What are the experiences of grace that a Christian can receive so that his faith and Christian life will not be for him something mental and external, but a true spiritual feeling of God, a communion with God, a habitation of God in which the complete man participates.

I am very pleased to see at this evening's meeting, a holy and blessed gathering, the honorable Presbytery, a pious crowd, who through the blessing and invitation of your Most Reverend Metropolitan and Head Shepherd, are gathered here so that all of us may confess our True faith to our God-Man Lord. Your presence this evening is not only the attendance of a lecture but also the witnessing of the Orthodox faith. As the Lord said in the Holy Bible: "Whoever confesses Me in front of men, I shall confess him in front of My Father in Heaven."

Christ installs Himself in the heart of man through the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments): Holy Baptism, Chrismation, Holy Confession, and the Divine Eucharist. Those Orthodox Christians who are in communion with Christ have God and His Grace within them, in their hearts, because they have been baptized, chrismated, have confessed and have received Holy Communion.

Those who wish to unite with Jesus Christ, and, through Christ, with God the Father, recognize that this union is realized in the Body of Christ, which is our Holy Orthodox Church. Of course, this union is not with the Divine essence but with the deified human nature of Christ. But this union with Christ is not external, nor is it simply moral.

So, the Lord Jesus gives us this possibility to unite with God and turn to the primary purpose which God ordained for man. Therefore He is described in Holy Scripture as the Way, the Door, the Good Shepherd, the Life, the Resurrection, the Light. He is the New Adam who rights the wrong of the first Adam. The first Adam separated us from God with his disobedience and his egotism. With His love and His obedience to the Father, obedience unto death, to "death on the Cross", the Second Adam, Christ, brings us back once more to God. Once again He orients our freedom towards God, so that by offering Him our freedom, we unite with Him.

The Church Holy Fathers say that God became man in order to make man a god. If God had not taken flesh, man would not be able to achieve Theosis (Deification).