit others.
Catechesis serves three primary purposes:
To educate people what we believe as Orthodox Christians;
To educate people on the phronema (mindset) we ought to exhibit as Orthodox Christians; and
To integrate people into the communal life of the Orthodox Church.
All this culminates into the ultimate aim of catechesis, which is to prepare people to live a Mystical life in Christ so that we become Holy:
“You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
1 Peter 2:9
In other words, catechesis orients people towards deified union in Christ, or Theosis:
“His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature.”
2 Peter 1:4
“...O God of all, forgive me all the sins I have committed so that with a cleansed and pure heart, and a mind with fear atremble, and a soul contrite and lowly, I may draw nigh to partake of Thine all-pure and spotless Mysteries, whereby all who eat and drink Thee with a heart sincere and guileless are both deified and quickened. For Thou sayest, O my Master: He that eateth of My Flesh and That doth drink of My Blood also doth abide in Me most truly, and in him am I found also. Wholly true is this word spoken by my Lord and God and Master, for whoever doth partake of these divine and hallowed graces which impart deification is alone, in truth, no longer, but is with Thee, Christ, Thou True Light of the Hallowed, Triple Daystar, which illumineth the whole world...”
Pre-Communion prayer of St Symeon the New Theologian
We begin catechesis with the Church’s official statement of belief, known as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which was established in 381 by the Second Ecumenical Council. It states the following:
“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father; by Whom all things were made; Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from the heavens, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man; And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried; And arose again on the third day according to the Scriptures; And ascended into the heavens, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the Prophets. In One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. We confess one baptism for the remission of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the Life of the age to come. Amen.”
Πιστεύομεν εἰς ἕνα Θεόν, Πατέρα, Παντοκράτορα, ποιητὴν οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς, ὁρατῶν τε πάντων καὶ ἀοράτων. Καὶ εἰς ἕνα Κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ, τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων· φῶς ἐκ φωτός, Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ, γεννηθέντα οὐ ποιηθέντα, ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί, δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο. Τὸν δι’ ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν κατελθόντα ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν καὶ σαρκωθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα. Σταυρωθέντα τε ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου, καὶ παθόντα καὶ ταφέντα. Καὶ ἀναστάντα τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ κατὰ τὰς Γραφάς. Καὶ ἀνελθόντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ καθεζόμενον ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ Πατρός. Καὶ πάλιν ἐρχόμενον μετὰ δόξης κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς, οὗ τῆς βασιλείας οὐκ ἔσται τέλος. Καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον, τὸ κύριον, τὸ ζῳοποιόν, τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, τὸ σὺν Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ συμπροσκυνούμενον καὶ συνδοξαζόμενον, τὸ λαλῆσαν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν. Εἰς μίαν, Ἁγίαν, Καθολικὴν καὶ Ἀποστολικὴν Ἐκκλησίαν. Ὁμολογοῦμεν ἓν βάπτισμα εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν. Προσδοκοῦμεν ἀνάστασιν νεκρῶν. Καὶ ζωὴν τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος. Ἀμήν.
There is a tremendous amount of theology to unpack from the Creed, and we will do so, God willing, over the course of many lessons, discussing the finer points of theology, the Ecumenical Councils, various heresies, and so on.
For now, we highlight two critically fundamental points of dogma, from which we will elaborate Orthodox theology:
There is one Divine being in Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
“And the Trinity is truly a Trinity, not the sum of a divisible number (for it is not an aggregation of monads, that it might suffer division), but inherently essential subsistence of the three-personed Monad. The Trinity is truly a Monad, for such it is; and the Monad is truly a Trinity, for such it subsists, since there is one Godhead that in essence is a Monad and in subsistence a Trinity.”
καὶ Τριὰς ἀληθῶς ἡ Τριάς, οὐκ ἀριθμῷ λυομένῳ συμπληρουμένη· οὐ γάρ ἐστι μονάδων σύνθεσις, ἵνα πάθῃ διαίρεσιν, ἀλλ᾿ ἑνούσιος ὕπαρξις τρισυποστάτου μονάδος. Μονὰς γάρ ἀληθῶς ἡ Τριάς, ὅτι οὕτως ἐστίν, καὶ Τριὰς ἀληθῶς ἡ μονάς, ὅτι οὕτως ὑφέστηκεν, ἐπειδὴ καὶ μία θεότης, οὖσά τε μοναδικῶς, καὶ ὑφισταμένη τριαδικῶς.
St Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 1
Jesus Christ is a Divine person (Son/Logos) who exists as God and a human being (but not human person). The Divine and human natures are united in the Divine person of the Son/Logos.
“We maintain that a convergence occurred, an indescribable concurrence that brought about a unity between otherwise unequal and dissimilar natures, although we recognize a single Christ, Lord, and Son, at the same time both God and man, both in reality and conceptually. We continue to hold that this unity is wholly unbreakable, since we believe that the Only-Begotten and the firstborn are the same individual, the Only-Begotten insofar as he is the Word of God the Father who appeared from his very essence, and first-born insofar as he became a man and was one ‘among many brothers’ (Romans 8:29). ‘Just as there is one God the Father, from whom are all things, so also there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things’ (1 Corinthians 8:6). For we recognize that the Word, through whom all things exist, is God by nature, even when he became flesh, that is to say, a man.”
Διαβεβαιούμεθα δὲ σύνοδον μέν τινα καὶ τὴν ὑπὲρ λόγον συνδρομὴν εἰς ἕνωσιν ἀνίσων τε καὶ ἀνομοίων πεπρᾶχθαι φύσεων· ἕνα δ’ οὖν ὅμως Χριστὸν καὶ κύριον καὶ υἱὸν ἐπιγινώσκομεν, ἐν ταυτῶι καὶ ὑπάρχοντα καὶ νοούμενον θεόν τε ὁμοῦ καὶ ἄνθρωπον. ἀδιάσπαστον δὲ παντελῶς τὴν ἕνωσιν διατηρεῖν εἰθίσμεθα, τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι πιστεύοντες καὶ μονογενῆ καὶ πρωτότοκον, μονογενῆ μὲν ὡς ἐκ θεοῦ πατρὸς λόγον καὶ ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας αὐτοῦ πεφηνότα, πρωτότοκον δὲ αὖ καθὸ γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος καὶ ἐν πολλοῖς ἀδελφοῖς. ὥσπερ γὰρ εἷς ἐστι θεὸς ὁ πατήρ, ἐξ οὗ τὰ πάντα, οὕτως καὶ εἷς κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα. θεὸν γὰρ ὄντα κατὰ φύσιν ἐπιγινώσκομεν τὸν δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα λόγον, καὶ εἰ γέγονε σάρξ, τουτέστιν ἄνθρωπος.
St Cyril of Alexandria, On Orthodoxy to Theodosius
We also need to understand why Christ Incarnated and how His Incarnation is essential to our salvation:
St Athanasius
To resolve the following Divine dilemma: Sin leads to death. If God does not save us from death, then God is not loving; but Divine justice demands that there be a consequence to sin. How does Divine justice prevail yet God lovingly saves us? By Incarnating, Christ conquers death by death, thereby redeeming humanity’s fallen state.
St Maximus the Confessor
To unite Creation unto God. Christ was always going to Incarnate irrespective of the Fall. By Incarnating, Christ gifts Divine Love unto Creation, thereby transfiguring Creation. The Father loves the Son. When the Son takes on humanity, the Father’s Divine Love for the Son is gifted to humanity as a consequence:
“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
John 17:24-26
In other words, Creation is an act of Divine Love, and Christ’s Incarnation is an expression of Divine Love. But just as fundamental to this is that this expression of Divine Love is the realization of Divine Will.
Consider the quintessential Christian prayer: “Our Father, who art in the heavens, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done…”
What is meant by “Thy Will be done…”? Pause for a moment and reflect: What is meany by “Thy Will be done...”?
God’s Will is to realize Divine Love — that we as human beings, having been created in the Image of God, realize Divine Love through our very own actions stemming from our free will. And what are these actions? Those which unite us to Christ.
Consider a portion from the Orthodox daily prayers, specifically that belonging to St John Chrysostom:
“O Lord, grant me the thought of confessing my sins. O Lord, grant me humility, chastity, and obedience.”
Κύριε, δός μοι τῶν λογισμῶν μου ἐξαγόρευσιν. Κύριε, δός μοι ταπείνωσιν, ἐκκοπὴν θελήματος, καὶ ὑπακοήν.
The Greek of St John Chrysostom actually encapsulates a much more deeper and richer expression of Orthodox phronema, which unfortunately is often lost in translation, e.g., through the use of the word ‘chastity’ as found in the so-called ‘Jordanville’ prayer book cited above. There is a loss in translation even in Church Slavonic with the word целомудрие, which essentially means having only pure thoughts and totally aligning one’s will to that of God’s will. While these sentiments are nice, the original Greek of St John Chrysostom speaks of ‘cutting off’ of the will, ἐκκοπὴν θελήματος, which would be more directly translated by the Church Slavonic отсечение.
The idea of ‘cutting off’ (εκκοπή) is found in many places in the New Testament. Just a couple of examples to illustrate the point:
• Matthew 5:30
“And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”
καὶ εἰ ἡ δεξιά σου χεὶρ σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔκκοψον αὐτὴν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ· συμφέρει γάρ σοι ἵνα ἀπόληται ἓν τῶν μελῶν σου καὶ μὴ ὅλον τὸ σῶμά σου βληθῇ εἰς γέενναν.
• Matthew 18:8
“If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire.”
εἰ δὲ ἡ χείρ σου ἢ ὁ πούς σου σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔκκοψον αὐτὰ καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ· καλόν σοί ἐστιν εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν ζωὴν χωλὸν ἢ κυλλόν, ἢ δύο χεῖρας ἢ δύο πόδας ἔχοντα βληθῆναι εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον.
In the Hesychastic tradition, these instances of ‘cutting off’ are understood as referring to a person’s will, or θέλημα.
The connotation of ‘cutting off’ is very important because of its connection to martyrdom, i.e., Christ’s Crucifixion and our own individual struggles:
• St Joseph the Hesychast
“At each instance of cutting off your will, you are being accounted as a martyr in the eyes of God.”
Σε κάθε εκκοπή θελήματος λογίζεσαι μάρτυρας ενώπιον του Θεού.
• Bishop Augoustinos Kantiotes
“The cutting off of your will, is considered a martyrdom.”
Η εκκοπή του ιδίου θελήματος, λογίζεται ως μαρτύριο.
• (Unable to determine exact source)
“When we obey our will, we cannot find rest. True happiness and internal peace are hidden in the cutting off of our own personal will.”
Όταν κάνουμε υπακοή στο θέλημά μας, δεν μπορούμε να βρούμε ανάπαυση. Η αληθινή χαρά και η εσωτερική ειρήνη κρύβονται μέσα στην εκκοπή του ιδίου θελήματος.
Consider also what St John of Kronstadt teaches us:
“We only call the Lord God, but in actual fact we have our own gods, because we do not do the will of God, but the will and thoughts of our flesh, the will of our heart, the will of our passions. Our gods are our flesh, pleasures, money, dress, etc.”
Мы только называем Господа Богом, а на деле-то у нас свои боги, потому что волю Божию не творим, а волю плоти своей и помышления, волю сердца своего, страстей своих; наши боги – плоть наша, сласти, одежды, деньги и проч.
To cut off the will is to eliminate what should not be there so that what should be there can grow as it ought. Cutting off of the will is about removing the weeds and overgrowth so that the flowers may bloom and showcase the beauty of the Garden of Eden.
Pay close attention to the order of St John Chrysostom’s prayer: “O Lord, grant me the thought of confessing my sins. O Lord, grant me humility, the cutting off of the will, and obedience.” In other words,
He teaches us to first partake of the Holy Mystery of Confession;
By confessing we are taught humility and cultivate that virtue;
With humility we cut off our will; and
By being obedient to our spiritual Father we nurture the blossoming of the flowers in Paradise:
“A righteous one will blossom like a palm, and will multiply like a cedar which is in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they will blossom up in the courts of our God.”
Psalm 91 (LXX)
In the book about Mt Athos and its monks, the great St Paisios writes:
“One Elder from a few years ago suffered a lot from an illness. In the end he reposed, but never did he sigh. Not long afterwards, his disciple also fell ill, and since he was never ill before, he panicked and prepared to go out into the world to see a doctor that he may be healed. That night in his sleep he saw his Elder, who said to him: My child, if you want to listen to me, do not go anywhere, but endure suffering. Here I did not find any benefit from my own labours, only illness came to benefit me. Remain nicely here in the Garden of the Most Holy Theotokos and endure suffering. That will let your spirit acquire a great benefit. The disciple rejoiced and became encouraged and started with enduring the suffering. Thereafter he sensed in his pain great compassion and joy, for his mind was to be found among the holy martyrs, and he was filled with joy.”
One needs to understand that when the Athonite elders talk about sickness and illness it may indeed be with respect to bodily ailment, but it is also with respect to one’s spiritual state, related intricately to what we call prelest (spiritual delusion/sickness). The suffering that a monk endures that St Paisios is narrating may be about the bodily suffering of particular Athonite ascetics, but it is also more general about the suffering that comes about as a result of the conflict between pride, arrogance, self-grandeur — and that of humility.
“Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:4
“Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Matthew 7:14
The disciple wants to leave the Holy mountain and go back to the world because the world will encourage and nurture his pride, encourage and nurture his arrogance, encourage and nurture his self-grandeur. Humility is mocked by the world. Satan hates humility because that is the spiritual weapon that keeps him away. Satan despises humility because humility leads to Theosis — the affirmation, declaration, and glorification of Christ’s Incarnation. Humility leads one to realize Divine Love, to express Divine Will.
As Orthodox Christians we all tread the same path to salvation, fighting the same passions, holding to the same faith, and partaking of the same Holy Eucharist that is really and truly the Body and Blood of the Lord our God Jesus Christ.
Archimandrite Demetrios Carellas remarks that there are not multiple ways of life, one for the layman and another for the monastic. Rather, there is only one way of life: Christ. The only thing that differentiates the layman from the monastic is that the monastic pursues the Christian way of life more intensely.
Layman and monastic, we all suffer and we all have the same choice to make: serve God or serve mammon, for we cannot serve two masters. But just because one is a layman that does not give one license to serve mammon. Being a layman just means that we do not serve God with the same intensity as does a monastic. Both layman and monastic look upon one’s own suffering as an opportunity to grow spiritually. It is an opportunity for each one of us to realize our complete dependence on God. Suffering is the means by which we are humbled.
“So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”
Deuteronomy 8:3
“But He [Jesus] answered and said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”’”
Matthew 4:4 ; Luke 4:4
St Anthony the Great, the patron of Orthodox monasticism, writes, as recorded in the Philokalia, that when we see a doctor to be cured of our physical ailments, the doctor prescribes us medication, and though the medication tastes bad and has side effects, nonetheless, we have faith that the medication will cure us. How then can we be hypocritical with regards to our spiritual ailment, to not accept the medicine that God gives us, that this medicine is for us to suffer? Often you will hear cancer patients say that the treatment is worse than the disease. It is easy and comfortable for us to manifest our pride, to manifest our arrogance, to manifest our self-grandeur. But becoming humble is a process of much suffering and great pain. But do we not seek Theosis in order to be cured?
The passage by St Paisios also relates to St Athanasius when he talks about Christians ridiculing death, for death has no hold over the believer in Christ. Suffering has no hold over the believer in Christ. With every hardship that we endure, for all that we suffer, we do not curse and become angry and act like heathens. Rather, we pray that our suffering brings about humility within. We endure hardship that we may realize Theosis.
In seeking humility, Christians are martyrs. We flee the corruption in the world. We seek the Garden of the Panagia, the Most Holy Theotokos. But we do not flee life itself because of the suffering that befalls us. The suffering that befalls us is precisely what leads us into everlasting life in Christ.
When you convert to the Orthodox Christian faith, or embrace living the faith if you are already Orthodox, do not think that you reached the finish line. It is precisely when you become Orthodox, when you live Orthodoxy, that the struggle against Satan intensifies.
Once you are living Orthodoxy, the demons will do everything they can to make you leave the faith. They will fill you with doubt. They will distract you in prayer. They will tempt you to sin. They will do all that they can to make you despair, which is to lose faith in Christ.
But when the demons see that your faith is unshakeable, that you are diligent in observing your prayer rule, that you are obedient to your spiritual father, that you struggle against the passions and frequently go to confession and partake of the Holy Eucharist, that day after day your trust in Christ is strengthened, then they will seek to make you prideful. And it is precisely in this way that a person comes to be in prelest: he rejoices in thinking that he is the one to have conquered death, when in fact he does not realize that he is in free fall into the pit of damnation because of pride. As my own spiritual father remarks, the war has been won. Christ is the one who conquered death. Our personal spiritual struggle is not to conquer death, but rather, to unite to Christ because it is through Christ that we are saved from death and given eternal life. The demons want to separate us from Christ, separate us from the Church, separate us from the Orthodox faith.
Consider what the great St Seraphim of Sarov said:
“The Lord sometimes allows people who are devoted to Him to fall into such dreadful vices; and this is in order to prevent them from falling into a still greater sin: pride. Your temptation will pass and you will spend the remaining days of your life in humility. Only do not forget your sin.”
Господь иногда позволяет людям, преданным ему, впадать в грехи; и это для того, чтобы они не впали в еще большую греховную гордыню. Ваше искушение пройдет, и вы проведете оставшиеся дни своей жизни в смирении. Только не забывай свой грех.
There are a couple of ways to understand what St Seraphim says:
Falling into sin necessitates repentance, which entails partaking of the Holy Mysteries of Confession and Communion. In this way, one is always reminded to cultivate humility and demonstrate one’s absolute reliance on God. Cultivating humility lessens pride.
In cleansing sins from dreadful vices we also cleanse numerous smaller sins. Consider the following analogy: the shoes you wear on a daily basis continually accumulate dust and debris. Now, most people do not clean their shoes on a daily basis. However, if one were to step deeply into mud, then they would need to clean their shoes right away as they are now inhibiting the ability to walk. Moreover, if one does not clean them right away, then they risk damaging their shoes beyond just having them be dirty and muddy. In cleaning off the mud, one does not clean off only the mud, thereby leaving intact all the prior dirt and debris. Rather, one cleans the shoes in their entirety, both the mud and the prior dirt and debris. In this way, repentance, Confession, and Communion cleanse our soul thoroughly of multiple sins. Moreover, the mud serves as a constant reminder.
God does not want us to sin so that we damn ourselves. But He does permit us to sin of our own free will so that we use it to our spiritual benefit. Think of a father teaching his son to ride a bicycle. At first, the father holds on to the bicycle so that his son does not fall. But at some point the father lets go of the bicycle so that his son will be able to ride of his own accord. In letting go, the father does not wish for his son to fall and be hurt, but he lets go knowing that his son may very well fall and be hurt. Nevertheless, the father is there to help and the son will learn from the experience should he fall and be hurt.
That we remind ourselves of our past sins is not to torment ourselves or fall into despair thinking we have not been forgiven. Rather, we look at our past sins as one looks at scars on the body. Our sins are scars on our souls that bear witness to the spiritual struggle just as how scars on the body bear witness to physical struggle. Scars remind us that struggles exist. But more than that: with struggles we inculcate perseverance, watchfulness, and life — the Mystical life in Christ.
Consider also the important lesson taught in Psalm 36 (LXX):
“Better a little of the righteous, than the great wealth of sinners.”
What we must always keep in mind is that the little we do have, if it is not of the righteous, then it can lead to our damnation. The point is not to just merely have little. The point is to have little of the righteous.
A person can have absolutely no worldly possessions, live in complete poverty, but the one thing he does have can be to his detriment: pride. As Proverbs 16:18 teaches us:
“Pride goes before destruction.”
A person can live their whole life in material poverty, yet pride can earn them eternal damnation.
The Fathers teach us to recognize that the struggle never ends. Recognizing this is the first step to attaining humility, the one weapon that makes the demons tremble in fear, and the first step to living the Orthodox faith.
Be ever vigilant in your struggle and consider what St Paisios remarked:
“The devil does not hunt after those who are lost; he hunts after those who are aware, those who are close to God.”
One thing that every Christian must foster with regards to their phronema is to consciously take advantage of unpleasant environments and predicaments as means to grow spiritually.
It is easy for one to wish they were instead living in such-and-such place, instead have such-and-such friends, instead have such-and-such job, or whatever the particular situation may be. While it may be feasible for some to remedy an unpleasant set of circumstances, for those who it is not it is important that their thoughts not be preoccupied with a sense of despair:
“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
James 1:2-4
On the flip-side, those who are materially comfortable must be vigilant not to become spiritually complacent. The Fathers teach us that a complacent attitude towards one’s spiritual state can, in fact, lead one to self-damnation. One ascends the spiritual ladder step-by-step. But descent from the ladder entails falling, not stepping downwards, but falling off the ladder. And if one stays at the same place on the ladder, then more and more demons will accumulate to pull one off. One’s spiritual growth must never cease; it must continue to increase right up to one’s last breath. The Fathers teach us that one cannot grow spiritually without struggling. All circumstances, good and bad, are opportunities to cultivate the virtues.
This is what, in essence, the Creed teaches us. This is why we believe in God, why we believe God interacts with His creation, why we believe in Christ’s Incarnation: God’s Divine Love to unite His creation unto Himself, in which we partake, in which we participate, but which we must approach with humility, and which cannot be obtained without struggling all the while maintaining faith in Christ and living a Mystical life within the Church.
Christ tells us to pick up the Cross and carry it. He does not tell us to pick up the Cross, carry it for a little while, then place it down and rest. Christ tells us to pick up the Cross and carry it, and keep carrying it. The struggle does not end unto your dying breath.
This is the Christian faith. This is what it means to be Orthodox.