{"id":3485,"date":"2015-12-27T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-12-27T15:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3485"},"modified":"2015-12-18T15:34:08","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T20:34:08","slug":"learning-our-faith-from-the-greek-fathers-of-the-church-20151227","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3485","title":{"rendered":"Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20151227"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pentecost\"<\/a>In Greek patristic and Byzantine thought, human salvation is understood essentially in terms of participation<\/em> in and communion<\/em> with the deified humanity of the incarnate Word, the New Adam. When the Fathers call the Spirit the \u201cimage of the Son,\u201d they imply that He is the main agent which makes this communion a reality. The Son has given us \u201cthe first fruits of the Spirit,\u201d writes Athanasius, \u201cso that we may be transformed into sons of God, according to the image of the Son of God.\u201d Thus, if it is through the Spirit that the Word became man, it is also only through the Spirit that true life reaches all men. \u201cWhat is the effect and the result of the sufferings and works and teaching of Christ?\u201d asks Nicholas Cabasilas. \u201cConsidered in relation to ourselves, it is nothing other than the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spirit transforms the Christian community into the \u201cBody of Christ.\u201d In Byzantine hymns for the feast of Pentecost, the Spirit is sometimes called the \u201cglory of Christ\u201d granted to the disciples after the Ascension, and at each Eucharist, the congregation after communion chants: \u201cWe have seen the true light! We have received the heavenly Spirit! We have found the true faith and we worship the undivided Trinity, for the Trinity has saved us!\u201d<\/p>\n

Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, is the moment when the true meaning of Christ\u2019s cross and glorious Resurrection becomes manifest, when a new mankind enters back into divine fellowship, when a new knowledge is granted to \u201cfishermen.\u201d This is the main theme of the feast of Pentecost in our tradition, and, curiously, it matches the awareness of many modern students of Christian origins that full understanding of Christ\u2019s teaching is indeed a \u201cpost-Resurrection\u201d experience of the early Church: \u201cThe Spirit, through His appearance in tongues of fire, firmly plants the memory of those man-saving words which Christ told the Apostles, having received them from the Father.\u201d But the \u201cknowledge\u201d or \u201cmemory\u201d granted by the Spirit is not an intellectual function; it implies an \u201cillumination\u201d of human life as a whole. The theme of \u201clight,\u201d which, through Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, permitted the association of the Biblical theophanies with Greek Neoplatonic mysticism, also permeates the liturgical hymnography and prayers of Pentecost.<\/p>\n

Hopefully this is all beginning to make more sense<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Greek patristic and Byzantine thought, human salvation is understood essentially in terms of participation in and communion with the deified humanity of the incarnate Word, the New Adam. When the Fathers call the Spirit the \u201cimage of the Son,\u201d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning-our-faith-form-the-church-fathers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3485"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3498,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485\/revisions\/3498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}