By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
This article was written in January 1992, 32 years ago, and was published in my book "Interventions in Modern Society". It is published here, because it has timeless validity, because we are saved by participating in the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. The Cross is not separated from the Resurrection, nor is the Resurrection separated from the Cross, nor is the mystery of the Cross separated from Orthodox eschatology.
Participating in the mystery of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ is the precondition and experience of all the Mysteries of the Church and of spiritual life, it expresses Neptic theology, its hesychastic tradition, as formulated by the Apostle Paul: "Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal. 5:24) - "God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14) - "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20).
That's why the Apostle Paul writes: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." And because the Jews ask for proof by miracles and the gentiles by human wisdom, "we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness" (1 Cor. 1:18-24).
Saint Gregory Palamas, in a divinely inspired discourse "On the Honorable and Life-giving Cross", interpreting the Apostle Paul and the entire patristic tradition, analyzes the theology of the mystery of the Cross and how this mystery works in the rebirth of man, with the hesychastic tradition.
Therefore, the isolation of the mystery of the Resurrection from the mystery of the Cross indicates an anti-hesychast life, it constitutes ignorance or neglect of the prerequisites of Orthodox theology, which is its ascetic-hesychastic tradition.
Father John Romanides wrote that there is unity between the "Theologia Crucis" (Theology of the Cross) and the "Theologia Gloria" (Theology of Glory). On the contrary, the separation between the Theology of the Cross and the Theology of Glory constitutes a "pseudomorphosis" in Christianity, as we find in Western theology, namely Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
The following is a brief analysis of the mystery of the Cross in the light of Orthodox eschatology.
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The impression is created among many Christians that when we talk about the mystery of the Cross, only the crucifixion sacrifice of Golgotha is meant, and even when we talk about eschatology we refer to the events of the last days, which will happen in the future of history. However, the two phrases "the mystery of the Cross" and "Orthodox eschatology" are not opposed to each other, but in a paradoxical way are closely connected.
The topic is quite large and interesting and we have no intention of exhausting it in the small margins we have. We will simply emphasize some truths for the understanding of the relationship that exists between the mystery of the Cross and Orthodox eschatology.
Eschatology in the Orthodox tradition does not only refer to the future events that will come, although there are scriptural passages that refer to this concept as well, but mainly to the experience of the eschaton, that is, to the experience of the uncreated Grace of God. We believe that eschatology is not exclusively connected with time, but with a way of life and especially with the relationship between man and God. Thus eschatology is simultaneously past, present and future. Speaking, therefore, from an Orthodox point of view about eschatology, we must always bear in mind that the eschaton that will happen in the future, that is, the experience of the Kingdom of God, is like the primordial, that is, the life of Adam in Paradise before the fall, and like the intermediary, that is, the participation in the uncreated Grace of God, which all the friends of God, Prophets, Apostles and Saints, had.
All the saints participated and participate in the uncreated deifying energy of God, but there is a difference. Adam before the fall was in the state of the illumination of the nous, but without having tested his freedom. The Prophets and the Righteous of the Old Testament participated in God's deifying energy, without death having yet been abolished and being outside the Body of the God-man Christ. In other words, the Prophets saw the Second Person of the Holy Trinity pre-incarnate and thus reached deification without being members of the Body of Christ, as is the case with the Saints of the New Testament. The Saints of the New Testament attained deification as members of the Body of Christ, but they live before the universal resurrection of the dead, which means that they all experience the temporary separation of the body from the soul, until the Second Coming of Christ, at which the souls will be reunited with the bodies, and their bodies will be resurrected, which from this life experiences deification with their transformation into relics. Thus all the Saints participate in God's deifying energy, and experience the eschaton at various times and in a corresponding way.
On the other hand, the mystery of the Cross in the Orthodox tradition is the uncreated Grace of God that saved people before the incarnation, during the incarnation and after the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ. Saint Gregory Palamas develops this fundamental truth of the Church. He teaches that all the saints are friends of God and friends of the Cross. According to Saint Gregory Palamas, the Cross is "the abolition of sin". He also emphasizes the truth that the Cross "was preannounced and prefigured secretly from ancient generations, and no one ever came to God without the power of the Cross." Thus, all the Prophets and Saints of the Old Testament, such as Abraham, Isaac, Moses, etc., were friends of God. Truly, "before the law and after the law there were many friends of God, prior to the visible Cross." The saints, therefore, even before the appearance of the Cross experienced the mystery of the Cross.
Fr. John Romanides teaches in an Orthodox manner that: "The Mystery of the Cross and Resurrection is the Glory, in which God dwells, which has been eternally in existence before the world and enters into all things as far as it is possible to them." That is, when we talk about the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection, we mean the uncreated energy of God that exists "eternally by nature" in God and does not simply acquire it at a moment in time. In fact, the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection is the love of God, which is His uncreated essential energy. This love of God acts "with God before the world came to be, in the creation and providence of the world, before the Incarnation, in the Incarnation, before the sacrifice on the Cross, in the sacrifice on the Cross and after the sacrifice on the Cross." God is never understood without His uncreated energy, nor without His love. He always loved the world and man, before the creation of the world and man, after that, before the fall, after the fall, before the incarnation and after it. This love of God "makes the sacrifice of the Cross, that is, the power of the Resurrection present in the Divine Eucharist and in the Mysteries, and through which God works out the reconciliation and sustenance of the faithful, as well as their spiritual sustenance and maturation towards theosis."
Saint Isaac the Syrian, referring to the experience of the mystery of the Cross, says: "The ascent to the cross consists of two parts: the crucifixion of the body, and the ascent to theoria. The former is achieved by freedom from the passions, the latter by the divine energy through works." This is what Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite had in mind when he said: "He was found worthy of the double cross of praxis (action) and theoria (vision)." Essentially, it refers to the purifying, illuminating and deifying energy of God. When, therefore, man experiences the uncreated purifying, illuminating and deifying energy of God, then he experiences the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection.
From what we mentioned before, we can emphasize five points.
First, Christ's sacrifice on the Cross is an expression of God's love for the human race. This love was expressed in many ways, mainly through the incarnation, the kenosis and His sacrifice on the Cross on Golgotha. The crucifixion sacrifice is a historical event, an expression of the mystery of the Cross, which is the uncreated energy of God. We cannot isolate the historical event of the crucifixion from the essential energy of God.
Secondly, the experience of the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection in the Mysteries of the Church and especially in the Eucharist is done by the energy of the uncreated Grace of God. Divine Grace is that which, through Baptism, unites man to God, and through the mystery of the Divine Eucharist it nourishes him in his spiritual life, and, in general, through the whole ecclesiastical life it leads him towards deification. Participating in the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ is a participation in God's uncreated Grace and of course, a participation in His love.
Thirdly, asceticism according to Christ, which is inseparably connected with the sacramental life of the Church, is not a human effort, it is not exhausted in anthropocentric actions, but is done with the energy of God and the response of man to it. In this sense we are talking about praxis and theoria. Praxis is the cleansing of the heart from the passions, which is done with the purifying energy of God, and theoria is the illumination of the nous and the vision of God, which is done with the illuminating and deifying energy of God. Therefore, the experience of the Cross and praxis, that is, the purifying, illuminating and deifying energy of God, is a participation in the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ.
Fourth, there is a close link between the mystery of the Cross and Orthodox eschatology. The experience of the eschaton comes through the participation in the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection, which is an experience and participation of the uncreated Grace of God. Thus, for the friends of God and of the Cross, the Cross is Paradise and the Kingdom of Heaven, while for the enemies of God and of the Cross, it becomes Hell and condemnation. In this light, the words of the Apostle Paul must be interpreted: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18). Thus, now from this life we can experience Paradise and Hell. The eschaton is experienced at every moment in time.
Fifth, the events of the Old Testament are a prototype of the Cross of the New Testament, from the point of view that they are to a similar extent a manifestation of the mystery of God's love. In other words, it is not about a symbolic pattern, but about participating in God's love. For example, through the rod of Moses, with which the Red Sea was opened and the Israelites passed through, they experienced God's providential energy. Of course, through Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, we experience to a greater extent the saving and deifying energy of God, precisely because Christ assumed human nature, and on Golgotha He defeated the devil, death and sin. In this event we surpass the Prophets of the Old Testament. Thus, what happened in the Old Testament were not simply symbols and external prototypes of what would follow in the New Testament, but a manifestation, to a lesser extent, of the uncreated energy of God.
All that we briefly emphasized shows that theology is not a matter of a dry citation of some scriptural and patristic verses, but a discovery of the deeper meaning of ecclesiastical life.
Unfortunately, many today are content with the mechanical presentation of various passages of the Prophets, Apostles and Fathers, since they include them within their own anthropocentric distributions and their own reflections.
However, the problem is not with the use of a Concordance or with the help of computers to find the words of the holy Fathers, but to acquire a theological mind and to understand the language of the saints of the Church, essentially the ecclesiastical language. When we mechanically read ecclesiastical texts, then we become "talkers" and "self-appointed" theologians, who choose various "words" and make them "swords" against our brethren, according to the apt words of Saint Gregory the Theologian.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
