St Gregory Palamas by Dr Marcus Plested (IOCC)

The Beatitudes - The Commandments of Blessedness by Fr Victor Potapov, Part 7

Icon of the Theotokos in the nave of the katholicon of the Holy and Great Monastery of Philotheou in Mount Athos, Greece. I took this photo in 2000.

The Most Holy Theotokos is our foremost example of holiness and purity of heart.
In the words of St Gregory Palamas,
"She also is a cause of those before her and patron of those after her and a cause of things eternal; she is a promise of the prophets, foundation of the Apostles, support of the martyrs, platform of the teachers, she is the glory of those on earth, the delight of those in heaven, the adornment of all creation; she is also the principle and source and root of the ineffable good things, she is the summit and completion of every saint" St Gregory Palamas in Homily 53, Ibid p.297 from the Homilies of St Gregory Palamas, translated by Dr Christopher Veniamin, Mount Tabor Publishing 

Teaching given by Fr Victor Potapov,  and posted on the website of
St John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Washington DC
Posted here with written permission from Fr Victor Potapov

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

In this commandment, Jesus Christ prompts us to achieve purity of heart. The heart is the guardian of our spiritual life. It contemplates whatever the eyes cannot see and the mind cannot grasp. Spiritual contemplation is possible only with a heart that is pure. In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord said: The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness (Matthew 6:22-23).


The pure heart and its vision of God are lofty concepts. One can only describe. According to the words of the holy, righteous John of Kronstadt, a pure heart is meek, humble, guileless, simple, trusting, true, unsuspicious, gentle, good, not covetous, not envious, not adulterous. My Life in Christ, p. 56. According to Venerable John of the Ladder, Purity is the assimilation of a bodiless nature (Step 15). That is, the life hidden from the physical eyes - the life of the spiritual world - is revealed to the pure in heart. He who has made his heart pure, writes Venerable Simeon the New Theologian in the Philokalia, will not only come to know the meaning and significance of things secondary and which exist after God, but on having passed through them all, will also see God Himself - in which is the extremity of good. The pure in heart are people who can clearly see God's real presence, and who can proclaim together with the Psalmist:


The Lord is my light and my savior; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the defender of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid? ... One thing have I asked of the Lord, this will I seek after: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life... My heart said unto Thee: I will seek the Lord. My face hath sought after Thee; Thy face, O Lord, will I seek (Psalm 26:1, 4, 8).


A pure heart preserves the word of God as the seed sown in Christ's Parable of the Sower:


But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience (Luke 8:15).


To see God is the highest blessedness. So the pure heart constantly seeks the vision of God; it wants His light in its depth, so strives to live in perfect purity. The Mother of God lived this way. We call the Virgin Mary Most Pure; for her ever-virginity, and for her spiritual wholeness. Her heart was pure, her mind was healthy, her soul magnified the Lord, her spirit exulted in God her Savior, and her body was a spiritual temple.


The pure Mother of God inspires saints to preserve their purity of heart. The saints never allow thoughts contrary to God into their the hearts. Isaac the Syrian points out purity of heart in the Venerable Sisoes, who renounced worldly desire and thought, and reached an elemental simplicity. He became like a child, but without childishness. Venerable Sisoes even would ask his disciple:Have I eaten, or have I not eaten? But as a child to the world, to God he was mature and perfect in purity (Venerable Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies, p. 142. While reading, you should recall the words of Christ: Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3). Purity of heart is necessary for mystical oneness with God. Saint Gregory of Nyssa writes of this in his Sixth Homily, On the Beatitudes--


The joyful vision of God is offered to the man who has purified the sight of his soul. Thus, the Word (i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ) teaches us, when He says to us that the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). This teaches us that the man who has purified his soul from all passionate impulses will reflect by his inner beauty the likeness of the Divine image... By a good life, wash off the filth that adheres to thy heart, and then shall shine forth thy divinely appearing beauty.


The Apostle Paul wrote of this too, in his pastoral epistles.


Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled (Titus 1:15).


If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart (II Timothy 2:21-22).


Abba Pimen struggled for piety and purity of heart. He taught us:


"As long as the pot is on the fire, no fly nor any other animal can get near it, but as soon as it is cold, these creatures get inside. So it is for the monk; as long as he lives in spiritual activities, the enemy cannot find a means of overthrowing him." Sayings of the Desert Fathers, p. 154.


What should we do if we do not have a pure heart? How can we purify it of defilement? First of all, we must pray that the Lord give us spiritual insight, that He give us the Holy Spirit, Who penetrates everything, Who sees everything. Such a prayer is always heard, for the Lord has promised: If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him (Luke 11:13). A praying heart, filled with contrition, is acceptable to God, for, as it is said in the 50th Psalm: A heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise (verse 17). Sincere prayer warms the heart, arouses reverent compunction, and draws to itself the purifying and sanctifying grace of God. Thus the Church teaches us to purify the heart by warm prayer. In the Canon of Preparation for Holy Communion we read: Teardrops grant me, O Christ, to cleanse my defiled heart(Third Ode).


Prayer expels evil - that offspring of Satan, the enemy of our salvation - from the heart. We must frequently and reverently say the name of Jesus Christ. The Savior said: In my name shall they cast out devils (Mark 16:17). Frequent invocation of this most sweet name with faith and reverence in the so-called mental or Jesus Prayer can expel impurities from the heart and fill it with heavenly joy and peace.


In Way of the Ascetics, Tito Colliander wrote some inspired lines concerning the Jesus Prayer. His chapter 25 reads:


"The saintly Abbot Isaiah, the Egyptian hermit, says of the Jesus Prayer that it is a mirror for the mind and a lantern for the conscience. Someone has also likened it to a constantly sounding, quiet voice in a house: all thieves that sneak in take hasty flight when they hear that someone is awake there. The house is the heart, the thieves, the evil impulses. Prayer is the voice of the one who keeps watch. But the one who keeps watch is no longer I, but Christ."


Spiritual activity embodies Christ in our soul. This involves continual remembrance of the Lord: you hide Him within, in your soul, your heart, your consciousness. I sleep, but my heart waketh (Song of Solomon 5:2): I myself sleep, withdraw, but the heart stays steadfast in prayer, that is, in eternal life, in the kingdom of Heaven, in Christ. The tree-roots of my being stand fast in their source.


The means of attaining this is the prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Repeat it aloud, or only in thought, slowly, lingeringly, but with attention, and from a heart freed as much as possible from all that is inappropriate to it. Not only worldly interests are inappropriate, but also such things as every kind of expectation or thought of answer, or inner visions, testings, all kinds of romantic dreams, curious questions and imaginings.


©Archpriest Victor Potapov,
1992-1993

Guarding the Imagination by St Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain

Saint Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain 

What the Imagination Is and That It Produces the Same Passion as the Senses
Because I have already commented to you about the five external senses of the body, it is proper now to also comment briefly on the internal sense of the soul, that is, the imagination. 

Imagination is more refined than sense perception, but more coarse than the mind (nous*- see *nous below))and for this reason it stands between the mind and the senses, according to St. Gregory Palamas 1-see Notes below. The imagination is the map of the ruling mind, about which we spoke in the beginning, and upon which everything is recorded; 

it is the broad board on which things are painted; it is the wax on which things are imprinted. What things? All the things that we see with our eyes; all the things we hear with our ears; all the things we smell with our noses; all the things we taste through our mouths; and all the things we touch through the general sense of touch. 

According to the wise Vryennios who borrowed the saying from St. Maximos, "The body's world is the external objects, and the mind's are the thoughts." Aristotle called the imagination a common sense, because it alone contains all those images, all those sensations and dispositions which have entered from the outside through our five senses. He called it sense because the same passion and movement caused by all the external senses upon the soul is also caused by the imagination alone. 

In order to prove this [fact] many examples are brought forward by the metaphysicians, the physicians, the physicists and ethicists. I like to present my proof with this example only: Someone eats a lemon. Someone else stands by and sees him, and in seeing him he thinks that he too is tasting the sharp taste of the lemon so much so that the taste buds are affected in his own mouth.

Now, what is experienced by the observer can be experienced also by someone who is not observing the phenomenon of eating a lemon, but who is affected with a strong impression through the imagination. He who imagines strongly the sensation received by the one eating a lemon imagines himself to be eating a lemon also and gradually has almost the same reaction in his mouth. There is obviously a very close interplay between the external senses and those of the imagination which are affected by both one's physical and spiritual capacities.

This is the reason why, dear friend, knowing this you must guard your external senses from passionate objects, as we said before. At the same time, however, you must also guard the internal sense, that is the imagination, and not permit it to envision and remember passionate and shameful visions seen by the eyes, or the improper words heard by the ears, or the fragrances smelled by the nose, or the rich and delicious foods tasted by the mouth, or the soft things touched by the hands.

No, for what is the value of guarding the external senses and then not guarding the imagination, which possesses all the passionate impressions of the senses and causes through them the same passion and agitation to the soul? 

Joseph Vryennios has borrowed a quotation from St. Maximos to express this close relationship between the senses and the imagination: "As the body is capable of fornication with the body of a woman, the mind can also fornicate with the thought of the woman, through the imagination of that same body. A man imagines in his mind the form of his own body to be united with the form of the woman's body. The same is true with the other sins as well. Those things which the body does actively in the physical world, the mind also does in the world of thoughts"3. But why do I say that you must guard the imagination as you do the external senses? Actually, we must take greater care in guarding our imagination than our senses.

How does the Imagination Differ from the Senses?
The external senses are active only when external stimuli are present. The imagination however can open its "book" and reveal its sights and sounds, and so forth, even when the perceptible things are absent and man is alone enclosed within the walls of his home or in a far and isolated place. 

The imagination is a sort of very fine sense of touch, especially when a certain passion is invoked strongly. In fact it is often the imagination itself which prompts the external senses to enjoy some imagined passion and thus exercises a sort of influence over them. The imagination being itself a more refined sense than the external senses, as we said before, is consequently more rapid in movement, being able in a flash to impress and fashion passionate images of sin, and at the same time to attract the heart of consent. This is why greater care is needed to guard the imagination. 

St. Maximos said: "To sin in thought is so much easier than to sin in deed, as to wage war indeed is so much more difficult than to do so in thought"4. St. Basil also spoke about this when interpreting the passage in Job 2:5: "For Job said, 'It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts." The just Job was reasonable in considering the possibility and praying for hidden sin, since men have a tendency to readily fall into the sins of the mind. 

The activities of the body require both time and opportunity and toil as well as other persons to cooperate. The activities of the mind, however, are enacted in an instant, without toil, without burden and every time for them is appropriate to act"5. The imagination has a certain natural attribute and all the impressions it receives from the senses it wants to make them all visible so that it can see, as St. Gregory Palamas has noted 6.

For example, you hear, "Martha, Sophia." These are two simple sounds which have struck your eardrums and you have heard them. The imagination is not content to hear them as simple sounds, so it proceeds to fashion even the images of Martha and Sophia, thereby creating greater agitation and passionate pleasure in the soul. 

By the same token when you hear "kingdom of heaven" or "hell" or anything else that you have not actually seen before, you undergo a certain effort through the imagination to give them some visual form or image. Generally speaking, as we said in the chapter on sight above, the sense of sight sees things substantially; the imagination similarly makes visible what is imagined and in a sense represents them substantially. This is why imagination instigates a more serious war and a greater agitation. 

These then are the two natural consequences which follow one after the other: Namely, the effort one makes to imagine an object that is absent is the same effort one makes when it is present physically. Conversely, the less one tries to imagine a thing, the less one tries when it is physically present. 

Oftentimes the senses receive sense perceptions of things and simply leave them without curiosity. Later when one returns home, the imagination then remembers and describes with curiosity whatever the senses saw or heard or spoke in passing, and thus creates a greater war and agitation to the soul. 

The imagination, as soon as it receives and records the image of a beautiful person, can only with great difficulty wipe out that image, as we have noted in the chapter on sight. "The things we have suffered are the things we carry around with us through their passionate imaginations," as St. Maximos wrote 7. 

What is very strange is that we often imagine that person to be dead, while other times we touch with our hands the lifeless skull and the bones and yet our foolish and unreasonable imagination does not want to remember it as dead. It holds on to that first image that was impressed on the mind when that person was alive and does not cease to trouble us with it. And this can happen when we are awake or when we are sleeping. 

Also, the imagination not only records things, that is, receives images of things seen, but also recalls those images that have been forgotten, fashions other images on its own which it substitutes for others by adding or subtracting or changing. Thus it can change insignificant images insignificantly, both when we are awake and when we are asleep through our dreams, in which dreams, I suggest, you never believe. It is written: "For dreams have deceived many, and those who put their hope in them have failed" (Sir. 34:7).

From this we conclude that passionate imagination has greater power and authority over man than the senses themselves. Once someone is overcome by a passionate imagination he becomes altogether subservient to that imagination. Thus he may not be able to see even though he has the sense of sight; he may not hear even though he can hear; neither can he smell or touch. Having all his sense organs open, he appears to have them closed and totally inactive.

The Devil Is Greatly Related to the Imagination and for This Reason Uses It as an Organ of Deception

The devil has a very close relationship and familiarity with the imagination, and of all the powers of the soul he has this one as the most appropriate organ to deceive man and to activate his passions and evils. 

He indeed is very familiar with the nature of the imagination. For he, being created by God originally as a pure and simple mind without form and image, as the other divine angels, later came to love the forms and the imagination. Imagining that he could set his throne above the heavens and become like God, he fell from being an angel of the light and became a devil of darkness.

St. Dionysios spoke about this devil: "What is the evil in the devils? Irrational anger; unreasonable desire; and reckless imagination"8. St. Gregory Sinaite also wrote: "The devils were originally minds who fell from that immateriality and refinement and each of them received a certain material thickness"9. The devil uses the imagination as his organ. He deceived Adam through the imagination and raised up to his mind the fantasy of being equal with God. Before the disobedience Adam did not have the imaginative attribute, as St. Maximos noted:

"In the beginning, passion and pain were not created together with the body; nor forgetfulness and ignorance together with the soul; nor the ever changing impressions in the shape of events with the mind. All these things were brought about in man by his disobedience.

He who would remove passion and suffering from the body achieves practical virtue; he who would remove forgetfulness and ignorance from the soul has properly attained the natural vision; and he who would release the mind of the many impressions, has acquired the mystery of theology. 

For the mind of Adam at first was not impressed by the imagination, which stands between the mind and the thoughts, setting up a wall around the mind and not allowing it to enter into the most simple and imageless reasons of created beings. The passionate physical perceptions of the visible things are scales that cover over the clairvoyance of the soul and prevent its passage over to the authentic word of truth" 10

Adam, however, was able at first to be attached to the thoughts of the mind and to enter into them without the intermediary of the imagination.

The Lord Did Not Have Imagination
The new Adam, our Lord, did not have imaginations, according to the theologians. One of them, Georgios Koresios, wrote in his theological treatise on the Incarnation: "The Lord deserved merit not for his blessed vision and knowledge and the love that flowed from it, but for the knowledge that was poured upon him from God, and which was always active in Christ voluntarily and never interrupted by sleep or any other cause, as it happens in the mind of other men. 

The mind of Christ was completely independent of the imaginations which become a wall blocking our penetration into the immaterial realities of the spirit." Not only Adam but most persons who have ever fallen into sin and deceptions, into irrational superstitions and heresies and evil and corrupt doctrines, have all been deceived through the imagination. 

This is the reason why the holy Fathers call the devil a pantomime and an ancient painter, as we have seen especially in St. Chrysostom 11. St. Maximos has noted that the devils deceive men not only when awake but also when they are sleeping, but inciting them with the passions of the body through the imagination. This imagination is considered by the Fathers to be a bridge of the devils. 

St.Kallistos has written: "Imagination is like a multiform and many-head monster similar to the mythical Daedalos and Hydra, which the devil utilizes as a sort of bridge, as the saints have previously noted. These murderous villains communicate and unite themselves with the soul, making it into a hive of parasites, a place of passionate and fruitless thoughts"12. 

St. Gregory the Theologian said that imagination is the cause of both the consent and the act of sin. Do you see now, dear friend, how many evil things imagination brings about? I beseech you therefore, to guard your imagination as much as you possibly can so that no images harmful to the soul are impressed upon it, as they seek to enter through the senses. 

And if they have already entered, seek not to compromise with them or to give your consent in your heart, but run directly to God through prayer of the heart, which we are going to discuss in the following chapter. St. Syngletike has noted: "It is important not to give your consent to the imaginations. For it is written that if the spirit of the devil arises in you, do not leave the place of your heart, for such consent is tantamount to worldly fornication" (cf. Eccl 10:4) 13.

How Should Imagination Be Used and That We Will Be Judged by the Images Imprinted Upon It
I have referred to images harmful to the soul because there are other images which are permissible, as St. Kallistos noted. Such images include the contrition, the grief, and the humility of the heart; the meditations upon death, the future judgment, and the eternal punishments; the study and meditation upon creation and the Incarnation of the Lord; the phenomena of creation, the miracles, and the mysteries of the Lord's Incarnation - the birth, the baptism, the crucifixion, the burial, the resurrection, and so forth, as we have said before. 

Finally, it is permissible, when fighting against certain inappropriate and evil imaginations presented by the enemy, to use other appropriate and virtuous imaginations. 

Do not pay any attention to the shameful and fearful images of the foolish and irrational imagination and do not be frightened by them. Ignore them and consider them unworthy of your attention. They are empty playthings without any true substance. 

He who is used to ignoring the imaginations can also ignore the real things themselves that are depicted in the imaginations, as St. Maximos has noted: "He who conquers over the passionate fantasies will also be able to prevail over the realities they represent"14. 

Let me conclude this chapter and summarize what I have been saying. Know that if you impress upon the board and chart of your imagination beautiful and appropriate images, you will be praised on the day of judgment, when what each person imagines secretly will be revealed. But if you allow inappropriate and evil images to be recorded and to dwell in your imagination, you will then be condemned, as St. Basil has noted 15.

*Nous: The word 'mind' (nous) as used by St Nicodemos in  this text, does not refer to reason, discursive thinking or logical thinking, but to the organ of the soul by which it can 'know', that is directly apprehend, spiritual realities; not by drawing conclusions, but directly under the inspiration of divine Grace. The Greek language makes a distinction between nous (translated as 'mind' here) which is the spiritual organ of knowledge of the soul; and diania or 'reason' the organ of knowledge of the brain through the senses and discourse. Orthodox Christian anthropology affirms that man has both organs of knowledge. Thoughts, reason and the senses can interact with the nous, both in a positive and in a negative manner, and in that way affect the heart, the spiritual center of man.

Notes
1. Physical Chapters, ch 27

2. Third Century, ch 53

3. Third Century on Love, ch 53

4. First Century on Love ch 63

5. Homily on Guard Thyself

6. Physical Chapters, ch 6

7. First Century on Love, ch 63

8. Divine Names, ch 4

9. St Gregory the Sinaite, ch 123

10. Second Century of Theology, ch 75

11. Homily on Prayer

12. Philokalia, ch 64

13. Quoted in the Biography of St. Syngletike

14. The Centuries on Love, ch 63

15. Homily on Virginity

from A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, p.146-p.152, by St Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain, Trans. by Peter Chamberas, Paulist Press New York 1989

This book is available from Amazon

The Orthodox Way to Knowledge of God and the Place of Divine Revelation in the Life of the Christian

A Beautiful Mind - The Orthodox Way to Knowledge

Photo from the movie A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe

and  Jennifer Connelly

In the movie, 'A Beautiful Mind' Russell Crow brilliantly portraits the Mathematician and Noble laureate on Economics, Dr John Nash from Princeton University. Dr Nash has struggled with mental illness all his life but it did not hinder him from writing the paper which won him the Noble Prize in 1994.

Perhaps the most poignant scene of this movie is the moment when Alicia, Nash's wife, has to decide whether to stay with her husband or take their child and leave. Alicia looks at John who is sitting on the edge of the bed, and sighs, and asks him;

"You want to know what is real? And then holds his hand and touches it to her face and says, "This is real". Then Alicia says, "Maybe the part that knows the waking from the dream, maybe it isn't here (and touches John's head) maybe it is here (while touching John's hand to her heart, and then rests the palm of her hand on his). Then she exclaims, "I have to believe that something extraordinary is possible!"

I am certain that the Director, Ron Howard, is not trying to give us lessons in epistemology, (the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, presuppositions and scope of knowledge). But I can't help watching the movie with my own Orthodox mindset and realize how accurate Alicia's instincts are.

The Apostle Paul proclaims, 

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6

What is knowledge, and how do we acquire it? No Western philosopher even comes close to the way the Orthodox Church answers these questions. According to Orthodox Tradition, "the source of Orthodox spiritual knowledge is divine revelation given to the Prophets, the Apostles, the Church Fathers and the Saints of every age, even to the present time, during the experience of 'theosis".(vision of the divine reality- emphases mine). Fr John Romanides

According to St Maximos the Confessor, "The soul would never be able to reach out toward the knowledge of God if God did not allow Himself to be touched by it through condescension and by raising it up to him. Indeed the human mind as such would not have the

strength to raise itself to apprehend any divine illumination did not God Himself draw it up, as far as it is possible for the human mind to be drawn, and illumine it with divine brightness". From 'Maximos Confessor Selected Writings', Chapters on Knowledge #31 p.134, Trans. by George C. Berthold, The Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press New York 1985

This indeed was the experience of the Apostles,"When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, 'Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?' So they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' He said to them, But who do you say that I am?' Simon Peter answered and said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. 'Jesus answered and said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 16:13-17 NKJV

During the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the pattern of the way to the knowledge of God was revealed in the experience of the Apostles Peter, John and James, "Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.

And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three   tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud over-shadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “ This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone." Matthew 17:1-8 NASB

This experience was not to be exclusive to the three closest disciples but it became also the way in which the other disciples (who saw the Lord after the resurrection) and generations of saints have seen the Lord and have acquired the knowledge of God, for centuries, even
unto our present day.

Fr John Romanides tells us that, "When you behold God Who is Love, then faith in God and all the concepts related to faith, together with hope in God and all the concepts related to hope are set aside. The concepts are taken away, because they are replaced by the vision of the Beloved Himself. During an experience of 'theosis' or glorification, this Love is the vision of God. Then a person is glorified. He sees Christ in glory and partakes of the glory of Christ. He experiences participation in God. 

Theosis is not an ecstasy. It is not something that only the human rational faculty experiences.  During the experience of theosis, the entire man participates in this experience. Even the body participates with all its senses in normal working order. When someone sees Christ in glory, that person is completely alert. So this person does not see something in his mind. He sees with his

body as well.

When the uncreated Light becomes visible, it is much more luminous and intense than the light of the sun, and yet it is by nature different from sunlight. It is the very Light of the Transfiguration. In fact, this Light is not even light as we understand it and are familiar with it. Why not? Because the uncreated Light transcends light.

Although the saint is in a supra-natural state during an experience of theosis, he continues to mix with those around him as before. The only difference is that he does not eat, sleep, or relieve himself for the duration of this state, since his condition is above nature and his life is sustained solely by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

If this state lasts for forty days and forty nights, as it did with Moses on Mount Sinai, the person in this state does not sleep, does not grow tired, does not eat, does not drink, and so forth for so many days and so many nights."
Patristic Theology pp. 73, 74,75 by Fr John Romanides, Uncut Mountain Press 2008.

What is the place of dogma and the scriptures after the experience of revelation has taken place? What happens after the vision of Christ in glory?" Fr Sophrony of Essex who himself experienced the vision of God in Uncreated Light tells us that, "A genuine theological process has revelation 'from above' as its starting point: the intellect can only theologize on the basis of the given revelation.

In church tradition the datum of revelation is encapsulated in the form of dogma: 'The human spirit, confronted by dogma, will then look for its own ways to assimilate the gifts of divine revelation and to appropriate what they contain. This predominance of revelation in theology determines the task of theology: in fact, it is not a speculative building up of new theological systems with a more perfected logical framework, but an exposition of the datum 'from above' and an integration of the divine revelation into the categories of human experience and expression. "Theological development fundamentally has no other function than that of rendering unchangeable dogmatic truths accessible to souls by 'translating' them into a language suited to the men for whom they were intended." ( Fr Sophrony in 'La felicite de connaitre la voie' p. 25-26).  From 'I Love therefore I am' p.41-42, Nicholas V. Sakharov, SVS Press 2002

And as Fr John Romanides explains above, the direct vision of Christ in glory communicates the knowledge of God to the heart of man in a way that human language, concepts and images cannot contain or express in its fullness. The human nous (sometimes translated mind but not to be confused with the brain or reason), is the organ of the soul by which man can know God and have communion with Him. The nous knows intuitively, that is, it knows by direct immediate knowledge without the need of discourse (deductive reasoning). 'The divine initiative through revelation presupposes a personal relationship between the recipient (man) and the source of the revelation (God). Spiritual Knowledge is 'living', ontological, and personal." 'I Love therefore I am'
p.42-43

St Gregory Palamas stresses the importance of the Christian's need of purification and sanctification to acquire knowledge of God in the 'Triads' where he wrote, "One who has cleared his soul of all connection with things of this world, who has detached himself from everything by keeping the commandments and by the dispassion that this brings, and who has passed beyond all cognitive activity through continuous, sincere and immaterial prayer, and who has been abundantly illuminated by the inaccessible light in an inconceivable union, he alone, becoming light, contemplating by the light and beholding the light, in the vision and enjoyment of this light recognizes truly that God is transcendentally radiant and beyond comprehension; he glorifies God not only beyond his nous's human power of understanding, for many created things are beyond that, but even beyond that marvelous union which is the only means by which the nous is united with what is beyond intelligible things, `imitating divinely the supracelestial nouses" St Gregory Palamas *

(See Note) Quoted by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos in his article, "Knowledge of God According to St Gregory Palamas Source

This is what the Apostle Paul means when he writes to the Church of Corinth, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6.

As Professor Harry Boosalis explains, notice how brilliantly the Apostle connects these three things, knowledge of God, the vision of the Uncreated Light of the Glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ.

This knowledge is communicated directly and immediately to the heart of Christ's disciple who is striving to keep the commandments and purify his heart.

The Lord assures us that, "He who loves me will keep my word and my Father shall love him and we will come and dwell in him" John 14:23

"This communion in being is realized by the indwelling of God, of the Holy Spirit in man, by which man goes beyond the categories of empirical knowledge and is lifted up to the contemplation of the Divine reality. According to Father Sophrony, "Only the dwelling
in us of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit will give us authentic knowledge of God" 'I Love therefore I am" p.44-45

St Maximos the Confessor also, explains the experience of the transfiguration in a very moving way. It brings consolation and hope to us who are striving in the hope to see the Lord, "For the Lord does not always appear in glory to those who are standing before Him; rather, He comes in the form of a servant to beginners,... Thus it is possible for the Lord

not to appear in the same form to all those who meet him, but to some in one way and to others in another way, that is, by varying the contemplation (of Him) according to the measure of faith in each one." 

Maximos Confessor Selected Writings p.150

Thus we begin to understand the words of our Lord when He said, " You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life." John 5:39-40 NASB 

St Maximos, filled with the Spirit and with clear vision fully understands the meaning of the Transfiguration and the place of the Scriptures in relation to the revelation. With words that sound more like a hymn of praise than a dogmatic statement he bears witness toHim who is the Truth,

"When the Word of God becomes bright and shinning in us, and His face is dazzling as the sun, then also will His clothes be radiant, that is, the clear and distinct words of the Holy Scripture of the Gospels now no longer veiled. Then Moses and Elijah will stand beside Him, that is, the more spiritual meanings of the Law and the Prophets." Maximos Confessor Selected Writings p.150, Trans. by George C. Berthold, Paulist Press 1985

St John Chrysostoms  encourages us to read and study the scriptures while remembering that our Lord

Jesus Christ is the Revelation Himself,

"It were indeed meet for us not at all to require the aid of the written word, but to exhibit a life so pure, that the grace of the Spirit should be instead of books to our souls, and that as these are inscribed with ink, even so should our hearts be with the Spirit. But, since we have utterly put away from us this grace, come, let us at any rate embrace the second best course.

For that the former was better, God hath made manifest, both by His words, and by His doings. Since unto Noah, and unto Abraham, and unto his offspring, and unto Job, and unto Moses too, He discoursed not by writings, but Himself by Himself, finding their mind pure. But after the whole people of the Hebrews had fallen into the very pit of wickedness, then and thereafter was a written word, and tables, and the admonition which is given by these.

And this one may perceive was the case, not of the saints in the Old Testament only, but also of those in the New. For neither to the apostles did God give anything in writing, but instead of written words He promised that He would give them the grace of the Spirit: for “He,” saith our Lord, “shall bring all things to your remembrance.”

And that thou mayest learn that this was far better, hear what He saith by the Prophet: “I will make a new covenant with you, putting my laws into their mind, and in their heart I will write them,” and, 'they shall be all taught of God.” And Paul too, pointing out the same superiority, said, that they had received a law “not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.'

But since in process of time they made shipwreck, some with regard to doctrines, others as to life and manners, there was again need that they should be put in remembrance by the written word. Reflect then how great an evil it is for us, who ought to live so purely as not even to need written words, but to yield up our hearts, as books, to the Spirit; now that we have lost that honor, and are come to have need of these, to fail again in duly employing even this second remedy.
For if it be a blame to stand in need of written words, and not to have brought down on ourselves the grace of the Spirit; consider how heavy the charge of not choosing to profit even after this assistance, but rather treating what is written with neglect, as if it were cast forth without purpose, and at random, and so bringing down upon ourselves our punishment with increase.

But that no such effect may ensue, let us give strict heed unto the things that are written; and let us learn how the Old Law was given on the one hand, how on the other the New Covenant." Homily 1 from the Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew Source

With compunction of heart we must entreat our Lord Jesus Christ and pray,

"Sanctify me by your mysteries, illumine my mind with knowledge of you, cause your hope to shine forth in my heart, deem me worthy to supplicate for it, God my Father and Lord of my life; illumine your lamp within me, place in me what belongs to you so that I may forget what belongs to myself.

Cast upon me the constraint of wonder at you, so that the constraint of nature may be overpowered by it. Stir upon within me the vision of your mysteries so that I may become aware of what was placed in me at holy baptism. 

You have placed within me a guide: may he show me your glory at all times. You made me to be light and salt for the world: may I not prove a stumbling-block for my companions.

Seeing that I have left the world, may I never again look back to it and to the things which I renounced when I made my promise to you.

Cast reigns of delight upon my heart, so that my senses may not gaze beyond the paths of your law. Rig together my impulses for the ship of repentance, so that in it I may exult as I travel over the world's sea until I reach the haven of your hope.

When I am tempted, may my mind take courage from the recollection of you. Illumine the dark path before me by the brilliance that comes from awareness of you," St Isaac the Syrian The Prayers of St Isaac the Syrian p.16, Trans. by Sebastian Brock, Divine Ascent

Press 2011.

*Note
Dr Christopher Veniamin, in his Notes to the Homilies
of St Gregory Palamas, p. 533 n.26 writes,

"We should point out here that in the theology of St Gregory Palamas, as in the case with the Patristic tradition more widely, there is no room for an 'analogy of being' (analogia entis), and thus also for a 'natural theology', that is to say, he does not believe that we may come to a knowledge of God through knowledge of creation. According to St. Gregory, knowledge of God can only be attained by divine revelation, which means through direct and unmediated communion with God Himself. The natural theology of the post-Augustinian western theological tradition, therefore, which claims that knowledge of God is obtainable by reason alone, is not to be confused with 'natural contemplation, (φυσικη θεωρια), which is found in the Fathers, and which refers to the spiritual vision of creation made possible only by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And in Note 27 Dr Veniamin adds, "...On the deeper spiritual level, when man is illumined by the grace of the Holy Spirit - and so sees created things spiritually and not merely according to the senses- he is able to discern that the whole creation is ordered and bound together in the divine Logos (the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ).

Saint Gregory Palamas The Homilies, edited and translated from the original Greek by Dr. Christopher Veniamin, Mount Thabor Publishing 2009

See also, "Double Knowledge according to St Gregory Palamas by Dr. Π. Κ. Χρήστου (P. Christou)
Από: Π. Κ. Χρήστου, Θεολογικά Μελετήματα, τ. 3 (Νηπτικά και Ησυχαστικά), Θεσσαλονίκη 1977

A Guide to the Heart-The Most Holy Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary

The Most Holy Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary, Our Panagia

"Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the House of David. The virgin's name was Mary (Mariam in Hebrew). And having come in, the angel said to her,"Rejoice highly favoured one, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women!"  

Then the angel said to her, Do not be afraid Mary for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew). He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the Throne of His father David. And He will reign over the House of Jacob forever and of His kingdom there will be no end. Then Mary said to the angel, How can this be since I know no man? And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the Power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, also that Holy One who will be born will be called the Son of God". From the Gospel of Luke 1:26-35


"O holy Virgin Mary, tell us, thy children, of thy love on earth for thy Son and God.
Tell us how thy spirit rejoiced in God thy Saviour.
Tell us of how thou didst look upon His fair countenance,
and reflect that this was He Whom all the heavenly hosts wait upon in awe and love.
Tell us what thy soul felt when thou didst bear the wondrous Babe in thine arms.
Tell us of how thou disdt rear Him,
how sick at heart, thou and Joseph sought Him three long days in Jerusalem.
Tell us of thine agony when the Lord was delivered to be crucified,
and lay dying on the cross.
Tell us what joy was thine over the Resurrection.
Tell us how thy soul languished after the Lord's Ascencion.
We long to know of thy life on earth with the Lord but thou wast not minded to commit all these things in writing, and didst veil thy secret heart, in silence." A hymn by St Silouan the Athonite.


My love for the Theotokos is a new dimension in my life. As a Protestant I did not really understand Her place in Orthodox worship. But when I became Orthodox, when I became a member of the Orthodox 'family' I begun to understand why we love her so much. The place of the Theotokos is a mystery of the Church. And it is a mystery that is only to be known and experienced by the members of our Orthodox family. The saints know this better than anyone else. It is a matter of relationship. She is the the most humble of human beings. So even in Her ministry to us she is a mother, really. Mothers do not sound the trumpet before them while they take care of their children, they just love their children. It is a natural thing. And I know she loves us no matter what. No saint has become a saint without a close relationship with the Theotokos. The self-acting prayer of Jesus in the heart is Her gift. 

Many saints have received this gift while praying before Her icon.
 Saint Silouan the Athonite tells us that;
"Once when I was a young novice I was praying before an icon of the Mother of God, and the Jesus Prayer entered into my heart  and there begun to repeat itself of its own accord". "Here is a wondrous thing which passes understanding: she dwells in heaven and ever beholds the glory of God, yet she does not forget us, poor wretches that we are, and spreads her compassion over the whole earth, over all peoples. And this most pure Mother of His, the Lord has bestowed on us. She is our joy and our expectation. She is our Mother in the spirit, and kin to us by nature, as a human being, and every Christian soul leaps to her in love". From Saint Silouan the Athonite by Archimandrite Sophrony p.391,393.

"If one examines all the feasts of the Orthodox Church carefully one realises that the Church wants to connect our life with Christ. The ecclesial year begins on the 1st of September and finishes at the end of August. At the beginning of September we celebrate the Birth of the Theotokos. It is with the birth of the Most Holy Mother of Christ that the backwards countdown for man's salvation starts. The ecclesial year continues with the Nativity of Christ up to Pentecost, which is the feast of man's deification, and ends up with the glorious Dormition of the Panagia which shows the glory that a man can reach when he is united with Christ. 

Thus, keeping the analogy, that what happened with Panagia should also happen to us, Christ should be born in our heart". The Feasts of the Lord p.11, by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, Trans. by Esther Williams, Birth of the Theotokos Monastery 2003.

 According to St Symeon the New Theologian (Ethical Discourse 1) the saints are related to the Theotokos in three ways;
"First they are related because of human nature, since both they and she come from the same clay and the same breath. The Panagia was the Mother of God, but at the same time she was also a human being as we are.

Secondly, they are related because it is through the flesh taken from her that they have a part in common with her" When we commune of the sacraments, of the Body and Blood of Christ, we commune of the deified flesh of the Word which He assumed from the Virgin. Therefore as St Symeon teaches, in communing of the Body and Blood of Christ, we commune also of the flesh of the Theotokos.

Thirdly, the saints are related to the Panagia "because through the holiness in spirit which came to them thanks to her, each one conceives and also possesses in himself the God of all, just as she possessed Him within herself". From St Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite by Metr. Hierotheos Vlachos p.270.

The Most Holy Virgin is our foremost guide to the heart because, as Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos tells us ; "When the nous( in St Paul's terminology 'spirit', the nous is the energies of the heart, the spiritual organ by which it has communion with God) withdraws from God and wanders in search of sensory things, it is ill and this in reality is man's illness. The nous needs to be cured first: to be freed from all its slavery to created things, and to be liberated from all the sensations of created things. There must be forgetfullness of things below, laying aside of all concepts, and then initiation into the things above. This is called hesychia of the nous and is also called 'the way of hesychia' and 'holy hesychia'. 

In attaining health of his soul through holy hesychia a person attains the vision of God, by which he is deified. Using this method we are relieved of lower things and turn towards God. Our Panagia used precisely the same method, according to St Gregory Palamas, and in the holy of holies she attained deification by Grace and became a borderline between uncreated and created". Ibid p.281-282

"She transmits grace to the saints 'in order that as in charge of the office where holiness is given, she may convey gifts of holiness to all without exception, without leaving anyone without a share, even of the hidden things of the universe, that is to say of those inaccessible things" St Gregory Palamas in Homily 53, Ibid. p.295. "and so also in the coming unending age every advance in divine illumination and every revelation of the most divine mysteries and every idea of spiritual gifts is impossible to contain without her. She, having first received the fullness of that which fills the universe, made it containable to all, bestowing on each according to the ability and measure of his purity. The Panagia is both treasury and office for granting the wealth of the divinity" St Gregory Palamas in Homily 53, Ibid p.296

"She also is a cause of those before her and patron of those after her and a cause of things eternal; she is a promise of the prophets, foundation of the Apostles, support of the martyrs, platform of the teachers, she is the glory of those on earth, the delight of those in heaven, the adornment of all creation; she is also the principle and source and root of the ineffable good things, she is the summit and completion of every saint" St Gregory Palamas in Homily 53, Ibid p.297

We should all long for the day when our purification is complete, when along with all the saints we may join the Theotokos in worship to God saying; "My soul doth magnify the Lord , and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things and holy is His name. And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation". Luke 1: 46-50

Therefore, let us  pray;
"O Virgin Lady, O Mother of the man-befriending God! Direct my heart to contrition and humble it; fill mine eyes with saving tears and illuminate them with the light of thy prayers, that I might not fall asleep in the sleep of death. 

Sprinkle me with the hyssop of thy loving kindness and cleanse me. Wash me with my tears, that I might be made whiter than snow.

O Mother of my Lord Jesus Christ, receive this my shameful confession and mine entreaty. Ravish my mind and keep the remainder of my life in repentance without offence.

At the time when my humble soul departs from my body, when - woe is me - I will have to speak with the enemies outside the gates; then O Lady, regard me with thy merciful eye; free me from all the merciless tormentors and the terrible taskmasters of the prince of this age; be my defender and destroy all record of my sins. Lead me saved and unashamed to the throne of thy Son and His unoriginate Father and the All Holy Spirit- the Light- creating Trinity, one in essence". St Ephraim the Syrian in 'A Spiritual Psalter' p.229
Amen!