THE PERFECTION OR MYSTICAL UNION AT THE CAPPADOCIAN SAINTS BASIL THE GREAT AND GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN
THE PERFECTION OR MYSTICAL UNION AT THE CAPPADOCIAN SAINTS BASIL THE GREAT AND GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN

Summary/Abstract: The Holy Three Hierarchs, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom, have remained in the consciousness of posterity as teachers and luminaries of the entire Christian Church, especially thanks to the essential contribution they had to the elaboration of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the true theognosy. At the same time, the development of the Christian teaching on perfection or deification (Gr. theosis), especially by St. Basil and St. Gregory, is a turning point for the patristic vision of man. “Man,” said St. Basil, “is a creature who has received the command to become a god.” But this commandment, addressed to human freedom, is not a constraint. As a personal being, man can accept or reject the will of God. The Cappadocian saints emphasize the attainment of likeness to God through imitation: for them, Christianity means nothing more than imitating the life in the flesh of Christ. We imitate God by practicing virtues and by enclothing with Christ. Baptism means the beginning of deification and tears purify like a new flood, when they come out of loving mercy. Through the Eucharist one participates to the death and resurrection of Christ. Thus, the human being is accepted in the totality of the mystery of this liturgy that internalizes the acts that lead to salvation: “We become gods for Him, as He became man for us” (St. Gregory). Purification from passions, prayer, the Liturgy, communion through the Holy Mysteries, opened the great hierarchs to the work of the grace of the Holy Spirit, Who led them to the contemplation of the Holy Trinity, thus transforming them into “speakers of God” (theologizers). Knowledge of the divine being consists “in the feeling that we cannot know the being of God” (St. Basil), for, as St. Gregory apodictically points out: “Understanding God is difficult, but expressing Him is impossible.

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