My beloved children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

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THE CHURCH IS A HOLY PLACE OF HEALING AND ALSO A MILITARY BASE

The Church is a holy place of healing for those Christian believers who are spiritually and physically ill. The Physician of our souls and bodies is none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself, O Megas Iatros. According to the holy Fathers of the Church and Sacred Scripture humanity fell from the state of grace through the ancestral sin which Adam and Eve committed. By the fall into sin, men destroyed their internal harmony -- the unity of the spirit, soul and body - they upset their nature. There was no more unity of purpose, direction and will.

The disrupting of human nature also includes the fact that sin turned or tore the soul from the spirit, and the soul, as a result, began to be attracted to the body, to the flesh, and to depend on it. The result of sin (amartia) is illness, destruction and death.

Mankind has been proceeding on this path of passions, confusion, and sin since the Fall. Our Almighty God and Creator has been sending His Prophets and Righteous men and women, however, to guide and help the human race. The Son of God came to save humanity from evil and death. Christ is the New Adam Who came as the True Physician to restore humanity to health and to its original state. In other words to save mankind. Saint Athanasius said, "God became man so that man may become God."

The Church is Christ. Throughout His earthly Ministry Our Lord not only taught but healed those ill both spiritually and physically. Therefore, the Church was created by Him for purely therapeutic purposes, for healing the split between us and God. The Holy Church takes fallen, ill, and those 'lost' human beings, who suffer from all sorts of destructive passions and sins, and with its very tangible therapeutic methods helps them attain true health-spiritual health. That is the ultimate form of healing. Saint Paul in his letter to the Galatians, like the good doctor of the soul that he was, he identifies what the symptoms of sin and spiritual illness are: hostility, jealousy, anger, idolatry, murder, drunkenness, debauchery, adultery, and so on.

He then points out that the therapy from such illness and spiritual healing are: love, joy, peace, forbearance, goodness, gentleness, faith, and the like (Galatians 2:22). In other words Saint Paul shows that the Church's therapeutic interventions have real and tangible results.

How is the Church a Military Base?

A military base is a facility directly operated by or for the military. A military base is used as a command center and training ground. Before a soldier is deployed he must go through boot camp where he is trained how to use his weapons to fight the enemy. The Christian is also a soldier, a soldier of Christ. He also prepares for combat against the enemy, Satan. He also needs military training to fight the good fight and to be engaged in the unseen spiritual warfare. The Christian's military base and boot camp is the Church. It is in the Church where he is trained and given the appropriate weaponry. Saint Paul in his letter to the Ephesians writes, "Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:13-17).

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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" - Saint John Chrysostomos

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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George

Just as important as spiritual armor is a Christian's readiness and alertness, diligent prayer and watchfulness in submission to the Holy Spirit. Those on the "front lines," holy Apostles and Evangelists in this case, require the back up power of a praying Church.