THE EVER-VIRGIN MARY THEOTOKOS

THE EVER-VIRGIN MARY THEOTOKOS

     Supremely exalted by the Most High God, filled with divine grace, adorned with her rare and extreme beauty of soul and perfection of virtue, who can be worthy to offer proper praise and exaltation to the greatest creature in the of earth and heaven.  The Archangel Gabriel was sent unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth to the virgin espoused to a man whose name is Joseph, of the house of David, and the Virgin’s name was Mary. And the Angel came in unto her, and said, Rejoice “Full of Grace” (her new name) (apparent in Greek a single word, keharitomeni).  The Angel said:  “Rejoice Full of Grace; the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women. 

     And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the Angel said to her: Fear nor Mary, for you have found grace with God. And behold you shall conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call His name JESUS. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give to Him the throne of His father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.  Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be seeing I do not know a man?  The Angel answered saying: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you’; therefore that holy thing which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God. And behold, your cousin Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing is impossible; And Mary said, Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word. And the Angel departed from her.”  Luke 1:26-48)

     God filled with his divine grace the humble and pure Mary and from the entire human race, selected her to  lead us all to salvation and everlasting life in the kingdom of heaven. She expresses her role perfectly in her conversation with Elizabeth.  “And Mary arose in those days and went to the hill country with haste into a city of Juda, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened that when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with Holy Spirit and she spoke out with a loud voice and said. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For, Lo, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.  And blessed is she that believed; for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”

PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS BEFORE OUR EYES!

PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IS BEFORE OUR EYES!

     In the beginning of the Bible it is written:

1.  “Let us create man in our own image and likeness . . .”

2.  “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God Created he Him; male and female created He them . . . ” 

    In the first verse isour Lord's intention to form in the future a man and men exactly like himself, in His own image and likeness.

   In the second verse is the actual creation of Adam and Eve and through them, the whole human race, in the image of God with the potential  and divinely ordained plan, to become also the likeness of God.

     We can gaze at the sun, moon, stars, trees, oceans, mountains, and all created works, but will not be able to see even the slightest glimpse of God, for God is a spirit and what we see are His works.  But when we look at another human being, we are closer to seeing God than any other place in the universe. For every man and woman is formed in the image of  the true God, the undivided Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

     The Father is eternal and  unoriginate, and is the Eternal Mind from whom all that exists is derived.  Christ says, no man has seen the Father!  Indeed and no man has seen the mind (not brain) of another man at any time, for the mind is invisible.

     The Father Mind, eternally generates His Logos and perfect Idea. The Logos is not another God but is God of God, being one of the Trinity, never separated from the Father. In the Logos who is eternally being born of the Father, there is exactly what is in the Father Mind. He is being born of the  Father, and never leaves Him for there is one God.  

     God necessarily has the idea and Spirit of himself. From the Father is born the eternal Logos and the eternal Spirit is emanated. For to know,  signifies nothing else but to have in mind the type and idea of it. Hence if we say, I have no idea of such a things I say nothing else but that I do not know it. But when we say, I have an idea  of something it means that I know it.

     Without spirit understanding is not possible for there would be no ideation, nor knowledge, but ignorance.

     Let us look at man and we can see God more clearly.

God is perfect with an intellect or mind Father, a logos or word, and a Spirit of understanding.

Man is imperfect,having a limited intellect or mind, a logos or word, and a spirit of understanding.

     While God is always the same good and perfect, man is changeable according to his choice. He has an insidious and invisible enemy who viciously attacks him striving to reduce man to  his own ugly miserable image. He is known as the Devil and demons are his companions, together they have a single intention, to blind man so that he will not know the most important truth of all.  This truth is that God desires to sanctify and glorify man and reform him into His own image and likeness, awarding such a man as being worthy of eternal life.

     Crime, irreverence, lying, cheating, stealing, revolutions and wars are instigated and fomented by the Evil one to men.  This causes man to rise against man and nation to rise against nation, spreading misery everywhere.

     Humility, meekness, justice, generosity. Peace and gentleness are those who have “found  and followed the Messiah”.  Christ is the man who is the perfect image and likeness of God and is the man that we all need to become, until we rise  to the fullness and stature of Christ.

     There is no place in between following Jesus Christ or the Devil, it is one or the other.  If we follow Jesus Christ, we will belong to His Orthodox Church, not to man made and man led churches which are traps. In His Church we will be taught His truth, we will be baptized into His death and resurrection, sanctified, glorified and deified. Then following this extremely short span of  life, we will be granted, by His mercy and kindness, everlasting life in the Kingdom of heaven.

  Man becomes more like God as he becomes more like Christ, the Godman, for when he becomes merciful, kind, honest, humble and meek. He is filled with love for mankind, desires that no one perish, but that all come to knowledge of truth and salvation. 

     But man, without God and faith gradually becomes more like his enemy the Devil when he becomes malicious and hard-hearted, he becomes arrogant,  angry and a cheater.  He imitates his master, the Devil when he  robs, burglarizes properties and murders his fellow man.

     Let us remember that we cannot come any closer to God on earth than to the very image of God in our fellow man, whom we should honor and respect as an equal. And even if the image in men be marred, there still remains an image, and there is always hope for its restoration and sanctification for this is the reason that Christ founded His Church.

     It is written: “The fool says in his heart; there is no God.” Let the Bible remain true and let those who choose foolishness remain foolish, but let us rejoice that we are not fools, and that we are able to come so close to God in His image –man!

NAME CHANGING DOES NOT REDEFINE SIN OR THE HERESY THEY REMAIN SIN AND HERESY!

NAME CHANGING DOES NOT REDEFINE SIN OR THE HERESY

THEY REMAIN SIN AND HERESY!

     Secular society,Ecumenism and Philo-papism, by the sleight of hand of name-changing, have been the cause of complacency for both sinners and heretics, causing them to remain in their errors. Instead they should be encouraged to change and act for the better, which is the only course of action which will lead them to eternal life,  but now they are left lifeless.

1. Fornication is defined as all sexual acts outside of the legitimate marriage of a man and woman, as God ordained. 

Name Change: Doing away with the name fornication, it was changed to “making love” or “living together.” This name change dulls the sting of the sin and encourages continuation of the “deadly sin of fornication.The Lord firmly declares: “Fornicators shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

2. A heretic is one who has an opinion. From the Greek heresia.  In Holy Scripture it is forbidden to dialogue with them with this command: “A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such a person is subverted and sins being self- condemned” (Titus 3: 10-11). Everyone. Clergy or laity, outside of the Orthodox Church are outside because of their own opinions or heresies. From the earliest days of the Church, the Fathers have anathematized heresies of the heretics. To return to the Church they must denounce all their wrong beliefs and embrace only the true Orthodox Faith.

NAME CHANGE 
Heretics to brothers

By changing their names from heretics to “brothers” they commit two evils. One is they prevent their accepting the truths of Orthodoxy, because they are equal in brotherhood. There is no clergy among them, but they are addressed as clerics.

In recognizing their sacraments, such as baptism, they declare that the Holy Spirit is cooperating with heretics. The truth is that they are impoverished and need the true Faith and baptism. All that are outside are outside of their own choice.  For this reason the Theologian says in his First Epistle: “They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us;  but they went out that it might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 John 2:19).

3. The Monophysite heresy:   
NAME CHANGE

Leaders changed their name to “Oriental Orthodox Christians.”

     Over 1500 years ago, the Monophysites were excluded from the Church, for denying the two natures of Christ. In modern times, after meeting with Orthodox leaders, they still confess a single nature in Jesus Christ and they were given a name change to “Oriental Orthodox Christians.”

That their heresy remains is simple to understand. They claim that the two natures became one in the incarnate Christ, which is the heresy they held. The truth is that the Lord Jesus Christ has both a divine nature being eternally born from His Father and a human nature, being born in time  from the Virgin Mary. Now the Orthodox address the Monophysites as  brothers and are welcomed by many Orthodox, contrary to the fact that they stubbornly remain in their heresy.

NAME CHANGE    

FROM the Papacy to Sister Church and brothers

4. The Papacy   (the Former Roman Catholic Church has been known as the Papacy and is centered, not on Christ but on the Pope of Rome is renamed  a sister church!  The Pope is now welcomed as a brother in Christ. (Names changed)