What is the Orthodox faith? Fundamentals of the Orthodox Faith

Faith –
1) voluntary union between God and man;
2) Christian, the inner conviction of a person in the existence of God, coupled with the highest degree of trust in Him as the Good and Wise Almighty, with the desire and willingness to follow His good will;
3) religious cult, belief (false);
4) dry consent of the mind with the fact of the existence of God; knowledge about God and His will, not accompanied by a desire to fulfill it (demonic faith) ();
5) confidence (for example: belief in one's own strengths and abilities).

In Hebrew, the word for "faith" sounds like "emuna" - from the word "haman", fidelity. “Faith” is a concept very close to the concept of “loyalty, devotion”.

Faith is the realization of what is expected and the certainty of the invisible (). “Without faith, it is impossible to please God” (). - "faith that works by love" ().

Exist three levels of faith, three stages of spiritual ascent, based on the three forces of the soul (mind, feelings and will): faith as rational certainty, faith as trust and faith as devotion, fidelity.

1. Faith as certainty is a rational recognition of some truth. Such a belief does not affect a person's life. Suppose someone believes that we are. And what do we have from that? The inner world of a person does not change much from such faith. For him, God is, as it were, one of the objects of our Universe: there is the planet Mars, and there is also God. Therefore, such a person does not always correlate faith with his actions, does not try to carefully build his life according to faith, but acts according to the principle "I am on my own, and God is on His own." That is, it is simply the recognition by one's mind of the fact of the existence of God. Besides, usually such a belief is illusory, ask such a believer "Who is God?" and you will hear naive fantasies that have nothing to do with.
2. Second stage - faith as trust. At this level of faith, a person not only rationally agrees with the existence of God, but feels the presence of God, and in case of sorrow or life difficulties, he will certainly remember God and begin to pray to Him. Trust presupposes hope in God, and man is already trying to conform his life to faith in God.
However, if a child trusts his parents, this does not mean that he will always obey them. Sometimes children use parental trust to justify their misdeeds. A person trusts God, but he himself is not always faithful to Him. He seems to say: “Maybe God will forgive me my weaknesses,” and although such a person prays from time to time, he does not always try to overcome his weaknesses, he is not always ready to sacrifice something for God himself.
3. The highest step is faith as fidelity. True faith is not only knowledge about God (which even demons have ()), but knowledge that affects a person’s life. This is not only the recognition of God with your mind, and not only trust in Him with your heart, but also the coordination of your will with the will of God. Only such faith can express, because true love is unthinkable without fidelity. Such faith becomes the basis for all thoughts and actions of a person, and only it is saving. But this also implies inner work on oneself, victory over one's own and gaining the gospel.
So, the human soul consists of three forces -, and; true faith involves them all.

1. Faith in relation to other virtues

“At the head of the holy virtues is faith, the root and essence of all holy virtues. All the holy virtues flow from it: prayer, love, repentance, humility, fasting, meekness, mercy, etc.
reverend

2. Source of faith

Faith is given by God Himself. She, as she says, cannot be abducted by thieves, is inaccessible to robbers, she is guarded. And the saint said that faith, like a spark ignited by the Holy Spirit in the human heart, flares up with the warmth of love. He calls faith a lamp in the heart. When this lamp burns, a person sees spiritual things, can correctly judge spiritual things, and even sees the invisible God; when it does not burn, it is dark in the heart, there is the darkness of ignorance, there delusions and vices are elevated to the dignity of virtues.

3. Components of faith

Faith is made up of human will and divine action. She herself is a holy sacrament in which the human will and Divine grace are coordinated (see).

Faith consists in accepting the truths of Divine Revelation contained in Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition, formulated in the dogmatic teaching of the Church. These truths are supersensible, immaterial, invisible, immaterial, mysterious. They surpass the visible material world, surpass the human senses and the mind, and therefore require faith.

Knowledge of God is acquired by faith, and without faith it is impossible to know Him… For what reasoning will convince us, for example, of the Resurrection?.. By what kind of reasoning can the birth of God the Word be comprehended?
saint

5. Expression of faith

Faith can be divided into speculative () and active, living, expressed in the performance of the Gospel. These kinds of faith complement each other in human salvation.

“Faith, if it does not have works, is dead in itself. But someone will say: “You have faith, but I have works”: show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith from my works.
You believe that God is one: you do well; and the demons believe, and tremble. But do you want to know, unfounded man, that faith without works is dead?
Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works, when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the word of Scripture was fulfilled: "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God." Do you see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone? Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she received the spies and sent them away in another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead."
()

“Without faith it is impossible to be saved, because everything, both human and spiritual, is based on faith. But faith does not come to perfection otherwise than through the fulfillment of all that Christ has indicated. as well as works without faith. True faith is shown in deeds.
reverend

“The image of worship of God consists in these two things: in the exact knowledge of the dogmas of piety (1) and in good deeds (2). Dogmas without good deeds are not favorable to God, He does not accept good deeds if they are not based on the dogmas of piety.
saint

“Faith in the Gospel must be alive, one must believe with the mind and heart, confess the faith with the lips, express, prove it with life. Constancy in the Orthodox confession of the dogmas of the faith is nourished and preserved by deeds of faith and integrity of conscience... My Savior. Plant in me a living faith, proven by deeds ... so that I become capable of resurrection in my spirit.
saint

That we truly believe God...let it be revealed by our works and keeping God's commandments.
saint

Is it possible to be a true believer without knowing the fundamentals of the faith?

Unfortunately, today among the parishioners of different churches there are a considerable number of those whose personal religious position regarding the study of dogmas is not only neutral, but even negative.

Why burden yourself with too much knowledge? - they are surprised; after all, the main thing is to visit God's temple, participate in divine services, obey the priest, and try not to sin. Meanwhile, such a point of view is not only not welcomed by the Church, but also contradicts the very concept of faith.

And this is understandable. The very entry of a person into the Church of Christ implies a certain knowledge of the conditions, tasks and goals of life.

Let's say, without knowledge of why and for what it is necessary to fulfill obedience, conscious, voluntary service to God, humble, sacrificial self-giving is unthinkable. But this is exactly what the Head of the Church, the Lord, expects from us ().

Without detailed knowledge of what exactly one should believe in order to be saved, to inherit, faith cannot be the axis of human life, the subject of conviction of the mind; cannot rise to the high Christian level.

“Faith” not supported by knowledge leads to delusions, the birth and development of false ideas about God, to the formation of an imaginary idol in the mind. Idolatry is a barrier on the way to the Kingdom of God.

Faith based on a simple recognition of the fact of the existence of God and His Providence, on the blind and indistinct confession of Christ as the Son of God, is akin to demonic. After all, the demons were crying out, shouting to Christ: “What have you to do with us, Jesus, the Son of God? You came here before the time to torment us "(); for the demons also believe and tremble ()

Is faith possible outside the Church?

In order to answer this question, it is necessary to clearly understand what kind of faith (what kind of semantic meaning of this concept) is meant.

Faith in the One God manifested itself in people even before creation. Adam, Abraham, and Israel had such faith.

Some faith in the One Beginning, manifested at the level of reason, was characteristic of a number of pre-Christian philosophers. Even representatives of the pagan world () possessed some rudiments of faith in the Unknown God.

Individual Old Testament righteous people (and, for example, during the conclusion of the Sinai Covenant - all) became partakers. All this contributed to the formation and strengthening of people's faith in the True and Only God.

However, through the Old Testament faith, a person was not freed from slavery, did not reach the Highest Heavenly Abodes. This became possible only with the Coming of the Son of God, the conclusion between God and man, the formation of the Church.

Communion to the faith of Christ is carried out through the assimilation of the Gospel teachings, communion with the True Church, observance of the commandments.

The true Church is the Universal Orthodox Church. After all, only she is the pillar and affirmation of the truth (), only she is entrusted with the fullness of salvation, only in her is true faith observed, the one that the Lord had in mind, saying about Himself that “he who believes in Him is not judged, but the unbeliever is already condemned” ( ).

Since being a believer, in the most exalted sense of the word, means not only believing in the existence of God and everything that is the subject of Christian dogma, but also living the fullness of Christian life, we understand that faith is achievable only within the framework of general church life (implying participation in temple services, Sacraments, etc.), within the framework of life in Christ.

The Lord Himself, speaking of the need for such an attitude towards faith, asserted: “Without Me, you cannot do anything” ().

“Faith” is a concept very close to the concept of “loyalty, devotion”. It becomes obvious that faith is not a passive trust in external authority, but a dynamic force that transforms a person, puts before him the goal of life, makes it possible to achieve this goal.

“Do not mistake satiety for happiness. The truth is that we have nothing permanent on this earth. Everything passes in an instant, and nothing belongs to us, everything is borrowed. Loan health, strength and beauty . »
saint

“There are only believers and non-believers. All believers are there.
M. Tsvetaeva

“Faith is not just an expectation; it is reality itself."
ep.

“Christian faith has two sides: faith in God and faith in God. There is dogmatic faith - adherence to certain religious statements and certain religious practices, and there is personal faith - adherence to a certain person, our Lord Jesus Christ. Personal hope in Christ, repentance and faith cannot exist without dogmas. Here are the dogmas without hope, repentance and faith - as much as you like.
Sergey Khudiev

“A person is never a stranger to faith… God is encoded in the soul of everyone: in the feeling of Eternity, the feeling of the Highest principle. And therefore, in order to come to faith, one must come to oneself. We live as if away from ourselves. We work in a hurry, we fuss about household chores. But we do not remember ourselves at all. I often think of the words of Meister Eckhart: "In silence God speaks his word." Silence! Where is our silence? We have everything rumbles all the time. But in order to come to some kind of spiritual values, it is necessary to create islands of silence, islands of spiritual concentration. Stop for a minute. We are running all the time, as if we have a very long distance ahead. And our distance is short. It doesn't cost anything to run. So, in order to cognize, deepen, realize the faith that lives in us, we must return to ourselves ... ".
archpriestAlexander Men

Faith is the assurance of things unseen. We use this word in relation to God, to spiritual things; but it also applies to many things in ordinary life. We talk about love, we talk about beauty. When we say that we love a person, we thereby say that in an incomprehensible, inexpressible way we have seen something in him that others have not seen. And when we, overcome with delight, exclaim: “How wonderful!”, we are talking about something that has come down to us, but which we cannot simply interpret. We can only say: come and see how the apostles said to their friends: come, look at Christ, and you will know what I saw in Him ().
And so our faith in invisible things, on the one hand, is our personal faith, that is, what we ourselves knew, how we once, at least once in our lives, touched the edge of Christ's robe () - and smelled Him Divine power, at least once looked into His eyes - and saw His infinite mercy, compassion, love. This can happen directly, mysteriously through the meeting of the living soul with the Living God, but this also happens through other people. My spiritual father once told me: no one can renounce the earth and turn his whole gaze to heaven, if in the eyes of at least one person, on the face of at least one person he does not see the radiance of eternal life ... In this respect, we are all responsible for each other, everyone responsible for the faith that we have or for which we yearn, and which can be given to us not only by the miracle of a direct meeting face to face with God, but also through man.
Faith is therefore made up of many elements. On the one hand, this is our personal experience: behold, I saw in these eyes, on this face, the radiance of eternity, God shone through this face ... But it happens: I somehow feel that there is something - but I can’t catch it! I only catch a little. And then I can look, hear, communicate with my soul to other people who also know something - and that miserable, perhaps, but precious, holy knowledge of faith that was given to me is expanded by experience, faith, that is, confidence, knowledge of others. of people. And then my faith becomes wider and wider, deeper and deeper, and then I can proclaim the truths that I possess not personally, but collectively, together with other people. This is how we proclaim the Creed, which was given to us from ancient times by the experience of other people, but which we gradually come to know, partaking in this experience.
And finally, there is another faith, which the Gospel of John speaks of: no one has seen God, except for His Only Begotten Son, who came into the world to save the world (). There are truths of faith that we receive from Christ, because He knows all the depths of the Divine and all the depths of man and can bring us both to the human depth and to the Divine depths.
metropolitan

The concept of faith in patristic literature

The circle of ecclesiastical authors who devoted a place to this issue in their writings is quite foreseeable. Firstly, these are those ancient writers who composed large texts of apologetic content, such as (d. c. 215), blessed (d. c. 460); secondly, these are church catechists - the saint (d. 386); finally, these are the systematizers of church knowledge, as the anonymous author of the “Teaching of the Holy Fathers on the incarnation of God the Word” (Doctrina Patrum), approximately dating from the 6th-7th centuries, the monk (d. c. 700) and the monk (d. before 787 G.).
The main supporting texts of Holy Scripture for the Holy Fathers are two passages from the Apostle Paul. The book of Hebrews gives the classic definition of faith: Faith, on the other hand, is the realization of what is expected and the certainty of the invisible... And without faith it is impossible to please God; for it is necessary that he who comes to God believe that he exists, and that he rewards those who seek him(). In this understanding Vera reveals for a person an unobvious, but invaluable bottom inaccessible to direct sensory perception and everyday reliability; the object of faith is the intelligible, verified only in the mystical experience of communion with God. The second passage from the apostle Paul does not serve as a definition. This is more of a description. necessary conditions the emergence of faith, which are Scripture itself, in other words, divine revelation, and instruction in it, that is, a tradition inculcated in the church community: …for whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how to call on Him in Whom they did not believe? how to believe in the One about Whom they have not heard? how to hear without a preacher? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of God.().
For the first time, the concept of faith is subjected to theoretical consideration by y, who, on the one hand, refuted the accusation of the Greek philosophers that Vera is an unreasonable opinion based on prejudice, on the other hand, opposed the opinion of the Gnostics, who left the faith to the simple members of the Church, opposing it with the meaning gnosis, understood as some kind of esoteric knowledge, accessible only to the initiated and closed from the profane. On the third hand, he opposed the conviction of those same simpletons who believed that faith alone without knowledge or gnosis is enough.
“Faith,” Clement writes in The Stromata, “is free anticipation and pious consent… Others, on the other hand, define faith as an act of mental assumption of the implicit, like evidence, revealing to us the existence of a thing, though unknown, but obvious. So, faith is an act of free choice, since it is a certain aspiration, and a reasonable aspiration. But since every action begins with a reasonable choice, it turns out that faith is the basis of any reasonable choice ... So, he who believes the Scriptures and has a correct judgment hears in them the voice of God himself, an indisputable evidence. Such a belief no longer needs proof. Blessed are that's why not seeing but believing.
With an attempt at a complete and systematic theological presentation of the concept of faith, we meet with the author of the 4th century saint in his fifth “Catechetical Teaching”. This is what he writes: "The word Vera one by its name ... is divided into two kinds. Faith that teaches belongs to the first kind, when the soul agrees to something. And it is useful for the soul... Another kind of faith is that which is bestowed by grace by Christ. To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit; faith to another, by the same Spirit; gifts of healing to others, by the same Spirit(). And so, this faith, bestowed by grace by the Holy Spirit, is not only teaching, but also acting above human strength. For whoever has this faith: this mountain will say, “Move from here to there,” and it will move() ... So, for your part, have faith in Him, so that from Him you will receive faith that acts above human strength.
Reverend in "Accurate Orthodox faith", in the chapter dedicated to the disclosure of the meaning of the word Vera, summarizes the previous tradition: “Faith, meanwhile, is twofold: there is faith from hearing(). For when we hear the divine Scriptures, we believe the teaching of the Spirit. This faith, on the other hand, acquires perfection through everything that is lawful by Christ: believing by deed, living piously, and fulfilling the commandments of our Renovator. For whoever does not believe in accordance with the tradition of the Catholic Church, or who through shameful deeds has communion with the devil, is unfaithful. Faith is there again, the realization of what is expected and the certainty of the invisible() or the unquestioning and unquestioning hope of what God has promised us, and of the success of our petitions. Therefore, the first Vera refers to our intention, and the second refers to the gifts of the Spirit.
Saint John, just like Saint Cyril, clearly distinguishes what is in our own power and what is a divine gift. So, the three main meanings of the word, the three prevailing images - dogmatic (faith of the church), psychological (consent with the faith of the church) and charismatic (gift of the Holy Spirit); these are the three entities behind these images - the church, man, God. At the Holy Fathers inera is primarily seen as something external to a person, which becomes "internal" due to the consent of the soul in an act of personal faith.

P.B. Mikhailov, lecturer at PSTGU

Faith, defined from the point of view of knowledge of God, is, first of all, the trust of the human mind in Divine truth, without researching about it, on the basis of the evidence of Holy Scripture, Holy Tradition and those miraculous signs that always accompany true faith. Thus we believe that the world was created by God in six days and that it is kept by the Word of God (2 Pet. 3:7); we believe that again the Lord will come to earth to judge the living and the dead; We believe that there will be recompense beyond the grave and eternal life. By faith, further, is meant the heartfelt certainty of a person in a known religious truth without a clear comprehension of it by the mind; for example, without comprehending the dogma of the Holy Trinity, we are inwardly confident that, indeed, God is trinity in Persons, that, indeed, Christ is the Son of God, who descended for our salvation, and the Holy Spirit is the source of our sanctification and adoption by God.

But all such beliefs cannot yet be called perfect faith. Faith at the highest stage of its development is a vision - a vision by the spirit of God and His saints, contemplation of the secrets of the heavenly world, touching them with a spiritual sense. The Apostle Paul speaks of such perfect faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “Faith,” he defines, “is the conviction of invisible things” (Heb. 11:1). "Reproof" - from the word "appearance", i.e. in the presence of true faith, a spiritual object clearly appears before our spirit, receives a shape, becomes tangible and visible through the living contact of our spirit with it.

Therefore, perfect faith is seeing through the eyes of the heart. spiritual world, feeling it with a spiritual sense. In support of his teaching, the Apostle Paul further cites the names of those great righteous men of the Old Testament who had such a faith. Such were the holy patriarchs, kings and prophets, “who by faith conquered kingdoms, worked righteousness, received promises, blocked the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, avoided the edge of the sword, were strengthened from weakness, were strong in war, drove away the regiments of strangers; women received their dead resurrected... the whole world was not worthy of them” (Heb. 11:33-35, 38).

Faith in God

The doctrine of God in the Creed begins with the word: "I believe." God is the first object of Christian faith. Thus, our Christian recognition of the existence of God is based not on rational foundations, not on evidence taken from the mind or obtained from the experience of our external senses, but on an internal, higher conviction that has a moral basis.

To believe in God means, in the Christian understanding, not only to recognize God with the mind, but also to strive for Him with the heart.

We “believe” in that which is inaccessible to external experience, scientific research, perception by our organs of external senses. In the Slavic and Russian languages, the concept of "I believe" is deeper than the meaning of the Russian "I believe," denoting often a simple acceptance without checking the testimony of another person, someone else's experience. St. Gregory the Theologian also distinguishes in Greek: religious faith - “I believe to whom, to what“; and simple personal faith - “I believe to whom; to what“. He writes: “The meaning of “believing in what” and “believing in what” is not the same. We believe in the Divine, but we believe in regard to every thing” (Creator of St. Gregory the Theologian, Part 3, p. 88, “On the Holy Spirit”).

The Christian faith is a mysterious manifestation in the realm of the human soul. It is wider than thought stronger, more efficient than it. It is more difficult than a separate the senses, it contains feelings of love, fear, reverence, reverence, humility. It also cannot be named. strong-willed a phenomenon, for, although it moves mountains, the Christian, believing, renounces his will, completely surrendering himself to the will of God: “May Thy will be done on me, a sinner.”

Of course, Christianity is also connected with mental knowledge; it gives a worldview. But if it remained only a world view, its driving force would be lost; without faith it would not be a living link between heaven and earth. The Christian faith is something much more than a "convinced assumption," called faith, which is commonly encountered in life.

Christ's was created on faith, as on a rock that will not tremble under it. By faith the saints conquered kingdoms, worked righteousness, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, avoided the edge of the sword, were strengthened in weakness (Heb. 11:33-38). Inspired by faith, Christians gladly went to torment and death. Faith is a stone, but the stone is not tangible, free from heaviness, heaviness; pulling up, not down.

“Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from the womb”- said the Lord (John 7:38), and the preaching of the apostles, preaching in the power of the word, in the power of the Spirit, in the power of signs and wonders, was a living testimony to the truth of the words of the Lord.

“If you have faith and do not doubt... if you say to this mountain, Get up and throw yourself into the sea, it will be” (Mat. 21:21). The history of the Church of Christ is filled with the miracles of the saints of all ages. But it is not faith in general that creates miracles, but the Christian faith. Faith is effective not by the power of imagination and not by self-hypnosis, but by the fact that it connects with the source of all life and strength - with God. She is a vessel by which water is scooped up; but you need to be at this water and lower the vessel into it: this water is the grace of God. “Faith is the key to the treasury of God,” writes Fr. John of Kronstadt (“My Life in Christ”, vol. 1, p. 242).

Therefore, it is difficult to define what faith is. When the Apostle says: Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the certainty of things not seen.”(Heb. 11:1), then, without touching on the nature of faith here, it only points to what it directs its gaze: - to the expected, to the invisible, namely, that faith is the penetration of the soul into the future ( expected) or invisible ( confidence in the invisible). This testifies to the mysterious nature of the Christian faith.

Faith and Knowledge in Religion and Science

The importance of faith in religion is so great that religion itself is often called simply faith. This is true, but no more than in relation to any other field of knowledge.

The path to knowledge for a person always opens with faith in parents, a teacher, a book, etc. And only subsequent personal experience strengthens (or, on the contrary, weakens) faith in the correctness of previously received information, transforming faith into knowledge. Faith and knowledge thus become one. This is how a person grows in science, art, economics, politics ...

Faith is just as necessary for a person in religion. It is an expression of the spiritual aspirations of a person, his quest, and often begins with trust in those who already have the relevant experience and knowledge in it. Only gradually, with the acquisition of one's own religious experience, does a person, along with faith, acquire a certain knowledge, which increases with a correct spiritual and moral life, as the heart is cleansed of passions. As one of the great saints said: "he sees the truth of God by the power of life."

A Christian on this path can reach such a knowledge of God (and the essence of the created world), when his faith is co-dissolved with knowledge, and he becomes “one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17).

Thus, just as in all natural sciences, faith precedes knowledge, and experience confirms faith, so in religion, faith, proceeding from a deeply intuitive feeling of God, acquires its strength only in the immediate personal experience His knowledge. And only faith in the non-existence of God, in all its ideological variants, remains not only not justified in experience, but also in flagrant contradiction with the great religious experience of all times and peoples.

superstition

Superstition, that is, vain faith that does not bring true benefit to the human soul, is a kind of spiritual disease, without any exaggeration it can be likened to drug addiction, and it forms where true knowledge about faith and spiritual life is impoverished. Faith without knowledge very quickly turns into superstition, that is, a very strange mixture of different views, where there is a place for both demons, and even the Lord, but there are no concepts of repentance, the fight against sin, and a change in lifestyle.
A superstitious person believes that his personal well-being depends on how successfully he will be able to defend himself from evil forces. At the same time, the concepts of God's love, God's will, God's Providence are completely alien to him. Such a person does not know and does not want to know that the sorrows and sufferings allowed by God are a manifestation of God's love for us - an educational means through which a person is able to realize his weakness, feel the need for God's help, repent and change his life. And it doesn’t matter how these sorrows visit us: through illness or the loss of loved ones, or as a result of an accident, or through the slander of sorcerers.

Those who hold on to superstition sin grievously against the first commandment of God. Superstition, or vain faith, faith based on nothing, unworthy of true Christians.
The holy fathers and teachers of the Church often warned against prejudices and superstitions, by which ancient Christians were sometimes deceived. Their warnings can be divided into three types:
1) warnings against so-called signs, when omens of happy circumstances in our life are derived from the most unimportant cases;
2) warnings against divination or divination, or strong desire by whatever means, even by dark means, to find out what our future life will be like, whether one or another of our enterprises will be successful or unsuccessful; and finally
3) warnings against the desire to acquire forces that heal from diseases or protect from various troubles and dangers; from the use of objects that do not contain anything medical and, due to their properties, cannot have any influence on our well-being and happiness.

Source of Christian Faith

The source of faith is revelation. The word revelation in the strict sense means “the manifestation of hidden mysteries” or the supernatural communication to people from God of any new and unknown truths.

Unlike supernatural revelation, the constant revelation of the actions of the all-good Providence of God, manifested through the natural forces and laws of nature established by the Creator, is called natural revelation. This last type of revelation is signified in Holy Scripture by a more general name: a phenomenon, in contrast to the more special word - revelation, which mainly signifies the revelation of some mystery, or truth, exceeding the powers of the natural human mind. When. app. Paul speaks of the revelation of God to the pagan world through visible creatures, he uses the expression: "God revealed to them" (Rom. 1:19), and when the same apostle speaks of revelation through the Scriptures, the prophetic mysteries of the Incarnation (Rom. XIV, 24), about the revelation to him of the mystery concerning the calling to the Church of Christ of the Gentiles (Eph. III:3) and in general about supernatural revelations (cf. 1 Cor. II:10; 2 Cor. XII, 1, 7; Ephes. I:17; Philip III, 15): then in all these cases revelation is signified by the word revelation. In this sense, the revelation of St. John is called the Apocalypse.

Faith and Church

External unity is the unity manifested in the communion of the sacraments, while internal unity is the unity of the spirit. Many have been saved (for example, some martyrs) without partaking of any of the sacraments of the Church (even Baptism), but no one is saved without partaking of the Church's inner holiness, her faith, hope, and love; For it is not works that save, but faith. Faith is not twofold, but one, true and living. Therefore, those are foolish who say that faith alone does not save, but works are still needed, and those who say that faith saves besides works: for if there are no works, then faith is dead; if it is dead, then it is not true, for in the true faith Christ, truth and life, if not true, then false, i.e. external knowledge.

Orthodoxy is a Christian faith that preserves intact the truth of the teachings of Jesus Christ, as it is embodied in Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition.Thus, Orthodox dogma goes back to apostolic times.

Fundamentals of the Orthodox Faith

The main content of Orthodoxy is faith in God the Trinity - in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Church teaches that God is one in Essence, but trinity in persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, and all three hypostases of the one God are equal in their Divine nature and are in inseparable unity, so that no action of God happens without the joint participation of the Three Persons of the Divine Trinity.
God is the Creator of everything existing world, visible and invisible (i.e. the physical world and the spiritual world). God created the world freely, not in need of creation, but according to His Love.
According to Orthodox teaching, everything created was created perfect and sinless, and sin and evil in the world appeared only after the supreme angel Lucifer (lat. - Light-bearer), possessing free will, imagined himself equal to God and, puffed up, opposed himself to the Creator. Thus, Lucifer himself fell away from God and took some of the angels with him. Thus, evil in the Orthodox understanding is not something that exists in itself, but is a distortion of the world arranged by God. Evil is the absence of good, a distortion of truth.
The first man Adam, together with his wife Eve, were also sinless and holy from creation, but Satan tricked Eve, and through her and her husband Adam, into disobedience to God, which led to the fall of the first people and their loss of holiness, and as a result, to the impossibility of being in close proximity to God any longer.
The redemption of this original sin was accomplished through the incarnation of God the Son from the Ever-Virgin Mary, who, being a Virgin, by the action of the Holy Spirit conceived in the womb of a son, who was given the name Jesus by birth. Thus the great sacrament of the Incarnation took place. With His earthly life and suffering on the Cross, Jesus Christ redeemed man from the power of sin weighing on him, elevated the previously fallen nature of the human race above angelic dignity.
The Orthodox profess faith "in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." The Church, in the Orthodox understanding, is a divine-human organism headed by the Lord Jesus Christ, manifested in visible world as a society of people established by God, united by the Holy Spirit, the Orthodox Faith, the Law of God, the hierarchy and the Sacraments. The day of the founding of the Church is the day of Pentecost - the fiftieth day after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles. Composing one spiritual body, having one Head - Christ and animated by one Holy Spirit, the Church is called One. Separate existence of local Orthodox churches in different countries, for example, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Russian, etc., does not violate the unity of the Church of Christ, since they are all parts of the One Church. This unity is manifested in the common confession by all Orthodox Christians of the dogmatic foundations of the Orthodox Faith, in the common Sacraments of the Church, in the unity of the episcopate, in brotherly love and communion.
The Orthodox Church has a hierarchy. In the sacrament of priesthood, or ordination, a person is given grace to perform the sacraments and serve God. The highest and most important rank is the rank of bishop. The bishop represents the fullness of the Church, he leads a large church community in a certain territory (eparchy), spiritually guides the believers of his diocese. It is the bishop who performs the sacrament of the priesthood, that is, he ordains the clergy, while the bishop is ordained by the council of bishops. In the person of the bishops, the Church preserves the apostolic succession - a series of ordinations, continuously ascending to the apostles who received grace from Jesus Christ Himself. All bishops are equal in the grace given to them, but archbishops and metropolitans are also distinguished according to the degree of seniority. A patriarch is a bishop appointed as head of a large local church. Presbyters, or priests, the next rank in the hierarchy, perform all the sacraments (except ordination) with the blessing of their bishop. Deacons do not officiate themselves, but assist the bishop or priest. The clergy is divided into white and black. White clergy - priests and deacons who have their own families. Black - monastics, that is, those who have taken special vows of service to God, including a vow of celibacy. Monks may not take holy orders, or they may be ordained deacon (hierodeacon) or priest (hieromonk). The abbots of the monasteries bear the rank of abbot or archimandrite. Bishops are only supplied from monasticism.
However, this ecclesiastical hierarchy does not imply that the highest ecclesiastical leadership should be free from well-deserved criticism from all other members of the Orthodox Church. Any Orthodox Christian must absorb the spirit of Orthodox tradition. Loyalty to God is first of all fidelity to Tradition, fidelity to the patristic norms of spiritual life and faith. Therefore, any person who deviates from the Orthodox Faith, no matter what place in the hierarchy he occupies, can and should be criticized by any other member of the Church. We see that this is an orientation towards fundamental inner spiritual freedom for members Orthodox Church. In the history of Orthodoxy, there are many examples of how even the highest leadership of the Church, metropolitans and patriarchs were subjected to the most severe criticism from other members of the Church in cases where they deviated into heresy.
The most important principles of Orthodoxy are the openness of the Orthodox Faith to all and the freedom of the human person. Orthodoxy teaches that a person is initially free, and the meaning of the whole spiritual life of a person is for a person to gain this true freedom, freedom from passions, freedom from sins by which a person is enslaved. To achieve this freedom, according to the Orthodox dogma, is difficult, it is accomplished only by a great feat. But at the same time, salvation is possible only as a free act of the person himself. The Holy Fathers of the Church teach that two things are necessary for a person to be saved: firstly, this is the action of the grace of God, and secondly, this is the free will of a person, his own work. Thus, the Orthodox Church insists on the fundamentally free acceptance by man of the truths of the Gospel. The Orthodox Church teaches that freedom is the most important quality in a person's personality. Man is first of all a personality, and personality, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers, is a great mystery, for it is the image of God within man himself. And no one can encroach on this God-given freedom. It is in the freedom of man that the possibility of salvation lies, for salvation is the perfection of man to such an extent that he becomes like God, freely accepts and chooses life according to God's commandments. It is in this that man's salvation consists, his union with God, the subordination of his will to the will of God. We find quite different teachings in other Christian denominations, where the juridical understanding of salvation prevails. According to this understanding, the salvation of a person depends on whether he will be able to good deeds, faith and repentance to propitiate the strict judge - God.
The Orthodox Church teaches that there are two ways to save a person. One path is the path of solitude, renunciation of the world, the monastic path. This is the path of a person's intense struggle with sins, with vices, subordinating his will wholly and completely to the will of God. This is the path of asceticism and special service to God, the Church and neighbors. The other path is the path of service to the world. This is the way family life. The family is considered by the Orthodox Church as one of the most important institutions of social life and at the same time as a way to save a person. The family is called in church language a small church or a house church. It is with the family that a person enters the Greater Church, his path to salvation. It is in the family that the basic norms of human social behavior are developed with the understanding that each member of society and each member of the family has a special obedience. Thus, the husband is the head of the family, and the wife is the husband's helper. The husband must devote all his cares and all his strength to his wife and his family. Christian family built on love, on the self-denial of a person, on his sacrifice in relation to other members of his family. Such is the love of the elders in relation to the younger, and of the younger in relation to the elders.
The same principles underlie the Christian Orthodox statehood. The Orthodox Church pays great attention to issues of state life. Once Christianity began in the conditions of the persecution of the Roman Empire on Christian Church. But even at that time, the Apostle Paul commands Christians to pray for power and honor the king not only for the sake of fear, but also for the sake of conscience, knowing that power is the establishment of God. Any power is an image of God's order on Earth, as opposed to disorder, as opposed to the kingdom of human arbitrariness. Such is even the power of the godless. The ideal is the Orthodox Kingdom - an autocratic monarchy. Many writings of the Holy Fathers and Orthodox Tradition contain the idea that the Orthodox Kingdom is an image of the Kingdom of Heaven. The king is the first prayer book for all the people. The king is entrusted with power from God in order to monitor, first of all, the moral and spiritual state of his people, not allowing evil and sin to spread freely among the people, and taking care of the standard of living and well-being of his people.
Defense of the Fatherland, defense of the Motherland is one of the greatest ministries of a Christian. The Orthodox Church teaches that any war is evil, because it is associated with hatred, discord, violence and even murder, which is a terrible mortal sin. However, the war in defense of one's Fatherland is blessed by the Church and military service is revered as the highest service. The Orthodox Church glorifies many holy warriors. These are the ancient warriors, first of all the early Christian martyrs, these are also many warriors of Holy Russia, such as the holy prince Alexander Nevsky. The service of a soldier is understood as the fulfillment of Christ's commandment: "There is no love higher than that, as if someone lays down his life for his friends."
The national Russian culture is the culture of people who are primarily associated with the Orthodox Church. The Gospel Commandments, which the preaching of the Orthodox Church brought into a person's life, formed the basis of all life, the whole life of the Russian people, which was recorded in all the features of the traditional national Russian culture: songs, dances, rituals, morality. Orthodoxy is closely connected with national culture.
aim Orthodox life is union with God. According to the Orthodox Faith, this is done in prayer and in the sacraments of the Church. In the sacraments, a person can unite with God in the closest way. Of all the sacraments, the most important is the sacrament of the Eucharist or communion, the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, in which a person communes with the Divinity itself. The sacrament of baptism and chrismation is the sacrament through which a person enters the Church, becomes part of the Body of Christ, getting rid of sin and getting the opportunity to begin new life. The sacrament of marriage is a sacrament in which a person is combined with another person in order to be a single union in order to live as a single whole, a single family. In the sacrament of unction or unction, a person is asked for forgiveness of all his sins, including forgotten ones, and a request for a person to be cured of illnesses. The sacrament of repentance is the most important in the spiritual life of the Orthodox Church. In this sacrament, a person is truly forgiven the sin that he has committed, provided that he sincerely repents of this sin and confesses this sin in the sacrament of confession. The sacrament of confession is also one of the most important sacraments, because it is through the frequent confession of one's sins that a person receives a grace-filled opportunity, grace-filled strength and support to get rid of, cleanse himself of sin and learn not to commit it again. The sacrament of the priesthood is a sacrament in which a person is given the grace of the Holy Spirit to perform the sacraments, to perform divine services, that grace that was once taught by Christ the Savior himself to his apostles.
In prayer, a person is combined with God himself, turning to him. Prayer is common and domestic. In home prayer, a person faces God one on one and opens his heart before Him. And church prayer is a common prayer in which all members of the Church participate, and not only those who are visibly and visibly present at the service, but also those who are invisibly present, including saints and angels who intercede and pray with us , and the head of the Church of Jesus Christ himself.
The Church teaches that prayer should take place in sobriety, so that it is alien to any spiritual exaltation, and the Church warns a person from delusion - a state of deceptive spirituality, when a person, believing that he has reached some special spiritual heights, thinking to communicate with angels, with saints and with God himself, but in reality he pleases his own pride, his own selfishness. So the Church warns a person against temptations - dangerous breakdowns for the human psyche.