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THE ORTHODOX FAITH:
What's Orthodoxy?
Who started it?
Is it 2000 year old,
before catholicism
and protestantism?

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His Theology


How then does Father John present his theology to us?

God is One, of one essence, self-existent. "For the true believer God is omnipresent and is All, and creatures are as though non-existent; every earthly substance and that of all visible worlds are as though nonexistent, and for him there is not even a single line of thought without God." God is unchanging and everlasting, angelic spirits and souls of men also. "Everything else is like a soap bubble. By these words I do not underestimate that which has been created, but I speak of it in comparison to the Creator and the blessed spirits." From this there proceeds a clear moral deduction for us: not to cling to material, temporal life.

"God is closer to us than any person, at all times; closer than my clothing, closer than air, closer than my wife, father, mother, daughter, son, or friend. I live by Him in soul and in body. I breathe by Him, I think by Him, I feel, imagine, plan, speak, undertake, and act by Him, For in Him we live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17:28). As in an ocean, every drop of water is connected with other drops of water and surrounded by them, or as in the air, every part is surrounded by others and united by them, so likewise we earthly inhabitants are surrounded by God from all sides, and the pure in heart among us or those who are being cleansed are united with Him, and are everywhere with Him." "The Omnpresence of God is spatial and mental, i.e., God is everywhere. Whereever I go in body or thought, everywhere meet God, and everywhere God meets us."

Throughout his entire diary, Father John constantly reminds us of God - that God is Self-Existent, of One Essence -, as do the Church Fathers (for example St. Gregory of Nyssa). God, as a pure being, is omnipresent, omniscient; He is "everywhere present and fillest all things" ("O Heavenly King" - prayer to the Holy Spirit). For this reason God is so near to the world and to people. "God is simply love." "The Lord in His infinite nature is by His simplicity such a being that all of Him is in the name Trinity or in the name, Lord, or in the name Jesus Christ."

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