Journey to Mount Athos

by Spyridon Bailey

focussed

the beauty I was seeing here was more than decoration: it expressed the human need to live in an environment that communicated the worth of the people inhabiting it.

The early Church recognised that our salvation is not a reality for the soul or spirit alone, but the whole person including the body. When a saint enters heaven they continue to be connected to their earthly remains in some mysterious way that makes it possible for the Church to draw close to them through their relics.

We are living in the end times for sure; we just don’t know which chapter we’re in.”

people in the west have no idea how the world is run or what is happening around them. Their working hours are being stretched, their wages reduced in comparison to inflation, they are being forced into a new kind of slavery, in fact a slavery that is very old indeed. People are losing touch with the most basic things because their lives are being made so unnatural.” He paused a moment as if to allow me to absorb what he was saying. “It isn’t natural for man to work every hour and lose touch with his family. Children are growing up in households where parents are becoming distant figures. And the rule of television means even the free time that is available is given away to sitting motionless in front of the box. This is partly why there is a rise in the moral sickness that we see about us. Homosexuality, drugs, people are turning to whatever makes them feel good because they are lost in this unnatural state.”

“The Christian west, in fact western civilisation as a whole has lost touch with true Christianity. It proclaims Christian words, but it no longer has any real grasp of authentic Christianity. A full thousand years now separates the west from true Christianity, from the tradition of the Church. It is so polluted with nihilism that what it believes to be Christianity is really an empty shell. The Church has always proclaimed that we are not here simply to be blessed by God with particular gifts or experiences; but that we are created to become gods by grace. Our Creator is God by nature but we are called to be gods by grace. Western Christians believe that the purpose of their faith is moral improvement or the hope of heaven one day. Yes we must work to become more moral, but this is not the goal, it is part of the process. The west no longer understands that our purpose in life is Theosis.

The Church has always understood that now nothing can separate us from God because our nature, our humanity is enthroned in the bosom of the Holy Trinity. And how did God descend to earth? Through the Theotokos. She is the link, the bridge between heaven and earth. Without her willingness to participate in God’s plan the incarnation could not have happened. This is why we venerate her.

“Many in the west who seek God imagine they must do it alone through their moral transformation. But the Church is not an invisible or moral grouping; it is the real, identifiable Church. We are deified as the Body of Christ through the sacramental life of the Church in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church is the one and only place where man may be deified. It is the only source of God’s sacramental grace. And any claims by other Christian groups to share in this grace are false. There is One Church, the Orthodox Church is the Church of the Apostles, the two are identical, there is no other Church outside of Orthodoxy.

They had no idea that it was the Church that decided on the canon of the New Testament in the late three hundreds. What did they think was going on for three hundred years? And who do they think were the men who gave them their Bible? It was the very bishops of the Church that they thought they were now rejecting. But it is not true. They were protesting against Roman clergy who had themselves been separated from the Church for half a millennium.”