"One Accord"

Excerpts from Christian writers Past and Present

Christ did not come to earth to offer a way of life marked by self-restraint and stoicism, but to partake in what it means to be human. And to be human means to experience anguish in the face of death, because we were not created for death. As Saint Maximus says, the logoi [intuition] of our nature look towards eternity, and life in Christ within that eternity. Eternity should not be understood simply as an extension of time, but as a different way of being. So then, the victory over death is not a victory over physical death, which will inevitably come since we are beings with a beginning and thus necessarily an end—it cannot be otherwise because of our very nature. The victory over death does not mean that death does not come, but that it has a mystical form that lies in our incorporation into God. In other words, by acquiring divine attributes, a human being may rise with Christ and inherit the Kingdom with Him. - Fr. Vasilios Thermos, Reflections of Pascha