Beloved brothers and sisters,
CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN! ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! ΑΛΗΘΩΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ!
TO OUR RESURRECTED LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST
Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the Holy Lord Jesus, the Only sinless One. We venerate Your Cross, O Christ, and Your Holy Resurrection we praise and glorify; for You are our God, we know no other; it is Your name we invoke.
Come, all you faithful, let us worship Christ's Holy Resurrection; for behold, through the Cross joy has come to all the world. Ever blessing the Lord, let us praise His Resurrection. For in enduring the Cross for us, He destroyed death by death.
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THE PERSON OF CHRIST THE SAVIOR
THE TWO NATURES IN CHRIST
CHRIST'S DIVINITY: TRADITION'S WITNESS CONCERNING OUR LORD'S DIVINITY
PART II
Besides the New Testament the entire chorus of the holy and God-bearing Fathers acknowledge and confess the Lord Jesus Christ as perfect God and render to Him obeisance and worship. Let us here mention the words of Saint Irenaeus, who proclaims his faith "in One God, Father Almighty", and in One Christ Jesus, the Son of God Who was Incarnate for our salvation", and in the Holy Spirit". Saint Irenaeus stresses that he received this faith which was transmitted to her "by the Apostles and their disciples". Further he affirms that the Son of God is True God. And continuing he says, "had man not been united with God (by God he means Christ) he would not have been able to participate in incorruption".
Of the great Fathers, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, explaining the Evangelist's statement: "and the Word was with God", says "the Word was not in God but with God", that is, a separate Prosopon, (Person), the Word, also being perfect and True God. Saint Basil the Great says: "If the Word was in (God's) heart (not having a separate hypostasis) how can He be considered God?" The blessed Chrysostom, explaining the phrase, "in the beginning was the Word" and "the same was in the beginning", and wishing to emphasize that the Word is timeless and Eternal on the one hand but also Co-Eternal with the Father on the other, says, "His eternity is expressed through the phrase, (In the beginning was); His co-eternity was manifested to us through the phrase, (the same was in the beginning with God). That is to say, do not consider the Father's existence as being longer or preceding that of the Son, for He was never without His Word". For "through the phrase (was with God), He is acknowledged as being a separate Person near the Father...and through the phrase, (was God) it is implied that He is consubstantial with, and from the Father by nature, because He is God proceeding from God", says Saint Cyril of Alexandria.
Finally, Saint Athanasius the Great underlines that the belief that Jesus Christ is Lord and God of All is universal and that it is the conviction and proclamation of Tradition. Addressing himself to those who doubt this tenet, which is both a Scriptural and Patristic teaching. Saint Athanasius says: "Behold, we Orthodox can show that this faith has been transmitted from Fathers unto Fathers. But O ye new-Jews (heretics) and disciples of Caiaphas, whom can you show to be fathers of your words? Certainly none of the wise and prudent Fathers, for they all abhor you".
This confounding question posed by Saint Athanasius can be put forward by every Orthodox Christian to all heretics and especially to the Jehovah's Witnesses who deny the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and call Him a creature, a spirit, a servant, the arch-servant of God. Tell us, impious Jehovah's Witness, whence do you derive this sacrilegious and impious teaching? We Orthodox Christians have received our faith in the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ from the Holy Apostles and their divinely-inspired Scriptures. We have received it from our holy and God-bearing Fathers, who constitute a long and endless line and rank from the beginning until the very present, and it is a faith that is catholic, universal and pan-Christian. All Christians throughout the ages believe and confess our faith. Where did you receive your errors and heresy, your terrible mania in fighting our Lord's Divinity? From the great businessman and millionaire Russel and the dollars he spent in order to spread his anti-Christian error? Unfortunately, God's judgment awaits you. Repent and be saved.
[source: The Orthodox Christian Faith]
(to be continued)
With sincere agape in Our Risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George