The question that has been asked by both simple people and [more] educated ones is: If the mind rules us, how could we reach at revelation? The space is too narrow here to look at Ibn Sina [Avicenna], Al-Farabi [Alpharabius] and Ibn Rushd [Averroes] from the Muslims or at Thomas Aquinas, who were engaged with the relationship between the Holy Books and philosophy and they had different answers. Thus, I will not raise the question of the relationship between revelation and reason. In Christianity, and among the different denominations, there is no one answer. The Catholic Church has stated at the First Vatican Council (1870) that God can be known by reason alone, while in the Orthodox Church there is no such attempt to reach at reason apart from any power within us. The independence of reason, from any other power within us, is inconceivable by my understanding of faith.

The skeptical ones depart from the point that every person should perceive the truth. If this was true, why then people differ in everything? Why does a person change his/[her] mind from time to time? Truth exists in itself and it reaches you through means already present within you. However, is there only one mediator between you and Truth and that is reason? or is it the heart, or a union between both? so that reason descends to the heart in order to be purified in it and thereupon rises to its rank purified, and then it can know God.

An attempt to respond to this research is that God “breathed into his [the man’s] nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2: 7) The soul is the whole inner human existence, including the feelings, the mind and the will. And if we consider Darwin’s theory on the origin of species, we find out that there is a big chasm between the animal and the human being, since the human spirit, with all its energies, has no parallel with the animal. The human being is a speaking being not in the sense that he/[she] can utter or speak, but in the sense that his/[her] speech is unified and he/[she] can communicate with another making use of his/[her] rationality and all these powers merge in him/[her] to express about the human being in a unified way. Thus, there is no such pure rational expression, or pure psychic expression, rather all these energies interact and receive reason by viewing the light and it coveys this view through words, behavior and attitudes.

It has been written by Paul, “The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam (i.e., Christ) became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical”. [1Cor. 15: 45-46 (RSV version)] (NJB version: ‘natural’ [in place of ‘physical’]) Both translations of the word are incorrect. The Greek term ‘Psuchikos’ [yuciko,j] is related to the soul or the psychic. Adam was born with a soul in the sense of a natural person, while the spirituality of Divine Spirit descends upon him later on through Christ. Paul did not say a rational being, or a speaking being, in the sense of being able to pronounce words. The emphasis of the New Testament is that the inner power facing the body is not the mind, rather the soul, which involves the mind and other things with it (feelings, will).

At ancient times, the Greek had said that the human mind is distorted by the desires. Thus, the mind is susceptible to disturbance. The human being does not speak only out of mere, pure mind. He/ [she] speaks [also] out of affection and intention. In Christian Orthodox theology the mind, like all our inner powers, has been stricken by the ancestral sin (the first ancestor), thus it is incurred like any other energy in the soul. The human being is not mind, rather he/[she] is endowed with mind. However, we might say that the human being is a soul, since it embraces all its energies.

Once, in a religious conversation, a friend of mine has insisted on the mind. I responded to him telling that there are thousands of things we do without using the static closed mind, thus without [making use of] all our energies. Then, I added, was your marriage the result of a mental procedure?

If truth is the light that God has thrown into the heart, the heart might become free of its caprices, i.e., God molds your soul in order that you might see, since your soul must approach the innermost divine so that it might perceive. Thus, if a believer is asked to give rational evidence, you may try some ways, and here perception might support your mind. However, most of the times, you would not be able to elucidate fully whatever is happening within you.

First, you submit your heart to God, and whenever you believe, then, you would be brought to reason. Thus, it is not that you come to reason first and then you believe. People have told me more than once: prove to us the existence of God. I have said I cannot, since I start with God. God is my proof, and I do not reach at God through decisive proofs. God does not need proofs to reveal Godself to you and you do not need proofs in order to embrace God. There is an inner understanding to which Christianity refers as the grace of the Creator. And the Book says, “[God] who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1Tim.2: 4) This is a biblical testimony that God bestows grace upon all humanity, and that some accept it, since their soul is in a state of receptivity of the light, other souls are not; and no one provisions the secret of one’s own self or of others. We, the believers, can witness and the testimony is either attained or not. You have seen, heard, accepted, settled for and obeyed, thus, you have lived the new life as if you have moved, from now, to the face of God. There are however those who are still in need of the Savior’s touch so that their eyes might open and see.

You believe in God because something has moved in your soul, while your Lord has founded [that thing] within you. St. Maximus the Confessor, who had lived in Palestine and most probably was an Arab, said that you read God in the universe, who made everything in it through the Word, which was from the beginning. Truly, the universe is [of] words. Justin Martyr (second century), the philosopher from Neapolis [today’s Nablus], said that before the New Testament God has sown God’s words in creation and in Greek philosophy. These were somehow divine incarnations before God has accomplished the incarnation of the Son of God in creation. Maximus concluded that the Holy Spirit is everywhere, and whenever you try to clarify his thought he would be saying that the Divine Spirit is disseminated everywhere. You have to search for it in this or that Christian or non-Christian, to search for it in persons, whoever were they. Maximus had denounced Judaism as a religious system; however, he did not deny the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Jewish persons.

You might perceive this Spirit in all people surrounding you, whenever they were devout, and you might observe their ascent to the Truth. This does not mean that Jesus of Nazareth reveals Himself to them through His Gospel, since God has ways through which God reveals Godself to the ones God has loved. In this sense the Church is not limited to the ones baptized, rather it extends to all whose Lord [God] has chosen them through God’s compassion. They might be Monotheists, Hindus or Buddhists. And God will elucidate at the Last Day who are God’s, and God’s are all whom God had touched through God’s Spirit and had put God’s Word according to God’s volition.

It remains that there is evangelization or calling whenever you think that whatever you believe in is the proper way, [however] this is based on the reality that people are free. They might see what you see, yet, you should neither condemn anyone nor pronounce judgments concerning the other ways [of different religions] or any human being, who does not believe in what you believe. Thus, do not pass a judgment concerning the way anyone pursues [in faith], rather share life with him/[her] in love and peace. Love is the culmination of revelation, while peace accompanies freedom.

This presumes the coexistence of people from different religions. Thus, do not kill anyone, do not suppress anyone and do not impose a life, or orders from your own on him/[her], and God will not give an opinion in the religion of anyone of us on the Last Day, rather God judges the person as a person. Do not condemn anyone to fire, since the Creator has not entitled you to pronounce such judgment. God [the Creator] manifests Godself to every creature on the Last Day and saves him/[her] from suffering, whenever he/[she] was not among those condemned to suffering.

“When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves” (Rom. 2: 14). Your conscience rules over you and if you were sincere to God, God perceives you as belonging to God and tells you this on the Day when God judges the inner depth of every person. Then, this glory comes.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “أنوارعلى العقل” –An Nahar- 08.03.2008

Those who admire their own person are many. All of them find in themselves values which spring from their own reality. They always pride themselves composing themselves out of a series of merits, since they think that without these merits they are nothing and the human being does not opt for nothing. Thus, it is inevitable that most people make up an image for themselves and usually they think that nothing resembles them. The human being fears moral death before fearing the physical death. That is why through these beauties, which appear to the person, he/[she] lives. This is conceit, which is followed by pride, in which the human subject regards his/[her] own self as above all people. There is, therefore, a kind of worship of the self. There is always a kind of a polytheism concealed to the person him/[her]self. Pride in its culmination is contempt of the other and the realization and the laudation (whether spoken or non-spoken) of the self.

Arrogance might occur as the outcome of praise, and by praise pride is brought about, and the avidity for the first position in this or that domain. We read by St. John of the Ladder: “An old man once admonished spiritually a proud brother, who answered him, “Forgive me, father, but I am not proud.” “My son,” said the wise old man, “what better proof of your pride could you have given than to claim that you were not proud?”.

Every person is the victim of illusion. And from this follows that the arrogant person despises the meek ones. The detestation of those is a detestation of the ones intimate to God, since God is meekness. Thus, our Fathers have not mistaken when they thought that pride is the greatest sin, since it denotes that in your conscience you think that no one is like you and that you are becoming like God, as Adam believed.

The problem of the arrogant person is that most of the times he/[she] does not know his/[her] self. In addition to that, whenever grace does not descend on the person from above, he/[she] becomes unable to differentiate in him/[her]self and thinks that only he/[she] is gifted, disregarding that he/[she] is inflated concerning his/[her] talents; while he/[she] would never think so. Hence, one needs some virtues, such as benevolence, so that one might improve oneself whenever one believes that benevolence is a divine inspiration. One might perform good deeds since those could increase his/[her] exaltation, unknowing that the ones toward whom he/[she] does a favor are generally better than him/[her]. The spiritual beauties should be founded on humility; otherwise they would become veiled frailties. One might consider that he/[she] does not commit adultery, does not steal, does not lie, nevertheless, these prohibitions are of no good whenever they strengthen one’s pride. Those sanctified ones have taught us that whenever you practice abstinence, yet you remain an unloving person, you would disgrace your chastity, thus you are nothing. Love alone strikes arrogance and tears it apart since it is an admission concerning the Other and this admission alone makes you. Our Bible shows us how to flee fornication and the other sins. Our Fathers have set laws to tear sin apart. However, sin continues to exist, whenever you think that you became virtuous because you practice abstinence. Abstinence is nothing whenever it is not clothed with love, through which hearts do not break.

Some might think that you are arrogant, because you might have a manner of handling things that they do not understand or like, or, because of your liveliness, they think you do not address them for you are bumptious. Examine yourself after every utterance. What matters is how God would see you on the Last Day, or before your passing away. However at the end you would not realize your conceit unless your conscience rebukes you for that, since arrogance would be finally broken in order that it might be replaced by love.

In contrast to this magnification of the self and the continuous life in illusion, humility seems to be an imaginative contraction of the self, even if the humble person is the greatest man on earth. He/[she] might find in him/[her]self natural virtues, such as beauty, intelligence and others, yet they remain within their [original] range since the person does not pride him/[her]self on them. All the natural virtues we have come with creation, or we inherit them from the righteous ones, who are oriented toward changing the universe. You thank for a possession or a privation. Though the way differs, yet, both are divine inclination.

The humble does not dwarf him/[her]self, since he/[she] does not deprive people from their rights and at the same time he/[she] does neither judge nor scourge him/[her]self. He/[she] receives with thankfulness and lacks with thankfulness. Concerning divine generosity no word is left for you other than what the tax-collector has said in the Gospel, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” [Luke 18: 13] The two states are true for you, that you are a sinner and that God is compassionate, and whenever you perceive God’s compassion you are released from any guilt however great it was. Whenever the sinner perceives God’s grace descending on him/[her], swallowing up completely his/[her] guilt, he/[she] perceives him/[her]self as nothing, while perceiving God’s compassion as everything. This is the humble person.

For Christians Jesus is the prototype of the humble person, who said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11: 29). Since years this verse has been challenging me. It raises in me the question: why had the Master referred only to these two virtues, while he has innumerable virtues. Maybe He perceived in humility the culmination, since it can advance to that which is above it, while you cannot reach at it unless you trample on all desires. And in the artistic domain humility is [represented] in the Orthodox Church through the icon of Christ – the bridegroom, who is painted as descending to the tomb naked, in order that He might completely disappear in flesh and rise from the dead. Christ is the bridegroom (or Khatan in Syriac [which means the son-in-law]) since he abides by the will of God, not His human will and through His death He marries the whole humanity.

Here is what the great saint Isaac the Syriac, who was born in Qatar, maintained: “To speak of humility is to speak of God. It is the raiment of the Godhead. The Word who became human clothed himself in it, and he spoke to us in our body. Everyone who has been clothed with humility has truly been made like unto Him who came down from his own exaltedness and hid the splendor of his majesty and concealed his glory with humility.”

What does this statement mean for us? It means that God’s life is hidden within us and it “what we will be has not been revealed yet”. [1Jo 3: 2] At such hiddenness you cannot reveal God unless you hide yourself. God reveals Godself through you whenever you conceive the measure of hiddenness; I mean the measure of your considering yourself as nothing.

I had a great Syrian friend, settled in Switzerland. I had raised him in his youth on Orthodox faith and our youth had been flaming by the Spirit. Then, he became the friend of Arab leaders, from all different countries, and he had been hosting several of them at his residence. Once, after his death, one of his daughters has invited me at her table. She said to me, my father has been treating the servants at our home with the same politeness and respect that he used to treat the leaders of Arab countries.

Whether you were rich or great among the educated ones, remember what has been stated in Mary’s song according to the Gospel of Luke, “He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree.” (Luke 1: 52) If you say: I am an honorable person among my people, then, you would be making an attestation about your education or leadership. God alone raises you and whenever you consider yourself above another, then, you hurt him/[her]. That is why Jesus connected meekness [or gentleness] to humility, since meekness becomes in the Other an honey in his mouth, clearing all protrusions between you and Others, as it is the result of humility or the way for it. Who are your people?  “Surely the people is grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever.” (Is. 40: 7-8)

The one who consider him/[her]self highly would say that he/[she] is speaking and the Other does not speak, since whoever speaks becomes something, while the Other, from the beginning, is nothing. Arrogance is a moral invalidation of the Other, i.e. a kind of extermination. [If] you are arrogant, you set for yourself a throne that you have not inherited it, or let us assume that you have inherited it. You remain on your earthly reality, your bones and flesh, and all of them are perishable. Until, through repentance, your Lord raises you from the spiritual death here. Thus, you might know that you are inferior to all people.

In the fourteenth century, the prince of Moldavia had written to the crown prince (who was going to rule the emirate): “Do not covet to become a bishop, an abbot or a prince. Do not covet, since all this is the glory of the world.” On the Last Day you will be given glory, whenever you resolve to distance yourself from the glories of this world. And God might destroy the throne, which your imagination has constructed it for you, in order that you might become from those who have hunger. Yearn for God so that God might sit you on God’s heavenly throne.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “التواضع” –An Nahar- 16-02-2008

Friendship is your relatedness to another in a specific way and it is reciprocal in honesty and abundant in intimacy, without [pursuing] any benefit in this world. [Friendship] is a mystery, since you do not know how it befalls, and in French literature we read, “This is my friend, since he is he and I am I.” The two sides [of friendship] are recipient of divine love. [Friendship] has no condition other than the continuous virtue of the two friends and it is [founded] on truthfulness alone, while itself has the power of its own endurance. In this sense, though it might look like a dual relationship, yet God, whether you name God or no, is in its midst. God strengthens and nourishes it, so that both sides might reach at complete transparency.

[Friendship] exists among people, since none of us can live in isolation. Everyone needs integrity and a supportive communion in order that he/[she] might perceive his/[her] existence, not only in his/[her] own characteristics, but also in the Other’s, which support him/[her]. It is a communion of life and collaboration. You are in need of someone who takes care of you and supports you, someone who purifies you and raises you from spiritual death, whenever it strikes you. Thus, it is a resurrective power because of the joy it brings and because of the one you receive. Joy comes from the paschal essence inherent in every human being.

There is disclosedness in being truthful, since you are looking for help, and [you desire] to free yourself and rise. There is no such breaking of the commitment [that you have made] to give [to one another], so that you might not become confined and return to your desert, falling into despair. Aristotle had said, “O my friends, there is no friend.” No, there are truthful people, who desire to become more virtuous and they choose the noble ones to raise them up. No doubt, not all friends enjoy equal friendliness, however there would be a friend whom you need, similar to your need of a spouse. Friendliness has levels, and those who are abundant in both friendliness and purity are rare, since virtues are rare and arduous. And whenever they become deficient in the person, then, the relationship vanishes and your choice become wrong.

However, when friendship lasts it means that it has descended from heaven and thus, it is not a passing intimacy. And here we must refer to love [in its divine sense], which does not carry the sense of specification, rather it brings all together. Its goal is any human being, whether he/[she] gave you [something] or no, whether he/[she] returned your service back or didn’t. It is absolutely free, i.e., it is not based on any reciprocity or exchange. You love someone since he/[she] needs you, or more accurately, since he/[she] needs divine giving present in you. You might serve him/[her] and leave, and you might not return to him/[her] unless you know that he/[she] is in need of you and you of him/[her]. He/[she] is a mere human being, who cries, suffers, or is isolated and you become his/[her] savior, since God has delegated you for a saving act at an appropriate time, and then God might delegate you to save another. You walk in the desert of existence to come to the aid of an abandoned person, and you become indigent of him/[her] whenever you give. You might become completely, or almost completely, indigent in materialistic sense, since existence belongs to the Other, who is with you, and through giving him/[her] you are giving (or lending) God, as the Bible maintains [See: Proverbs 19: 17]. This is the perfect giving, since you were wiped out to ascend the Other in order that he/[she] might not be wiped out by the hardness of the hearts.

Thus, it does not matter for you whether he/[she] follows the same religion as yours, or a different religion, or whether he/[she] is embellished by divine glory or the devil’s ugliness, since you have decided to see God in him/[her]. Doctrines are different and love is one for all people, since through that you became the friend of God.

In the gospels, there are many references to generous [free] giving. We cite from Luke this saying: “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” (Luke 6: 35) And here we have a theological point that free giving raises you from the rank of slaves to the rank of children. And the subsequent point is that the wicked ones are also children, since in God’s view all people are equal in value and their rank as children is freely given.

This reading of mine is founded on his saying after the previous words: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. … A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” When you give, God gives you abundantly. God deals with you in a way better than the way you deal with others. The Gospel passes over calculation.

Therefore, he could say, “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good”. (Luke 6: 45) Thus, you do not look [to the Other] through human wisdom, which tells you to look at your treasure and give whatever you could in order that something is left for you. Rather, divine wisdom that is within you tells you to look through your loving heart and give whatever your heart orders you to give, so that your heart might pour forth. And if you were not bound to one penny, you hand that penny over to the Other and give in order to save your heart from death, of which parsimony is one side. Parsimony is to defend that whatever you have is essential for you. However, nothing in world is essential unless you devote it to the Other, and God will recompense love by love. And in case you were not essentially set aside for divine love, whenever you give, God will endow you with personal love since you are a son/[daughter] as all children and God is free with God’s friends. In this sense, God is not the beloved of those prestigious ones; rather God is their lover. The lover of God might reach a point where God does not perceive him/[her] as merely a lover, rather as the essence of love [in the sense of eros], as St. Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 117) had said about Christ, “Christ, my Eros, has been crucified”.

The Holy Bible has borrowed both terms: compassion and compassionate [in Arabic: raḥma; raḥīm] from the womb [raḥm] of the woman. The root of the words [in Arabic] is one, thus, the rational meaning is taken out of the sensible. The compassion of the heart involves the amplitude, which gives birth for many children, and if we were all the children of God, after we were set free from the slavery of sin, we receive compassion through God’s nature, without measuring, distinction or judgment. That is why our ascetic Fathers, who fought the good fight, [who were exposed to] non-stopping hardships, have all said that you do not enter heaven by your own strive, rather by the compassion of God, i.e., God is who accepts you with mercy, since, through belovedness that you have received, you became from the family of the Father.

Hence, God does not count your sins; rather you count them in order to repent to God, feel owe and restrain. Then, you would not remain merely an earthly human being. The Lord knows that you are made out of the earth; however, God would not look at your earthly nature, rather to what has emanated from God to you, i.e., the inherent light in you. God sees whatever God wants to see, and God’s eyes are God’s. A day will come on the way of your salvation, when you will say, “in thy light do we see light.” (Psalm 36: 9)

What mystery is all this about? The gospels have told about compassion, divine kindness, humility and meekness of Jesus of Nazareth, who is the face of God for us. One person, and that is John the Evangelist, had said, “God is Love”. At a first reading, he sounds saying that love brings together, or summarizes, all God’s attributes. At a final, refined reading, I have to say that God in God’s essence is love and not only in God’s attributes. God is love in Godself and in God’s work. All the love you have for others, far and near, pours forth within you into this love and then you will be deified or deific.

Before that, nothing is required from you here other than to love. Through the one Divine Love, you embrace both your enemy and your friend. You call upon [God] your Lord, and God responds to you, since God has nothing other than that which is in God’s essence. And in your heart remains no distinction between heaven and earth, or more accurately, whatever from the earth you have in your heart you make it a heaven, thus the Kingdom of heaven would have entered within you. Whenever you admit that [God] the Creator reigns over you, God confers upon you the Kingdom and brings you into God’s grace, sitting on God’s right side upon the throne, since Christ has sit on the Father’s right side in order that you might sit with Him.

This requires obedience from you and compassion from the Father, a calling from compassion to obedience and from obedience to compassion.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “بين الصداقة والمحبة” –An Nahar- 26-01-2008

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” [Gen.1:1]. This was not a divine emanation in the sense of the extension of divine self, so that we do not fall into pantheism, rather it was an act of love, as Augustine had said. God wanted to make, through that love, creatures who carry God’s love, or they are denotative of it. It is a power that emerged from God. God has thrown God’s scarf on the world and embraced the world, and the world still lives from divine warmth. In this sense, the Creator has been always in a situation of descent, through which the creatures rise to their Creator. There is a bond between the two, the nature of which we do not know. It [this bond] lies in our existential reality and not in the rational ability we have.

In this manner we are creative. The difference between our creativeness and the divine creativity is that God did not take an object to make the universe out of it. While we take material from nature, thought and imagination and we arrange them anew, as no one else has done before. Imitating the image of God we are called creative. Old stones do exist and you build with them a new palace.

God has first loved you through creation and then, God loves you continuously and raises you anew and you become stronger, more glorious and you enlighten others, through the light that God has thrown within you, and you raise them whenever they realize their belovedness. The human being does not exist [truly] unless another loves him/[her]. Anything else is flesh and bones, confusion of thought and storms of heart. However, there is no complete love in the world, since it is always blemished by the faults of the loving one and of the beloved. Nevertheless, whenever the beloved one feels the purity and the sublimity of the loving person and that he/[she] gives him/[her]self without expecting and return, i.e., whenever the beloved one experiences that the loving person is him/[her]self poured, then, he/[she] understands that this feeling [of love] is nothing other than a bridge to divine love, and consequently that he/[she] is the beloved of God through creation. Thus, whenever a person denies him/[her]self for the sake of the beloved one, God would be poured in the creature, chosen by another creature.

The human being does not love his/[her] slave, but he/[she] loves his/[her] son. This has been the case from the beginning. Hence, God has raised us from the rank of the slaves to the rank of the sons [and daughters]. That the human being is made of blood and flesh and at the same time is a son [a daughter] of God; this does not change a thing in the work of divine love. There is no sexuality in the relationship of divinity to us, since the Lord has no sex. Divinity works in us on a different level.

The human being is not a slave of God, since the owner of slaves would be controlling, while the loving one does not control. God longs to you and draws you to Godself with affection, and whenever you accept God you respond to God with affection, which seems to be human, however, its power descends upon you from above.

If God, historically, has sown in humanity words from God, those are nothing other than expressing the handling of human understanding of divine depth. Whenever you hear words from God, these are not permissible to pronounce them, since the tongue [does not reflect] the innermost depth, but its outward [reality]. The word that descends upon you is a nurturing word, which raises you to above. Then, there would be no difference between God, who spoke the word, and the spoken word [itself], there would be no difference between the words of the Word and the ear that hears and the heart that perceives it.

On this foundation friendship is built. It would not be possible [for friendship] to be reciprocal if you and your friend were in a relationship of slavery to God. You are free and he/[she] is free. Only the free person gives and the Other free person receives. Thus, you give the Other everything you are [or you have], and if you give him/[her] only part of what you have, then you become a slave of the other part, which you have not given.

Whatever is true for friendship is true for a married couple. Whenever each of them loves the other from a divine perspective, i.e., in freely giving [everything], then, he/[she] raises the other. This is what Paul has expressed when he said, “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5: 21) In other words, this is what it means to be merciful toward one another. A relationship means to penetrate into the person, to accept him/[her] and be poured within him/[her]. Thus, it is an act of being poured in order that one might die in [or for] the Other. Then, the question of who gives and who receives orders would not occur. And undoubtedly this adhesion between the two spirits and the two bodies is the adhesion of God to Godself, since whenever God is absent in a relationship, then there would be nothing other than a biological, residential and financial unity. [However,] unity is not cumulation. It is music. In love, each plays music with the other, and it emerges not from each of them alone, but from both in the unity of existence which is nurtured daily through bestowal.

The last domain, which imposes itself on me, concerns the relationship of the state with the citizens. The state is not on the top [of a hierarchy] and the citizenship beneath it. This would be a system of slavery. The state is nothing other than the citizens arranged in harmony, according to a particular construction entailed by the constitutions and the laws. Of course, the president, the ministers and the deputies are not in love with the people of the country, since there is a compulsory element in the state, though without subdual. However, the juristic mentality and the legal procedure do not deny compassion and they require the continuous attendance of the responsibles, and attendance does not result from other than love.

Dostoevsky has said that the state has to become a church, and this entails that love should prevail over compulsory force. Of course I long to see the Lebanese reach a stage where they become one family, with the consideration of the regulations in respect of the patronage, the opposition, the police, the military and the civil. This would not deny the religious belonging, which is an environment of warmth. It is inevitable to humanize the relations between the different classes of people and the government, without confusion or chaos.

Similarly, in the denominations where spiritual leaders are appointed, as in Christianity, or those denominations bound to scholars, as in Islam, there should be love-relations among all believers, which can heal all other relations.

In our country, there are many slaves, in different domains, finance, politics, and family life and in the connections between some leaders and their followers. This would not end unless God bestows God’s grace over this people, and the hearts willingly receive their Lord. The honor of God being poured in the soul is that the person might believe that he/[she] exists through divine delight and that he/[she] is independent of any other person. We have obtained the independence of the country, [but] we have not obtained enough independence of the persons, since we have worshiped the powerful and the tyrant ones. From this subdual, we must move toward the second creation, which takes place in our ever renewed and ever loving souls. Then, universal creativeness would spread and the Kingdom would embrace us to its depth.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “إبداع الله وإبداعنا” –An Nahar- 10.11.2007

You either encounter the Others in love, or you bring them back to yourself, your centrality and your desire. Whenever you overdo in this [second possibility], then in reality you deny and eliminate the Others. Pascal, the great, had called the self-centered ‘I’ detestable and in his language:  le moi est haïssable. You, as God has designed you, are a beloved person and this is of your essence. However, your person is existent in its individuality, since the individual [person] encounters the individual [person] with all its personhood and existence.

Through asceticism you might put the ‘I’, which takes hold of the ‘Other’, to death as possible, while the surrendering self endows you and others through you with life. However, your ‘I’ and the ‘I’ of the Other would not meet, unless you could perceive the Other as essential for you, even to breathe. I said essential and not only helpful, since I have realized that you do not exist without bountiful love, to which the loved one might reciprocate or might not. Nevertheless, in most cases, love calls upon love since it exists in every soul in its divine image.

I do not exist alone. I exist whenever another loves me and whenever he/[she] is liberated from the ‘I’ which takes hold [of another] or is been taken hold of. However, in order that you might not take hold of the Other and might not be taken hold of, there must be One who embraces both of you, One who liberates both and that is God. For a unity there must be always a triad, and I am speaking humanly. All human beings together are in the image of divine Love, which whenever falls exterminates the drastic ‘I’, i.e. destructive of itself and the Other self, and then God fails to be present.

The presentiment of the self is to help the Other, and helping means that you desire for the Other what God wants from him/[her] and that you remind the Other of the truth and not of what he/[she] thinks is useful. This might cause a shock and the Other might not feel your love whenever he/[she] considers his/[her] own benefits and pleasures which exterminate him/[her], while you want to move the Other into God. This is pictured in the family, where the father or the mother does not comply with the demands of the child, who might want that which harms him/[her] or aggrandize his/[her] desire to posses. Thus, the parents might think that deprivation could help. Similarly, the watchful state, which cares about the true welfare of its citizens, it complies with their just claims, and it does not fulfill their unjust demands. Whenever the government is good and hale, it strives for the rising of the whole state, with giving preference to the underprivileged regions over the sumptuous ones. This is the interim service, since the government and the guardianship is to serve all. This is similar to the shepherd who shepherds a hundred sheep. Whenever one of them goes astray on the mountains, he leaves the ninety-nine and goes to bring the lost one back. This is the inclusive [universal] love. The spiritual care is similar to this. The responsible, first takes care of the one, whose whims had distracted him/[her], since the rest are still within right guidance.

Such is the case with engagement in thought. You are in confrontation with another, who has thought, not to dictate on him/[her] your convictions but to give and take at the same time. This is dialogue. You confront different stances whenever you dialogue for reaching at the right thing, which you might defend or your opponent might defend (in thought), since you are a seeker of truth, which descends upon you and upon the one whom you are dialoguing.

Truth, or part of it, descends upon you, and truth, or part of it, descends upon another. Thus you take the truth wherever it is revealed, since you do not necessarily want triumph for you position. You rectify what you have said and you throw away the wickedness or the fault that you had and became conscious of. You get enriched with the rightness that your opponent had, and you make him/[her] a brother/[sister] to you. You hold fast only to that which seems to be words of divine inspiration, regardless whether this inspiration has come to you or to the Other.

In the religious domain, do not disapprove the belief of the Other and he/[she] should not disapprove yours, otherwise you would fall into controversy, while controversy has been discarded in the modern mindset. Rather, you inquire into the Other’s belief and you clarify what you believe in to the Other. Then, you leave to God the right to enlighten whoever God wills. This would not be realized without a peaceful meeting together and without the right of all people to claim whatever they think is true. This is the condition for freedom, whether for you or for the Other; otherwise you and the Other would fall into a system of oppression, if we should not say fighting.

The condition of such peace is that God guides whomever God wills. To accept this divine Mystery is the condition of your entry into dialogue, since the condition for freedom is peace. Whenever you commit yourself to dialogue, you do not pursue to bring anyone coercively into what you believe in, rather you seek the light that God throws into the heart, as ̓Imām Al- Ghazālī says. You do not liberate any human being; rather the Truth sets us all free. In Sūrat al-Kāfirūn it says: “You have your religion and I have mine.” (Sūrat al-Kāfirūn [The Unbelievers]: 6) I understand this statement as claiming the freedom of both of us, you and me, which does not prevent that I discuss with you about some points or details, without asking you to renounce what is authentic in you. Further, I hope that I can help you to find out your and my origins. The condition for such praiseworthy communication is that I love you and you love me, since this is peace. Further, the [final] purpose is that I do not embarrass you and you do not embarrass me and that we meet in all that we consider divine manifestations. Thus, I respect what you say and you respect what I say in order that we reach an understanding in this world and God reveals Godself on the Last Day.

In order that I might become what I am, and you what you are, I do not covet what you have and you do not covet what I have, otherwise I would not stay myself. God has provided me with my wants and has provided you with yours. All these are the belongings of the world while we are free from the world and all that is in it. You might long only for divine grace, which descends upon us. Hence, each of us might grow in his/[her] gifts and we might hope for the spiritual gifts that the Other has, since these are God’s gifts for all. Therefore, I long for your virtues in order that my inner reality might embellish. Thus, if you were deified and you have moved in tenderness toward me, I, in my turn, move and become deified. This is the deep communion between us, which makes us each imitate the Other since we both seek deification. We become one through divine passion that is in us. According to our spiritual books, a man knocked the door of heaven and he heard from inside someone asking, ‘who is the knocker?’ He said ‘I am’. The door was not opened for him. Then, he knocked again and he was asked ‘who is the knocker?’ He said ‘I am’. It was not opened, until he knocked for the third time, and he was asked again ‘who is the knocker?’ He said: ‘You are’. Then, the door of heaven was opened for him. The message is that whenever one unites oneself with God, he/[she] enters the Kingdom.

Accordingly, you unite your ‘I’ with another ‘I’ and you become one, with maintaining forever the person and the individuality [of each] as independent and enduring, however in interpenetration with the Other ‘I’. We do not dissolve in the Other, since this is pantheism. Nevertheless, the person would be eliminated without it being contiguous, in will and heart, with the Other person, yet without confusion.

There is no relationship without a dyad, but with no separation, since God sees you one in intimacy and intimacy would not be faultless whenever it does not share divine intimacy to every human being. God does not eliminate diversity, but God eliminates discord. Hence, the mystery of your unity resembles Divine unity. We are different persons in our longing to unity. Thus, I respect your dispositions and you respect mine, although each of us might attempt to guide the Other on this level. I might be impulsive and you might be less spontaneous. You might be great in sensitivity and I might be weak in it. Nevertheless, depending on your psychological formation, you attempt to accept me and I attempt to accept you. The origins of our dispositions do not change, yet, through acknowledging the creative affection [of the Other], one embellishes and becomes more pleasant. You endeavor, with whatever you have, to reach at the most sublime, however within the context of your human reality. This endeavor does not distinguish among people, whenever one is consciously aware, i.e. whenever one’s mind and soul is widened to embrace the Other.

Only the embraced one [truly] lives. Thus, you become a mother for all, begetting the Others within the Divine reality whenever you train yourself not to give anything other than God. You clarify your inclinations, but you do not impose them. You open yourself, but you do not disperse it by replicating the Other. You are unique even though you become bountiful. Generosity alone does not threaten a human being, and it does not dissolve him/[her]. You are unique and no other resembles you, but you are not one, since you meet another. That is the poured ‘I’, the purified one, which strives to purify itself and the Other, thus, it and the Other exist.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “الأنا والآخر” –An Nahar- 22-09-2007

The Lord is the only light that shines in the darkness of this world. All else is but misery and pastime. I can see why Man thinks that he expands himself with his pastime and that he falls back on himself due to his anguish; this is due to Man, in his shallowness, regarding himself as the center of his own existence, and extending himself horizontally in order to ease himself from the tension in his life.

And so Man is subject to his present predicament, an offspring of his illness and sorrow; he is created by the times he lives in because he believes that nothing exists outside of time and space. He lives within the confines of his body and those of his memories and hopes, that nourish the body and imagination, or he lives only through another person and revels in a slavery that deprives him of the effort of transcending himself, his entourage and his clan.

And the predicament could be a grave one like the possibility of war, poorness or war-like calamities. And no doubt also that Man is the victim of his own ignorance, poorness, richness or the conflicts in his life. And due to that or part of it, Man realizes his own depravity; he also can become miserable due to his ignorance of it. That is why the Bible calls the above situation “the valley of Baca (Tears)” where there is no end to pain, debility and the loss of dear ones.

All that evil is a part of life and it befalls the righteous as well as the evil ones. And the person who is not in touch with the Lord resorts to pleasures that lose their ability to gratify once they are experienced. Man seeks after pleasures with which he thinks he can cure his sense of alienation or heal his bitterness. He might remain the slave of his bodily pleasures if he loses the light of the Lord. Thus, while Man is waiting for the disappearance of the events that afflict him, he only finds that new calamities as painful as the former take place and are so depraving that they lead him to despair. This means that he creates his own hell, and few are those who find a way to leave this hell. I am not exaggerating when using this term because I have heard hundreds of times from the mouths of those who have chosen to describe a crisis in their family life: “my life has become hell and I do not know how to get out of it”.

The people described above have placed themselves in the horizontal dimension and know nothing about the vertical dimension which is the power that ties them to God. As for those who know God, they live in tranquility even in times of war. They are at peace whether they are in health or in sickness, whether their circumstance is stable or shaky; they do not consider a misfortune or a sickness as the end of the world because they dwell in God and God dwells in them.

I know people who take refuge in God, whether they are in ease or adversity because they know that God is their strength and help; these have transcended their physical existence and already dwell in the “heavens”. The believer, whether rich or poor, finds his all in the Lord and does not consider anything as important in his himself. You ask the Creator-Savior to come to you and you receive Him as one who is “all your life” as [St.] Paul says: “It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me” See Ga.2, 20.

You cannot rid yourself of its pain if you “borrow” consolation from this world, because the world does not supply you with truth. Pleasure is no substitute for pleasure and no fun is more entertaining than the one you are in now; it is all the same because all pleasure and fun is in itself empty. It makes you forget your worries only for a while because you draw your consolation from this world that you have made yourself its center. But if you choose the Lord to be the center of your life, you free yourself from being a slave to ill-health or persecution or oppression or crisis whether in your immediate family or in your country.

You cannot escape the weight of the situation in which you live, whether political or economic. This world is, as we perceive, full of wars and it is up to you to aspire for peace. But we see that wars are endless, and disease has no end and that one sin, when committed, leads to another; and that brings inner pain if your conscience is still alive to admonish you; only “monsters” would stifle their conscience to the end.

And if you decide to hold on to your horizontal dimension, that is to say, if you accept to live in a superficial manner, you are dead inside. You may perhaps keep in mind and believe in certain values, but these values in their depth come from the Faith even though some have tried to make of these values a philosophical entity, a god in itself. Why substitute God with cultural understandings. You can live only through God. Fatih in God is active in Man’s heart to change it and to heal it. That gives you a personal relation with God who pours His life in you; philosophy cannot do that. God alone has life, and the rest are ideas which your mind can accept yet they cannot give your life.

I do not want to dwell on the suffering that you endure because of your sins, illness or crises in the country and the world and I’m not trying to insinuate that they are the only way God uses to draw us closer to Him. Yes, many verses in Scripture call the sufferer to seek help because God wants to heal us; in that David said: “From the depths I cry to Thee, O Lord” (Ps. 129.1) and in saying “depths” he speaks of the affliction in which we throw ourselves. But the righteous lift their hearts up to God because they rejoice in Him who Himself is the source of their joy. As such they dwell in the intimacy of invoking Him and not only in that of asking for his help.

And when we Christians talk about the cross on which each of us is crucified, we request that it be taken off our shoulders, because of the suffering it represents; yet we believe that our cross is our way to the resurrection, not only the Resurrection of the last day, but the one brought about in this present life through our relationship with Christ who is our life and resurrection. Our present sufferings, when accepted with contentment, gratitude and hope, give us consolation for we know that the Lord “remembers” us and “visits” as the saints say. We also know that if we believe, the Lord will dwell in us whether we are in pain or in sin lifting its burden away from us so that our hearts will be purified.

Afflictions befall us because things are like that in a fallen world like this is. The world is like that and we do not always understand it. God heals Man; He converses with him, admonishes him, chastises him and loves him so that bitterness leaves him as peace flows in him. And with that inner peace, he lives with war, with hunger, with the tribulations and psychological difficulties. Physical healing might happen permanently because of God’s mercy; but Peace is your cure even if the disease persists, and with that you can live through any situation. We do not call for heroism in Christianity, but we call for patience. And patience is not a defeat before reality but an active reliance on God who cures you the way He wishes pointing put to you that the greatest crisis in you is sin which you confront with repentance or in other words with the presence of God in you.

God does not cancel human history or even your personal history but He accompanies you as you live your times during which He consoles you if you are patient. As such, Heaven will dwell in you before you get to dwell in It on the last day. So God does not rid you of the horizontal dimension of your earthly life, but He grants you mercy through the vertical dimension and He watches over you in guarding that vertical dimension.

This God is not an abstract thought. He is Truth, Reality, Joy and Happiness. With that God you look at the world and its tribulations. All this is accomplished by believing that God is the One longed and sought for and that He is a Spring of giving that does not cease.

Translated by Riad Mofarej

Original Text:  – “البعد الأفقي والبعد العامودي”15.09.07

It is sufficient to look at the explosions and the assassinations in order that you realize that death is part of life, for those who had departed, and for those whom the Lord has preserved. To start with, such a departure is not a disaster. It is an accident. Even when the one whom God has received was great, we all inherit his/[her] greatness, while he/[she] enjoys the beauties of God in God’s kingdom. The question left is, why do we fear death, or why do we deter from death through cure and patience, or [otherwise] we draw death near, by fearing it? My mother used to say, “the lord of death has feared death” and in her Christian faith she referred to Christ. According to my understanding, the Nazarene had feared since He had participated with us in all our humanity, and in order to denote that He was not [kind of] a mythical superhuman.

They used to tell us, in the Christian school, where I grew up, that we fear demise since God has created us for eternity, while sin has occurred and has shattered eternity. Paul’s words support this teaching: “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6: 23). As if the apostle suggests that death is accidental. I do not think that scientists contradict Paul whenever they say that whatever we know about life till now indicates that life has an end. However, none of them can perceive a relationship between the cause and the effect. They observe death and speak of a direct cause (the heart, the cancer or so), however, no one dares to specify the time of the end. Maybe what tortures us is that we have no knowledge of the time of our dissolution, or the submitting of the soul.

Thus, we stay in the presence of a mystery; and neither the penetration through it nor the confrontation of it with full knowledge, or with some preparedness, is given to the human being. The believer is comforted if he/[she] is truly co-existing with God, which might be viewed as a virtue or a repentance , however, without arrogance, since one does not know whether one abides by deep repentance. The word of the Master in this concern, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” [Matt. 25: 13], is a vocation, and it is not a testimony that we are in the complete pure presence, since only the Lord declares to you, at the time of judgment, your real state in the presence of God.

No one can confront the question ‘why?’ before one’s departure. Why today and not tomorrow? One might, to a limited extent, tackle the question of how: Blockage of the arteries, without cautiousness or treatment, for example; the spread of cancer to different organs. This, in case we consider the two most devastating sicknesses according to European statistics. However, how does a woman, who was cut from the oxygen pipes five months because of poverty, live? How does a person, within whom the cancerous cells move, live for thirty years? Thus, we do not know the ‘how’ in itself. Medicine is a science of possibilities, and those who are sincere in it tell you that there is in it a large space for art, that is to say that the range for testing in it is big. And they add that to practice it requires certain level of morals. Hence, concerning the cause and the manner, we are in a world of the complete unknown. Maybe it is this which makes up the main element of fear.

Whenever we look at the questions in a natural way, and we set aside all faith considerations, it seems to me that the greatest sin is Freud’s saying that we have the instinct of death. There is nothing other than the instinct of life within us. Therefore, the approach of death notifies us about the end of everything, and we feel, on the level of nature, that it is the nothingness. The psychological aspect in us, which is the desire to persist forever, contradicts the biological side, which is the destruction of this chemical laboratory, which is called the body. As if confrontation is inescapable between these two aspects of our human existence.

There is a recent talk about extending life. Is that a psychological extension, based on the notion that awareness accompanies the physical identification? The studies are not advanced enough. And the economical studies are frightening, since you will have to serve for the living of people, who are not productive, unless the givens develop in a way that is unperceivable for us, so that an old man continues to produce as the middle-aged or the young person. Naturally, whenever frailty grows and sicknesses increase, the old person would prefer to depart existence. However, some new elements of cure might intervene and the person’s understanding may not weaken, and thus, the instinct of life might get stronger.

In all researches and observations of behaviors, it is clear that “developed” humanity does not at all address the spiritual issues. It has no interest in the question: why the person desires to prolong one’s life. Positivism controls all current researches in the world. Sometimes prayer is addressed for biological purposes, and thus, prayer is viewed as an instrument for worldly purposes. Nevertheless, and despite of positivism, no one gets reconciled with death. It remains for all a feeling or a path towards annihilation of existence.

How does the feeling of new life come to a person, who is by instinct conscious of the lack of invincibility in that concern? If nothing, beyond instinct, descends upon you it is impossible for you to overcome death by surpassing it. You would not surmount death unless with something that is not of death, and it is not of your nature, since your whole existence is injured by the fear of death and heroism here do not help. All of us are the victims of this enemy, the last enemy as Paul calls it. Thus, Christianity does not ask for reconciliation with death. It rather seeks to extinguish death, and then, something new would emerge within you, which does not come from you. Thus, you become, though in the grave, a new existence. Hence, it is not possible to be reconciled neither with your dead body, nor the body of a cousin or a friend, since this would mean that you have reconciled with nothing.

If the fear of death is like a sword that is hanged over your head, whence it is for you not to fear the fear of death? Whence it is for you to draw away from this fear? In Christian terms, you draw away from death with what we call “the hope of resurrection and eternal life”. Hope is the hope toward the One, who alone overcomes death, namely God. God pledges you from death, and carries you through it with the hope and the expectation of resurrection, which makes you a new person, with a luminous body, free from corruption and alive forever.

We do not thoroughly address the destiny of the spirit. We know that it is in God’s care, and in God’s compassion, and God is merciful to the one asking for compassion, liberating him/[her] from the burden of sins; as Paul had said, “For he who has died is freed from sin.” [Rom. 6: 7] He/[she] unites with God, who takes away from him/[her] the yoke of death and transgression, carrying him/[her] from a rank to the rank of mercy, since the human being does not enter the Kingdom without it. In the Orthodox Church there is no definition for the state of the soul other than that it is in the hands of God, awaiting the resurrection. That is why we pray for those who passed away, and in reality, they are within divine compassion.

Thus, our theology moves to speak about resurrection, which Paul the apostle explains through these words about himself: “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” [1Cor. 15: 42-44]

Paul builds all this on the resurrection of Christ. Hence, as the body of Christ had put on light, we put also on ourselves light. All matter, including the matter of the universe, becomes complete light; free from the corporeality, according to which food, drink and sex were our characteristics, since these are of the earth.

You are free from death through light, through divine illumination which fills you and forms you forever, so that you might walk in God and be renewed forever. The earthliness and its characteristics depart you, but you remain human in a new construction, of which we do not know a characteristic other than that it resembles divine luminosity.

In this sense your personality remains as it is, including your spirit. This is why, in the third century, we had charged with infidelity those who claimed that human souls mold with each other to become one soul. God’s spirit always revives your spirit, as God keeps your luminous body in its unity, without confusing the bodies with each other. What matters for us is that your whole personality is rewarded and it does not dissolve in God. Otherwise, this would be pantheism; and as we had rejected it in the first creation we do reject it in the second creation.

Our view of freedom from the fear of death is different from this approach. [As it was said earlier,] you overcome the fear by hope and the actualization of hope at the resurrection. Then, you receive your death not with a denial, but with faith. You live instantly through compassion and, at last, whenever God emerges you from the grave. Other than this would be referring to nothingness. While God has not created anyone in order to extinguish him/[her] from existence, rather God grants him/[her] existence of a different kind. Thus, God brings you from God’s first creation to God’s new creation, and makes you ever existent, since you always receive God’s grace in heaven, and in you God’s image becomes realized constantly. And this is joy.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “الموت والقيامة” –An Nahar- 07.07.2007

The people of my Church still are celebrating Easter [the Passover]. What are they drunk to this extent? Why do we not say anything else? Why cannot we? In the book of Revelation 13:8 there is a reference to “the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” [KJV] And in the First Epistle of Peter 1: 20 we read that Christ “was destined before the foundation of the world”. As we compare the texts it becomes clear that He was destined before the foundation of the world to be crucified, regardless of God’s foreknowledge of the human sin. Saint Maximus the Confessor has known that the Lord would descend to the earth regardless whether the human being sins or not, in both cases this is a death of love. Our creation, salvation, preservation and our participation in Christ’s resurrection, all this is the outcome of divine love. And this is the feast in all its aspects.

That is why the Master said: “Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified.” (John 13: 31) It is clear that the glory of God has resided in the body and the shed blood of Christ. That is to say that God’s sublimity, majesty, power and God’s inclination toward us all are realized in humanity’s slaying of the Son, since nothing of God would be truly revealed and in depth, unless Godself has shown it in the love poured for the humanity.

When those who do not believe in this ask us: Why is this sacrifice? Was not God able to address God’s love in a speech, without having to embody it in this way? Yes, it would be possible, but God has chosen to do this. And after our knowledge of incarnation we have come to understand this divine choice. God has opted to reveal God’s nearness in this way. This was God’s eternal choice as the New Testament says. What do you have against God if God has made God’s Son a human so that we might see Him in pure acts, as He eats and drinks and shares us the death, and hence, becomes no stranger to any of our conditions, other than sin?

God was not in need to present God’s Son as blood expiation. This interpretation was heard of interpreters who did not belong to [our] tradition. The blood of Jesus does not concern us except as the way to the new life. Our concern in relation to this sacrifice is about understanding Godhead as it is been poured in the sphere of death through the body of Jesus, so that the human being might be freed by his/[her] love of the crucified and the risen from the dead. On Good Friday, in which we inaugurate the Easter [the Passover], we do not merely manifest the cross but the descent from the cross. And our devotions on this Friday in particular are resurrectionist, in which there is no trace of grief. We do not wail upon Christ and we do not worry emotionally about the injustice that has followed Him. Through His suffering we are drawn to that which the Book calls our Easter [the Passover], namely to the victorious Christ. Jesus is Himself life before we proclaim victory on the third day.

Thus, we are not a religion of pain and we do not take pleasure of it as of sickness or suffering. For Eastern Christianity it does not mean a thing that the human being is hurt in his/[her] body. We do not console him/[her] as partaking the sufferings of his/[her] Lord. This [notion] is not present in the New Testament. Yes, Paul has spoken a lot on partaking in the sufferings; however he meant only two things. First, we die with the Lord through baptism, and second that we become His partners whenever we endeavor to kill the desires within us. This enjoyment of sickness, the desire for pain or to remain in it and also the desire for death is of Masochism. While Christ is the Master of life and its giver, and part of His ministry – as He was alive – was to heal the diseases of minds and bodies, and also of sin. The Gospels have devoted many pages to this element and considered it an evangelizing for the Kingdom of Heaven.

If you get sick you turn to God for healing and not for the permanence of sickness in you. The Kingdom is the end of all pains and you have to strive for the Kingdom from now, namely you have to pray, and ask the priests to anoint you with oil, and call the doctor for treatment.

Hence, we are with the living Christ. What matters is that we do not become from His killers. It is a shame to be of people who have assaulted God, as Jews and ancient Romans did. Christ accepts our injuries and forgives, however, as we have become pigmented (baptized) with Christ, how could we become betrayers? God endures our treacheries and raises us from them whenever we become of those who repent. And if Judah was an image of the ultimate treason, he had hanged himself before the death of Christ, and descended to hell, and when Christ has descended to hell by His death He has rescued him as He has rescued all fallen human race and the righteous ones. The icon of resurrection at our Church presents the Lord in white garment in the kingdom of death, rescuing from there Adam and Eve and all their offspring, in order that no one remains the slave of death or the slave of sin. And whenever we understand the ability of Christ to save us, no one sets a crown of thorns on His forehead anew, or beats Him with a reed; no one nails His hands and feet or pierces Him with a spear. Some Christians pierce Christ as though they do not believe in His redemption.

Nevertheless, since His crucifixion He has gathered all remnants of humanity and He still is gathering them, the prostitutes, the tax collectors and others. He brings sight back to those who are blind spiritually, whenever they accept Him. You might carry His name and yet depart Him, thus, remember and do not forget that you might become like the Jews and the Romans of that day. Do not kiss Him with deceit, as Judah did, since He kisses you with His lips in order to reveal to you that you are still His beloved. Do not pretend loyalty to Him since you are unable to deceit Him. And as He came in to the disciples while the doors closed, He will come in to you, even when you reject Him. He will knock the door of your heart and have dinner with you, and you will have dinner with Him, since He has embraced you to Himself before your mother gave birth to you. He will take you to His chest as He did with the beloved disciple at the Last Supper, and He will call you with your name as He called Mary the Magdalene in the garden after the resurrection, and she recognized Him.

Many things in your life obscure your eyes from perceiving Christ. This vision is essential for you to live. You will not live by your money, power, authority, beauty and mind. I do not deny the charm of all this. However, Christ’s ability to fascinate you is much greater. Do not waste your time with whatever is inferior to that, since Christ has become your Easter [the Passover], that is your passage to the Father. And if you want to ascend with Christ to the Father, He seats you on His throne from now on, namely before your resurrection occurs. And after resurrection, you sit with all those who were good on earth, regardless whether they have known His name or not, since He is the source of the spiritual sublimity within them.

And if we celebrate Easter [the Passover], and we continue to exist in the blessings of Christ, it is not because we assume complete control of them and not because we are the best people. We are [united] with all people in one brotherhood. Every human being in this world shall rise from his/[her] sins whenever he/[she] becomes of those who repent. We are not a distinguished group in humanity, since Christ has come to bring the good news that all human beings belong to the family of His Father, whenever they want this through the good work.

As to us, we know that He is “the way, the truth and the life” [John 14: 6], but we also know that those who love God, from wherever they come, are our partners in the glory, and that we are not privileged than others by flesh and blood. Rather, He has chosen us as His followers so that we might know Him as He unveiled Himself to us in the books. And He has His ways to reveal Himself to the holy ones in every nation. And He does not distinguish among us and others in His love.

In this world there are different teachings [dogmas] and every one of us has a brother/[sister] in faith. But our love is one to all people, including those who doubt. We, with those who worship God and those who worship themselves, we are all the children of one God, who chooses whoever God wants, and we do not call God to account for God’s choice. Your Lord judges every person according to his/[her] heart, and He revivifies the dry hearts, and dwells in every human heart which has become tender.

This is the Last Easter, and it is an emersion upon the joy of heaven.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “الفصح أيضًا وأيضًا” –An Nahar- 05.05.2007

“Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, ‘He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’ This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.” (Acts 2: 31-32)

We do not have in the Gospel a description of the Lord’s emerging from the grave or to what might be called His revival. The well-recognized icon for resurrection is the one expressing Christ’s descent into hell, into the kingdom of death, dressed in raiment of light, raising by His hands the whole humanity, as they are represented by Adam and Eve. This is His victory over death. In our four Gospels, and in Paul, there is a confirmation of the appearances of the Master and a confirmation that this who has appeared to them is the one hanged on the wood. One of these appearances took place when “Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias” [John 21: 1], as His disciples were going fishing and they did not recognized Him in the beginning. And then, the disciple whom [Jesus] loved said to Peter that He is the Lord. Belovedness is [usually] perceived. And if we content ourselves by John’s testimony we are told that “early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”” [John 21:1-2] This is what we call the proof of the empty tomb. Then, there was the meeting of the Master with Mary the Magdalene in the garden, as she thought that He was the gardener, and then He called her by her name: “She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).” [John 20: 16] The evangelists wanted to present proofs in order to convince their readers. To me, however, the greatest testimony in all the books is the Savior’s appearance to Thomas, who doubted after His first appearance to the disciples as Thomas was not there. He did not believe whatever the disciples told him. In the second time, as the doors were closed, Jesus came and said to Thomas:  “”Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”” [John20: 27-28]

Thomas has viewed the scars in the hands and the side [of Jesus]. Maybe this apostle has thought that his friends have seen a ghost, and they were hallucinating. Here, John the evangelist, in his telling of the second event, wanted to say that the One whom Thomas has inspected is the same One who was hanged on the wood and that the traces of crucifixion are still present on His body. Hence, we can say that we encounter a resurrection-event.

Thus, we do not merely support the notion of resurrection but also that Jesus the Nazarene has moved from the tomb, which was in the form of a tightly closed cave, and came outside it. On this Paul has founded all his faith in Christ.

His death was the first event throughout this entire journey. This has been decided by the Jewish heads. The Roman governor has given the order, and many witnesses had witnessed it. Resurrection has showed us that the One who appeared [to many] was the same One who was raised on the wood, and then, God has raised Him to Godself. The question which poses itself is: how was the body of this Man at the resurrection? We have an evidence that He entered to [the place where] the disciples were and the doors were closed. We do not say that His body has penetrated the barriers. We say that He was present and we remain in complete mystery. The set of descriptions denote that He got rid of the opacity of the body, what the scientists call l’opacité de la matière. However, as we have seen in what we have [just] mentioned from the appearances, there is continuity between the crucified Christ and the resurrected One, or there is identification [between the two], yet, with the increment of light upon this person, who appeared to His beloved ones more than once.

Nevertheless, we can indirectly know something about Jesus’ appearance from the description, given about the people who would rise on the Last Day, in Chapter 15 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. [We read that] the human being will be imperishable (with the difference that the Lord has experienced decay neither before nor after death.). Then Paul continues about the human body: “It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory” (Jesus had voluntarily experienced dishonor.). “It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” (The Master has experienced physical weakness voluntarily.) “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (Jesus had a biological reality.) [1Cor. 15: 42-44]

Through resurrection Jesus’ body has become a glorified body, that is, it has existed in divine glory in a sensible way, while, before His transfiguration on Mount Tabor, He was in divine glory in an insensible way. Resurrection did not give Him glory. It has only revealed it, and He, in His humanity, is seated on the right [hand] of the Father.

The impact of this truth on us is that we have become resurrectionists, namely able to overcome decay, sin and death on the Last Day. We believe that the resurrection of all humanity is the fruit of the resurrection which has been realized in Jesus Christ. Through repentance and the forgiveness of sins we have the Paschal power. And the Lord has empowered us to receive grace, which in my Church is an eternal, uncreated power of light, which God descends it upon us at our contemporary times. That means that we have the power of divinization and it becomes divinizing, namely we become partakers of God in these powers, without us being partakers in divine essence. This participation is not polytheism [shirk], since we do not pass from the situation of being a creature to being a Creator. There is no dissolving in divinity between the human and the divine natures. There is, rather, the pouring of light upon us and a continuous baptism of light, whenever we remain in repentance.

On these bases we understand that the Church celebrates resurrection every Sunday, before the constitution of Pascha, since we come from resurrection, and with its power we see divine glory as we are on this earth. From the Pascha comes the sacrifice of the elements on Sundays and on feast days, and through the elements we take the power of Christ, the One resurrected from the dead, and we move toward the power which shall burst at the end of times.

To this, the courage of the martyrs, who die as witnesses of Christ, comes from their confessing of Christ who triumphs through death. Those martyrs, though unarmed, fought the Roman Empire and they are also fighting all states, which similar to Rome have treated them harshly despite their radiating meekness. Their crime was that they refused to divinize the tyrannical ruler, though they did not refuse obedience. The state holds them responsible for whatever they carry in their believing hearts concerning the unity of divine authority. Those martyrs were trained to face the fiends and they were overstepping their bleeding violated bodies, with joy and courage.

In this respect, the story of Merdarius the martyr explains what those martyrs carried in their souls. Merdarius, who was a Roman noble, was walking in his palace. He heard songs coming up from the street. He looked out from his terrace and saw people singing. He asked his servants: Who are those and why are they singing? They answered him that they are called Christians, and that Christianity is a message which has emerged from the East. They also told that they were walking toward their execution, and that they were singing for their belief that whenever executed they would be united with their Master, who is called Christ. Merdarius thought that such a message should be great. He came down from his palace and joined them on the way to death.

For Christians the main rapture is not the Last Resurrection. It is rapture to Christ, whom Martha, the sister of dead Lazarus, has received and said: “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. … Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.” [John 11: 21-25] The apparent meaning is that you have a real active resurrection before the Last Resurrection and that refers to the ‘I’. And then He explained His words saying: “everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” [John 11: 26] One might pass through the death of sin, yet, he/[she] will rise from that whenever he/[she] sees me on the cross and emerging out of the tomb. Namely, whenever one sees me present within him/[her]self. Christians who stare at the Savior now are being resurrected with Him in this vision. The reality of their emerging is for today and they might be purified now, with one glance at Him. Thus, they become new creatures created by His light. This intimate relationship with Him makes every soul of them a bride for Him, since it knows that it has no life in itself, rather it lives through Him.

Every soul is given that [relationship] whenever it lives the Easter [the Pascha], and this word refers to the Passover from all that has prohibited the soul to meet Him. Whenever the soul passes over to Him and stares only at His face realizes that He is fully present. In this context St. Seraphim, the Russian saint, was used to greet whoever he meets with the greeting: “O my joy, Christ is risen”. This means that He is within you, present in the depth of your heart, and He gives you life and you do not need to expect anything else, since nothing might be appended to Easter.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “القيامة” –An Nahar- 07.04.2007

Lebanon is, in all, crucified. Holders of personal interests in the world crucify it. They crucify us, as we have no selfish interests in this country. Those, who consider themselves to be great, eliminate the little ones, who do not benefit in any way from this country. I am worried about the little ones, who do not perceive why adults carry within themselves enmity, why they do not have the tenderness of childhood, instead of falsifying each other, why they do not have joy, why they resolve to death after they were created to live, why they make crosses for one another, why they do not sing sincerely [the Lebanese National Anthem]: ‘All of us for our country, for glory’, which is not actualized without humility. This country is like a kingdom of powerless old people, who had lost their sense of the flowers. They want to live without smelling the truth and tasting the good, and whenever they are reconciled together they want to divide the booties among themselves, without distributing the gains to those in need of light.

Those arrogant people want us to be food for them, but they do not want themselves to become nourishment for all. Christ has said: “Take, eat; this is my body.” [Matt. 26: 26] The country lays itself down as food to whomever wants to live, and those arrogant ones give us stone in place of bread, and partition in place of unity. Why is the drought of the thirsty hearts for the living water?

Since we know that powerless people are convicted to be crucified, our church had set the day of tomorrow as remembrance [the Sunday of the Holy Cross], in which the crucifiedness of people is raised to God in hope. In a country where people despise each other, without having recourse to weapons, we wanted to eliminate hatred through love. Thus, tomorrow is the Sunday to venerate the cross and to tell people that one of them had been raised on this wood in order that every person might receive life instead of complete death and hope instead of despair. This takes place within a liturgy, at which a cross is laid on a salver, surrounded with flowers and basils, and it is been circumambulated with the salver, and we fall on our knees, facing the cross, remembering both the cross and the resurrection. Then, the priest gives the believer a flower, to tell him/[her] symbolically that Christ is the joy of the world, and that the human being will not remain subjugated forever, if he/[she] embraces the crucified, for Christ has taken human crucifiedness, so that one might become a resurrectionist person.

We are a paschal-community, and we do not exterminate anyone since Jesus died to save the world, and not only those who belong to Him through baptism. You, whoever were you, ask for life and it begins with physical life. “[I]t is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual.” (1Cor. 15: 46) The order of a state is established first to serve the natural person, and then, God’s calling the person makes him/[her] filled with spiritual life. In the beginning there is the civil society, then, some people from within the society transcend and become spiritual through divine giving, which is poured upon them. Thus, they become on earth the people of heaven. And in the times of crises, heaven does not become hidden from the people of love, which [in fact] many hide it from themselves, while it penetrates the soul of the one who loves its penetration, so that it might make him/[her], from now, a kingly person.

Why do we set this remembrance day in the middle of the fasting period? We have noticed that some of those who fast become weary of their endeavor and they move toward looseness. Hence, in order that they might not lose the image of the Savior, we set this image to them, which whenever is printed in their hearts, enables them to continue their endeavor. [We do this] since there is no room for weariness in love, and declining is not permissible whenever the vision descends upon you. As the result of kissing the cross the believers embrace each other, as they have known that the Lord himself had embraced them through His death, and had purified them and raised them, through the Spirit, to the Father.

Thus, extinguishing of the soul, for the sake of peace, is not permissible. The Lord does not extinguish, but He rectifies. And you call your adversary, or whomever you thought to be so, to the Lord, who endows him/[her] with life through rectification that is from God. Whenever you kill [or exterminate] a person you emit him/[her] from the possibility of repentance, and your soul becomes  intolerant and then it rives, so that it would not be possible to ensure for yourself repentance in any day of your life. In front of the invincibility of life, both the sinner and the good are equal. God embraces both and promises to purify them, and God has limited the power of life and death to Godself alone. We live together with the hope that every one of us will attain purification which descends upon us from above.

God has not commissioned anyone to implement, on God’s behalf, the death of the Other, and God addresses every killer, saying: “Where is … your brother?” [Gen. 4: 10] That is to say that you had to live with your brother, who was not destined to die on his brother’s hand. In general terms it means that every person is your brother, since you both received the gift of the one life and a divine promise to prosper together. Whenever you are concerned about your brother’s recalcitrance, you have to resort to good advice and to become reconciled with him, by the mercy that is within you. Thus, the seeds of sin would not sprout, and he would react to your good [approach] with goodness and your soul would meet the glory that is within him, since no one lacks glory.

Before the war in Lebanon I had an official, we used to call him ‘qawwas’, he would be protecting the bishops in our country, and the consuls and ambassadors in Istanbul. This was a kind of protection that Ottoman Empire had supplied to these ranks of people. Those guards had the right to carry a sword, and in modern times a gun. And as this young man was walking at my home, in front of me, I felt that he carries a gun, under his jacket. I asked him, what is this? And he replied that it is a gun, legalized by the state. I told him, I do not want you to protect me, since I prefer to die than to cause another to be condemned to death penalty or life imprisonment, even when he kills me. Most probably this person would be a father of a family, while I do not have a family, so, I divested the man of his gun.

The Lord is armless and we are on His likeness, and thus, arms are not of a concern for us. This is why I always disliked the word ‘crusaders’, which was taken by the Franks in the tenth century, when they attacked our countries. I was astounded that they were killing in the name of the One who said: “”Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” [Matt.26: 52] These words made millions of Christians testify as they became martyrs. And these words entered the Church Legislation, so that it is not permissible to the priest or the monk to defend himself, since by doing that, there would be the possibility of killing the other. And our Law says that whenever the priest kills another by a faulty movement, and unintentionally, he must be prevented of performing Divine Liturgy the whole of his life.

When those who were called ‘Crusaders’, in their own language, dwelt in our countries and were excessive in bringing corruption, the Muslims had interesting courtesy to call them ‘Franks’, and they did not call them ‘Crusaders’ since they knew that Christians do not kill.

Only in the power of Christ Christians continue to exist. They do not long to any other path, and they forgive the killer. They have no other weapon, and no desire for power or authority, knowing that victory is to the Word of God and the will of God. Thus, they do not carry weapons, and it has been said to them: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” [Matt.10: 28] And hell of course is a list of the assaulters.

The world is not about distributing booties [among ourselves]. Rather, it is to spend your profits for the poor. And whenever you share what you have with the poor one, he/[she] raises you to heaven since you are unable to raise yourself alone to heaven. Rather brothers/[sisters], whenever you love them, raise you. And all people, to whichever dogma they belong, are brothers/[sisters]. Through compassion, you can make them from the people of heaven, on the Day in which God judges us all. “Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham … But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out.” [Matt.8: 11-12] Your only guarantee for becoming from the children of God is to perceive God as the Father of all humanity.

I have not called you not to summon for equality among the children of the one homeland. Thus, you have to know that you have no independent dignity apart from the dignity of the Others. Hence, you have to ask for your freedom, since it is the dignity. Yet, it might be trodden. Then, you seek the Other through the word and the contention of the word, without becoming from the customers of the foreigner, since he/[she] does not protect other than him/[her]self, though he/[she] might say differently. The word is effective whenever you are great in love. The Other might have a language different than this language. That is his/[her] concern, and he has someone to judge him/[her]; while you have only the [possibility of the] strive of the soul. No one can be a tyrant over your heart, and you are the person of the heart, especially that Christianity does not recognize itself as a human or political entity. Thus, do not support other than the oppressed, and always by the legitimate word and the virtuous emergence of the soul. And if you were from those who read, the Islamic revelation maintains that “Whoever kills a soul, not in retaliation for a soul or corruption in the land, is like one who has killed the whole of mankind; and whoever saves a life is like one who saves the lives of all mankind.” (Sūrat al-Ma’ida 32) Hence, on the level of personal behavior we and the Muslims are one.

This is why militias are all void in the eyes of the Lord and the internal fight was also void. And I know that turmoil leads to killing.

We are all called to complete sincerity if we want that no one dies by the hands of a man, lest we become oppressors. Every one of us is a steward for the Other, for the Other’s life, growth, prosperity and the preservation of him/[her] in all circumstances of the country and in every crisis of history; until God’s truth prevails. We do not exterminate an existence which God has made for God’s glory and has safeguarded it through God’s children, and has entrusted us the question of the Other’s life, no matter how much a tribulation aggravates; since the Lord is able to deliver us from the burden of temptations through peace that God pours it upon us as a grace from God.

Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi

Original Text: “سلام المصلوب” –An Nahar- 10.03.2007