God is a supra-essential Being without beginning, from eternity and for eternity, uncreated and transcendent, whilst man is a created being, and therefore limited in time and space. Starting from this essential difference between God and man, we understand that man cannot know God on his own, by his own powers alone, just as Saint John of Damascus teaches us: ‘All things pertaining to God are beyond nature, word and thought; for if anyone were to consider how and for what reason God brought all things into being from non-existence, and were to seek to attain this knowledge through natural reasoning, they would not understand’1 God alone is the One who, out of love, initiates dialogue with His creation, whereupon man is to respond freely through faith and obedience.
Only through faith can man truly know that God is triune in Persons, that He is the Creator of heaven and earth, that this world has a beginning and will have an end, that God works in history and in the life of each individual, that God the Son was incarnate from God the Father and the Virgin Mary and saved the human race, that the Holy Spirit makes the believer a dwelling place of the Holy Trinity until the end of the ages, when the resurrection of the dead and the dreadful Judgement of the whole world will take place. Any search for God, apart from faith and without His help, can only lead to created things, that is, to idolatry and a turning away from the true God.
The prophets urged the chosen people to maintain and safeguard their unbroken connection with God through faith, and rebuked ‘unbelief and the denial of the Lord, the falling away from faith in God, the speaking of lies and rebellion, the devising and harbouring of cunning schemes’ (Isaiah LIX, 13), for unbelief fills a person’s life with bitterness: ‘Your rejection of faith will punish you, and your wickedness will rebuke you. Understand and see how evil and bitter it is to forsake the Lord your God’ (Jeremiah 2:19). Unbelief takes hold of the hearts of those who live in sin, for ‘their evil deeds give them no respite to return to faith in the Lord their God’ (Hosea 5:4). Unbelief arises from ignorance, for ‘ignorance gives rise to darkness, and because of darkness we fall into sin, since our sight of the truth is dimmed’2). Saint Gregory of Nyssa teaches us that ‘ignorance demonstrates a lack of any desire to know, or rather, the very denial of this desire’, and ‘if we feel no desire to draw near to God, we have undoubtedly strayed from Him’3.
God reveals Himself to the person who desires to know Him. Thus, true faith is not man’s own merit, but is revealed by God, beginning with ‘the word spoken through the prophets’ from the very creation of the world and culminating, ‘when the fullness of time had come’, with the Gospel preached by the incarnate Son of God Himself, Who chose and taught the Holy Apostles the true faith, the true way of life and the true worship of God. In turn, the Apostles handed down to the Church all the dogmas and commandments of God, to be preached unchanged until the end of time. Today, the apostolic way of life and the true faith are preserved unchanged in the Orthodox Church, which, guided by our Lord Jesus Christ and enlivened by the Holy Spirit, overcomes the world and traverses history, fulfilling God’s promise that His Church shall not be overcome even by the gates of hell (Matthew 16:18).
Faith is founded on human will, yet it is also the work of God within man. Starting from what is seen, man, with a mind enlightened by grace, comes to contemplate the unseen, as the psalmist says: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the work of His hands proclaims His power’ (Psalm 18:1). This natural revelation, open to all, is perfected by supernatural revelation, gradually brought about by God, first through the Old Testament prophets, and later through His own incarnate Son, as the Apostle Paul explains: ‘In the past God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us through His Son’ (Hebrews 1:1–2). The Orthodox faith is founded on visible events that took place in history. Both the prophets and the apostles were direct witnesses to divine revelations, as Saint Peter the Apostle explains: ‘We have made known to you the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and His coming, not by following cleverly devised myths, but because we have seen His glory with our own eyes’ (2 Peter 1:16). What the prophets and apostles saw with their own eyes, but which their successors have not seen, is received through faith, by trusting those who saw it.
Faith is founded on the will of man, yet it is also the work of God within man. Starting from what has been seen, man, with a mind enlightened by grace, comes to contemplate the unseen.
Faith is more comprehensive than rational knowledge because, being uncreated and eternal divine truths, the tenets of faith cannot be grasped by reason, which is created, limited, and moreover affected by sin. ‘Knowledge of God is attained through faith, and it is impossible to know Him without faith’4—as St John Chrysostom teaches. But faith does not oppose reason; rather, it transcends it, for ‘faith is the work that encompasses the whole human person and, consequently, their reason as well’, as Saint Justin Popovich shows us 5. To those who trust only in their own reason, thereby forfeiting the reward of faith, St Basil the Great asks: ‘How shall we be deemed worthy of the blessings prepared for us, which are conditional upon faith in the unseen, if we believe only in what is evident to reason?’6
Faith is more comprehensive than rational knowledge because, being uncreated and eternal divine truths, the dogmas of faith cannot be encompassed by reason, which is created, limited, and even tainted by sin.
Modern man often becomes a prisoner of his own reason, making it the measure of all things. He errs when he attempts to understand the dogmas of the faith before believing in them. Interpreting the words: ‘We have believed and come to know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ (John 6:69), Saint Cyril of Alexandria teaches that understanding is born of faith, and not the other way round: ‘They did not know first and then believe, but, placing faith first, they add knowledge as a second step’7). The Prophet Isaiah also draws our attention to this: ‘Unless you believe, you will not understand’ (Isaiah 7:9). That faith must be established first, we also learn from the work of the soil: ‘Just as, before sowing the seed, the principles of agriculture advise that the soil be ploughed, so I also consider that those who wish to receive the divine words must first open their hearts in some way, through their own desire’8).
Man can only draw near to God through faith, for His mysteries are beyond human understanding, as Saint John Chrysostom explains: ‘Because God has bestowed upon us treasures that surpass human understanding, He rightly demands faith from us. All our most important dogmas are beyond the reach of reason and accessible only to faith’9 The person of faith employs different means of knowledge, such as faith and divine grace, rather than the wisdom of this world, following the Holy Apostle Paul: ‘Brothers, when I came to you and proclaimed to you the mystery of God, I did not come as a skilful orator or as a wise man. For I resolved to know nothing amongst you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified… And my message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on the power of God’ (1 Corinthians 2:1–10).
Trust in the Word of God is the strongest argument for a person to believe in Him and follow His commandments, as Saint John Cassian observes: ‘Do you want confirmation of what has been said? For the time being, you have none from me. God has spoken; His word is, for me, the highest confirmation. I need no other proof, I need no long discourse. It is enough for me to trust in the person of the One who spoke. I do not allow myself to doubt the truth of what has been said; I do not allow myself to weigh it up. Why should I ask myself whether what God has said is true, when I must not doubt what God has said?’10
For the person who does not receive divine truths through faith, they become a stumbling block and folly, as the Lord’s disciples observe: ‘Christ crucified: to the Jews, a stumbling block; to the Gentiles, folly’ (1 Corinthians 1:23). Outside of faith, Christ the Saviour becomes ‘a stumbling block and a rock of offence’ (1 Peter 2:8), a fact repeatedly confirmed by history.
Outside of faith, Christ the Saviour becomes ‘a stumbling block and a rock of offence’, a fact repeatedly confirmed by history.
Even when received through faith, dogmas remain hidden in the unfathomable depths of God’s Wisdom, all the more so because in this life man can know the dogmas of the faith only in part, according to Saint Paul the Apostle: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly’ (1 Corinthians 13:12). But even when man grows eternally in communion with God, He will remain a mystery not fully fathomed by human powers.
When Christ the Saviour asked His disciples, ‘Who do you say that I am?’, He received the only correct answer: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!’ (Matthew 16:13–16). Therefore, the preaching of the Holy Apostles and of the Church centres on the faith that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the One-born of the Father before all ages, Who was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, Who died and rose again for the redemption of the human race from the bondage of sin and death.
Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is expressed through the confession of His name: ‘If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart that one believes and is justified, and with the mouth that one confesses and is saved’ (Romans 10:9–10). But it is not faith alone that saves, but the confession of what is believed, as the Saviour Himself says: ‘Everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father, Who is in heaven. And whoever denies Me before men, I too will deny him before My Father, Who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32–33).
Faith is a theandric work. It is initiated both by God through grace, which enlightens the human mind, and by the human being’s free will to believe what they have heard: ‘How can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without a preacher? (…) Therefore, faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ’ (Romans 10:14–17). Once a person chooses to believe what they have heard, they begin to put the Word of God into practice, until they sense the presence of God, which is the highest form of faith.
St John of Damascus teaches about these two forms of faith, showing that the first pertains to hearing and the free fulfilment of what has been heard, whilst the second pertains to the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is bestowed upon those who zealously put into practice what they believe: ‘Faith is twofold: first, faith that comes from hearing. Hearing the divine Scriptures, we believe in the teaching of the Holy Spirit. It is perfected through all that Christ has ordained; it is made manifest through deeds; it is devout and fulfils the commandments of Him Who has renewed us. (…) Faith is, moreover, the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, or an unshakeable and unquestioning hope in the things promised to us by God and in the fulfilment of our petitions. The first kind of faith belongs to our soul; the second, to the grace of the Spirit’11 Distinguishing between initial faith and faith filled with feeling, the Venerable Nichita Stithatul shows that through the latter “we know that the promises of Christ—which He has promised and prepared for those wholove Him, as well as the threats and torments of hell, those prepared by the devil and his servants’, and through this assurance the soul ‘strives diligently towards the fulfilment of the commandments, without wavering within itself’12
St John of Damascus teaches about the two forms of faith, showing that the first pertains to hearing and the free fulfilment of what has been heard, whilst the second pertains to the grace of the Holy Spirit.
That faith which unites the soul with God is attained through the fulfilment of the commandments, as Theognostus says: ‘You will not be deemed worthy of divine love without knowledge, nor of knowledge without faith; but by faith I mean not mere belief, but that which is born within us through the practice of the virtues’13 This faith manifests itself as a form of knowledge through direct experience, through the grace of God, as Saint Gregory of Nyssa explains, interpreting Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai 14. Through faith, man fulfils God’s commandments, and through the fulfilment of the commandments he attains direct knowledge of the things believed or the living out of faith.
In the prayers of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ is called ‘the Healer of souls and bodies’, but any healing, whilst a gift from God, is received by man only through faith in Him. The Venerable Barsanuphius the Great says that the person who believes ‘in Him who came and healed every sickness and every infirmity among the people, believes that He is powerful enough to heal not only bodily ailments, but also those of the inner self’15). Thus, through faith and the knowledge of God, a person is healed of the sickness of sin and regains inner health, namely the enlightenment of the mind and the purity of the heart.
Above all, faith heals what the Fathers have called ‘the sickness of unbelief’16. As the opposite of faith, unbelief is likened by the psalmist to madness itself: ‘The fool hath said in his heart, “There is no God”’ (Psalm 13:1). But an unbeliever is not only one who does not believe in the Gospel preached in the Church, but also one who lives in sin before God, as Saint John of Damascus teaches: ‘An unbeliever is one who does not believe in accordance with the tradition of the Ecumenical Church, or one who is in communion with the devil through evil deeds’17).
God heals all the spiritual faculties of the believer, drawing towards the good both their thoughts, their will, their desires, their feelings, and all their deeds. Knowing from his own experience the healing role of faith, in one of his confessions, Blessed Augustine says: ‘I could not be healed unless I believed… The health of my soul could not be restored unless I believed, but, lest it believe false things, it refused to be healed, resisting Your hands, You Who have fashioned the remedies of faith and scattered them over the infirmities of the earth, endowing them with such power’18 Through true faith, man comes to know God, regains self-knowledge, discovers whose son he is, whose image he bears, and the purpose of his life.
Through true faith, a person comes to know God, regains self-knowledge, discovers whose son he is, whose image he bears, and the purpose of his life.
When faith does not bring about a person’s healing, this is due to a mistake the person makes, as Saint Macarius the Egyptian observes: ‘If that blind man had not cried out, and the sick woman had not run to the Lord, they would not have been healed; likewise, if anyone does not draw near to the Lord, moved by their own will and with all their heart, and does not pray with strong faith, they do not receive healing. (…) We have not yet attained spiritual healing and salvation because we do not love Him with all our hearts, nor do we truly believe in Him. Let us believe in Him, let us truly draw near to Him, so that true healing may be wrought in us at once’19
Fulfilling God’s will is the sign of true faith and true love for Him, as Christ the Saviour Himself says: ‘Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me… Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words’ (John 14:21–24). The connection between faith and the manifestation of faith through deeds of love is explained by Saint James the Apostle, who says: ‘What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? If a brother or a sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you were to say to them, ‘Go in peace; ‘Keep warm and eat your fill,’ but do not give them the necessities of life, what good is that? So also with faith: if it has no deeds, it is dead in itself. But someone will say: ‘You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works’” (James 2:14–18). Therefore, faith is not mere information, but must become our very life; it is not so much knowledge as action. The same apostle tells us that ‘even the demons believe—and tremble’ (James 2:19), but they do not put into practice what they believe, nor are they changed for the better by their faith, for their faith is dead (James 2:20).
It is deeds, not words, that reveal whether and in whom a person believes. All the mysteries of the faith are embodied and made known through works, through spiritual struggles, according to Saint John Climacus: ‘Let us strive to learn the things of God rather through sweat and toil, and not through mere words. For it is not words, but deeds that we shall have to show at the hour of the soul’s departure’20; for, as Mark the Ascetic says, ‘knowledge without the deeds that follow from it is not certain, even if it is true. For deeds are the confirmation of every thing’21 Both extremes regarding deeds are wrong—both their devaluation and the exaggeration of their value—as the same Father points out, saying: ‘Some, failing to fulfil the commandments, consider that they believe rightly. Others, whilst fulfilling them, await the Kingdom as a due reward. Both are mistaken in regard to the truth’22 The works of love are the natural sign of faith, and upon this sign depends man’s eternal life (Matthew XXV, 31–46).
The Kingdom of God is attained first and foremost through faith, which derives from the knowledge of God, as our Saviour Christ Himself teaches us when He says: ‘This is eternal life: to know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent’ (John 17:3), and after sending His disciples out to preach the Gospel to the whole world, He adds: ‘Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned’ (Mark 16:16). For this reason, the Holy Fathers have laid the true faith as the foundation of the Christian life, right from the moment of immersion in the waters of Baptism.
The profession of the true faith, summarised in the Creed, is the condition for receiving the Sacrament of Baptism and for becoming part of the mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church. But remaining in the Church is also conditional upon this same confession of faith, from which it follows that whoever falls away from the true faith also falls away from the Church, separating themselves from God.
The Church glorifies God both through the unchanging confession of the true faith and through the fulfilment of the divine commandments, which spring from what is confessed. The Church does not separate faith from deeds, nor deeds from faith, but professes and lives them together and unchangingly, just as in the time of the Holy Apostles, which is why it is also called apostolic.
As regards faith, the Church Fathers did not accept even the slightest change, being extremely attentive to the meaning of every new word that entered ecclesiastical language, as a Romanian theologian observes: ‘One of the great merits of the Fathers lies in their having detected deviations from their earliest manifestations, when these were mere nuances, seemingly of little doctrinal importance. They fought for what to some might seem nothing more than ‘innocent’ nuances, but which, as they evolved over time, proved to be great errors (leading astray), drawing people away from God”, knowing full well that “it is not the major crossroads that confuse and mislead the most. It is not at these that the great deviations from the path occur. No. Rather, it is the small forks in the road—those where two paths not only resemble one another very closely, but seem to lead, along paths no less different, in the same direction, towards the same destination’23
The Church Fathers did not accept even the slightest change, being extremely attentive to the meaning of every new word that entered ecclesiastical language.
For example, at the First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 325), over three hundred Holy Fathers laboured at length to formulate the true faith against the heresy of Arius, sometimes having to choose between very similar expressions, such as omoousios (of the same essence) and omoiousios (similar in essence); at the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431), nearly two hundred bishops rejected the heresy of Nestorius and his formulation ‘Mother of Christ’, in order to designate the Virgin Mary as ‘Mother of God’; at the Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, 451), after more than a century of tensions, over six hundred bishops professed their faith in the two natures of Christ the Saviour and their union in a hypostatic manner; after a further two centuries of theological turmoil, the bishops gathered at the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople, 680–681) formulated the faith in the two wills and two works of the Lord Jesus Christ; after a further century, having endured the persecution inflicted by the iconoclastic heretics, at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 787) more than three hundred and fifty bishops dogmatised the veneration of icons.
The history of those who suffered for the defence of the true faith has never ended. To this day, the Church has preserved unchanged the treasure of the faith received from the incarnate Son of God, suffering and enduring tribulations, so that the dogmas concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father—the rock of faith upon which the Church is founded—the uncreated divine grace, the hierarchy and visible leadership of the Church, and the state of souls until the Last Judgement might not be corrupted. But the Orthodox Church has remained unchanged not only in its dogmas, but also in its righteous way of life, preserving the order of the divine services, fasting and the canons of the Holy Fathers, through which the Holy Spirit has enlightened the lives of the faithful.
Enumerating all the dogmas of the faith, the Fathers gathered at the Sixth Ecumenical Council proclaimed: ‘And if anyone among all of them should not hold to and accept (embrace) the teachings (dogmas) of the true faith mentioned above, and should not think (believe) and preach in this way, but were to attempt to rise up against them, let him be anathema (…) and let him be expelled and fall from the Christian community, as a stranger (enemy)’24 If a single wrong sign spoils the whole calculation, a single out-of-tune string spoils the whole harmony, a single splash of colour can spoil a painting, and one hundredth of a point can lead to losing a competition, so too will a single corrupted doctrine of faith result in separation from God.
The Church is ‘the pillar and foundation of the Truth’ (1 Timothy 3:15), which is why the true faith can only be preserved and professed for all time by the whole Church, as Saint Justin Popovich teaches: ‘Since Revelation is found only in the Church, the formulation and interpretation of the holy dogmas belong to the Church, that is, to the divine-human Body of Christ, which lives and works through the Holy Spirit. In this work, the Church is infallible, because the infallible Lord Christ is the Head of the Church and because its soul is the Spirit of Truth, Who leads it into all truth’25’. This also underpins humble obedience to the Church’s hierarchy.
All dogmas were revealed, once and for all, by the incarnate Son of God. At the Last Supper, calling them friends rather than servants, Christ the Saviour said to His disciples: ‘All that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you’ (John 15:15). They themselves bear witness to this, as Saint Peter the Apostle says: ‘His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness’ (2 Peter 1:3). For this reason, those who alter the faith are anathematised: ‘There are some who are causing you trouble and are trying to distort the Gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven were to preach to you a gospel other than the one we have preached to you, let them be accursed! As we have told you before, so now I tell you again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one you received, let them be accursed!’ (Galatians 1:7–9).
As eternal truths, the dogmas of the faith are characterised by immutability. That is why, in the prologue to his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Saint John of Damascus says: ‘I shall speak nothing of my own, but I shall briefly set forth what the godly and wise men have said’26). When the Fathers used or coined new terms to formulate the faith, such as ‘co-essence’, ‘perichoresis’, ‘hypostatic union’ or ‘Mother of God’, they did not alter the content of the dogmas, but merely expressed the same faith more clearly, as Saint Irenaeus of Lyon teaches: ‘Not even the most eloquent of the Church’s representatives will say more than is stated in the teaching of Christ, for no one is greater than the Teacher; nor will the less eloquent diminish Holy Tradition. Since the faith is one and the same, neither does he who speaks much about it add to it, nor does he who says little diminish it’27”.
One may speak of an ever-richer expression of the same dogmas, as Vincent of Lérins teaches, interpreting the words of Saint Paul the Apostle: ‘Guard the treasure (predania) that has been entrusted to you!’ (1 Timothy 6:20): ‘What is the Tradition? That which has been entrusted to you, and not that which you have discovered! That which you have received, and not that which you have invented yourself! This is not the result of reason, but of teaching; it is not personal property, but the heritage of the whole people, a work that has come to you and not one that you have discovered. In your relationship with it, you are not the one who discovers it, but the one who guards it; you are not the one who establishes it, but the one who follows it; you are not its guide, but the one guided by it. The Apostle commands: ‘Guard the Tradition!’, that is, guard the talent of the catholic faith, in its entirety and unharmed! What has been entrusted to you, let it remain within you; this, too, you must pass on! You have received gold; give gold! I do not want you to deceive me, selling me lead or brass instead of gold. Give me not false gold, but true gold! […] What you have learnt, that is what you must teach; do not speak of a ‘new teaching’ or utter new things! […] Perhaps that is why someone said that there must be no development of the faith within the Church of Christ. On the contrary, there must be development—indeed, the highest kind. It is just that this development must be genuine, and not a change in the faith. Development is when something grows from within, whilst change is when one thing is transformed into another. Therefore, over time, in the understanding, knowledge and wisdom of all Christians, both individually and collectively, dogma must grow and develop to the highest level, but only within its own category, that is, from within itself, in one and the same sense, within one and the same subject of thought. Faith is the work of the soul, but in this sense it resembles the body. Over time, bodies develop, but they remain what they were. Even though a person grows and changes, their nature remains unchanged and their person remains the same. […] Just as a child’s body has a certain number of limbs, so too does that of an adult. And even if something has been added over time, all these things have existed from the beginning; thus, nothing new appears in the elderly that was not already hidden within them when they were children. […] The dogma of the Christian faith must, without exception, follow this law of development’28
In the understanding, knowledge and wisdom of all Christians, both individually and collectively, dogma must grow and develop to the highest level, but only within its own category, that is, from within, in one and the same sense, within one and the same subject of thought.
Throughout the history of the Church, multitudes of saints have safeguarded the true faith at the cost of their lives, as those who knew that ‘it is impossible to be saved without faith, for by faith all things are upheld, both human and spiritual’, as Saint John of Damascus says 29. The martyrs bore witness to their faith before the pagans, loving God more than their own lives. They are the heroes of the faith, who overcame the tyranny of the unbelievers, both when the latter promised them worldly glory and when they threatened them with the fear of a torturous death. As people in whom faith manifested itself as trust in what they professed and as a living communion with God, the martyrs were imbued with the truth that nothing in this world can equal the bliss of living with God in His Kingdom.
The martyrs are the most shining examples of steadfastness in the true faith, like living icons of the courage to bear witness to the Truth. But it was not only through courage and steadfastness that they were filled with the glory of God, but above all through the fulfilment of the commandment of love, without which no one can see God. The martyrs took after Christ the Saviour, loving their persecutors, praying for them and having compassion on their souls. Through their courage and love, the martyrs have become and remain sure guides on the path to the Kingdom of God.
The martyrs followed the example of Christ the Saviour, loving their persecutors, praying for them and showing mercy towards their souls. Through their courage and love, the martyrs have become and remain sure guides on the path to the Kingdom of God.
The time for bearing witness to the faith through martyrdom never passes. Over the course of time, right up to the present day, the sword and the cauldron of fire in which the martyrs suffered have often taken on new forms. Pagan ideas and heretical beliefs now make up a religious marketplace in which every person is tempted to choose what they believe suits them best. Added to this is the progress of science, which turns human reason into an idol, scornfully dismissing everything that cannot be studied in a laboratory. In the face of human self-sufficiency, selfishness and enslavement to material things—which spring from unbelief—the Christian may experience forms of martyrdom so familiar to the saints of all ages.
The person of faith knows, however, that God’s promises remain ever relevant. He who said: ‘Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven’ (Matthew 5:16), is the very same One who said: ‘Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I too will deny him before My Father, who is in heaven’ (Matthew 10:32–33). Bearing witness to faith in God through word and deed remains the duty of every Christian in any social, cultural or political context.
Steadfastness in the true faith, as the very meaning of the word ‘steadfastness’ indicates, requires ‘firmness, stability, constancy of opinion and ideas, continuity and durability’30). The steadfast person is not swayed by anything. The world, however, is in a state of constant change and instability, ranging from fashion and architecture to daily activities, and the political and legal landscape. In such an environment, steadfastness emerges as a virtue that must be cultivated with the utmost care.
The worldly form of steadfastness is often called perseverance. It is observed that a person becomes persistent in a particular endeavour when there is a specific reward to be gained for their persistence. In antiquity, the Stoic philosophers taught that, in order to uphold truth and goodness, a person must make a continuous effort, enduring all the hardships encountered along the way, for the sake of the cause they are pursuing. Perseverance is necessary throughout a person’s life, right from childhood, whether at school, in the laboratory, in the factory, in the fields, or in the arts, etc. It is easy to see how, in sport, it is above all those who train harder who achieve the highest level of performance, devoting themselves entirely to the goal they are pursuing. A Christian is a person who seeks to become like God, in order to live eternally in His Kingdom; for this reason, the Holy Fathers liken this life to an unseen battle or a sporting arena. The Apostle Paul, applying the rules of sport to the life of faith, says: “Do you not know that when those who run in the stadium, though they all run, only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to win it. And everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things. They do so to win a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one’ (1 Corinthians 9:24–25). Even the laws established by God in the inanimate world reflect a certain constancy, as seen in the succession of the seasons and the other elements of nature.
Returning to steadfastness in the true faith, we must not overlook the fact that the prophets and apostles, and later the martyrs, lived, believed and bore witness to God in a pagan world that would not hear of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their example must give courage to the whole Church and urge all lovers of God to steadfastness in the true faith, especially today, when the world seems to resemble the pagan world of antiquity more and more.
A first call to steadfastness, which we hear at every Divine Liturgy, was uttered by the Archangel Michael when the fall of the angels from heaven began, saying: ‘Let us stand firm, let us stand in fear!’. Both the profession of faith and every individual virtue require steadfastness. When steadfastness or resolve is lacking, faced with a difficulty, a person wavers, changes their mind and even gives up on what they were pursuing. Steadfastness is expressed by our Saviour Christ when He likens the man who hears and fulfils the divine words to the one who dug deep, laid the foundation of his house on rock, and the torrent of adversity had no power against it, whilst the one who hears His words but does not put them into practice is likened to the man who built his house on soft ground, without a foundation, and the waters swept it away with a great crash (Luke 6:47–49).
Steadfastness in the faith, as the foundation of eternal life, as the Fathers teach, is attained through the practice of the virtues, which enables a person to come to see the world and history with ‘the mind of Christ’ (Philippians 2:5). And the virtues must be practised through the exertion of the will, whilst awaiting God’s grace, knowing that ‘it remains for man only to compel himself to do good, taking as his foundation the resolve of his mind, supported by certain insights of faith, and subjecting himself to spiritual discernment, believing that God will help him’31 Steadfastness in faith is necessary until holiness is attained, which is nothing other than a state of continuous steadfastness in the love of God.
We understand from the above that the rightful glorification of God – manifested as both a rightful confession of faith and rightful conduct – begins with a person’s willingness to trust in the Word of God, continues with the observance of the commandments which express God’s will, and bears fruit through grace in the sense of God’s presence, which gives rise in the human soul to the assurance or spiritual vision of all that is believed.
- 1
St John of Damascus, Dogmatics, IV, 11, trans. Fr Dumitru Fecioru, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 2005, p. 192.
- 2
Clement of Alexandria, The Pedagogue, I, VI, 29, 4, in Church Fathers and Writers (PSB), vol. 4, trans. Fr. Dumitru Fecioru, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1982, p. 183.
- 3
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, To Hierios, in Church Fathers and Writers (PSB), vol. 30, trans. Rev. Prof. Dr Teodor Bodogae, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1998, p. 418.
- 4
Saint Justin Popovich, Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Vol. I, trans. Zarko Markovski, Doxologia, Iași, 2017, p. 57.
- 5
Saint Justin Popovich, Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Vol. I, p. 54.
- 6
Saint Justin Popovich, Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Vol. I, p. 57.
- 7
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of Saint John, IV, 4, in Church Fathers and Writers (PSB), vol. 41, trans. Rev. Dumitru Stăniloae, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 2000, p. 445.
- 8
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of Saint John, IV, 4, p. 445.
- 9
Saint Justin Popovich, Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Vol. I, p. 47.
- 10
Saint John Cassian, On the Incarnation of the Lord, IV, 6, in Church Fathers and Writers (PSB), vol. 57, trans. Prof. David Popescu, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1990, pp. 810–811.
- 11
St John of Damascus, Dogmatics, IV, 10, p. 191.
- 12
The Venerable Nichita Stithatul, The 300 Chapters on Creation, Nature and Knowledge, I, 30, in The Philokalia, vol. VI, trans. Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2005, p. 195.
- 13
Theognostus, On Action, Contemplation and the Priesthood, 39, in The Philokalia, vol. IV, trans. Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2005, p. 234.
- 14
Saint Gregory of Nyssa, On the Life of Moses, trans. Fr. Ion Buga, Meteor Press, pp. 156–157: ‘Let us set our sights on a single goal throughout our lives: that of being called servants of God, on the basis of what we have experienced. For when… in the darkness that cannot be penetrated by sight, you have drawn near to God through faith and there have been taught the mysteries of the tabernacle and the priestly life… then you will be drawing near to the end.”
- 15
The Venerable Barsanuphius and John, Spiritual Letters, 526, in The Philokalia, vol. XI, trans. Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2009, p. 445.
- 16
Ioan Carpatiul, Capete de mângâiere, 46, in Filocalia, vol. IV, trans. Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2005, p. 125.
- 17
St John of Damascus, Dogmatics, IV, 10, p. 190.
- 18
St Augustine, Confessions, VI, 4, in Church Fathers and Writers (PSB), vol. 64, trans. Fr. Ioan Rămureanu, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1985, p. 135.
- 19
Saint Macarius the Egyptian, The 50 Spiritual Homilies, XX, 8, in Church Fathers and Writers (PSB), vol. 34, trans. Fr. Constantin Cornițescu, EIBMBOR, Bucharest, 1992, pp. 193–194.
- 20
St John Climacus, The Ladder, XXVI, 26, trans. Fr Dumitru Stăniloae, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2002, p. 312.
- 21
Mark the Ascetic, ‘On Those Who Imagine They Are Being Justified by Their Deeds’, 12, in The Philokalia, vol. I, trans. Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Humanitas, Bucharest, 2008, p. 235.
- 22
Mark the Ascetic, On Those Who Imagine They Are Being Justified by Their Deeds, 18, p. 235.
- 23
Costion Nicolescu, ‘The Battle for Nuances’, in Ziarul Lumina, 7 June 2013, https://ziarullumina.ro/opinii/repere-si-idei/batalia-pentru-nuante-82202.html, accessed on 20 October 2021.
- 24
The Canons of the Orthodox Church, notes and commentary by Archdeacon Ioan Floca, Sibiu, 2005, p. 108.
- 25
Saint Justin Popovich, Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Vol. I, p. 23.
- 26
Saint Justin Popovich, Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Vol. I, p. 16.
- 27
Saint Justin Popovich, Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Vol. I, p. 64.
- 28
Saint Justin Popovich, Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Vol. I, pp. 64–65; see Commonitorium, Vol. I, 23.
- 29
St John of Damascus, Dogmatics, IV, 11, p. 192.
- 30
Vasile Breban, General Dictionary of the Romanian Language, Ed. Enciclopedică, Bucharest, 1991, p. 980.
- 31
†Naum, Metropolitan of Strumica, I Will Not Tell You Either, trans. Filoteia Vasile, Predania, Bucharest, 2015, p. 100.