Creed cleansing. The Creed: An Orthodox Explanation

We are called Orthodox Christians, that is right, right praising God... In order to be sure that you are doing something right, there is a lot to learn, a lot to learn. Read books, ask experienced people. If a person does not know anything and does not want to know, but is completely sure that he is doing everything right, expect trouble. A simple example. A certain person is completely unaware of the rules road traffic, but he confidently gets behind the wheel and starts driving. It won't be long before he realizes that he is doing something wrong: he is driving on the left side of the road, but for some reason all the cars rush towards him, honking, and he barely has time to dodge them. He drives up to a traffic light, a red light turns on, but this eccentric is sure that he can continue to move, because he does not know the rules! What will happen next, I think it is clear. Very soon this unfortunate man will have an accident and, thank God, if he remains alive. But if in ordinary, material everyday life we ​​perfectly understand that we must study the laws and rules, observe safety precautions so as not to get into trouble, then even more so in spiritual life. There, too, there are laws established by God, there are safety rules. And the harm that we can do to ourselves without knowing these laws or neglecting them is much greater than from ignorance of the laws physical world... For we can cause irreparable damage not to the body, but to the soul.

How to learn the rules of spiritual life, how to believe correctly? For this there is the Word of God Himself - Holy Bible, it must be read, studied, it is necessary to build life on it. There are commandments that God Himself also gave us, and we, too, Orthodox people we have a huge the experience of the Church, an experience that is already 2 thousand years old in the world and a thousand years in Russia. Many millions of people have passed this way, from the Nativity of Christ to the present day. We have Church, it was created by the Lord Jesus Christ and put into it everything that is needed for our salvation. "I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" ( Mt. 16:18). The experience of the holy fathers and ascetics of 2 millennia of Christianity is also invested in the church treasury.

The Orthodox Church is called so because it has preserved the teaching given to us by God Himself in fullness and intactness, without distortion. We know how to believe in God correctly, how to glorify him correctly, He himself revealed this to us, therefore our faith is right, our faith is Orthodox

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Symbol of faith, or the confession of the Christian Orthodox faith is prayer, which contains all the basic provisions and dogmas of the Orthodox faith. The teaching of the Church in the "Symbol" is presented in a short but very precise form.

Creed compiled in the 4th century by the fathers First and Second Ecumenical Councils. In the ancient Church, there were symbols of faith before, but with the emergence and strengthening of false teachings about God, it was necessary to draw up a more accurate and dogmatically flawless confession of faith that could be used by the entire Ecumenical Church.

First Ecumenical Council was convened in the city of Nicaea on the occasion of the false teaching of the presbyter Arius, who taught that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was created by God the Father and is not true God, but only the highest creation. The council condemned this heresy and stated Orthodox teaching by composing the first seven members of the Creed. At the second ecumenical council, convened to condemn the heresy of Macedon, which rejected the Deity of the Holy Spirit, the next five members of the Creed were given.

Every Orthodox Christian needs to know the Symbol of Faith by heart in order to have a correct knowledge of God and own faith, and also always be able to give an answer to all those who ask us: "how do you believe?"

The symbol of faith must be known even before baptism, because it is necessary, even before receiving this sacrament and entering the Church, to have the correct knowledge about God and the foundations of the doctrine. When babies are baptized, the Symbol of Faith is read for them by the recipients, godparents, and they, of course, must also know it by heart and read it without mistakes. Learning the Symbol of Faith is easy, because it is part of morning prayers and every Orthodox reads it praying in the morning. Also, the Symbol of Faith is sung every liturgy, in the church by all the people, and a person who regularly prays in the morning and goes to Sunday and festive liturgies will very soon remember it.

But we should not only know the text of the Symbol of Faith, but also understand its meaning, for this we need to study it.

Symbol of faith

Church Slavonic

1. I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible.

2. And in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten, Who was born of the Father before all ages: Light from Light, true God from God, true, born, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, Who was all.

3. For us, for the sake of man and for our salvation, he descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became man.

4. Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried.

5. And he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures.

6. And he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

7. And pack the one who is coming with glory to judge the living and the dead, His Kingdom will have no end.

8. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-giving, who is from the Father who proceeds, who are worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son, who spoke the prophets.

9. In one Holy, Cathedral and Apostolic Church.

10. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.

11. Tea for the resurrection of the dead,

12. and the life of the century to come. Amen.

Russian translation

1. I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of everything visible and invisible.

2. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, born of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, true God from true God, born, not created, one being with the Father, by Him all was created.

3. Us for the sake of people and for the sake of our salvation descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became a man.

4. Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffering, and buried.

5. And he rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures.

6. And ascended into heaven, and sits on the right side of the Father.

7. And again one coming in glory to judge the living and the dead, and of His kingdom there will be no end.

8. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, giving life, proceeding from the Father, equally with the Father and the Son of the worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.

9. Into one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

10. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.

11. I look forward to the resurrection of the dead,

12. and the life of the century to come. Truly so.

ON THE FIRST MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of everything visible and invisible.

Christianity as the only one true religion, first of all, stands out for the doctrine of God. We perceive God and look to Him as our Heavenly Parent. God is called the Father, because he pre-eternally gives birth to the Son (this will be discussed later), but also because He is the Father for all of us. In the prayer that the Lord Savior gave us, we say: "Our Father ..." (Our Father). The Holy Apostle Paul says, addressing Christians: “you have not received the spirit of slavery<…>, but received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry: "Abba, Father!" The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God ”(Rom. 8: 15-16). Word " abba " in Aramaic corresponds to our " dad"- confidential appeal of children to their father.

The Holy Apostle John the Theologian says that “God is love” (1 John 4: 8). These words express the most important property of God. This determines the whole structure of the spiritual life of a Christian. Our relationship with God is based on mutual love. Heavenly father loves us with perfect and absolute love. We, believers, can perceive the fruits of this love only when we love God with the fullness of our being. Therefore, love for God is the first and foremost commandment. V Holy Scripture reveals the basic properties of God in close connection with the House-building of human salvation.

God is the all-perfect Spirit. It is eternal. It has no beginning and no end. God is Almighty. In Holy Scripture He is called Almighty because He keeps everything in His power and authority.

The Holy Fathers teach us not only to believe in God, but to trust Him in everything, because He All-good and Human-loving. The Lord's mercy extends to every person. If a person wants to be always with God and turns to Him, then He does not leave a person under any circumstances. In one ancient Byzantine manuscript, the consoling edification of the holy elder is given: “Someone told me that one man always prayed to God that He would not leave him on his earthly path, and how the Lord once traveled with His disciples on their way to Emmaus (see. : Luke 24, 13-32), so that he traveled with him along the road of his life. And at the end of his life he had a vision: he saw that he was walking along sandy shore ocean (of course, understand the ocean of eternity, along the coast of which the path of mortals passes). And, looking back, he saw the prints of his feet on the soft sand, going far back: this was the path of his life. And next to the prints of his feet were the prints of a couple more feet; and he realized that it was the Lord who was traveling with him in life, as he prayed to Him. But in some places of the traversed path, he saw prints of only one pair of feet, which cut deeply into the sand, as if testifying to the severity of the path at that time. And this man remembered that it was when there were especially difficult moments in his life and when life seemed unbearably difficult and painful. And this man said to the Lord: you see, Lord, in the difficult times of my life you did not walk with me; You see that the prints of only one pair of feet in those days indicate that then I walked alone in life, and You see from the fact that the footprints cut deeply into the ground that it was very difficult for me then to walk. But the Lord answered him: My son, you are wrong. Indeed, you see the prints of only one pair of feet in those times of your life that you remember as the most difficult. But these are not the prints of your feet, but of Mine. Because in the difficult times of your life, I took you in My arms and carried you. So, My son, these are not your footprints, but Mine. "

God has Omniscience. The whole past is imprinted in his endless memory. He knows everything and sees in the present. He knows not only every human act, but every word and feeling. The Lord knows the future.

the God Omnipresent. He is in Heaven, on earth. The contemplation of the Divine omnipresence evokes joy and poetic tenderness in the psalmist David:

« If I ascend to heaven - you are there; if I go down into the underworld - and there you are.

Will I take the wings of the dawn and move to the edge of the sea - and there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will hold me"(Psalm 138: 8-10).

The God - Creator heaven and earth. He is the Cause and Creator of the entire visible and invisible world. Our world, the universe is incredibly complex and wisely arranged, and of course all this could only be created by the Highest, Divine Reason. The entire Divine Trinity participated in the creation of the world. God the Father created everything with his Word, that is, with the Only Begotten Son, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

God possesses Wisdom. Psalm 103 is a magnificent hymn to God, who created everything with His wisdom and continues to care not only about man, but also about His other creatures: “You water the mountains from Your heights, the earth is saturated with the fruits of Your deeds. You grow grass for livestock, and greenery for the benefit of man, to make food out of the earth ”(Psalm 103: 13-14).

In addition to the fact that God is the Creator of the visible, material world, He also created the spiritual world, invisible to us. The spiritual, angelic world was created by God even before our material world. All the angels were created good, but some of them, led by the supreme angel Lucifer, became proud and fell away from God. Since then, these angels have become dark spirits of malice, wishing people, as God's creation, any harm. They try in every possible way to seduce people into sin and destroy. But God very much limited their power and influence on people, besides, every Christian has his own Guardian angel, which protects and protects him from evil, including from the influence of devilish forces.

ON THE SECOND MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, born of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, true God from true God, born, not created, one being with the Father, by Him all was created.

The second member of the Creed is dedicated to the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and here it is time to talk about the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Knowing the Divine properties, the believer gradually prepares himself for the perception of the cornerstone truth of Christianity - the doctrine of Holy Trinity. God is one in essence but has three Faces(Hypostases), each of Which possesses the fullness of the Divine: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Fathers, revealing and explaining the doctrine of the Trinity, define the relationship between the three Persons with such concepts "Consubstantial" and "Are equally fair." At the same time, they indicate the personal properties of each Hypostasis. The Father is not created, not created, not born; The Son is eternally born of the Father; The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father. Prayerfully we confess the Trinity with the words: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen". What is our faith based on? On the Holy Gospel: So go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit(Mt 28:19). The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one.

Earthly human mind on their own without God it cannot rise to this mystery. Other monotheistic religions(Judaism, Islam), based on natural reason, and not on Revelation, could not rise to this mystery.

Already in the Old Testament there are indications of the mystery of the Divine Trinity. Already at the beginning of the Holy Bible, God speaks of Himself in the plural: “And God said: Let us make man in Our image in Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the ground. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them ”(Gen. 1: 26-27). The words "let us make man" indicates a plurality of persons, and "created him" indicates the oneness of God. There are two more such passages in Genesis:

And the Lord God said: Behold, Adam became like one of Us (Gen. 3.22).

And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language ... let us go down and confuse their language there (Gen. 11: 6-7).

When the patriarch Abraham was sitting under a tree near the oak grove of Mamre, he saw three travelers who had come. He ran to meet them and, bowing to the ground, addressed: Vladyka! if I have found favor in Thy eyes, do not pass by Thy servant "(Gen. 18: 3. Three men appeared, and Abraham addresses them as one - the Lord.

The doctrine of the Trinity is not only theological and theoretical. In the New Testament sacred books it is revealed in the closest connection with the great events of the Incarnation and Atonement. The Lord Jesus Christ repeatedly speaks both of His sonship to God and that the Father sent Him (John 5:36) so that “the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17). The Holy Spirit participates in all the affairs of the economy of the salvation of mankind. He quickens and sanctifies. Participating in the Holy Sacraments and the prayer life of the Church does not doubt this truth, it is an integral part of his religious consciousness... Anyone who studied the dogmatic teaching of our Church could not help but be amazed at the internal consistency of its parts. Such a person is convinced that this slender and majestic building is unthinkable without the cornerstone - the dogma of the Holy Trinity.

The human mind cannot fully comprehend the mystery of the Holy Trinity. But we can use some analogies, which, however, are very simplified and limited, in order to at least partially understand the unity and relationship between the persons of the Holy Trinity.

The Holy Fathers cited the sun as the image of the Trinity. The visible part of the sun is a circle, from which light is born and heat emanates.

The image of the Holy Trinity can be human soul created in the image and likeness of God. Such an example is given by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov: “Our mind is the image of the Father; our word (we usually call the unspoken word thought) is the image of the Son; spirit is the image of the Holy Spirit. As in the Trinity-God, three Persons are non-merged and inseparably one Divine Being, so in the Trinity-man three persons make up one being, without mixing with each other, without merging into one person, without dividing into three beings. Our mind has given birth and does not cease to give birth to a thought, a thought, having been born, does not cease to be born again, and at the same time it remains born, intimate in the mind. Mind without thought cannot exist, and thought is without mind. The beginning of the one is certainly the beginning of the other; the existence of the mind is also the existence of thought. Likewise, our spirit proceeds from the mind and cooperates with thought. That is why every thought has its own spirit, every way of thinking has its own separate spirit, every book has its own spirit. Thought cannot be without spirit, the existence of one is inevitably accompanied by the existence of the other. In the existence of both, the existence of the mind is. "

So the second member of the Creed tells us that the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity is the Only Begotten Son of God, who born Father before the creation of everything visible and invisible, even before the creation of time. He was born, and not created, this is said to refute the false teaching of Arius, who taught about the creation of the Son of God, as well as all subsequent heretics. The name Jesus means - the Savior, and Christ means the Anointed One. Since ancient times, kings, prophets and high priests have been called anointed. The Savior combined all three of these ministries.

God the Father created the whole world visible and invisible by His Son. This is stated in the Gospel of John: "Everything through Him began to be, and without Him nothing began to be that began to be" (John 1: 3).

ON THE THIRD MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

For the sake of people and for the sake of our salvation, who descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became a man.

In order to save the human race, the Lord at a certain historical moment “in the days of King Herod” (Matt. 2: 1) descends to earth, to incarnate, through inspiration, assistance Holy Spirit from Virgin mary, take upon ourselves our humanity and be born in Palestine, in the city of Bethlehem.

He took over all human nature, soul and body, in order to recreate, deify, save him. The divine nature in Christ has not swallowed up human nature, as some heretics teach, but the two natures in Him will abide forever, unmixed, unchanging, inseparable and inseparable.

The Savior did not have a human father, for his Father was God Himself. His conception in the womb of the Mother of God took place without the seed of a husband, and therefore it is called "immaculate", "seedless." The Church in her hymns says that the flesh of Christ, by the power of God, inside the womb of the Mother of God run out... We know that ordinary, human conception occurs with the participation of the husband's seed, but the conception of Christ was supernatural. Even after the Fall, Adam and Eve were given a promise-prophecy from God about Seed wife that will smite the head of the serpent. (Genesis 3:15). But we know that a wife cannot have a seed, only a husband can have a seed.

Saint Philaret of Moscow (Drozdov) says that this is an indication “to the sacrament, which is higher than nature; - for a birth, about which nature asks: what will this be like when I don’t know my husband? (Luke 1.34), and about which grace answers: the Holy Spirit will find on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you (35); - for the miraculous birth of the Son from a wife without a husband, for the birth of Christ, the God-man, from the Virgin. " The Church calls the Mother of God the Ever-Virgin, that is, She was a virgin before the birth of Christ, did not lose her virginity at the moment of birth, and remained a Virgin after the birth of the Savior. The Mother of God did not experience anguish during the birth of Jesus, for the same reason: because “the Virgin did not break her virginity by her birth,” says St. John Chrysostom.

How could this happen? Nothing is impossible for God. He created this world with His Wisdom, Word. The first man, Adam, God created from the "dust of the earth" and breathed into him the breath of life, and the miracle of birth without the participation of a husband is also subject to Him. The third century Christian writer Tertullian writes:

"Just as the earth (at the creation of the first man, Ed.) Was turned into this flesh without the seed of a husband, so the Word of God could pass into the matter of the same flesh without a connecting principle."

The Savior, having taken upon himself human flesh and soul, appears at the same time true God and true man, in everything except sin.

He came to our land, completely walk through human life... He worked for His sustenance, He experienced cold, heat, hunger and thirst, He was also pursued by temptations and temptations from the devil and human weakness, but He overcame them and temptations did not touch Him. The Lord worked tirelessly for people: he preached, healed the sick, raised the dead.

The Lord took our nature, lived a human life in order to heal, to recreate our nature decayed by sin, about O live it and show us the way of salvation, the way of true Christian life. As St. Athanasius of Alexandria said: "God became man so that man might become God." And now, everyone who is born of Christ through baptism in His Church becomes a new creation “who were neither of the blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the desire of a husband, but of God were born” (John 1:13).

ABOUT THE FOURTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffering, and buried.

The sacrifice of Christ the Savior on the cross for us is an act of the highest Divine love. “For as God loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself says about his sacrifice on the cross: “There is no more that love if someone lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13) For your friends, it means for you and me, for all the children of God. Death on the god was the most painful and disgraceful execution in the Roman Empire, a person experienced incredible suffering for many hours, and life came out of him, as it were, drop by drop. Christ was crucified under the governor of the emperor, the rulers of Judea, Pontius Pilate. His name is included in the "Symbol" to confirm the historical reality of the event. Non-Christians often cannot understand why we wear on our chest cross, we depict on ourselves sign of the cross, we crown the domes of our churches with a cross and, in general, we very much honor the cross. They say: why do you honor the cross, because your God was crucified on it? But this is precisely why the cross of Christ is a sacred thing for us. After all, he constantly reminds us: what a huge sacrifice was made for people and how great Divine love for people. God not only created mankind and cares about the people created by him, but if necessary, He is ready to go for his sinful and unworthy children to death, to crucifixion. God ascends to the cross to offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of people, and thereby deliver them from sin and eternal death. God created the world with immutable spiritual and physical laws. One of the spiritual laws is that sin, crime must have consequences, punishment. The punishment for the sins of mankind was eternal death. “Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Gal. 6: 7). The sins of people multiplied so much that humanity on its own could no longer rise from the abyss of sin, therefore the punishment that people should have received is borne by the Lord Himself. “The punishment of our peace was upon Him and by his stripes we were healed” (Isa. 53: 5), says the prophet Isaiah about the Divine sacrifice. You can use such an image, which is undoubtedly rather conventional and simplified.

Suppose a young man, almost still a youth, has committed a crime. He must be punished very harshly for him, for example, spend many years in a high-security camp, and maybe even die. His father was present when the crime was committed. And now the father, knowing that his son will not be able to bear the punishment, that his whole life will be distorted, ruined by the prison, and maybe he will never leave the camp at all and will perish there forever, decides on a feat. He, being himself innocent, takes upon himself the crime of his son and bears the punishment for him. Thus, he saves his son from suffering and death and sets an example of the highest love and self-sacrifice.

Christ is called the second Adam. Why? We are all in the flesh, in human nature, descend from our common forefather - Adam. He once sinned, not retaining his original dignity. After the Fall, both the spiritual and physical nature of man was distorted, sickness and death entered the world. We, as humans, as the descendants of the first Adam, inherited his sin-tainted nature. But now the Savior comes into the world. He lived on earth without sin, having overcome temptations and sin, He sacrificed for us on the cross and was resurrected. The Lord Jesus Christ has renewed our fallen nature, and now everyone who is born of Christ, as from the Second Adam and follows the path indicated by Him, crucifies “the flesh with passions and lusts” (Gal. 5:24), inherits eternal life with Christ.

ON THE FIFTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And risen on the third day, according to the Scriptures.

Sunday Our Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation of our Christian faith. “If Christ is not resurrected, then our preaching is in vain, and our faith is also in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14). Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, Easter- the most important Christian holiday. It is called in the Easter canon "a holiday, holidays and a celebration of celebrations." Every week we remember the event of the Resurrection of Christ, celebrating Sunday.

Why would our faith be futile and meaningless without the Resurrection? Because Christ came to earth, suffered and died to resurrect our human nature and conquer the devil, hell and death. And if there was no resurrection, all this would be impossible. Everything would have ended on Good Friday, the death and burial of Christ. But Christ was resurrected and now we have faith and hope to be resurrected with Him.

Before the resurrection of Christ, all people after death went to hell, to the underworld of the earth. In Hebrew, this place was called Sheol. Even the souls of the Old Testament righteous were there. Christ after His death also descended into hell. The Lord descends into hell to preach there and bring out of it the souls of all those who were waiting for Him with faith. The Lord was in hell until the day of His Resurrection, as it is sung in Easter chants: "In the grave with flesh, in hell with a soul, like God." On the third day, Christ was resurrected and by his resurrection destroyed the power of hell and brought out of it those who were waiting for His coming, as well as those who received the message of salvation. From now on, hell has no power over those who are followers of Christ and live according to His commandments.

The Creed says that the Savior was resurrected on the third day, according to Scripture. What scriptures tell us about the resurrection? First, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself constantly spoke about his future resurrection, predicted it, it is enough to remember the Gospel of Matthew: “From that time on, Jesus began to reveal to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer much from the elders, high priests and scribes and to be killed, and to rise again on the third day ”(Matthew 16:21). Christ's predictions about his resurrection from the dead are contained in all four Gospels. Concerning Old Testament prophecies, here, first of all, you can cite the words of the prophet David, said about Messiah: "You will not leave my soul in hell and you will not let Your holy one see corruption" (Ps.15: 10). Also, the stay of the prophet Jonah for three days and three nights in The whale's belly was foreshadowed by the resurrection of Christ the Savior. The Savior Himself refers to this prototype of the resurrection: “As Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights” (Matt. 12: 39-40).

After his resurrection, the Lord repeatedly appeared to his disciples:

1) Mary Magdalene (John 20: 11-18; Mark 16: 9)

2) Other women (Mat. 28: 8-10)

3) Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor. 15: 5)

4) Two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-35; Mark 16:12)

5) Eleven disciples (except for the Apostle Thomas - Luke 24: 36-43; John 20: 19-23)

6) Later, twelve disciples (1 Cor. 15: 5; John 20: 24-29)

7) Seven disciples near the Tiberian Sea (John 21: 1-23)

8) Five hundred followers (1 Cor. 15: 6)

9) Jacob (1 Cor. 15: 6)

10) The apostles at the time of the ascension (Acts 1: 3-12).

The cave where the body of Christ was buried was guarded by a detachment of soldiers from the Roman army, one of the best, trained and disciplined in the world. If the disciples of Christ had come at night to take away His body, as the Jews later said, at least one of them would have noticed them and grabbed them, besides, the entrance to the cave was covered by a large, heavy stone that cannot be silently rolled off. Even if the abduction had succeeded, the apostles would have been captured and tortured to be forced to reveal the whereabouts of the Master's body. But we know that they calmly walked free, not hiding at all. If the body of Jesus was taken by His enemies, then, of course, they would not have begun to hide this fact and very soon would have shown it to the people in order to refute the lifetime testimony of Christ about His resurrection.

ABOUT THE SIXTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And ascended into heaven, and sits on the right side of the Father.

After his resurrection, the Lord was on earth for another forty days, with his disciples, in order to assure them of the truth of the resurrection, strengthen their faith and give the necessary instructions.

Ascension happened on the Mount of Olives. It is known that the Savior loved this mountain and often went there for prayer. The Evangelist Luke describes this event as follows: “And he led them out of the city as far as Bethany, and raising his hands, he blessed them. And when he blessed them, he began to move away from them and ascend to heaven. They worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem ... ”(Luke 24: 50-52).

The Lord Jesus Christ ascended to Sky, By his humanity, and by his deity he always dwelt with God the Father. The heaven into which the Lord ascended is a place of the special presence of God, higher, that is, an exalted place, the Kingdom of God. Christ went all the way of our human life and ascended to heaven, by this He glorified our human nature and showed the way to the Heavenly Fatherland, to the heavenly Jerusalem. He opened it to all of his true followers.

The words of the Creed about the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ to heaven have their basis in the Holy Scriptures: “He who descended, He is also ascended above all heaven, in order to fill everything” (Eph. 4:10).

The "Symbol" says that Christ sat down on the right side of the Father... But we know that God is omnipresent, He is everywhere. These words about sitting at the right hand indicate that the Son of God, the Second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, has the same power and glory with the Father. “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), - He says about Himself.

ABOUT THE SEVENTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And again coming in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

The first coming to earth of the Lord Jesus Christ was humble, He took on the "image of a servant" (Phil. 2: 7). His second coming will be different, He again will come, but how Judge, in order to judge the affairs of all people, both those who have lived until His second coming, and those who have already died.

The second coming will be very formidable. The Lord Himself says about him: “as lightning comes from the east and is visible even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man”, and further: “the sun will darken and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will hesitate. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven; and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Coming Son in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet; and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to another ”(Matt. 24: 27-31).

When will it happen? The Savior tells us: “About that day and hour, no one knows, not the angels of heaven, but only My Father alone” (Matt. 24:36).

Both earlier and in our time, all kinds of false preachers often appeared who prophesied about the end of the world and even called the exact date this event. No one who will report the number or exact time of the Last Judgment can be trusted, for it is unknown to anyone except God. In addition, for any of us, every day of our life can be the last, and we will have to answer before the Impartial Judge. Here is what St. Ignatius Brianchaninov says about the end of this world, and about our own death: “The day and hour at which the Son of God will end the life of the world by coming to judgment is unknown; the day and hour at which, by the command of the Son of God, the earthly life of each of us will end, and we will be called to be separated from the body, to account for earthly life, to that private judgment, before the general judgment that awaits a person after his death, is unknown. Beloved brethren! Let us stay awake and prepare for the terrible judgment awaiting us on the brink of eternity for the irrevocable decision of our fate forever. Let us prepare ourselves, stocking ourselves with all the virtues, especially mercy, which contains and crowns all the virtues, since love, the motivating cause of mercy, is "Aggregate" Christian "Perfection" (Col. 3:14). Mercy makes people filled with it godlike (Matthew 5: 44,48; Luke 6: 32,36)! “Blessed are the merciful, for they will have mercy; judgment without mercy to one who did not show mercy ”(Matthew 5: 7; James 2:13).

Before the end of the world there will be, predicted in the Holy Scriptures, wars, turmoil, earthquakes, famine and national disasters. Faith and morality will be impoverished. A "man of perdition", Antichrist, a false messiah will appear - a man who wants to become instead of Christ, to take His place and have power over the whole world. Having reached the supreme earthly power, the Antichrist will require himself to be worshiped as God. The power of the Antichrist will be destroyed by the coming of God.

After His coming, the Lord will judge all people. How will the Last Judgment take place? Saint Philaret of Moscow (Drozdov) writes that God “will judge in such a way that the conscience of every person will be revealed to everyone and not only all the deeds that have been done by those who have done in the course of their entire life on earth, but also all the words spoken, will be revealed, secret desires and thoughts. " Another Saint John (Maksimovich), Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco also says:“The Last Judgment does not know the witnesses or the minutes. Everything is written in the souls of men and these records, these "books" are being opened. Everything becomes apparent to everyone and to himself, and the state of a person's soul determines it to the right or to the left. Some walk in joy, others in horror.

When the "books" are opened, it will become clear to everyone that the roots of all vices are in the human soul. Here is a drunkard, a fornicator - when the body died, someone would think - sin also died. No, there was an inclination in my soul and sin was sweet in my soul.

And if she has not repented of that sin, has not freed herself from it, she will come to the Last Judgment with the same desire for the sweetness of sin and will never satisfy her desire. It will contain the suffering of hatred and anger. This is a hellish state.

“Fiery Gehenna” is an inner fire, it is a flame of vice, a flame of weakness and anger, and “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” of impotent anger.

The Lord Jesus Christ will judge the world. “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). Why? Because the Son of God is also the Son of Man. He lived here on earth, among people, experienced sorrow, suffering, temptation and death itself. He knows all human sorrows and weaknesses.

The last judgment will be terrible, because all human deeds and sins are hidden before everyone, and also because after this judgment nothing can be changed, and everyone will receive what is worthy according to their deeds.

How a person lived on earth, how he prepared to meet God, and what state he has reached, he will go with him into eternity. And the worthy, righteous will go into eternal life with God, and sinners into eternal torment prepared for the devil and his servants. After this will come the eternal Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of goodness, truth and love.

But the Lord is not only the Terrible Judge, He is also the Merciful Father, and of course He, by His mercy, will use all the possibilities in order not to condemn, but to justify a person. Saint Theophan the Recluse writes about this: “The Lord wants everyone to be saved, therefore, you too… The Lord at the Last Judgment will not seek, how to condemn, but how to justify everyone. And he will justify everyone, if only there is even a small opportunity. "

ABOUT THE EIGHTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, giving life, proceeding from the Father, equally with the Father and the Son of the worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.

Holy Spirit- the third hypostasis, the face of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit is consubstantial and equal to the Father and the Son, therefore He is also referred to in the Creed Lord.

The Holy Spirit is named Life-giving, giving life, first: because He, together with the Father and the Son, participated in the creation of the world. In the book of Genesis, when describing the creation of the earth, it says: “and darkness is over the abyss; and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water ”(Gen. 1: 2). "The Spirit of God created me" (Job 33, 4), - says righteous job... Secondly, the Holy Spirit, together with the Father and the Son, gives spiritual life to people, imparting divine energy to them. “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3: 5).

Prophets, heralds of the word of God, wrote their books not from themselves, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, therefore the Holy Scripture is called God-inspired.

The Lord Jesus promised to send His disciples, the holy apostles, the Holy Spirit, whom He calls Comforter: “When he comes as a Comforter, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father” (John 15:26). And on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Christ, when the apostles were gathered in one place, in the upper room of Zion, the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the form of tongues of flame, and gave them gifts of grace.

The Holy Spirit works in the life of the Church, especially communicating his gifts in the holy ordinances. Saint Basil the Great compares the Holy Spirit with the light of the sun, warming and giving life: He ... is like a sunshine - everyone enjoying it, as it were, alone, meanwhile this radiance illuminates the earth and the sea and dissolves into the air. Likewise, the Spirit dwells in each of those who receive Him, as if the one inherent in him alone and in all pours out the full grace that those who partake enjoy, according to their own ability to receive, and not to the extent possible for the Spirit. "

ON THE NINTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

Into one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Church has not a human, but a divine origin, it was founded and established by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, having come to earth and gathered the first community of His disciples - followers. “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Christ is also the head of the Church, as evidenced by the Holy Scriptures. The Apostle Paul says that God the Father “put Him above all, the head of the Church, which is His Body. (Eph. 1: 22-23). The Word of God, Holy Scripture, does not accidentally use the name in relation to the Church The body of Christ... The Savior Himself says: “I am the vine, and you are the branches” (John 15: 5). Just as the branches grow on a tree, originate from it, receive life and bear fruit, feeding on the juices of the trunk, and all together form a single tree, also Christians originate from Christ, originate and life from their Teacher and God, and together form one church bearing the fruits of faith. “You are the body of Christ, but individually members” (1 Cor. 12:27).

The Church is made up of all people who unanimously profess the Orthodox faith, living all over the world, therefore the Church is called the Ecumenical. The Church belongs not only to Orthodox Christians now living on earth, but also to all her children, who have now passed away, for “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for with Him all are alive” (Luke 20:38). The Mother of God, all the saints, as well as the heavenly host of archangels, angels and all heavenly incorporeal powers, also constitute one Church with all of us. Thus, the Church is one, but subdivided into earthly and heavenly. The church does not consist of only saints and righteous people, but is called Saint, because it was founded by the Lord Himself and keeps the teaching given by Him intact and holiness.

The Lord created the Church and put into it everything that is necessary for our salvation: true teaching, Orthodox, church hierarchy, holy sacraments.

Saint Philaret of Moscow defines the Church as “an established society of people from God, united Orthodox faith, By the Law of God, the priesthood and the Sacraments. " All this: both faith and hierarchy, and the sacraments have a divine origin, therefore those people who say that they believe in God, but do not recognize the church, consider it to be some kind of later human invention, sin and are deeply mistaken. The holy martyr Cyprian of Carthage said about such people: "To whom the Church is not a mother, to him God is not a Father." You can't call yourself Orthodox Christian and not to believe in the Church established by Christ, to deny the church hierarchy, which is also given by the Savior and has direct reception from the apostles themselves, and not to approach the sacraments that have existed since early Christian times, and which are all based in Holy Scripture. Denying the Church, it is impossible to be saved: "There is no salvation without the Church"- as the Hieromartyr Hilarion (Trinity) said.

The Holy Spirit is at work in the Church founded by the Savior. He participates in the life of the Church, supplies the church hierarchy and teaches His gifts of grace in the sacraments and church rites. The Apostle Paul addresses the elders (priests) of the city of Milit with the following speech: "Pay attention to yourself and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the Church of the Lord and God, which He purchased with His blood" (Acts 20:28).

The Lord acquired, acquired His Church, shedding His Divine blood for her, enduring suffering and death itself. He appointed the apostles, giving them the authority to perform the holy ordinances: “Receive the Holy Spirit. To whom you bear sins, they will be forgiven; on whom you leave, on whom they will remain ”(John 20: 21-23), this is said about the sacrament of confession, in which the Lord, through a priest, allows a repentant person from sin. The Savior gave the apostle the authority to perform other sacraments: Communion, Baptism, Priesthood. The holy apostles received from Christ also episcopal authority; they appointed and ordained successors to themselves, other bishops. Since then, the apostolic reception in the Church through an unbroken chain of ordinations has not stopped. Each of the existing now Orthodox bishops, has a succession from the apostles themselves. Therefore, our Church is called apostolic. Both the apostles and subsequent bishops ordained elders and priests. Elders can also perform all ordinances, except for ordination. Priesthood is the second step church hierarchy after the bishop. Only a bishop can ordain or ordain to the priesthood.

The church is called conciliar, because we all constitute, led by Christ the Savior, and the hierarchy, a single council, an assembly of believers. Church word in Greek ecclesia, translated as a gathering of believers. Also, the Church is conciliar, since the supreme power in it belongs to the Ecumenical Councils. They come together to discuss very important church issues and condemn false doctrines. Ecumenical Councils are attended by bishops, if possible, from all Ecumenical Church... Also, the life of the Church is led by local councils, which regularly meet in local Orthodox churches. Local Churches Are churches located in different countries, each of them has its own primate, the chief bishop of the church, but all are members of the single Ecumenical Orthodox Church.

The Church, as a divine-human organism, is eternal and will remain, according to the Savior's promise, to the end of the century.

ON THE TENTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

Confess one baptism for the remission of sins.

I confess, it means I believe, undoubtedly I recognize. Why "One baptism"? “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4: 4), teaches the Apostle Paul. This means that there is only one true church, established by the One true God, and in it there are saving sacraments, since the grace of God works in the Church. The uniqueness and uniqueness of Baptism is included in the Symbol of Faith also because during the time of the first Ecumenical Councils there were disputes over how to receive heretics who fell away from the Church, should the sacrament of Baptism be repeated over them, or not? Therefore, the second Ecumenical Council, supplemented the "Symbol", with the words that there can be only one Baptism. It was decided to accept the fallen through repentance.

The Creed refers to the sacrament Baptisms but no other ordinances are mentioned. Baptism is the sacrament of entering the Church, without it one cannot become a Christian, a follower of Christ and a member of His Church. Entering the Church through Baptism, as through some kind of gate, a person gets the opportunity to begin other sacraments and church rites. There are seven sacraments in the Church: baptism, chrismation, communion, confession, blessing of unification (or unction), wedding and priesthood.

So, the spiritual life of a Christian begins with Baptism, he is born in this sacrament for a new life, life with Christ. The Lord sends the apostles to preach His teaching, the word of God to all people and baptize all who believe in Christ and want to follow him: “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you "(Matt. 28: 19-20). In another Gospel, written by the holy Evangelist Mark, the Savior says about Baptism: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; but whoever does not believe will be condemned ”(Mark 16:16). Faith and a life of faith are a prerequisite for baptism. Baptism is not only a new birth, but also death for another life, sinful, carnal: “If we died with Christ, then we believe that we will also live with Him” (Rom. 6, 8) - we read the words of the Apostle Paul at the sacrament of Baptism.

Before diving into the Holy font with the invocation of the name of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the one approaching Baptism renounces the devil and “all his deeds”, that is, sinful life ”, for“ those who create sin from (). And it is combined with Christ, promises to keep faith in the Lord and faithfulness to Him, promises not to oppose the will of God and to live according to His commandments.

In the waters of baptism, a person drowns his sins, his fallen nature, leaving the font cleansed and renewed, and receives grace and strength to fight the devil and sin. Therefore, the Creed says that Baptism is performed "for the remission of sins." When an adult begins the sacrament of baptism, he is required not only to have faith, but also to repent of his sins.

We baptize infants according to the faith of their parents and receivers (godparents), who are guarantors for them before God. Both parents and godparents should be believers, knowing their faith and living by it. They must raise the child in faith. The prototype of the New Testament Baptism was the Old Testament rite of circumcision, it was performed on infants on the eighth day after birth. We also perform baptism on infants, for the Apostle Paul directly calls Baptism “circumcision not made by hands” - (Col. 2: 11-12); Even the holy apostles performed baptisms over entire "houses", families, in which, of course, there were small children. The Lord Himself commanded not to hinder children from coming to Him: “Let the children come to Me, and do not forbid them, for such is the Kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16). That the grace of God can be communicated through the faith of others is evident from the Gospel. When people turned to Christ with faith asking for the healing of their relatives and friends, the Lord performed miracles according to the faith of those who asked. For example, when the chief of the synagogue, Jairus, asked for his daughter to be healed, when a Syrophenician woman prayed for the exorcism of a demon also from her daughter, or when four people came to the Lord and brought their relaxed companion. “Jesus seeing their faith, says to the paralytic: child, your sins are forgiven you” (Mark 2: 5).

For any Orthodox believer who has children, it is inconceivable that our children would remain outside the grace of God, which is taught in the saving Sacraments of the Church. Therefore, the Orthodox Church, with its canonical rules, established the need for the baptism of infants. For example, Canon 124 of the Carthaginian Council says: “Whoever rejects the need to baptize small children and newborns from the mother's womb of children, or says that although they are baptized for the remission of sins, they don’t borrow anything from the ancestral Adam's sin that should be washed with the bath of the Holy Bible ( that is, Baptism Ed.), from which it would follow that the image of baptism for the remission of sins is used over them not in a true, but in a false sense, that let it be anathema. " Thus, it becomes clear that infants, although they do not have personal sins, also need cleansing and the grace of God acting in the sacraments, since they, like all people, inherit universal ancestral corruption, an inclination to sin.

ON THE ELEVENTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

Awaiting the resurrection of the dead,

Man was created by God as an immortal being. After the fall of Adam, human body it began to hurt, grow old, collapse, it has lost its immortal properties. People are born, live on earth, and then die. The immortal soul is separated from the body, after bodily death, the Lord judges all the affairs of a person's earthly life and determines the place of the soul until the day of the Last Judgment. At the end of the world, on the day of the Last Judgment, God will resurrect, will restore the bodies of dead people in order to endure His final judgment on humanity and separate those who are worthy of the Eternal Kingdom of Bliss with God, from those who, due to their sins, are not worthy of the Kingdom of God. Unrepentant sinners will go into “eternal torment” (Matt. 25:46), “into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angel” (Matthew 25:41), that is, to a place devoid of divine light, where they will dwell in eternal torment , along with Satan and his servants.

The current state of the departed, that is, the existence of a soul without a body, is not final and incomplete. A person is not only a soul, but a soul and a body together. And therefore for the Judgment over all people and further eternal life, The Lord resurrect the dead in the body. Those people who will be alive at the moment of the second coming of Christ will also appear at the judgment of God.

Almost all peoples have the concept of the immortality of the soul, for in man, as a being originally immortal, there is a feeling, a feeling of his eternity.

Lord Jesus Christ passing full way human life from birth to death, showed us the path that awaits all departed people. He was resurrected, and His soul was united with the body. The Apostle Paul says about this: “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then God will bring those who have died in Jesus with Him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who live, who remain before the coming of the Lord, will not warn the dead; because the Lord Himself with a proclamation, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who remain alive will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so always with the Lord we will ”(1 Sol. 4: 14-17).

In the Holy Scriptures, both the New and Old Testament talk about the future many times resurrection of the dead... The Lord gave the prophet Ezekiel a vision, which has historical significance (tells about the restoration of the kingdom of Israel), but is also a type of the general resurrection of bodies. The Prophet saw a field full of dead, dry human bones. And now God says that He will bring a spirit into them, surround them with veins, grow flesh on them and cover them with skin. And everything happens according to the word of the Lord, then “the spirit entered into them and they came to life and stood on their feet - a very, very great horde” (Ezek. 37: 1-10).

Human consciousness, who is accustomed to thinking in earthly, limited categories, it is difficult to imagine how the resurrection of long-dead people and the restoration of decayed flesh can occur. But we know that the Lord created the first man from "the dust of the earth, and breathed the breath of life into his face" (Gen. 2: 7), that is, gave him an immortal soul. The earth, "the dust of the earth", is a set of chemical elements from which all nature, including man, consists. When dying, the body decomposes and returns to the state of dust. After the Fall, God tells Adam that “you… will return“ to the land from which you were taken ”(Genesis 3: 17-19). Of course, God, who once created the human body from the nature of the earth, will be able to restore back the decayed human body.

To assure us of the future resurrection of bodies, the Apostle Paul uses the image of a grain thrown into the ground: “Someone will say: how will the dead be resurrected? and in what body will they come? Reckless! what you sow will not come to life unless it dies. And when you sow, you are sowing not the future body, but the bare grain, which will happen, wheat or some other; but God gives him the body he wants, and to each seed his own body ... So it is with the resurrection of the dead ”(1 Cor. 15, 35-33, 42).

“If the seeds do not die first, do not rot and decay, the ears will not grow. And how do you, when you notice that the seed is subject to corruption and decay, not only do you not doubt, but thereby you are even more convinced of its resurrection (for if the seed remained whole without damage and destruction, it would not have risen), so reason and about your body ", - also says Saint John Chrysostom.

ABOUT THE TWELFTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

and the life of the next century. Truly so.

After the general resurrection and the Last Judgment, the earth will be renewed and transformed by means of fire. God's Kingdom, as the scriptures say, Kingdom of truth: “We are waiting, according to the promise of the Lord, a new heaven and a new earth, where only one righteousness will reign” (2 Pet. 3:13). The Holy Apostle John the Theologian, in his revelation about the future destinies of the world, saw “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21: 1). There will no longer be anything sinful, unclean, unjust on the new earth. Both nature and humanity will also be renewed. The Apostle Paul writes that the bodies of people will be like the resurrected body of the Savior: “Our dwelling is in heaven, from where we also expect the Savior, the Lord (our) Jesus Christ, who will transform our humbled body so that it will be in accordance with His glorious body, by the power by which He acts and subjugates everything to Himself (Phil. 3: 20,21). In the Kingdom of God there will be no sickness, no suffering, no sorrow.

What will it be for life how it will look new heaven and earth? It is difficult to imagine this for us. But one thing is certain, that both the Kingdom of God and the life in it will be incomparable, incomparably more beautiful than all the present earthly beauties and joys. “The eyes did not see, the ear did not hear, and that did not come to the heart of man, which God prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2: 9),” says the Apostle Paul. An example can be given. A person lives who suffers from severe eye diseases from birth, he is almost devoid of light, surrounding objects, he distinguishes people only as vague silhouettes. And now he undergoes an operation, and after a while all the colors, all the beauties of the surrounding world become available to him for contemplation. Or a person who was deaf from birth was given hearing, and a wonderful world of sounds, words and musical harmonies was opened to him. Yes, it is difficult for us to imagine what “God has prepared for those who love Him,” but we hope and believe that life with the Lord, in constant divine light and love, will be blissful and beautiful. Our present, earthly joys cannot give us an idea of ​​this or that joy and happiness. Even spiritual joys, from love, gratitude to God, prayer - this is only a weak beginning, a subtle sprout of what will be there, in the new Kingdom of truth. For us, the expectation of the life of the century to come is an object of faith, of our hope, and we can only feel sorry for people who do not have this hope, that is, do not believe in the future life. There is one parable on this score.

In the belly of a pregnant woman, two twins are talking. One of them is a believer and the other is an unbeliever. The unbeliever believes that their whole life is a dwelling in this close and dark room where they can only move slightly and there is no other life. Another baby, on the contrary, believes that their current position, temporary, is only the beginning of a real, wonderful life, that someday they will see the light, the beauty of the world, they will eat food with their mouths and walk with their feet. And most importantly, this kid believes they will see their mother. To which the unbeliever replies that believing in the mother is just madness, we do not see her, which means she does not exist. His believing brother tries to dissuade him, saying that the mother is with them, she takes care of them, gives them life and nourishment, the mother is everywhere, she is around them. But the unbelieving twin remains firm.

The creed ends with the word "Amen", which means: truly, undoubtedly so. By this we confirm, we testify that we accept, as true Orthodox Christians, this confession of faith, left to us by the holy fathers, and approved by the ecumenical councils.

INTERPRETATION OF THE MORNING PRAYERS

Symbol of faith

1 I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible. 2 And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, who was born of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, God, true from God, true, born, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, Who was all. 3 For us for the sake of man and for our salvation came down from heaven and incarnate from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became man. 4 But he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried. 5 And he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. 6 And he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 7 And packs coming with glory to judge the living and the dead, His Kingdom will have no end. 8 And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-giving, who is from the Father who proceeds, who are worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son, who spoke the prophets. 9 In one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. 10 I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. 11 Tea for the resurrection of the dead, 12 and the life of the century to come. Amen.

Believe in God- means to have a living confidence in His being, properties and actions and with all our heart to accept His frank word about the salvation of the human race. God is one in essence, but threefold in Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Trinity consubstantial and indivisible. In the Creed God is called Almighty because everything that is, He contains in His power and His will. The words Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible mean that everything was created by God and nothing can be without God. Word invisible indicates that God created the invisible, or spiritual, world to which the Angels belong.

Son of God the second Person of the Holy Trinity is called according to His Deity. It is named By the Lord because He is true god, for the name Lord is one of the names of God. The Son of God is named Jesus, that is, the Savior, this name was named by the Archangel Gabriel himself. Christ, that is, the Anointed One, was called by the prophets - this is how kings, high priests and prophets have long been called. Jesus, the Son of God, is so named because all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are immeasurably imparted to His humanity, and thus to Him in the highest degree belong the knowledge of the prophet, the holiness of the high priest, and the might of the king. Jesus Christ is called the Son of God Only begotten because He is only one being the Son of God, born of the being of God the Father, and therefore He is one being with God the Father. The Creed says that He was born of the Father, and this depicts the personal property that distinguishes Him from other Persons of the Holy Trinity. Said before all ages so that no one would think that there was a time when He was not. The words Light from Light in some way explain the incomprehensible birth of the Son of God from the Father. God the Father is the eternal Light, from Him is born the Son of God, who is also the eternal Light; but God the Father and the Son of God is one eternal Light, inseparable, of one Divine nature. The words God is true from God is true taken from the Holy Scriptures: We also know that the Son of God came and gave us light and reason, that we may know the true God and that we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life(1 John 5:20). The words born, uncreated added by the holy fathers of the Ecumenical Council to denounce Arius, who impiously taught that the Son of God was created. The words consubstantial with the Father mean that the Son of God is one and the same Divine being with God the Father. The words All of them were show that God the Father created everything by His Son as His eternal wisdom and His eternal Word. For us for the sake of man and for ours for the sake of salvation- The Son of God, according to His promise, did not come to earth for any one nation, but in general for the entire human race. Descended from heaven- as he says about himself: No one ascended to heaven, but the Son of Man who came down from heaven, which is in heaven(John 3:13). The Son of God is omnipresent and therefore was always in heaven and on earth, but on earth He was previously invisible and became visible only when He appeared in the flesh, became incarnate, that is, took on human flesh, except sin, and became a man, without ceasing to be God ... The incarnation of Christ was accomplished with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, so that the Holy Virgin, as was the Virgin before conception, so in conception, and after conception, and in birth itself, remained the Virgin. Word becoming human added so that no one should think that the Son of God took on one flesh or body, but that in Him they would recognize the perfect man, consisting of body and soul. Jesus Christ was crucified for us - by His death on the cross He delivered us from sin, curses and death.

The words under Pontius Pilate indicate the time when He was crucified. Pontius Pilate is the Roman ruler of Judea, which was conquered by the Romans. Word suffering added to show that His crucifixion was not one kind of suffering and death, as some false teachers said, but genuine suffering and death. He suffered and died not as a Divine, but as a man, and not because he could not avoid suffering, but because he wanted to suffer. Word buried certifies that He really died and rose again, for His enemies even put a guard at the tomb and sealed the tomb. AND resurrected on the third day according to Scripture- the fifth term of the Creed teaches that our Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of His Divinity, rose from the dead, as it is written about Him in the prophets and in the psalms, and that He was resurrected in the same body in which He was born and died. The words by Scripture mean that Jesus Christ died and rose again exactly as it is prophetically written in the books of the Old Testament. And ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father- these words are borrowed from the Holy Scriptures: Descended, He is He who ascended above all heaven, in order to fill everything(Ephesians 4:10). We have such a High Priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of majesty in heaven.(Heb. 8: 1). The words sitting on the right hand, that is, sitting on the right side, must be understood spiritually. They mean that Jesus Christ has the same power and glory with God the Father. And the packs of the coming with glory, judge the living and the dead, His Kingdom will have no end- The Holy Scripture says this about the future coming of Christ: This Jesus, ascended from you to heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him ascending to heaven(Acts 1:11).

Holy Spirit called By the Lord because he, like the Son of God, - true god... The Holy Spirit is called Life-giving, because He, together with God the Father and the Son, gives life to creatures, and to people, including spiritual life: unless one is born of water and the Spirit, cannot enter the Kingdom of God(John 3, 5). The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, as Jesus Christ Himself says: When the Comforter comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me(John 15:26). Worship and glorification befitting the Holy Spirit, equal to the Father and the Son - Jesus Christ commanded to baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit(Matthew 28:19). The Creed says that the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets - this is based on the words of the Apostle Peter: the prophecy was never uttered by the will of man, but his saints spoke God's men being moved by the Holy Spirit(2 Pet. 1:21). Communion of the Holy Spirit can be made through the sacraments and earnest prayer: if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him(Luke 11, 13).

Church united, because One body and one spirit, as you are called to the one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all of us(Eph. 4: 4-6). Church Saint, because Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her in order to sanctify her, cleansing her with the bath of water by means of the word; to present her to Himself as a glorious Church, without spot, or wrinkle, or anything like that, but so that she might be holy and blameless(Eph. 5: 25-27). Church Cathedral, or, what is the same, catholic, or Ecumenical, because it is not limited to any place, time or people, but includes the true believers of all places, times and peoples. Church Apostolic, because from the time of the apostles, she continuously and unchanged preserves both the teaching and the succession of the gifts of the Holy Spirit through the consecrated ordination. The True Church is also called Orthodox, or Orthodox.

Baptism- this is a Sacrament in which the believer, when the body is immersed in water three times, with the call of God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, dies for a carnal, sinful life and is reborn from the Holy Spirit into a spiritual, holy life. Baptism united, because it is a spiritual birth, and a person will be born once, therefore he is baptized once.

Resurrection of the dead- this is the action of the omnipotence of God, according to which all the bodies of dead people, connecting again with their souls, will revive and will be spiritual and immortal.

Life of the century to come- this is the life that will be after the Resurrection of the dead and the Universal Judgment of Christ.

Word Amen, ending the Symbol of Faith, means "Truly so." The Church has kept the Symbol of Faith since apostolic times and will keep it forever. No one can ever either subtract or add anything to this Symbol.

One of the main prayers for Orthodox Christians. It is in it that the main provisions of the Orthodox faith are contained.

The symbol of faith was approved at the first and second Ecumenical Councils (this is a meeting of teachers of the Orthodox Church to discuss and accept the truths of doctrine) in the IV century. For this reason given prayer also called Nicea-Constantinople (Nicea and Constantinople are two cities in which the first and second Ecumenical Councils were held). The first council approved seven members of the Niceo-Constantinople Symbol, and the second council - the last five.

Importance of the Creed

Importance of the Creed consists in the fact that it is in it that the essence of Orthodoxy is truly and truly reflected - everything that every layman should believe in. Pronouncing the lines of this prayer, we briefly "remind" ourselves of the main thing in the Christian doctrine.

In total, there are twelve parts of the dogma, each of which has one sentence. Each member of the Niko-Constantinople symbol begins with the word "I believe". The first part talks about faith in God the Father who created our world; from the second part to the seventh - about the life of Jesus Christ on earth: about the suffering at the crucifixion and about the resurrection. The eighth sentence tells about the Holy Spirit; in the ninth - about the Church, which is the main holy place of retirement of people and God; in the tenth - about holy baptism and in the last two parts - about the immortality of man, as well as about eternal life.

The Creed is one of three prayers that are included in the short prayer rule... In his opinion, with the help of this dogma, the prayers "Our Father" and "Theotokos, Virgin, rejoice", one can achieve the spiritual ideal. Therefore, the Symbol of Faith should be understood by all Orthodox Christians.

Creed prayer

Prayer Creed read in the morning and evening prayer rules, and is also sung in the church together with the parishioners during the Liturgy of the Faithful (this is one of the parts Divine Liturgy- morning church service). Although the Creed does not contain appeals to God, the Guardian Angel or the saints, as well as thanksgiving or repentance, it is considered a prayer and is found in any prayer book.

For the sacrament of baptism, the Creed is the main provision. The godmother or godmother needs to know this prayer, because it is read at the entrance to the temple of God and in the process of the sacrament itself. The priest reads a prayer at the very beginning and end of the ritual. During home preparation for baptism, it is worth remembering that if the baby is a girl, then the Godmother reads the Creed, and if a boy, then the godmother. If an adult is preparing for the sacrament of baptism, then he reads this prayer himself. For this reason, it is imperative that at least one of the godparents learn the Creed by heart. Although in the church they may be allowed to read a prayer from their own preparation or from a prayer book, but in this case, you need to be careful and ponder the meaning.

It is generally accepted that prayer is an appeal to God or patron saints with a request or gratitude. There are prayers and psalms that are generally accepted by Christians, established by the church, read with faith, which have great power. However, a person can communicate with the Most High, with the Mother of God or with his saints, without using the ancient texts of prayers. One way or another, any prayer is saturated with faith, which a person often loses in desperate attempts to get out of a difficult situation.

In such a state, they often indulge in despondency, give up, believing that the Holy Heavens left them without help. Prayer "Symbol of Faith" restores strength, helps to restore hope and faith in God, in his help. We can say that this is an appeal to oneself, reminding that Higher power is, and they will help, that you should not lose faith. There is no prayer in the text direct appeal to God, but it is spoken of.

Since the content of the prayer is based on the dogmas of the Orthodox Christian teaching, it summarizes all the truths. The context contains the meaning of faith. The prayer itself begins with the word “I believe”, which is the key to returning union with God. This word has great power, which removes all doubts from the consciousness of the praying person and returns the knowledge of the truth, fills the mind with hope.

If you interpret the words of the prayer in understandable language, then in continuation it comes that God is one and everything that is - man himself and around him - is a divine creation - "... visible to everyone and invisible." This is followed by a mention of Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son, born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, who suffered and rose again "... on the third day according to the scriptures" for the good of man, and then ascended into heaven to help people. Pondering the meaning of the prayer, one gradually comes to the realization that nothing can happen easily at once, changes will not occur if you lose your mind. Whatever the prayer of the prayer is, it will be heard and help will come, you just need to be patient and continue to live. This is how the prayer ends, consolidating the faith in the mind: "... I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the century to come", in other words - life goes on.

The symbol of faith by Orthodox Christians strengthens the spiritual strength of a person, which means that it must be read as often as possible.

Prayer symbol of faith Church Slavonic text

1. I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible.
2. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, Who was born of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, God, true from God, true, born, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, Who was all.
3. For us, for the sake of man and for our salvation, he descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became human.
4. Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried.
5. And he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures.
6. And he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
7. And packs of the coming with glory to judge the living and the dead, His Kingdom will have no end.
8. And in the Holy Spirit, the Life-giving Lord, Who is from the Father who proceeds, Who is worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son, who spoke the prophets.
9. In one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
10. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.
11. Tea of ​​the resurrection of the dead.
12. And the life of the next century. Amen.

Prayer symbol of faith text in Russian

1. I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of everything visible and invisible.
2. And in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten, born of the Father before all ages: Light from the Light, true God from true God, born, not created, one being with the Father, by Him all was created.
3. For the sake of us people and for the sake of our salvation descended from heaven and took flesh from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became a man.
4. Crucified for us under the Pontic Pilate, and suffered, and was buried.
5. And he rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures.
6. And ascended into heaven, and sits on the right side of the Father.
7. And again coming in glory to judge the living and the dead, His Kingdom will have no end.
8. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, giving life, proceeding from the Father, with the Father and the Son adored and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.
9. Into one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
10. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.
11. I look forward to the resurrection of the dead.
12. And the life of the next century. Amen (truly so).

Prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ

And for all time and for every hour, in heaven and on earth, worshiped and glorified, Christ God, long-suffering, many-merciful, many-gracious: those who are righteous, love and merciful, others who call for salvation promises for the sake of future blessings. Himself, Lord, accept ours in the hour of this prayer, and correct our belly to Thy commandment; Sanctify our souls, cleanse our bodies, correct our thoughts, cleanse our thoughts; and deliver us from all sorrow, evils and diseases: protect us with Thy saints Angels, so that we will observe and instruct them with their militia, we will achieve Thy unassailable glory in the union of faith, and in the mind of Thy impregnable glory: as blessed are you forever and ever. Amen.

Prayer for the Living

Save, Lord, and have mercy on my spiritual father (name), my parents (names), relatives (names), bosses, mentors, benefactors (names) and all Orthodox Christians.

Prayer to the Honest Cross

May God rise again, and scatter Him, and let those who hate Him flee from His presence. Yako smoke disappears, yes disappear; as the wax melts from the face of fire, so let the demons die from the face loving God and those who are signified by the sign of the cross, and in the joy of those who say: Rejoice, Most Honorable and Life-giving Cross Lord, drive away demons by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was soaked on you, into hell the devil descended and trampled on the power and bestowed upon you, His Honorable Cross, to drive out every adversary. O Most Honorable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord! Help me with the Holy Lady the Virgin Mary and with all the saints forever. Amen.

Prayer for the departed

Rest, Lord, the souls of the departed, Thy servant: my parents, relatives, benefactors (names) and all Orthodox Christians, and forgive them all sins, voluntary and involuntary, and grant them the Kingdom of Heaven.

Initial prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, prayers for the sake of Thy Most Pure Mother and all saints have mercy on us. Amen.

Prayer by agreement

Prayer by agreement is read if, in some difficult situation (illness, calamity, misfortune), two or more Christians agree (agree) to pray together intensely for deliverance from this misfortune.

Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Thou art Thou most pure Thy lips: I say Amen to you, as if two from you consults on earth from every thing that even asks for, it will be from My Father, Who is in Heaven; wherever there are two or three gather together in my name, that I am in their midst. Thy words are immutable, O Lord, Thy mercy is without application and Thy philanthropy has no end. For this reason, we pray to Thee: grant us, Your servants (names), who have agreed to ask You (request), the fulfillment of our request. But either way, not as we want, but as you. Thy will be done forever. Amen.

Symbol of faith. Prayers.

We are called Orthodox Christians, that is right , right praising God ... In order to be sure that you are doing something right, there is a lot to learn, a lot to learn. Read books, ask experienced people. If a person does not know anything and does not want to know, but is completely sure that he is doing everything right, expect trouble. A simple example. A certain person does not know about the rules of the road at all, but he confidently gets behind the wheel and starts driving. It won't be long before he realizes that he is doing something wrong: he is driving on the left side of the road, but for some reason all the cars are rushing towards him, honking, and he barely has time to dodge them. He drives up to a traffic light, a red light turns on, but this eccentric is sure that he can continue to move, because he does not know the rules! What will happen next, I think it is clear. Very soon this unfortunate man will have an accident and, thank God, if he remains alive. But if in ordinary, material everyday life we ​​understand perfectly well that we must study laws and rules, observe safety precautions so as not to get into trouble, then even more so in spiritual life. There, too, there are laws established by God, there are safety rules. And the harm that we can inflict on ourselves without knowing these laws or neglecting them is much greater than from ignorance of the laws of the physical world. For we can cause irreparable damage not to the body, but to the soul.

How to learn the rules of spiritual life, how to believe correctly? For this there is the Word of God Himself - Holy Bible , it must be read, studied, it is necessary to build life on it. There are commandments that God Himself also gave us, and we, Orthodox people, have a huge the experience of the Church, an experience that is already 2 thousand years old in the world and a thousand years in Russia. Many millions of people have passed this way, from the Nativity of Christ to the present day. We have, it was created by the Lord Jesus Christ and put into it everything that is needed for our salvation. “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (). The experience of the holy fathers and ascetics of 2 millennia of Christianity is also invested in the church treasury.

The Orthodox Church is called so because it has preserved the teaching given to us by God Himself in fullness and intactness, without distortion. We know how to believe in God correctly, how to glorify him correctly, He himself revealed this to us, therefore our faith is right, our faith is Orthodox

Symbol of faith , or the confession of the Christian Orthodox faith is prayer, which contains all the basic provisions and dogmas of the Orthodox faith. The teaching of the Church in the "Symbol" is presented in a short but very precise form.

Creed compiled in the 4th century by the fathers First and Second Ecumenical Councils. In the ancient Church, symbols of faith existed earlier, but with the emergence and strengthening of false teachings about God, it was necessary to draw up a more accurate and dogmatically flawless confession of faith that could be used by the entire Ecumenical.

The first Ecumenical Council was convened in the city of Nicaea on the occasion of the false teaching of the presbyter Arius, who taught that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was created by God the Father and is not true God, but only the highest creation. The council condemned this heresy and expounded Orthodox teaching, composing the first seven members of the Creed. At the second ecumenical council, convened to condemn the heresy of Macedon, which rejected the Deity of the Holy Spirit, the next five members of the Creed were given.

Every Orthodox Christian needs to know the Symbol of Faith by heart in order to have correct knowledge about God and his own faith, as well as always be able to give an answer to all those who ask us: "How do you believe?"

The symbol of faith must be known even before baptism, because it is necessary, even before receiving this sacrament and entering the Church, to have the correct knowledge about God and the foundations of the doctrine. When babies are baptized, the Symbol of Faith is read for them by the recipients, godparents, and they, of course, must also know it by heart and read it without mistakes. It is not difficult to learn the Symbol of Faith, because it is part of the morning prayers, and every Orthodox person reads it, praying in the morning. Also, the Symbol of Faith is sung every liturgy, in the church by all the people, and a person who regularly prays in the morning and goes to Sunday and festive liturgies will very soon remember it.

But we should not only know the text of the Symbol of Faith, but also understand its meaning, for this we need to study it.

Symbol of faith

Church Slavonic

1. I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, visible to all and invisible.

2. And in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten, Who was born of the Father before all ages: Light from Light, true God from God, true, born, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, Who was all.

3. For us, for the sake of man and for our salvation, he descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became man.

4. Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried.

5. And he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures.

6. And he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

7. And pack the one who is coming with glory to judge the living and the dead, His Kingdom will have no end.

8. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-giving, who is from the Father who proceeds, who are worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son, who spoke the prophets.

9. In one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

10. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.

11. Tea for the resurrection of the dead,

12. and the life of the century to come. Amen.

Russian translation

1. I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of everything visible and invisible.

2. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, born of the Father before all ages; Light from Light, true God from true God, born, not created, one being with the Father, by Him all was created.

3. Us for the sake of people and for the sake of our salvation descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became a man.

4. Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffering, and buried.

5. And he rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures.

6. And ascended into heaven, and sits on the right side of the Father.

7. And again one coming in glory to judge the living and the dead, and of His kingdom there will be no end.

8. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, giving life, proceeding from the Father, equally with the Father and the Son of the worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.

9. Into one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

10. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.

11. I look forward to the resurrection of the dead,

12. and the life of the century to come. Truly so.

ON THE FIRST MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

I believe in one God the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of everything visible and invisible

Christianity as the only true religion, first of all, is distinguished by the doctrine of God. We perceive God and look to Him as our Heavenly Parent. God is called the Father, because he pre-eternally gives birth to the Son (this will be discussed later), but also because He is the Father for all of us. In the prayer that the Lord Savior gave us, we say: "Our Father ..." (Our Father). The Holy Apostle Paul says, addressing Christians: “you have not received the spirit of slavery<…>, but received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry: "Abba, Father!" The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God ”(). Word " abba " in Aramaic corresponds to our " dad" - confidential appeal of children to their father.

The Holy Apostle John the Theologian says that “God is love” (). These words express the most important property of God. This determines the whole structure of the spiritual life of a Christian. Our relationship with God is based on mutual love. Heavenly Father loves us with a perfect and absolute love. We, believers, can perceive the fruits of this love only when we love God with the fullness of our being. Therefore, love for God is the first and foremost commandment. The Holy Scriptures reveal the basic properties of God in close connection with the economy of man's salvation.

God is the all-perfect Spirit. It is eternal. It has no beginning and no end. God is Almighty. In Holy Scripture He is called Almighty because He keeps everything in His power and authority.

The Holy Fathers teach us not only to believe in God, but to trust Him in everything, because He All-good and Human-loving. The Lord's mercy extends to every person. If a person wants to be always with God and turns to Him, then He does not leave a person under any circumstances. In one ancient Byzantine manuscript, the consoling edification of the holy elder is given: “Someone told me that one man always prayed to God that He would not leave him on his earthly path, and how the Lord once traveled with His disciples on their way to Emmaus (see. :), so that he traveled with him along the road of his life. And at the end of his life he had a vision: he saw that he was walking along the sandy shore of the ocean (of course, understand the ocean of eternity, along the shore of which the path of mortals passes). And, looking back, he saw the prints of his feet on the soft sand, going far back: this was the path of his life. And next to the prints of his feet were the prints of a couple more feet; and he realized that it was the Lord who was traveling with him in life, as he prayed to Him. But in some places of the traversed path, he saw prints of only one pair of feet, which cut deeply into the sand, as if testifying to the severity of the path at that time. And this man remembered that it was when there were especially difficult moments in his life and when life seemed unbearably difficult and painful. And this man said to the Lord: you see, Lord, in the difficult times of my life you did not walk with me; You see that the prints of only one pair of feet in those days indicate that then I walked alone in life, and You see from the fact that the footprints cut deeply into the ground that it was very difficult for me then to walk. But the Lord answered him: My son, you are wrong. Indeed, you see the prints of only one pair of feet in those times of your life that you remember as the most difficult. But these are not the prints of your feet, but of Mine. Because in the difficult times of your life, I took you in My arms and carried you. So, My son, these are not your footprints, but Mine. "

God has Omniscience. The whole past is imprinted in his endless memory. He knows everything and sees in the present. He knows not only every human act, but every word and feeling. The Lord knows the future.

the God Omnipresent. He is in Heaven, on earth. The contemplation of the Divine omnipresence evokes joy and poetic tenderness in the psalmist David:

« If I ascend to heaven - you are there; if I go down into the underworld - and there you are.

Will I take the wings of the dawn and move to the edge of the sea - and there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will hold me » ().

The God - Creator heaven and earth. He is the Cause and Creator of the entire visible and invisible world. Our world, the universe is incredibly complex and wisely arranged, and of course all this could only be created by the Highest, Divine Reason. The entire Divine Trinity participated in the creation of the world. God the Father created everything with his Word, that is, with the Only Begotten Son, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

God possesses Wisdom. Psalm 103 is a magnificent hymn to God, who created everything with His wisdom and continues to care not only about man, but also about His other creatures: “You water the mountains from Your heights, the earth is saturated with the fruits of Your deeds. You grow grass for livestock, and greenery for the benefit of man, in order to produce food from the earth ”().

In addition to the fact that God is the Creator of the visible, material world, He also created the spiritual world, invisible to us. The spiritual, angelic world was created by God even before our material world. All the angels were created good, but some of them, led by the supreme angel Lucifer, became proud and fell away from God. Since then, these angels have become dark spirits of malice, wishing people, as God's creation, any harm. They try in every possible way to seduce people into sin and destroy. But God very much limited their power and influence on people, besides, every Christian has his own guardian angel, which protects and protects him from evil, including from the influence of devilish forces.

ON THE SECOND MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, born of the Father before all ages; Light from the Light, the true God from the true God, born, not created, one being with the Father, by Him all was created

The second member of the Creed is dedicated to the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and here it is time to talk about the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Cognizing the Divine properties, the believer gradually prepares himself for the perception of the cornerstone truth of Christianity - the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. God is one in essence but has three Faces (Hypostases), each of Which possesses the fullness of the Divine: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Fathers, revealing and explaining the doctrine of the Trinity, define the relationship between the three Persons with such concepts "Consubstantial" and "Are equally fair." At the same time, they indicate the personal properties of each Hypostasis. The Father is not created, not created, not born; The Son is eternally born of the Father; The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father. Prayerfully we confess the Trinity with the words: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen". What is our faith based on? On the Holy Gospel: So go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (). The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one.

The earthly human mind by its own forces without God cannot rise to this mystery. Other monotheistic religions (Judaism, Islam), based on natural reason, and not on Revelation, could not rise to this mystery.

Already in the Old Testament there are indications of the mystery of the Divine Trinity. Already at the beginning of the Holy Bible, God speaks of Himself in the plural: “And God said: Let us make man in Our image in Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the ground. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them ”(). The words "let us make man" indicates a plurality of persons, and "created him" indicates the oneness of God. There are two more such passages in Genesis:

And the Lord God said: Behold, Adam has become like one of Us ().

And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language ... let us go down and confuse their language there ().

When the patriarch Abraham was sitting under a tree near the oak grove of Mamre, he saw three travelers who had come. He ran to meet them and, bowing to the ground, addressed: Vladyka! if I have found favor in Thy eyes, do not pass by Thy servant. ”(Three men appeared, and Abraham addresses them as one - the Lord.

ON THE THIRD MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

For us for the sake of people and for the sake of our salvation descended from heaven and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became a man

In order to save the human race, the Lord at a certain historical moment "in the days of King Herod" () descends to earth to incarnate, through inspiration, assistance Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, take upon ourselves our humanity and be born in Palestine, in the city of Bethlehem.

He took over all human nature, soul and body, in order to recreate, deify, save him. The divine nature in Christ has not swallowed up human nature, as some heretics teach, but the two natures in Him will abide forever, unmixed, unchanging, inseparable and inseparable.

The Savior did not have a human father, for his Father was God Himself. His conception in the womb of the Mother of God took place without the seed of a husband, and therefore it is called "immaculate", "seedless." The Church in her hymns says that the flesh of Christ, by the power of God, inside the womb of the Mother of God run out ... We know that ordinary, human conception occurs with the participation of the husband's seed, but the conception of Christ was supernatural. Even after the Fall, Adam and Eve were given a promise-prophecy from God about Seed wife that will smite the head of the serpent. (). But we know that a wife cannot have a seed, only a husband can have a seed.

How could this happen? Nothing is impossible for God. He created this world with His Wisdom, Word. The first man, Adam, God created from the "dust of the earth" and breathed into him the breath of life, and the miracle of birth without the participation of a husband is also subject to Him. A third century Christian writer writes:

"Just as the earth (at the creation of the first man, Ed.) Was turned into this flesh without the seed of a husband, so the Word of God could pass into the matter of the same flesh without a connecting principle."

The Savior, having taken upon himself human flesh and soul, appears at the same time true God and true man , in everything except sin.

He came to our land, completely walk the path of human life. He worked for His sustenance, He experienced cold, heat, hunger and thirst, He was also pursued by temptations and temptations from the devil and human weakness, but He overcame them and temptations did not touch Him. The Lord worked tirelessly for people: he preached, healed the sick, raised the dead.

The Lord took our nature, lived a human life in order to heal, to recreate our nature decayed by sin, about O live it and show us the way of salvation, the way of true Christian life. As the saint said: "God became man so that man might become God." And now, everyone who is born of Christ through baptism in His Church becomes a new creation “who were neither of the blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the desire of a husband, but were born of God” ().

ABOUT THE FOURTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffering, and buried.

The sacrifice of Christ the Savior on the cross for us is an act of the highest Divine love. "For as God loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (). And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself says about his sacrifice on the cross: “There is no more that love if someone lay down his life for his friends. () For your friends , it means for you and me, for all the children of God. Death on the cross was the most painful and shameful execution in the Roman Empire, a person experienced incredible suffering for many hours, and life came out of him, as it were, drop by drop. Christ was crucified under the governor of the emperor, the rulers of Judea, Pontius Pilate. His name is included in the "Symbol" to confirm the historical reality of the event. Non-Christians often cannot understand why we wear on our chest cross , we depict the sign of the cross on ourselves, we crown the domes of our churches with a cross, and in general, we very much honor the cross. They say: why do you honor the cross, because your God was crucified on it? But this is precisely why the cross of Christ is a sacred thing for us. After all, he constantly reminds us: what a huge sacrifice was made for people and how great Divine love for people. God not only created mankind and cares about the people created by him, but if necessary, He is ready to go for his sinful and unworthy children to death, to crucifixion. God ascends to the cross to offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of people, and thereby deliver them from sin and eternal death. God created the world with immutable spiritual and physical laws. One of the spiritual laws is that sin, crime must have consequences, punishment. The punishment for the sins of mankind was eternal death. "What a man sows, that he will also reap" (). The sins of people multiplied so much that humanity on its own could no longer rise from the abyss of sin, therefore the punishment that people should have received is borne by the Lord Himself. “The punishment of our peace was upon Him and by his stripes we were healed” (), - says the prophet Isaiah about the Divine sacrifice. You can use such an image, which is undoubtedly rather conventional and simplified.

Suppose a young man, almost still a youth, has committed a crime. He must be punished very harshly for him, for example, spend many years in a high-security camp, and maybe even die. His father was present when the crime was committed. And now the father, knowing that his son will not be able to bear the punishment, that his whole life will be distorted, ruined by the prison, and maybe he will never leave the camp at all and will perish there forever, decides on a feat. He, being himself innocent, takes upon himself the crime of his son and bears the punishment for him. Thus, he saves his son from suffering and death and sets an example of the highest love and self-sacrifice.

Christ is called the second Adam. Why? We are all in the flesh, in human nature, descend from our common forefather - Adam. He once sinned, not retaining his original dignity. After the Fall, both the spiritual and physical nature of man was distorted, sickness and death entered the world. We, as humans, as the descendants of the first Adam, inherited his sin-tainted nature. But now the Savior comes into the world. He lived on earth without sin, having overcome temptations and sin, He sacrificed for us on the cross and was resurrected. The Lord Jesus Christ has renewed our fallen nature, and now everyone who is born of Christ, as from the Second Adam and follows the path indicated by Him, crucifies "flesh with passions and lusts" (), inherits eternal life with Christ.

ON THE FIFTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And risen on the third day, according to the Scriptures

Sunday Our Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation of our Christian faith. “If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and our faith is also in vain” (). Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, Easter - the most important Christian holiday. It is called in the Easter canon "a holiday, holidays and a celebration of celebrations." Every week we remember the event of the Resurrection of Christ, celebrating Sunday.

Why would our faith be futile and meaningless without the Resurrection? Because Christ came to earth, suffered and died in order to resurrect our human nature and to triumph over the devil, hell and death. And if there was no resurrection, all this would be impossible. Everything would have ended on Good Friday, the death and burial of Christ. But Christ was resurrected and now we have faith and hope to be resurrected with Him.

Before the resurrection of Christ, all people after death went to hell, to the underworld of the earth. In Hebrew, this place was called Sheol. Even the souls of the Old Testament righteous were there. Christ after His death also descended into hell. The Lord descends into hell to preach there and bring out of it the souls of all those who were waiting for Him with faith. The Lord was in hell until the day of His Resurrection, as it is sung in the Passover hymn: "In the grave with flesh, in hell with a soul, like God." On the third day, Christ was resurrected and by his resurrection destroyed the power of hell and brought out of it those who were waiting for His coming, as well as those who received the message of salvation. From now on, hell has no power over those who are followers of Christ and live according to His commandments.

The Creed says that the Savior was resurrected on the third day, according to Scripture. What scriptures tell us about the resurrection? First, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself constantly spoke about his future resurrection, predicted it, it is enough to remember the Gospel of Matthew: “From that time on, Jesus began to reveal to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer much from the elders, high priests and scribes and to be killed, and to rise again on the third day "(). Christ's predictions about his resurrection from the dead are contained in all four Gospels. As for the Old Testament prophecies, here, first of all, you can cite the words of the prophet David, said about Messiah: "You will not leave my soul in hell and will not let Your holy one see corruption" () Also, the stay of the prophet Jonah for three days and three nights in the womb the whale was foreshadowed by the resurrection of Christ the Savior. The Savior Himself refers to this prototype of the resurrection: “As Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights” ().

After his resurrection, the Lord repeatedly appeared to his disciples:

1) Mary Magdalene (;)

2) Other women ()

3) Peter (Luke 24:34 :)

4) Two students on the way to Emmaus (;)

5) Eleven disciples (except the apostle Thomas?;)

6) Later, twelve students (;)

7) Seven disciples near the Tiberias Sea ()

8) Five hundred followers ()

9) Jacob ()

10) The apostles at the time of the ascension ().

The cave where the body of Christ was buried was guarded by a detachment of soldiers from the Roman army, one of the best, trained and disciplined in the world. If the disciples of Christ had come at night to take away His body, as the Jews later said, at least one of them would have noticed them and grabbed them, besides, the entrance to the cave was covered by a large, heavy stone that cannot be silently rolled off. Even if the abduction had succeeded, the apostles would have been captured and tortured to be forced to reveal the whereabouts of the Master's body. But we know that they calmly walked free, not hiding at all. If the body of Jesus was taken by His enemies, then, of course, they would not have begun to hide this fact and very soon would have shown it to the people in order to refute the lifetime testimony of Christ about His resurrection.

ABOUT THE SIXTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And ascended into heaven, and sits on the right side of the Father

After his resurrection, the Lord was on earth for another forty days, with his disciples, to assure them of the truth of the resurrection, to strengthen their faith and to give the necessary instructions.

Ascension happened on the Mount of Olives. It is known that the Savior loved this mountain and often went there for prayer. The Evangelist Luke describes this event as follows: “And he led them out of the city as far as Bethany, and raising his hands, he blessed them. And when he blessed them, he began to move away from them and ascend to heaven. They worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem ... ”().

The Lord Jesus Christ ascended to Sky , By his humanity, and by his deity he always dwelt with God the Father. The heaven into which the Lord ascended is a place of the special presence of God, higher, that is, an exalted place, the Kingdom of God. Christ went all the way of our human life and ascended to heaven, by this He glorified our human nature and showed the way to the Heavenly Fatherland, to the heavenly Jerusalem. He opened it to all of his true followers.

The words of the Creed about the ascent of the Lord Jesus Christ to heaven have their basis in the Holy Scriptures: “He who descended, He is also ascended above all heaven, in order to fill everything” ().

The "Symbol" says that Christ sat down on the right side of the Father ... But we know that God is omnipresent, He is everywhere. These words about sitting at the right hand indicate that the Son of God, the Second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, has the same power and glory with the Father. “I and the Father are one” (), - He says about Himself.

ABOUT THE SEVENTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And again coming in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end

The first coming to earth of the Lord Jesus Christ was humble, He took on the "image of a servant" (). His second coming will be different, He again will come, but how Judge, in order to judge the affairs of all people, both those who have lived until His second coming, and those who have already died.

The second coming will be very formidable. The Lord Himself says about him: “as lightning comes from the east and is visible even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man”, and further: “the sun will darken and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will hesitate. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven; and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Coming Son in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet; and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from the end of heaven to the end of them "().

When will it happen? The Savior tells us: “About that day and hour, no one knows, not the heavenly angels, but only My Father alone” ().

Both earlier and in our time, all kinds of false preachers often appeared who prophesied about the end of the world and even called the exact date of this event. No one who will report the number or exact time of the Last Judgment can be trusted, for it is unknown to anyone except God. In addition, for any of us, every day of our life can be the last, and we will have to answer before the Impartial Judge. This is what the saint says about the end of this world, and about our own demise: “The day and hour at which the Son of God will terminate the life of the world by coming to judgment is unknown; the day and hour at which, by the command of the Son of God, the earthly life of each of us will end, and we will be called to be separated from the body, to account for earthly life, to that private judgment, before the general judgment that awaits a person after his death, is unknown. Beloved brethren! Let us stay awake and prepare for the terrible judgment awaiting us on the brink of eternity for the irrevocable decision of our fate forever. Let us prepare ourselves, stocking ourselves with all the virtues, especially mercy, which contains and crowns all the virtues, since love, the motivating cause of mercy, is "Aggregate" Christian ). Mercy makes people filled with it godlike (;)! “Blessed are the merciful, for they will have mercy; judgment without mercy to the one who did not show mercy ”(;).

Before the end of the world there will be, predicted in the Holy Scriptures, wars, turmoil, earthquakes, famine and national disasters. Faith and morality will be impoverished. A "man of perdition", Antichrist, a false messiah will appear - a man who wants to become instead of Christ, to take His place and have power over the whole world. Having reached the supreme earthly power, the Antichrist will require himself to be worshiped as God. The power of the Antichrist will be destroyed by the coming of God.

After His coming, the Lord will judge all people. How will the Last Judgment take place? Saint (Drozdov) writes that God "will judge in such a way that the conscience of each person will be revealed to everyone and not only all the deeds that someone did in the course of their entire life on earth will be revealed, but also all the words spoken, secret desires and thoughts." Another saint and San Francisco also says: “The Last Judgment does not know the witnesses or the minutes. Everything is written in the souls of men and these records, these "books" are being opened. Everything becomes apparent to everyone and to himself, and the state of a person's soul determines it to the right or to the left. Some walk in joy, others in horror.

When the "books" are opened, it will become clear to everyone that the roots of all vices are in the human soul. Here is a drunkard, a fornicator - when the body died, someone would think - sin also died. No, there was an inclination in my soul and sin was sweet in my soul.

And if she has not repented of that sin, has not freed herself from it, she will come to the Last Judgment with the same desire for the sweetness of sin and will never satisfy her desire. It will contain the suffering of hatred and anger. This is a hellish state.

“Fiery Gehenna” is an inner fire, it is a flame of vice, a flame of weakness and anger, and “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” of impotent anger.

The Lord Jesus Christ will judge the world. "For the Father does not judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son" (). Why? Because the Son of God is also the Son of Man. He lived here on earth, among people, experienced sorrow, suffering, temptation and death itself. He knows all human sorrows and weaknesses.

The last judgment will be terrible, because all human deeds and sins will be revealed to everyone, and also because after this judgment nothing can be changed, and everyone will receive what is worthy according to their deeds.

How a person lived on earth, how he prepared to meet God, and what state he has reached, he will go with him into eternity. And the worthy, righteous will go into eternal life with God, and sinners into eternal torment prepared for the devil and his servants. After this will come the eternal Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of goodness, truth and love.

But the Lord is not only the Terrible Judge, He is also the Merciful Father, and of course He, by His mercy, will use all the possibilities in order not to condemn, but to justify a person. The Holy Hierarch writes about this: “The Lord wants everyone to be saved, therefore, you too ... The Lord at the Last Judgment will not exact, how to condemn, but how to justify everyone. And he will justify everyone, if only there is even a small opportunity. "

ABOUT THE EIGHTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

And into the Holy Spirit, the Lord, giving life, proceeding from the Father, equally with the Father and the Son of the worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets

Holy Spirit - the third hypostasis, the face of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit is consubstantial and equal to the Father and the Son, therefore He is also referred to in the Creed Lord.

The Holy Spirit is named Life-giving , giving life, first: because He, together with the Father and the Son, participated in the creation of the world. In the book of Genesis, when describing the creation of the earth, it says: “and darkness is over the abyss; and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water "(). “The Spirit of God created me” (), says the righteous Job. Secondly, the Holy Spirit, together with the Father and the Son, gives spiritual life to people, imparting divine energy to them. “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” ().

Prophets, heralds of the word of God, wrote their books not from themselves, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, therefore the Holy Scripture is called God-inspired.

The Lord Jesus promised to send His disciples, the holy apostles, the Holy Spirit, whom He calls Comforter : “When the Comforter, whom I will send you from the Father, comes, the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father” (). And on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Christ, when the apostles were gathered in one place, in the upper room of Zion, the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the form of tongues of flame, and gave them gifts of grace.

The Holy Spirit works in the life of the Church, especially communicating his gifts in the holy ordinances. The saint compares the Holy Spirit with the light of the sun, warming and giving life: He ... is like the sunshine, - each enjoying it, as it were, alone, meanwhile this radiance illuminates the earth and the sea and dissolves into the air. Likewise, the Spirit dwells in each of those who receive Him, as if the one inherent in him alone and in all pours out the full grace that those who partake enjoy, according to their own ability to receive, and not to the extent possible for the Spirit. "

ON THE NINTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

Into one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church

Church has not a human, but a divine origin, it was founded and established by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, having come to earth and gathered the first community of His disciples - followers. “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (). Christ is also the head of the Church, as evidenced by the Holy Scriptures. The Apostle Paul says that God the Father “put Him above all, the head of the Church, which is His Body. (). The Word of God, Holy Scripture, does not accidentally use the name in relation to the Church The body of Christ ... The Savior Himself says: “I am the vine, and you are the branches” (). Just as the branches grow on a tree, originate from it, receive life and bear fruit, feeding on the juices of the trunk, and all together form a single tree, also Christians originate from Christ, originate and life from their Teacher and God, and together form a single The Church Bearing the Fruit of Faith. “You are the body of Christ, and individually you are members” ().

The Church is made up of all people who unanimously profess the Orthodox faith, living all over the world, therefore the Church is called the Ecumenical. The Church belongs not only to Orthodox Christians now living on earth, but also to all her children, who have now passed away, for “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for with Him all are alive” (). The Mother of God, all the saints, as well as the heavenly host of archangels, angels and all heavenly incorporeal powers, also constitute one Church with all of us. Thus, the Church is one, but subdivided into earthly and heavenly. The church does not consist of only saints and righteous people, but is called Saint, because it was founded by the Lord Himself and keeps the teaching given by Him intact and holiness.

The Lord created the Church and put into it everything that is necessary for our salvation: true teaching, Orthodox, church hierarchy, holy sacraments.

The Lord acquired, acquired His Church, shedding His Divine blood for her, enduring suffering and death itself. He appointed the apostles, giving them the authority to perform the holy ordinances: “Receive the Holy Spirit. To whom you forgive sins will be forgiven; on whom you leave, on whom they will remain "(), this is said about the sacrament of confession, in which the Lord, through a priest, resolves a repentant person from sin. The Savior gave the apostle the authority to perform other sacraments: Communion, Baptism, Priesthood. The holy apostles received from Christ also episcopal authority; they appointed and ordained their successors, other bishops. Since apostolic succession in the Church, through an unbroken chain of ordinations, it does not stop. Each of the presently existing Orthodox bishops has succession from the apostles themselves. Therefore, our Church is called apostolic. Both the apostles and subsequent bishops ordained elders and priests. Elders can also perform all ordinances, except for ordination. The priesthood is the second level of the church hierarchy after the bishop. Only a bishop can ordain or ordain to the priesthood.

The church is called conciliar , because we all constitute, led by Christ the Savior, and the hierarchy, a single council, an assembly of believers. Church word in Greek ecclesia , translated as a gathering of believers. Also, the Church is conciliar, since the supreme power in it belongs to the Ecumenical Councils. They come together to discuss very important church issues and condemn false doctrines. Ecumenical Councils are attended by bishops, whenever possible, from all over the Ecumenical Church. Also, the life of the Church is led by local councils, which regularly meet in local Orthodox churches. Local Churches are churches located in different countries, each of them has its own primate, the main bishop of the church, but all are members of the single Ecumenical Orthodox Church.

The Church, as a divine-human organism, is eternal and will remain, according to the Savior's promise, to the end of the century.

ON THE TENTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

Confess one baptism for the remission of sins

I confess, it means I believe, undoubtedly I recognize. Why "One baptism "? “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (), teaches the Apostle Paul. This means that there is only one true Church, established by the One true God, and there are saving sacraments in it, since the grace of God works in the Church. The uniqueness and uniqueness of Baptism is included in the Symbol of Faith also because during the time of the first Ecumenical Councils there were disputes over how to receive heretics who fell away from the Church, should the sacrament of Baptism be repeated over them, or not? Therefore, the second Ecumenical Council, supplemented the "Symbol", with the words that there can be only one Baptism. It was decided to accept the fallen through repentance.

The Creed refers to the sacrament Baptisms but no other ordinances are mentioned. Baptism is the sacrament of entering the Church, without it one cannot become a Christian, a follower of Christ and a member of His Church. Entering the Church through Baptism, as through some kind of gate, a person gets the opportunity to begin other sacraments and church rites. There are seven sacraments in the Church: baptism, chrismation, communion, confession, blessing of unification (or unction), wedding and priesthood.

So, the spiritual life of a Christian begins with Baptism, he is born in this sacrament for a new life, life with Christ. The Lord sends the apostles to preach His teaching, the word of God to all people and baptize all who believe in Christ and want to follow him: “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you "(). In another Gospel, written by the holy Evangelist Mark, the Savior says about Baptism: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; and whoever does not believe will be condemned ”(). Faith and a life of faith are a prerequisite for baptism. Baptism is not only a new birth, but also death for another life, sinful, carnal: “If we died with Christ, then we believe that we will also live with Him” () - we read the words of the Apostle Paul during the sacrament of Baptism.

Before diving into the Holy font with the invocation of the name of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the one approaching Baptism renounces the devil and "all his deeds", that is, from sinful life ", for" the one who creates sin is from the devil. " And it is combined with Christ, promises to keep faith in the Lord and faithfulness to Him, promises not to oppose the will of God and to live according to His commandments.

In the waters of baptism, a person drowns his sins, his fallen nature, leaving the font cleansed and renewed, and receives grace and strength to fight the devil and sin. Therefore, the Creed says that Baptism is performed "for the remission of sins." When an adult begins the sacrament of baptism, he is required not only to have faith, but also to repent of his sins.

We baptize infants according to the faith of their parents and receivers (godparents), who are guarantors for them before God. Both parents and godparents should be believers, knowing their faith and living by it. They must raise the child in faith. The prototype of the New Testament Baptism was the Old Testament rite of circumcision, it was performed on infants on the eighth day after birth. We also perform baptism on infants, for the Apostle Paul directly calls Baptism "circumcision not made by hands" - (); Even the holy apostles performed baptisms over entire "houses", families, in which, of course, there were small children. The Lord Himself commanded not to prevent children from coming to Him: “Let the children come to Me, and do not forbid them, for such is the Kingdom of God” (). That the grace of God can be communicated through the faith of others is evident from the Gospel. When people turned to Christ with faith asking for the healing of their relatives and friends, the Lord performed miracles according to the faith of those who asked. For example, when the chief of the synagogue, Jairus, asked for his daughter to be healed, when a Syrophenician woman prayed for the exorcism of a demon also from her daughter, or when four people came to the Lord and brought their relaxed companion. “Jesus seeing their faith, says to the paralytic: child, your sins are forgiven you” ().

For any Orthodox believer who has children, it is inconceivable that our children would remain outside the grace of God, which is taught in the saving Sacraments of the Church. Therefore, the Orthodox Church, with its canonical rules, established the need for the baptism of infants. For example, Canon 124 of the Carthaginian Council says: “Whoever rejects the need to baptize small children and newborns from the mother's womb of children, or says that although they are baptized for the remission of sins, they don’t borrow anything from the ancestral Adam's sin that should be washed with the bath of the Holy Bible ( that is, Baptism Ed.), from which it would follow that the image of baptism for the remission of sins is used over them not in a true, but in a false sense, that let it be anathema. " Thus, it becomes clear that infants, although they do not have personal sins, also need cleansing and the grace of God acting in the sacraments, since they, like all people, inherit universal ancestral corruption, an inclination to sin.

ON THE ELEVENTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

Awaiting the resurrection of the dead

Man was created by God as an immortal being. After the fall of Adam, the human body began to ache, grow old, collapse, it lost its immortal properties. People are born, live on earth, and then die. The immortal soul is separated from the body, after bodily death, the Lord judges all the affairs of a person's earthly life and determines the place of the soul until the day of the Last Judgment. At the end of the world, on the day of the Last Judgment, God will resurrect , will restore the bodies of dead people in order to endure His final judgment on humanity and separate those who are worthy of the Eternal Kingdom of Bliss with God, from those who, due to their sins, are not worthy of the Kingdom of God. Unrepentant sinners will go into “eternal torment” (), “into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angel” (), that is, to a place devoid of divine light, where they will dwell in eternal torment, together with Satan and his servants.

The current state of the departed, that is, the existence of a soul without a body, is not final and incomplete. A person is not only a soul, but a soul and a body together. And therefore, for the Judgment over all people and further eternal life, the Lord will resurrect the dead in the body. Those people who will be alive at the moment of the second coming of Christ will also appear at the judgment of God.

Almost all peoples have the concept of the immortality of the soul, for in man, as a creature that is originally immortal, there is a feeling, a feeling of his eternity.

The Lord Jesus Christ, having passed the full path of human life from birth to death, showed us the path that awaits all departed people. He was resurrected, and His soul was united with the body. The Apostle Paul says about this: “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then God will bring those who have died in Jesus with Him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who live, who remain before the coming of the Lord, will not warn the dead; because the Lord Himself with a proclamation, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who remain alive will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so always with the Lord we will "().

The Holy Scriptures of both the New and Old Testaments speak many times about the future resurrection of the dead. The Lord gave the prophet Ezekiel a vision, which has historical significance (tells about the restoration of the kingdom of Israel), but is also a type of the general resurrection of bodies. The Prophet saw a field full of dead, dry human bones. And now God says that He will bring a spirit into them, surround them with veins, grow flesh on them and cover them with skin. And everything happens according to the word of the Lord, then “the spirit entered into them and they came to life and stood on their feet - a very, very great horde” ().

It is difficult for the human consciousness, accustomed to think in earthly, limited categories, to imagine how the resurrection of long-dead people and the restoration of decayed flesh can occur. But we know that the Lord created the first man from "the dust of the earth, and breathed the breath of life into his face" (), that is, gave him an immortal soul. The earth, "the dust of the earth", is a set of chemical elements from which all nature, including man, consists. When dying, the body decomposes and returns to the state of dust. After the Fall, God tells Adam that "you ... will return" to the land from which you were taken "(). Of course, God, who once created the human body from the nature of the earth, will be able to restore back the decayed human body.

To assure us of the future resurrection of bodies, the Apostle Paul uses the image of a grain thrown into the ground: “Someone will say: how will the dead be resurrected? and in what body will they come? Reckless! what you sow will not come to life unless it dies. And when you sow, you are sowing not the future body, but the bare grain, which will happen, wheat or some other; but God gives him a body as he wants, and to each seed his own body ... So it is with the resurrection of the dead ”().

“If the seeds do not die first, do not rot and decay, the ears will not grow. And how do you, when you notice that the seed is subject to corruption and decay, not only do you not doubt, but thereby you are even more convinced of its resurrection (for if the seed remained whole without damage and destruction, it would not have risen), so reason and about your body ", - also says Prelate.

ABOUT THE TWELFTH MEMBER OF THE SYMBOL OF FAITH

and the life of the next century. Truly so.

After the general resurrection and the Last Judgment, the earth will be renewed and transformed by means of fire. On the new earth will be established God's Kingdom, as the scriptures say, Kingdom of truth: "We are waiting, according to the promise of the Lord, a new heaven and a new earth, where only one truth will reign" (). The Holy Apostle John the Theologian, in his revelation about the future destinies of the world, saw “a new heaven and a new earth” (). There will no longer be anything sinful, unclean, unjust on the new earth. Both nature and humanity will also be renewed. The Apostle Paul writes that the bodies of people will be like the resurrected body of the Savior: “Our dwelling is in heaven, from where we also expect the Savior, the Lord (our) Jesus Christ, who will transform our humbled body so that it will be in accordance with His glorious body, by the power by which He acts and subjugates everything to Himself. (). In the Kingdom of God there will be no sickness, no suffering, no sorrow.

What will it be for life how it will look new heaven and earth? It is difficult to imagine this for us. But one thing is certain, that both the Kingdom of God and the life in it will be incomparable, incomparably more beautiful than all the present earthly beauties and joys. “The eyes did not see, the ear did not hear, and that which God prepared for those who love Him () did not come into the heart of man,” says the Apostle Paul. An example can be given. A person lives who suffers from severe eye diseases from birth, he is almost devoid of light, surrounding objects, he distinguishes people only as vague silhouettes. And now he undergoes an operation, and after a while all the colors, all the beauties of the surrounding world become available to him for contemplation. Or a person who was deaf from birth was given hearing, and a wonderful world of sounds, words and musical harmonies was opened to him. Yes, it is difficult for us to imagine what “God has prepared for those who love Him,” but we hope and believe that life with the Lord, in constant divine light and love, will be blissful and beautiful. Our present, earthly joys cannot give us an idea of ​​this or that joy and happiness. Even spiritual joys, from love, gratitude to God, prayer - this is only a weak beginning, a subtle sprout of what will be there, in the new Kingdom of truth. For us, the expectation of the life of the century to come is an object of faith, of our hope, and we can only feel sorry for people who do not have this hope, that is, do not believe in the future life. There is one parable on this score.

In the belly of a pregnant woman, two twins are talking. One of them is a believer and the other is an unbeliever. The unbeliever believes that their whole life is living in this cramped and dark room, where they can only move slightly, and there is no other life. Another baby, on the contrary, believes that their current position, temporary, is only the beginning of a real, wonderful life, that someday they will see the light, the beauty of the world, they will eat food with their mouths and walk with their feet. And most importantly, this kid believes they will see their mother. To which the unbeliever replies that believing in the mother is just madness, we do not see her, which means she does not exist. His believing brother tries to dissuade him, saying that the mother is with them, she takes care of them, gives them life and nourishment, the mother is everywhere, she is around them. But the unbelieving twin remains firm.

The creed ends with the word "Amen", which means: truly, undoubtedly so. By this we confirm, we testify that we accept, as true Orthodox Christians, this confession of faith, left to us by the holy fathers, and approved by the ecumenical councils.

Christians set out the confession of their faith in the Creed.

Symbol of faith Is a prayer book that contains all the main provisions and dogmas of the Orthodox Church. This teaching in the Creed is brief but very precise. It was compiled in the IV century by the fathers I and II Ecumenical Councils... It consists of twelve positions, or members.

There were Articles of Faith in the Ancient Church, but they were associated primarily with catechesis and baptism. With the emergence and intensification of heresies (false teachings about God), it became necessary to draw up a more complete and dogmatically flawless confession of faith, which could be used by the entire Ecumenical Church.

The First Ecumenical Council was convened in the city of Nicaea (Asia Minor) on the occasion of the false teaching of the presbyter Arius, who argued that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was created by God the Father, is not the True God, but only the highest creation. The Council condemned this heresy, expounded Orthodox teaching, composing the first seven members of the Creed. At the Second Ecumenical Council, convened to condemn the heresy of Macedon, which rejected the Deity of the Holy Spirit, the next five members of the Creed were given.

An adult who receives baptism must pronounce it: in order to receive this Sacrament and enter the Church, he must have the correct knowledge about God and the foundations of the doctrine. When babies are baptized, the Symbol of Faith is read for them by the recipients (godparents). They are also required to know it by heart and read it without mistakes. It is not difficult to learn the Symbol of Faith, because it is part of the morning prayers and every Orthodox person reads it, praying in the morning. Also, the Symbol of Faith is sung at each liturgy in the temple by all the people. A person who regularly prays in the mornings and walks on Sundays and holidays to the liturgy, he will remember it very soon.

However, one should not only know the text of the Creed, but also understand its meaning; for this you need to study it.

First member of the Creed

I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of everything visible and invisible.

Christianity, as the only true religion, is primarily distinguished by the doctrine of God. We perceive God and refer to Him as our Heavenly Parent. God is called the Father, because he pre-eternally gives birth to the Son (this will be discussed later), but also because He is the Father for all of us. In the prayer that the Lord Savior gave us, we say: Our Father(Our Father). The Holy Apostle Paul says, addressing Christians: you did not receive the spirit of slavery ... but you received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry: "Abba, Father!" The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God(Rom 8: 15-16). Word abba in Aramaic corresponds to our dad- Confidential appeal of children to their father.

The Holy Apostle John the Theologian says that God is love(Jn 4: 8). These words express the most important property of God. This determines the whole structure of the spiritual life of a Christian. Our relationship with God is based on mutual love. Heavenly Father loves us with a perfect and absolute love. We, believers, can perceive the fruits of this love only when we ourselves love God with the fullness of our being. That's why love for god is the first and the main commandment... The Holy Scriptures reveal the basic properties of God in close connection with the economy of human salvation.

God is the all-perfect Spirit. He is eternal, has no beginning and no end. God is Almighty. In Holy Scripture He is called Almighty because He keeps everything in His power and authority.

The Holy Fathers teach us not only to believe in God, but also to trust Him in everything, because He All good and Philanthropic... The Lord's mercy extends to every person. If a person wants to always be with God and turns to Him, then He does not leave a person under any circumstances. In one ancient Byzantine manuscript, the consoling edification of the holy elder is given: “Someone told me that one person always prayed to God that He would not leave him on his earthly path, and how the Lord once traveled with His disciples on their way to Emmaus (see: Luke 24: 13-32), so that he traveled with him along the road of his life. And at the end of his life he had a vision: he saw that he was walking along the sandy shore of the ocean. And, looking back, I saw the prints of my feet on the soft sand, going far back: this was the path of his life. And next to the prints of his feet were the prints of a couple more feet; he realized that it was the Lord who was traveling with him in life, as he prayed to Him. But in some places of the traversed path, he saw prints of only one pair of feet, which cut deeply into the sand, as if testifying to the severity of the path at that time. And the man remembered: it was when he was faced with especially difficult trials and when life seemed unbearably difficult and painful. And this man said to the Lord: you see, Lord, in the difficult times of my life you did not walk with me; prints of only one pair of feet in those days indicate that then I was the only one walking in life; the footprints cut deeply into the ground - then it was very difficult for me to walk alone. But the Lord answered him: My son, you are wrong. Indeed, you see the prints of only one pair of feet in those times of your life that you remember as the most difficult. But these are not the prints of your feet, but of Mine. Because in the difficult times of your life, I took you in My arms and carried you. So, My son, these are not the prints of your feet, but of Mine ”(“ Meditation of a humble heart ”).

God has omniscience... The whole past is engraved in His endless memory. He knows everything and sees in the present. He knows not only every human action, but every word and feeling. The Lord knows the future.

the God Ubiquitous... He is both in Heaven and on earth. The contemplation of the Divine omnipresence evokes joy and poetic tenderness in the Psalmist David:

If I ascend to heaven - you are there; if I go down into the underworld - and there you are. Will I take the wings of the dawn and move to the edge of the sea - and there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will hold me(Ps 139: 8-10).

The God - Creator heaven and earth. He is the Cause and Creator of the entire visible and invisible world. Our world (Universe) is very complex and wisely arranged, and, of course, only the Highest, Divine Reason could create all this. The entire Divine Trinity participated in the creation of the world. God the Father created everything by His Word, that is, by the Only Begotten Son, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

God possesses wisdom... Psalm 103 is a magnificent hymn to God, who created everything with His wisdom and continues to care not only about man, but also about His other creatures: Thou shalt give water to the mountains from Thy high places; with the fruits of Thy deeds the earth is satisfied. You grow grass for livestock, and greens for the benefit of man, to make food from the earth(Ps 103: 13-14).

God is the Creator of not only the visible, material world. He also created a spiritual world that is not visible to us. The spiritual, angelic world was created by God even before our material world. All the Angels were created good, but some of them, led by the supreme angel Dennitsa, became proud and fell away from God. Since then, these angels have become dark spirits of malice, wishing people, as God's creation, any harm. They try to seduce people into sin and destroy. But God limited their power and influence on people. Even pigs cannot be harmed without His will. This is known from gospel story about the healing of the demoniac Gadarene (see: Mt 8: 30-32). In addition, every Christian has his own Guardian Angel, which protects and protects him from evil, including from the effects of demonic forces.

Second member of the Creed

And in the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten, born of the Father before all ages: Light from Light, true God from true God, born, uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, by Him all was created.

The second member of the Creed is dedicated to the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. To reveal it, you need to talk about the secret. Holy Trinity.

Knowing the Divine properties, the believer gradually prepares himself for the perception of the cornerstone truth of Christianity - the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. God is one in essence but has three Faces(Hypostases), each of Which possesses the fullness of the Divine: Father, Son and Holy Spirit... The Holy Fathers, revealing and explaining the doctrine of the Trinity, define the relationship between the three Persons by such concepts as consubstantial and equitable... At the same time, they indicate the personal properties of each Hypostasis. The Father is not created, not created, not born; The Son is eternally born of the Father; The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father. Prayerfully we confess the Trinity with the words: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen". What is our faith based on? On the Holy Gospel: go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit(Mt 28:19). With the Father, Son and Holy Spirit one name("in the name of").

The earthly human mind by its own strength, without God, cannot rise to this mystery. The mystery of the Holy Trinity is revealed clearly in the incarnation of the Son of God and the sending of the Holy Spirit by Him. However, already in the Old Testament there are indications of the mystery of the Divine Trinity. In the beginning of the holy Bible, God speaks of Himself in the plural: And God said: create a man in our image [and] in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creeping things that creep on the earth. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them (Gen. 1, 26-27; emphasis added. - Auth.)... The words make man indicate a plurality of Persons, and created it- on the unity of God. There are two more such passages in Genesis:

- And the Lord God said: behold, Adam has become like one of Us (3, 22).

- And the Lord said: Behold, there is one people, and they all have one language ... let us go down and confuse their language there. (11, 6-7).

When patriarch Abraham was sitting under a tree near the oak grove of Mamre, he saw three travelers who had come. He ran to meet them and, bowing to the ground, said: Lord! if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant(Gen. 48, 3). Three Men appeared, and Abraham addresses them as one - the Lord.

The doctrine of the Trinity is not only theological and theoretical. In the New Testament sacred books, it is revealed in the closest connection with the great events of the Incarnation and redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ repeatedly speaks of both His sonship to God and that the Father sent Him (Jn 5:36) so that the world was saved through him(Jn 3:17). The Holy Spirit participates in all the affairs of the economy of the salvation of mankind. He quickens and sanctifies. A person who lives in the holy Sacraments and the prayer life of the Church does not doubt this truth, it is an integral part of his religious experience. Anyone who studied the dogmatic teaching of our Church could not help but be amazed at the internal consistency of its parts. Such a person is convinced that this slender and majestic building is unthinkable without the cornerstone - the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity.

The human mind cannot fully comprehend the mystery of the Holy Trinity. But we can use some analogies, which, however, are conditional and limited, in order to at least partially understand the unity and relationship between the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

The Holy Fathers cited the sun as the image of the Trinity. The visible part of the sun is a circle, from which light is born and heat emanates. Saint Basil the Great, discussing the Holy Trinity, uses the phenomenon of the rainbow: “And in multicolor a single face is revealed - there is no middle and no transition between colors. It is not visible where the rays are delimited. We can clearly see the differences, but we cannot measure the distances. Collectively, the multicolor beams form a single white. One essence reveals itself in a multicolored radiance. "

So, the second member of the Creed tells us that the second hypostasis of the Holy Trinity is the Only Begotten Son of God, Who born Father before the creation of everything visible and invisible, even before the creation of time. He was born, and not created, this is said to refute the false teachings of heretics, in particular - Arius, who taught about the creation of the Son of God.

Name Jesus means - Savior and Christ means The Anointed One (Messiah)... Since ancient times, kings, prophets and high priests have been called anointed. The Savior united all three of these ministries in Himself. God the Father created the whole world, visible and invisible, by His Son. This is stated in the Gospel of John: Everything through Him began to be, and without Him nothing began to be that began to be (1, 3).

Third member of the Creed

For us, people, and for the sake of our salvation descended from Heaven, and incarnated from the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin, and became a man.

To save the human race, the Lord came down to earth at a historically determined time to be embodied in action Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary adopting our human nature... He was born in Palestine, in the city of Bethlehem. The Savior did not have a human father, for His Father is God Himself. Consequently, His conception in the womb of the Mother of God took place without the seed of a husband, and therefore it is called immaculate, seedless. The Church in her hymns says that the flesh of Christ by the power of God inside the womb of the Mother of God run out... Christ's conception was supernatural. Even after the Fall, Adam and Eve were given a promise-prophecy from God about Seed wife, which will smite the head of the serpent (see: Gen. 3:15). This is the first promise of the Savior of the world.

According to Saint Philaret of Moscow, it contains an indication of a sacrament that is higher than nature: birth, about which nature asks: how will it be when I don’t know my husband? and of which grace responds: The Holy Spirit will come upon You, and the power of the Most High will overshadow You; on the miraculous birth of the Son from a wife without a husband, on the birth of Christ, the God-man, from the Virgin. The Church calls the Mother of God the Ever-Virgin, that is, She was a virgin before the birth of Christ, retained virginity at the moment of birth and remained a Virgin after the birth of the Savior.

How could this happen? Nothing is impossible for God. He created this world with His Wisdom, Word. The first man - Adam - God created from earthly dust and breathed into him the breath of life, and the miracle of birth without the participation of a husband is also subject to Him. The Christian writer of the 3rd century Tertullian writes: "Just as the earth (at the creation of the first man. - Ed.) Was turned into this flesh without the seed of a husband, so the Word of God could pass into the matter of the same flesh without a connecting principle."

Jesus Christ took over all human nature (soul and body) in order to recreate, deify, save it. The divine nature in Christ did not swallow up human nature, as some heretics teach, but the two natures in Him will abide forever invariably, inseparable and incongruous.

The Savior, having taken upon Himself human flesh and soul, appears at the same time True God, and a true person in everything except sin. He worked, experienced cold, heat, hunger and thirst. He was tempted by Satan, he knew human infirmities, but overcame them, and temptations did not touch Him. The Lord worked tirelessly for people: he preached, healed the sick, raised the dead.

By His incarnation, the Lord recreated our nature, rotten by sin, deified it and showed us the way of salvation, the way of true Christian life. The patristic teaching about the Incarnation is enclosed in a capacious formula: God became man for man to become God... And now everyone who is born of Christ through baptism in His Church becomes a new creation: who were neither of blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the desire of a husband, but of God were born(Jn 1:13).

The fourth member of the Creed

Crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffering, and buried.

The sacrifice of Christ the Savior on the Cross on Calvary for us is an act of the highest Divine love. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.(Jn 3:16). The Lord Jesus Christ Himself says: There is no more that love, as if someone lay down his life for his friends(Jn 15:13). This sacrificial love was revealed by the Lord Himself. For your friends- means for you and me, for all the children of God. Death on the cross was the most painful and disgraceful execution in the Roman Empire; a person experienced unbearable torment for many hours. Life came out of him, as it were, drop by drop. Jesus Christ was crucified under the governor of the emperor, the ruler of Judea Pontius Pilate. His name is included in the Creed to confirm the historical reality of the event.

Non-Christians often cannot understand why we wear on our chests cross, we depict the sign of the cross on ourselves, we crown the domes of our churches with a cross, and in general we greatly honor the cross. They say: why do you honor the cross? after all, your God was crucified on him! But this is precisely why the Cross of Christ is a sacred thing for us. After all, he constantly reminds us what a huge sacrifice was made for people and how great Divine love for people. God not only created mankind and cares about the people he created, but, if necessary, He is ready to follow His sinful and unworthy children to death, to crucifixion. God ascends to the cross to offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of people and thereby deliver them from sin and eternal death. God created the world with immutable spiritual and physical laws. One of the spiritual laws is that sin, crime must have consequences, punishment. The punishment for the sins of mankind was eternal death. What man sows, so he reaps(Gal 6: 7) The sins of people multiplied so much that humanity on its own could no longer rise from the abyss of sins, therefore the punishment that people should have received is borne by the Lord Himself. The punishment of our peace was upon Him, and by his stripes we were healed(Is 53: 5) - says the prophet Isaiah about the Divine sacrifice. You can use such an image, which is undoubtedly very conventional and simplified. Suppose a young man, almost still a youth, has committed a crime. He must suffer severe punishment for him, for example, spend many years in a high-security camp, and maybe even die. His father was present when the crime was committed. And now the father, knowing that his son will not be able to bear the punishment, that his whole life will be distorted, ruined by the prison, and perhaps he will never leave the camp at all and will perish there forever, decides on a feat. He, being himself innocent, takes upon himself the crime of his son and bears the punishment for him. Thus, he saves his son from suffering and death and gives him an example of the highest love and self-sacrifice.

Christ is called the second Adam. Why? We are all in the flesh, in human nature, descended from our common forefather - Adam. He once sinned, not retaining his original dignity. After the Fall, both the spiritual and physical nature of man was distorted, sickness and death entered the world. We, as people, as the descendants of the first Adam, inherited his nature, corrupted by sin. But now the Savior comes into the world. He lived on earth without sin, having overcome temptations and sin, He sacrificed for us on the cross and was resurrected. The Lord Jesus Christ has renewed our fallen nature, and now everyone who is born of Christ, as from the second Adam, and follows the path indicated by Him, crucifies flesh with passions and lusts(Gal 5:24), inherits eternal life with Christ.

Fifth member of the Creed

And he rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures.

Sunday Our Lord Jesus Christ is the foundation of our Christian faith. If Christ is not resurrected, then our preaching is in vain, and our faith is also in vain.(1 Cor 15:14). Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, Easter- the most important Christian holiday... It is called in the Easter canon the Feast of Holidays and a celebration of celebrations. We remember the resurrection of Christ every week, celebrating Sunday fifty-two times a year.

Why would our faith be futile and meaningless without the resurrection? Because Christ came to earth, suffered and died in order to resurrect our human nature and to triumph over the devil, hell and death. And if there was no resurrection, it would be impossible. It would all end Good Friday, death and burial of Christ. But Christ was resurrected, and now we have faith and hope to be resurrected with Him.

Before the resurrection of Christ, all people after death went to hell, to the underworld of the earth. In Hebrew, this place was called sheol... Even the souls of the Old Testament righteous were there. This happened because the atoning sacrifice of Christ had not yet been brought. The Savior Himself after His death descended into the underworld. He descends into hell to preach there and bring out of it the souls of all those who were waiting for Him with faith. “In the grave with flesh, in hell with a soul, like God,” is sung in the Easter song. On the third day, Christ was resurrected and by His resurrection destroyed the power of hell and brought out of it those who were waiting for His coming, as well as those who received the message of salvation. From now on, hell has no power over the followers of Christ who live according to His commandments. Only those who have rejected the path of salvation can go to hell.

The Creed says that the Savior was resurrected on the third day, according to Scripture... What Scriptures Tell Us About the Resurrection? First, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself constantly spoke about His future resurrection, predicted it. It is enough to remember the Gospel: From that time on, Jesus began to reveal to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer much from the elders and high priests and scribes, and be killed, and resurrect on the third day.(Mt 16:21). Christ's predictions about His resurrection from the dead are contained in all four Gospels. As for the Old Testament prophecies, here, first of all, you can cite the words of the prophet David, spoken on behalf of the Messiah to the Father: You will not leave my soul in hell, and you will not allow Your holy One to see corruption(Ps 15: 10). The three-day stay of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the whale was a type of the death and resurrection of the Savior. The Lord Himself says about this: As Jonah was in the belly of a whale for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.(Mt 12:40).

After His resurrection, the Lord repeatedly appeared to His disciples: Mary Magdalene, other myrrh-bearing wives, the Apostle Peter, two disciples (Luke and Cleopa) on the road to Emmaus, eleven disciples, later twelve disciples, seven disciples on the shores of the Tiberias Sea, five hundred followers, the apostle James (see: 1 Cor 15:16), the apostles on the day of the rapture.

We wrote about this in such detail to show that the greatest miracle of the resurrection was witnessed by many people who later became preachers of Christianity.

The cave where the body of Christ was buried was guarded by a specially selected detachment of Roman soldiers. If Christ's disciples had come at night to take away His body, as the Jews later said, at least one of them would have noticed them and would have delayed. We know that even after the tomb was empty and the Jews said that the disciples had stolen the body, none of Christ's followers was captured and interrogated.

The cave was covered by a large, heavy stone that could not be rolled away silently. If His enemies had taken the body of Jesus, then, of course, they would not hide this fact and very soon would have shown it to the people in order to refute the lifetime testimony of Christ about His resurrection.

Sixth member of the Creed

And ascended into Heaven, and sits on the right side of the Father.

After His resurrection, the Lord was on earth with His disciples for another forty days in order to assure them of the truth of the resurrection, strengthen their faith and give the necessary instructions. After that, He led them from Jerusalem to Bethany. Raising his hands, he blessed them and began to ascend into heaven, and the cloud took Him out of their sight (Acts 1: 9).

Ascension happened on the Mount of Olives. It is known that the Savior loved this mountain and often went there for prayer.

The Lord Jesus Christ ascended to Sky By His humanity, and by His Deity, He has always been with God the Father. The heaven into which the Lord ascended is the place of the special presence of God, higher, that is, the exalted, place, the Kingdom of God. Christ went all the way of our human life and ascended to heaven. By this, He glorified our human nature and showed the way to the Heavenly Fatherland, to the Heavenly Jerusalem.

The words of the Creed about the ascent of the Lord Jesus Christ to heaven have their basis in the Holy Scriptures: Descended, He is He who ascended above all heaven, in order to fill everything(Heb 4, 10).

The Creed also says that Christ sat down on the right side of the Father... This must be understood spiritually. These words indicate that the Son of God, the second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, has the same power and glory with the Father. I and the Father are one(Jn 10:30), - He says about Himself.

Seventh Member of the Creed

And again coming in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

The first coming to earth of the Lord Jesus Christ was humble. He took on Himself slave image(Phil 2, 7). His Second Coming will be different. He will come again, but already in glory as Judge, in order to judge the affairs of all people, both those who have lived until His Second Coming and those who have died.

The Second Coming will be very formidable. The Lord Himself speaks of him like this: the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken; then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven; and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory(Mt 24: 29-30).

When will this happen? The Savior tells us: But no one knows about that day and hour, not the angels of heaven, but only My Father(Mt 24:36).

And before, and in our time, all kinds of false predictors often appear, who prophesied about the end of the world and even called the exact date of this event. For those who will report the date or exact time Of the Last Judgment, it is impossible to believe, because it is unknown to anyone except God. In addition, for any of us, every day of our life can be the last, and we will have to answer before the Impartial Judge. Here is what Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) says about the end of this world and about our own death: “The day and hour at which the Son of God will end the life of the world by coming to judgment is unknown; the day and hour at which, at the command of the Son of God, the earthly life of each of us will cease and we will be called to be separated from the body, to account for earthly life, to that private judgment, before the general judgment that awaits a person after his death, is unknown. Beloved brethren! Let us stay awake and prepare for the Last Judgment, awaiting us on the brink of eternity for the irrevocable decision of our fate forever. Let us prepare ourselves, stocking ourselves with all the virtues, especially the mercy, which contains and crowns all the virtues, since love - the motivating cause of mercy - is aggregate Christian perfection(Col 3:14). Mercy makes people filled with it godlike (see: Matthew 5, 44, 48)! Blessed are the merciful, for they will have mercy(Mt 5: 7); judgment without mercy(James 2:13) ".

Before the end of the world there will be wars, turmoil, earthquakes, famine and national disasters predicted in the Holy Scriptures. Faith and love will be impoverished. Lawlessness will multiply. Will appear man of doom, antichrist, false messiah - a person who wants to become instead of Christ, take His place and have power over the whole world. Having reached the supreme earthly power, the Antichrist will require himself to be worshiped as God. The power of the Antichrist will be destroyed by the coming of God.

After His coming, the Lord will judge all people. How will the Last Judgment take place? Saint Philaret of Moscow writes that God "will judge in such a way that the conscience of every person will be revealed to everyone and not only all the deeds that someone has done during their entire life on earth will be revealed, but also all the words spoken, secret desires and thoughts." Another saint, John (Maksimovich), Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco, also says: “The Last Judgment knows no witnesses or protocol records. Everything is written in the souls of men, and these records, these “books” are being revealed. Everything becomes apparent to everyone and to oneself, and the state of mind determines it to the right or to the left. Some walk in joy, others in horror. When the “books” are opened, it will become clear to everyone that the roots of all vices are in the human soul. Here is a drunkard, a fornicator - when the body died, someone would think: sin has also died. No, there was an inclination in the soul, and in the soul the sin was sweet. And if she has not repented of that sin, has not freed herself from it, she will come to the Last Judgment with the same desire for the sweetness of sin and will never satisfy her desire. It will contain the suffering of hatred and anger. This is a hellish state. "

The Lord speaks of the suffering of the condemned in fiery hell, in the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Gehenna fiery- this is, first of all, an inner fire, this is a flame of vice, a flame of weakness and anger, and there will be crying and gnashing of teeth powerless anger.

The Lord Jesus Christ will judge the world. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son(Jn 5:22). Why? Because the Son of God is also the Son of Man. He lived here on earth, among people, experienced sorrow, suffering, temptation and death itself. He knows all human sorrows and weaknesses.

The last judgment will be terrible, because all human deeds and sins will be revealed to everyone, and also because after this judgment nothing can be changed and everyone will receive what is worthy according to their deeds.

How a person lived on earth, how he prepared to meet God and what state he has reached, then he will go with him into eternity. And the worthy, righteous will go into eternal life with God, and sinners - into eternal torment prepared for the devil and his servants. After this will come the eternal Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of goodness, truth and love.

But the Lord is not only a formidable Judge, He is also a Merciful Father, and, of course, He, in His mercy, will do everything possible not to condemn, but to justify a person. Saint Theophan the Recluse writes about this: “The Lord wants everyone to be saved, therefore, you too ... The Lord at the Last Judgment will not seek, how to condemn, but how to justify everyone. And he will justify everyone, if only there is even a small opportunity. "

Eighth member of the Creed

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, giving life, proceeding from the Father, equally with the Father and the Son of the worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.

Holy Spirit- the third Hypostasis, the third Person of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Spirit is consubstantial and equal in honor to the Father and the Son. He is God, therefore He is also called the Lord in the Creed.

The Holy Spirit is named Life-giving, giving life, firstly, because He, together with the Father and the Son, participated in the creation of the world. In the book of Genesis, when describing the creation of the earth, it says: and darkness over the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water(Genesis 1, 2). The spirit of god created me(Job 33, 4), says the righteous Job. Secondly, the Holy Spirit, together with the Father and the Son, gives spiritual life to people, imparting to them Divine grace. Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God(Jn 3, 5).

Prophets, heralds of the word of God, wrote their books not from themselves, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, therefore the Holy Scripture is called divinely inspired.

The Lord Jesus promised to send His disciples, the holy apostles, the Holy Spirit, whom He calls the Comforter: When the Comforter comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father(Jn 15:26). On the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of Christ, when the apostles were gathered in one place, in the upper room of Zion, the Holy Spirit descended on them in the form of tongues of flame and gave them gifts of grace.

Since that time, the Holy Spirit has been working in the life of the Church, especially communicating his gifts in the Holy Sacraments. Saint Basil the Great compares the Holy Spirit with the sunlight that warms and gives life: “Everyone who enjoys it is as if alone, meanwhile this radiance illuminates the earth and the sea and dissolves into the air. Likewise, the Spirit dwells in each of those who receive Him, as if it is inherent in him alone, and it pours out enough grace to all, which those who partake enjoy in the measure of their own ability to receive, and not to the extent possible for the Spirit. "

The Ninth Member of the Creed

Into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.

Church has not a human, but a Divine origin, it was founded by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, having come to earth and gathered the first community of His disciples-followers. I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it(Mt 16:18). Jesus Christ is also the head of the Church, as evidenced by the Holy Scriptures. The apostle Paul says that God is the Father put Him above all, the head of the Church, which is His body(Eph 1: 22-23). It is not by chance that the Word of God uses the name in relation to the Church The body of Christ... The Savior compares Himself to a vine: (Jn 15:15). As the branches grow on a tree, originate from it, receive life and bear fruit, feeding on the juices of the trunk, and all together form a single tree, so Christians come from Christ, originate and life from their Teacher and God and together form a single Church. bearing the fruit of faith. You are the body of Christ, and individually you are members(1 Cor 12:27).

All people make up the church, united those professing the Orthodox faith, living all over the world, therefore the Church is called Ecumenical. The Church belongs not only to Orthodox Christians now living on earth, but also to all her children, who have now passed away into another world, for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for with Him all are alive(Luke 20:38). Mother of God, all the saints, the heavenly host of Archangels, Angels and all Heavenly Forces incorporeal also constitute one Church with all of us. Thus, the Church is one, but subdivided into earthly and heavenly... It is called Saint not because it consists only of saints and the righteous, but because it was founded by the Lord Himself and keeps the teaching given by Him intact and holiness. The Church is holy also because the Holy Spirit works in her, by whose grace all Church Sacraments are performed.

The Lord created the Church and gave her everything necessary for our salvation. Saint Philaret of Moscow defines the Church as "an established society of people from God, united by the Orthodox faith, the law of God, the hierarchy and the Sacraments." Therefore, those people who say that they believe in God, but do not recognize the Church, consider it to be some kind of later human institution, sin and deeply err. The holy martyr Cyprian of Carthage said about such people: "He can no longer have God as a Father who does not have the Church as a mother."... The same saint said: "There is no salvation outside the Church"... Therefore, one cannot call oneself an Orthodox Christian and not believe in the Church established by Christ. It is impossible to deny the church hierarchy, which is also given by the Savior and has direct succession from the apostles themselves. You cannot consider yourself a member of the Church and not participate in the holy Sacraments, which were established in the time of the apostles and have a foundation in Holy Scripture.

The church is called Cathedral, that is, universal, Ecumenical, because, as St. Philaret of Moscow notes, "it is not limited by place, time, or people, but includes the true believers of all countries, times and peoples." Word church from greek ecclesia translates as meeting believers... The Church is also conciliar because the supreme power in it belongs to the Councils (Ecumenical and Local). They gather to discuss very important church issues. Ecumenical Councils are attended by bishops, whenever possible, from the entire Ecumenical Church. Also, the life of the Church is directed by Local Cathedrals which regularly meet in Local Orthodox Churches. Local Churches are Churches located in different countries. Each of them has independence, has its own primate (chief bishop of the Church), but all are members of the one Ecumenical Orthodox Church.

The Holy Spirit is at work in the Church founded by the Savior. He participates in the life of the Church, supplies the church hierarchy and teaches His gifts of grace in the Sacraments and church rites. The Apostle Paul addresses the elders (priests) with the following speech: Listen to yourself and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the Church of the Lord and God, which He acquired for Himself with His own blood(Acts 20:28)

The Lord acquired, acquired His Church, shedding His Divine Blood for her, enduring suffering and death itself. He appointed the apostles, giving them the authority to perform the holy Sacraments: receive the Holy Spirit. To whom you forgive sins will be forgiven; on whom you leave, on who will remain.(Jn 20, 22-23). This is said about the Sacrament of Confession, in which the Lord, through a priest, allows a repentant person from sin. The Savior gave the apostles the authority to perform other Sacraments: communion, baptism, priesthood. The holy apostles received from Christ and episcopal authority, they appointed (ordained) their successors, other bishops. Since then, the apostolic succession in the Church through an unbroken chain of ordinations has not ceased. Each of the presently existing Orthodox bishops has succession from the apostles themselves. Therefore, our Church is called Apostolic... Both the apostles and subsequent bishops ordained elders and priests. Elders can perform all the Sacraments, except for ordination. The priest is the second level of the church hierarchy after the bishop. Only a bishop can ordain or appoint a priest.

The Church as a divine-human organism will remain, according to the Savior's promise, to the end of the century.

Tenth member of the Creed

I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.

I confess means undoubtedly I admit, I believe... Why one baptism? The Holy Apostle Paul says: One Lord, one faith, one baptism(Eph 4: 4). This means that there is only one true Church, established by the One True God, and saving Sacraments exist in it, since the grace of God operates in the Church. The uniqueness and uniqueness of baptism are also included in the Symbol of Faith because at the time of the first Ecumenical Councils there were disputes over how to receive heretics who fell away from the Church: should the Sacrament of Baptism be repeated over them or not? The Second Ecumenical Council supplemented the Symbol with the words that there can be only one baptism. It was decided to accept those who fell away during the persecution through repentance.

The Creed is called baptism but no other Sacraments are mentioned. Why? Baptism is the Sacrament of entering the Church, without it one cannot become a Christian, a follower of Christ and a member of His Church. Entering the Church through baptism, as through the gates, a person gets the opportunity to approach other Sacraments and church rituals. There are seven Sacraments in the Church: baptism, chrismation, communion, confession, blessing of unification (or unction), wedding and priesthood.

So, the spiritual life of a Christian begins with baptism, he is born in this Sacrament for a new life, life with Christ. The Lord sends the apostles to preach His teaching, the word of God to all people and baptize all who believe in Christ and want to follow Him: go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you(Mt 28: 19-20). In another Gospel, written by the holy Evangelist Mark, the Savior says about baptism: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; and whoever does not believe will be condemned(Mt 16:16). Faith and a life of faith are a prerequisite for baptism. Baptism is not only a new birth, but also death for a sinful, carnal life: If we died with Christ, then we believe that we will also live with Him.(Rom 6, 8), - we pronounce the words of the Apostle Paul at the Sacrament of Baptism.

Before diving into the holy font with the invocation of the name of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit- He who approaches baptism renounces the devil and all his deeds, that is, from a sinful life. He is combined with Christ, promises to keep faith in the Lord and faithfulness to Him, promises to fulfill the will of God and live according to His commandments. These vows, given at baptism, must be sacredly observed throughout life.

In the waters of baptism, man drowns his sins, his fallen nature, leaving the font cleansed and renewed. He receives grace and strength to fight the devil and sin. Therefore, the Creed says that baptism is performed for the remission of sins... When an adult begins the Sacrament of Baptism, he is required not only to have faith, but also to repent of his sins.

In the Orthodox Church, both adults and infants are baptized. We baptize them according to the faith of parents and receivers (godparents), who are guarantors for them before God. Both parents and godparents should be believers, knowing their faith and living by it. They must raise the child in faith. The prototype of the New Testament baptism was the Old Testament rite of circumcision, it was performed on infants on the eighth day after birth. The Apostle Paul directly calls baptism circumcision not made by hand(Col 2.11). It is known that the holy apostles already performed baptism on whole houses, families, in which, of course, there were small children. The Lord Himself commanded not to prevent children from coming to Him: Let the children come to Me and do not forbid them, for such is the Kingdom of God(Luke 18:16). That the grace of God can be communicated through the faith of others is evident from the Gospel. When people turned to Christ, asking with faith for the healing of their relatives and friends, the Lord performed miracles according to the faith of those who asked. So, the head of the synagogue Jairus asked to heal his daughter. The Syrophenician woman prayed for the exorcism of the demon from her daughter. When four people came to the Lord and brought their paralyzed (paralyzed) companion, Jesus, seeing their faith, says to the paralyzed: child! your sins are forgiven you(Mark 2, 5).

For any Orthodox believer who has children, it is inconceivable that our children would remain outside the grace of God, which is taught in the saving Sacraments of the Church. That's why Orthodox Church its canonical rules established the need for the baptism of infants. For example, Canon 124 of the Carthaginian Council says: “Whoever denies the need for the baptism of little ones and newborns from the mother's womb of children, or says that although they are baptized for the forgiveness of sins, they don’t borrow anything from the ancestral Adam's sin that should be washed in the bath of the Holy Spirit (that is, baptism. - Auth.), from which it would follow that the image of baptism for the forgiveness of sins is used over them not in a true, but in a false sense, that let it be anathema. " Thus, it is clear that although babies do not have personal sins, they also need cleansing and the grace of God acting in the Sacraments (they, like all people, inherit a fallen ancestral nature prone to sin).

Eleventh Member of the Creed

I look forward to the resurrection of the dead.

Man was created by God as an immortal being. After the fall of Adam, the human body became susceptible to disease. It grows old and gradually, with age, collapses. The body has lost its immortal properties. People are born, live on earth, and then die. The immortal soul is separated from the body after death. The soul passes private court... The Lord determines the location of the soul until the day of the Last Judgment. At the end of the world, on the day of the last judgment, God will resurrect and restore the bodies of dead people in order to pass His final judgment on humanity and separate those who are worthy of eternal blissful life with God from those who, due to their sins, are not worthy of the Kingdom of God. Unrepentant sinners will go to eternal torment (Mt 25:46), into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels(Mt 25, 41), that is, to a place devoid of Divine light, where they will dwell in eternal torment together with Satan and his servants.

The current state of the departed, that is, the existence of a soul without a body, is neither final nor complete. Man is not only a soul, but also a soul and a body together. Therefore, for the judgment of all people and further eternal life, the Lord will resurrect the dead in the body. Those people who will be alive at the moment of the Second Coming of Christ will also appear at the judgment of God.

The Lord Jesus Christ, having passed the full path of human life from birth to death, showed us the path that awaits all departed people. He was resurrected, and His soul was united with the body. The apostle Paul says about this: if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then God will bring those who have died in Jesus with Him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who live, who remain before the coming of the Lord, will not warn the dead, because the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with the announcement, with the voice of the Archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who survived will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord(1 Thess 4, 14-17).

The Holy Scriptures of both the New and Old Testaments speak many times about the future resurrection of the dead. The Lord gave the prophet Ezekiel a vision that not only has historical significance (the prophecy about the revival of the chosen people after the end of the Babylonian captivity), but, above all, is a type general resurrection of the dead... The Prophet sees a field full of dead, dry human bones. And now God says that He will bring a spirit into them, surround them with veins, grow flesh on them and cover them with skin. And everything happens according to the word of the Lord: the spirit entered into them, and they revived, and stood on their feet - a very, very great horde(Eze 37, 10).

It is difficult for the human consciousness, accustomed to think in earthly, limited categories, to imagine how the resurrection of long-dead people and the restoration of decayed flesh can occur. But we know that the Lord created the first man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life(Genesis 2, 7), that is, he gave him an immortal soul. Earth, dust of the earth Is a set of chemical elements that make up all of nature, including man. When dying, the body decomposes and returns to the state of dust. After the Fall, God tells Adam that you ... return to the land from which you were taken(Genesis 3:19). Of course, God, who once created the human body from the nature of the earth, will be able to restore the decayed human body.

To assure us of the future resurrection of bodies, the apostle Paul uses the image of a grain thrown into the ground: Someone will say: how will the dead be resurrected? and in what body will they come? Reckless! what you sow will not come to life unless it dies. And when you sow, you are sowing not the future body, but the bare grain, which will happen, wheat or some other; but God gives him the body he wants, and to each seed his own body.<...>So it is with the resurrection of the dead(1 Corinthians 15: 35-38, 42).

Twelfth Member of the Creed

And the life of the next century. Amen.

After the general resurrection and the Last Judgment, the earth will be renewed and transformed by means of fire. On the new earth will be established Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Truth: We, according to His promise, await a new heaven and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells(2 Pet 3:13). The Holy Apostle John the Theologian in Revelation saw about the future destinies of the world new heaven and new earth(21, 1). There will no longer be anything sinful, unclean, unjust on the new earth. Both nature and humanity will be renewed. The Apostle Paul writes that the bodies of people will be like the resurrected body of the Savior: Our dwelling is in heaven, from where we also expect the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our humbled body so that it will be in accordance with His glorious body, by the power by which He acts and subjugates everything to Himself.(2 Phil 3, 20-21).

In the Kingdom of God there will be no sickness, no suffering, no sorrow. What will it be for life? How will they look like new sky and new earth ? It's hard to imagine. But one thing is certain: both the Kingdom of God and life in it will be incomparably more beautiful than all current earthly beauties and joys. He did not see that eye, did not hear the ear, and that did not come into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love Him,- says the Apostle Paul (1 Cor 2, 3). An example can be given. There is a man who suffers from an eye disease from birth. He is almost devoid of light, surrounding objects, he distinguishes people only as vague silhouettes. And now he undergoes an operation, and after a while all the colors, all the beauties of the surrounding world become available to him for contemplation. Or a person who was deaf from birth was given hearing and opened before him a wonderful world of sounds, words and musical harmonies. Yes, it is difficult for us to imagine what God has prepared for those who love Him, but we hope, we believe that life with the Lord, in constant Divine light and love will be blissful and beautiful. Our present, earthly joys cannot give us an idea of ​​this or that joy and happiness. Even spiritual joy from love for God, gratitude to Him, prayer is only a weak beginning, a subtle sprout of what will be there, in the new kingdom of truth. For us, the expectation of the life of the century to come is an object of faith, our hope, and we can only feel sorry for people who do not have this hope and do not believe in the future life.

The creed ends with the word Amen which means: truly, undoubtedly so... By this we confirm, we testify that we accept as true Orthodox Christians this confession of faith left to us by the holy fathers and approved by the Ecumenical Councils.