The Second Principle: "The Movement believes that
religious and moral revival is based on following religious duties and on
knowledge of the Church's teachings. For this reason, it strives to spread
these teachings and to strengthen the Christian faith among the people."
The Complete Christian Life
The revival is not completed through imagination, nor not
through individual, emotional religiosity, nor through following a dogma that
we create according to our inclinations and temperaments. It is rather based on
knowledge of the beliefs and teachings of the Church, keeping the commandments,
and participation in the holy mysteries and the prayers. None of these things
are an end in themselves, because the goal of the Christian life is union with
God, but they are necessary conditions and means to achieving this goal.
The current Christian awakening has as its goal the complete
Christian life, so the awakening will not be achieved if it does not follow the
path that leads to this life-- the prayers, works of mercy, and the divine
mysteries. The Orthodox movement that is our making our way toward the Holy
Spirit and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon us, has no meaning and no
existence except in the Church and with the Church. Without her and without the
means of salvation that the Church grants, the current resurrection from the
dead is not possible. Our effective salvation from religious non-existence is
continuously approaching the holy mysteries such as repentance and the
Eucharist. The return to the fullness of the Church is the return to the divine
sacrifice and participation in it just as the apostles and fathers participated
in it. Our departure from the mystery of the holy body and blood of the Lord
and our being satisfied with partaking once a year was invented by us and is a
restriction of the freedom of the faithful who long for the Lord. Preventing
them from participating in holy communion except on certain days and times of
the year is an explicit contradiction of the letter and spirit of the Gospel of
the clear teachings of the Fathers and of the writings of great contemporary
theologians. This departure is clear proof that many of us have effectively
abandoned traditional Orthodoxy and in practice lost the universal Christian
spirit. What we must do now is to belong to Orthodoxy once again and follow the
path that Orthodoxy wants, not the one that we want.
The time has come for us to look closely at the Bible, to
seek to understand it, to be familiar with it, and to take it on as nourishment
for our souls and as the seed of eternal life.
The hour has come when we must live according to the eternal
Orthodox tradition and to try out the depths of knowledge that has appeared
throughout Christian history from the Evangelist John to Bulgakov. The time has
come to return to spirituality, to the most glorious thing to be found in our
religious inheritance-- I mean to the mystics like Ephrem the Syrian, Symeon
the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas, and Seraphim Sarovsky.
Witness and Mission
Through reviving religious sciences and adopting pure and
untainted Christian knowledge that has been preserved in our Church from the
beginning, the desired revival will come about. We cannot keep this knowledge
to ourselves in pride, living alongside the spiritual agonies in which humanity
is floundering. When we have acquired the truth, we must suffer for the sake of
those who are lacking it. Our revival cannot be perfected except through
suffering. After having suffered, we will spread the teachings to the people
and transmit to others, “what we have heard from the beginning and have seen
with our eyes and touched with our hands, regarding the word of life.” The revival
is occurring for its sake, with spirit, heart, and hand bearing witness to it
and being martyrs for it it. This is because spreading the truth is not at all
compatible with special privilege and because bearing witness has always been
the beginning of every great work in history. The revival is based on seeking
the truth from God in the Church and on us following it as is fitting, through
the Gospel and through this mission to which we were called, taking upon
ourselves everything that brings us closer to purity and love, and through bearing
witness to the truth in word and deed, and every day suffering martyrdom for
the sake of the light. Those who realize these truths reconcile Christianity
within themselves and from them it radiates out to the people because they live
it within their depths and from their depths they raise it up through their
constant, living connection to Christ that is rooted within them, Him to whom “every
knee on heaven and on earth shall bow.”
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