So far, I hope we have established the truth that Christianity is mainly a therapeutic science. It is seeking the spiritual healing of man. Yet the right practice of medicine requires a good physician, a professional physician, and this applies to spiritual healing as well. There has to be a good doctor. He is the bishop and the priest.

I would like to offer a few words of advice to beginners who are usually very enthusiastic--and so they should be--so that they do not harm themselves abruptly from non-discerning asceticism. They are often like a torrent, which abruptly pours out all of its waters all at once and then does not have even one drop for himself or a passerby. Apart from this, whatever plant has sprouted up on its shores will also dry out. It is also possible that the beginner will lose his patience and gripe in the event that his health is undermined. That is why we should always look for the greatest spiritual profit and struggle with discernment.

Man is created by the Lord for life, and human thought cannot reconcile itself to the thought of death. Death was a consequence of the first man's sin, for as Saint Paul says sin came into the world through one man and death through sin (Romans 5:12). As a consequence of his sinful disobedience to God, man deprived himself of Paradise and knew death. The Fall deformed man's inner, spiritual nature, as well as the entire visible world. The accord between freedom and Divine Grace was destroyed, an accord through which man was directly called to deification (theosis). This break was so forceful that man could no longer return to this previous condition by his own power.

Man becomes a child of the Church through the Mystery (Sacrament) of Holy Baptism. Holy Baptism is the door to Christianity, the beginning of life in God. Baptism restores the image of God in man and bestows the saving power of Christ's redemption feat on him. Through Baptism the Christian receives access to all the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments) and acts of grace of the Church, which lead him to deification (theosis).

The Holy Church was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:28). The purpose of Christ's Church is the salvation of man. It is only in the Church that full union of man and God takes place, and this union is the basic condition for salvation.

The names of the Twelve Holy Apostles are these: Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew, the First-called; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, who was also the Evangelist and Theologian; Philip, and Bartholomew (see also June 11th); Thomas, and Matthew the publican, who was also called Levi and was an Evangelist; James the son of Alphaeus, and Jude (also called Labbaeus, and surnamed Thaddaeus), the brother of James, the Brother of God; Simon the Cananite ("the Zealot"), and Matthias, who was elected to fill the place of Judas the traitor (see August 9th).