If God knew that Satan would rise and Adam and Eve would sin, why did He create them? The Orthodox faith is original sin.

Let us consider in detail the love spell Adam and Eve sinned - with a detailed description of all magical actions so that the ritual does not have negative consequences.

A quick love spell on your own. Love spell to fall in love deeply

If you want to make the guy you like fall head over heels in love with you, make this white and very quick love spell. A strong conspiracy read for a guy’s love will instantly tie his heart to you forever! After the love spell, the guy will always miss you and will be haunted by an obsessive desire to constantly be with you and regularly call on the phone, talking with you for hours. Make this old love spell yourself young man or an unmarried man is very simple. When you meet, look into his eyes and without blinking, say to yourself three times text love plot– love spell :

Adam and Eve sinned, gave birth to children,

Because they loved each other.

So you will love me too.

This love spell is very fast-acting and there is a high probability that the person on whom this love spell was made will begin to show signs of attention to you on the same day, indicating his feelings of love for you.

You can use magic to bring a person back after a quarrel on your own. strong conspiracy- love spell. A conspiracy that will bring a person back by returning feelings of love will not give him peace and will force him to call or come to your home. With the power of thought you can do a lot, and if you read the return plot yourself, you can pick up the phone and wait for a call from your loved one and

Love spells will tell everyone how to bewitch a wandering husband who walks at night with friends and does not hide his infidelity, drinks and lies. In the old days, a spell was read for such a man against a wandering husband, capable of tying him to his wife and children, returning love and peace to the family. Prepare dinner and read a spell for it - a love spell against your husband’s infidelity and when your loved one returns, feed him

A love spell that has the power until death; you can make a love spell using black magic only once in your life and only on someone with whom you are really ready to live your whole life until the grave. Before you begin the ritual and make this love spell, think several times about its consequences - it can never be removed by anyone. For a love spell the most

This is a very powerful love spell for love that is done independently on cemetery land and requires a trip to the cemetery during the day. The effect of a love spell made in a cemetery is permanent and, as a rule, it is impossible to retract a love spell made on the graveyard. If these conditions for a love spell ritual suit you, you need to take a church candle with you and

So that the husband cannot sleep with anyone other than his wife, you need to do a light ritual from a walking man and read a spell on the husband’s underpants. After this magical ritual, your hubby will stop looking at other women, much less walking to the left. Take a hair from the gelding's mane and put it into your husband's underpants along with an elastic band, while reading the words

It’s quite easy to do the most powerful love spell ritual for love on your own and read a spell - a spell that will forever bewitch your loved one. To carry out a love spell, you just need to prepare a little and be sure that everything will work out for you the first time and after casting a love spell, you will definitely receive strong love from the bewitched person

I receive letters asking how I can make a love spell without a photo at home, and whether there is a love spell that needs to be read during the day. There is such a love spell and anyone can perform it without preparation or magical items for witchcraft. Next, love spells will tell everyone how you can quickly bewitch the one you love by saying magic words for love and

To read a love spell using blood from your finger, you need to use wine, which, after reading the love spell, the man you want to bewitch with your blood should drink. It is best to perform a love spell ritual with blood at home, as it is easier to prick your finger and drip a drop from your finger. Prepare the needle in another room in advance; it is better to leave the wine there too. The best wine for this

You only need to read a love spell for baptism on January 19, it is on this day that you can strongly bewitch your loved one. A love spell made for baptism is a white love spell that does not harm either the one who will read it, or the person whom you will bewitch. According to ancient tradition, a love spell for baptism is usually read on the icon and on

On Christmas Eve it is customary to read the most powerful love spell found in white love magic. An effective love spell made on Christmas Eve is a powerful ritual that can quickly and forever bewitch a loved one. No one will ever be able to remove this love spell that will bind your souls in heaven until death and not one of you will be able to change your

A good strong love spell that needs to be read on Maundy Thursday can quickly bewitch your loved one. As a result of a love spell read on Maundy Thursday, the beloved guy, man, or woman on whom the love spell was read will fall deeply and forever in love with you. But before you read the love spell, keep in mind that a love spell made on Maundy Thursday cannot be removed and

Popular love spell rituals on a photo of a loved one without consequences

The first photographs, which appeared about two centuries ago, immediately attracted the attention of specialists. occult sciences. And the first experiments of magicians and sorcerers turned out to be very successful. Subsequently, it was proven that photography absorbs the energy of the person depicted on it, and, therefore, with the help of magic it can be controlled.

A love spell based on photography and its consequences are of interest to many today. And this is explained by the fact that you really want to get your loved one quickly, with practically no effort. But, nevertheless, one should be wary of the consequences that magic may entail.

Professional magicians claim that a photograph in a love spell ritual can be replaced with a portrait, since it, like a photo, is energetically connected with a person. It is believed that a portrait is even better in the sense that it took the artist more time to create it, and, therefore, the connection between the drawn image is stronger and more stable.

Strong rituals

The photograph for a magical ritual must be chosen correctly.

Please note:

• The photo must be recent, taken no more than a year ago;
• In the photo, the person on whom the magical influence is directed should be depicted alone;
• The eyes must be clearly visible in the photo.

Attention! You cannot crop the photo using scissors, otherwise the ritual will not be effective.

Ritual using a candle

The sequence of actions when performing a love spell is as follows:

• Seclude yourself in a separate room.
• Light a church candle.
• Take a photo of your chosen one in your hands.
• Looking into the eyes of the image in the picture, read the following plot:

For people with strong natural energy

Another powerful love spell with minimal consequences is performed over three consecutive evenings. It requires strong energy.

The ritual consists of the following actions:

• A photograph of your loved one should be placed on the table between a pair of lit church candles;
• Then you need to concentrate as much as possible and look carefully at the picture, visualizing the image of your loved one, and thinking only about him;
• After this, the following spell should be repeated twelve times:

Easy love spell for a guy

If you just want to attract the attention of a guy, then you can do this with the help of a light love spell. This will allow you not to harm either the guy or yourself. If after some time you realize that the guy is not right for you, then you can break up, and the person you abandoned will not suffer for a long time, since the energy connection disappears in a short time after a slight love spell. But, nevertheless, it is quite enough to start a serious relationship.

To carry out a light influence, you need to take a photo of the guy you like and retire to a separate room, in which you should turn off the artificial lighting and light a candle. Any possible irritants, such as pets, should be removed from the room, and all household communications equipment should be turned off.

You need to pick up a photo of your loved one and visualize his image, that is, you should imagine him in reality next to you. If you succeed, then an energetic connection will arise between you and your loved one. At this point, you can say mentally or out loud that you would like to build a relationship with him in the future.

You need to end your reasoning with the words:

The result of such a light ritual may be a telephone call or a meeting with the chosen one in the coming days on his initiative. If this does not happen, then after a few days the ritual can be repeated.

Possible consequences of a love spell

Thus, it is very easy to perform a strong love spell from a photograph, and its consequences for the performer can be minimal if all the rules are followed. But in any case, after the ritual, a certain emptiness will come in the soul of the performer, so you need to give yourself a day of complete rest after the magical ritual.

A love spell based on a photograph can be dangerous if it is aimed at destroying the connection between two loving people. As a rule, rituals of black magic are used for this, involving the use menstrual blood or visiting a cemetery. White magic rituals are aimed at awakening feelings and, in most cases, help a person pay attention to you, so they do not carry strong negativity.

For the victim

For the victim of a love spell, the consequences can be minimal only if the person you are trying to bewitch is free and sympathizes with you. But even in this case, the victim of a love spell may experience the following symptoms at first.

Namely:

• Rapid fatigue and malaise, even if the person is in good health.
• Depressed mood;
• Irritability and sometimes aggressiveness towards loved ones.

In most cases, the victim may experience such minimal effects for no more than a couple of days. If this period drags on and the above-mentioned manifestations worsen, it means that serious mistakes were made during the ceremony or some external unforeseen circumstances arose.

In this case, care must be taken to remove the love spell, otherwise it can lead to irreversible changes in human health. In addition, if your chosen one turns out to be a person with naturally strong energy, then on a subconscious level he can resist external influences. And this can provoke mental disorders, suicidal thoughts and the development of addictions.

At home, love spells should be performed only when you are confident in your abilities. The stronger the love spell, the more dangerous they are. In order for a love spell based on a photo to have minimal consequences, you must follow the rules of the rituals. It is very important to carry out love spell rituals using photos on the new moon, in this case the feelings of the bewitched man will increase along with the increase in the night luminary.

To exclude any unforeseen accidents associated with the need for maximum concentration, love spell rituals with photos are recommended to be performed at night. Any extraneous sounds can not only reduce the effectiveness of the impact, but also change the energy message, which will cause unpredictable consequences. A positive attitude and good mood helps to carry out a love spell with minimal consequences.

Love spell

Conspiracy for the love and attention of men

Their manners are bad

All the dresses are short,

I came in, peacock,

I gathered all the men.

Wherever I go, they follow me.

And my beloved (name) is above all!”

A conspiracy to make peace with a guy

Spell to make a guy love you (works quickly)

Plot for quick marriage

Bring a broom home. On the way, think about how great your new folding broom is and how great it will be for you to sweep the house, putting things in order.

When the new moon comes, you need to sweep up all the litter in the yard (or in the entrance) with this broom, and all the dust needs to be collected in a yellow dustpan. It can be plastic or wood painted yellow.

While you are taking revenge, say:

The cleaner you sweep the yard (entrance), the more suitors you will have. When you have collected all the rubbish, take it to your home, carefully pour it into a small canvas bag, put it in the far corner and keep it there until the new moon.

Be sure to read the “Our Father” nine times over it. Expect suitors soon, they will appear, and you will choose from them.

And as soon as possible, take the rubbish away from the house and bury it in a hole so that no one can see.

A conspiracy to find out whether this man is destined for you or not

There is a big oak tree

On it hangs a little chest, zloty.

There is a book hidden in the chest,

In it my destiny is both written and read.

My heart, calm down.

Tell me, servant of God (your name),

Am I destined to live forever?

with the servant of God (name).

Quickly pour the water out of the basin.

At home, ask the first person you meet something neutral.

It doesn’t matter what your question is about, the main thing is that the person you meet can answer this question either “yes” or “no”.

If he answers affirmatively, this is your person by fate, but if he answers negatively, it is better to forget about him.

Spell for a guy's love

Chamomile happiness

Pick an odd number of flowers (optimally five), tear off all the petals and put them in a bag made of natural fabric - linen or cotton. Then shake it and read the following plot nine times:

How to attract love

“APAS – AGNI – VAYU – PRITHIVI – AKASA – ICOSAHEDRON – PYRAMID – OCTAHEDRON – CUBE – DODECAHEDRON.”

After this, tie a piece of paper with the name with a red woolen thread and always carry it with you. Within a maximum of a month, love will be reborn even in the most difficult cases.

Rite of love

On the seventeenth day of any month at five o’clock in the evening, you need to take a white thread three cubits long (the length is measured from the tips of your fingers to the bend of your elbow) and, slowly winding it around your index finger, read the following spell seventeen times in a row:

Love spell at home: who did it, reviews of how their lives turned out

Unrequited love pushes people to the most desperate actions. A love spell is one of these. After all, this is also a question of self-esteem: if a lover feels powerless to do anything on his own in order to keep the object of his adoration nearby, he decides to turn to either home magic or the help of sorcerers.

Many people don’t even think about the consequences. Intervention in a person’s energy is fraught with violations of energy protection, which, in turn, cause harm to the physical body, attracting diseases and troubles to the victim. This breaks his will, causes discomfort and weakens the state of mind.

The rollback after the end of the ritual is also characterized by extremely unpleasant properties: in addition to suffering, the bewitcher will experience complete indifference or even hatred; a piece of the energy-information field, damaged by the ritual no less, also makes both the defense of the soul and the physical state vulnerable. About the fact that love spells doesn't promise anything good Many people write and say.

Who did it, reviews

“I cast a love spell on a guy who was getting married to his girlfriend. It worked, so much so that I’m not happy. He says that he can’t live without me, but his friend is about to have a baby, so he married her. He lives in two houses, I want to date someone else, but my lover doesn’t let anyone near me, he’s jealous. The love spell cannot be removed…” – Irina, 23 years old.

« My husband drinks. I treated it, coded it, but it doesn’t help. And the grandmother, who said something before the wedding, gave water to both of them to drink, so that they could live soul to soul and not want anyone else. We turned out to be so different that together we just we can't stay. And being away from each other we start to get sick. I have a lover, he has alcohol, God did not give children. We don’t live, we suffer,” – Inga, 30 years old.

“When I realized that my beloved was serious she was going to leave me, went to see my grandmother, a neighbor, and complained about his fate. She told me what to do and how to do it. I bought flowers, candles, wine, and threw the spoken ring into a beautiful glass. So he proposed and Marishka immediately put the ring on her finger. The neighbor came to the wedding, whispered something over the wine, over our treat. We live in perfect harmony, and there are children, and the house is full!” - Max, 34 years old.

“They cast me for over a year with holy water, reprimanded, they even gave a different name at baptism in order to remove the love spell of an experienced adult woman. Received Baptism, lived in a monastery, met a nice girl. I’m afraid to take her to my parents, I don’t tell her what happened. I still feel uneasy that such obscurantism can happen these days,” Sergei, 20 years old.

A love spell that will definitely work

Many people write about how, around 15 years ago, we made some kind of simple love spell on the guys we liked. It all seemed like a joke, but it doesn't turn out very funny. A lot of love spells they call them white, they say that they do no harm, they will definitely work, but either they are not very strong, or they are only called upon to draw the guy’s attention to their person.

Where is the magic here? and where the suggestion is is difficult to understand. And for those who decide to use love spells, we can advise one thing - there is no need to tightly screw a person, especially using black magic. It is rarely possible to build your happiness on the misfortune of another person, and it is very easy to derail your life.

Concentration: main condition– do this on ordinary days when there is no church holidays. If you really like a guy or a girl, but can’t attract attention, you need to choose a place where no one will disturb you, it’s better if it’s your bed in the bedroom, sit on the edge at sunset and imagine this person very clearly.

Holding it before your gaze, you need to mentally say: “As with the permission of the Lord, Adam and Eve loved each other, on Earth alone to live They decided that the slave (name) and the slave (name) should love each other and not live without each other. No one can remove the love spell, no one can subdue the passion.”

The next day you need to repeat it in the same place at the same time, read for 1 week. And the result will become noticeable after 10 days, the object will definitely pay attention to the lover. All that remains is to keep him close for the rest of your life.

• Attraction: any night Read the dryer 3 times while lying on the bed and stroking the pillow and the empty space next to you: “Just as my mother loved me, had mercy, pampered me, dressed me up, caressed me, so (name) and I don’t have to worry about living, be near me all the time, so that no one did not separate, to be each other’s last food, last water, from this day until the end of time.” The love spell begins to work immediately.
• For love's melancholy: a love spell will make a person toil and look for a meeting. Usually used when feelings weaken, the family is about to break up. At night, stand at your spouse’s feet with a lit candle and quietly read: “He who is loved by the heart, more life dear, so that you don’t walk away from me, don’t forget me, don’t offend me, only dream of being here, please me, forget others who separate us, only miss me and never cheat on me.” Then you need to lie next to her in bed and not say a word until dawn. Just don't scare your spouse, standing in your night clothes with a candle, and even at your feet, make sure that you are sleeping soundly, otherwise, together with a love spell, you will get a pre-infarction state and long term care behind him in the hospital.
• At full moon : Love spells are strong at this time because all the dark forces unite at this time. You need to go outside and look at the Moon and say: “At night it shone, gave me strength, dispersed obstacles, helped. Mani the beloved with fire, drive to me with earthly melancholy, so that he hurries, not seeing anyone, so that he loves, without hearing anyone, lives for me alone, loses peace.” This love spell is very strong, it cannot be easily removed, so the feelings must be really strong, for life.
• To the growing: a strong love spell can be cast on a growing luminary. It will only work if mutual feelings are possible, so there will be no harm. On the growing moon, you need to take two church candles and a mirror, place them so that you can see your own and their reflection, imagine a person and light a candle. Take the second one through a rag and light it from the first one. The conspiracy itself is as follows: “Just as the moon is destined to grow above the earth, so is my dear one to love me, no one will change the order, fate itself will lead me, the moon will go into a dream, it will bring me, I will dream about it, I see it everywhere, come, I’m waiting, with love I'm burning." The first candle should be allowed to burn out to the end, and the second should be blown out after the spell and placed under the pillow along with a rag. In the morning, without speaking to anyone, you need to take the unburned candle to the temple, light it for the Mother of God, mentally repent, ask for forgiveness, read prayers to the intercessor. The result will not be long in coming.
• In bed: if you live civil marriage, but the relationship is shaky, at the moment of having sex you need to catch your partner’s gaze and looking into his eyes, mentally say: “The look is mine. Love me. But not I you! This will protect against betrayal and will bind the partner very strongly, but specifically to bed relationships.

You should be careful when using linings with your personal belongings or hair, pieces of nails or skin, the lapel of which, if discovered, is fraught with strong kickback, even damage.

On distance

You can cast a love spell at a distance, if the person is far away, has gone on a long business trip or is away for good.

On the 3rd day of any month take dried flowers, soil taken from the grave, a cup, bowl or plate (opaque), seeds of plants that you especially like, holy water.

You need to concentrate on the image of your loved one as if he were nearby, then pour exactly half of the soil into the cup, put flowers and say: “The dead has fallen into the ground, overgrown with decay, just as the flowers died, so the beloved (name) dies without me, happiness doesn’t know, doesn’t know.”

Then fill it completely with soil, put the seeds and pour over the prepared consecrated liquid with the words: “The new is reborn on the old, life is born, so let love for me flare up.”

You need to place the cup on your windowsill; if sprouts appear, great, water them and take care of them like you would a loved one. If they haven’t sprouted, it doesn’t matter; after a month, pour them into a deserted place. The love spell will take effect in a maximum of 35 days.

You can use a photo of your loved one, lighting a candle in front of it and mentally calling to yourself for 7 nights in a row.

She will not allow him to let go of thoughts about a woman, she will tie him tightly. A conspiracy that must be pronounced before a man leaves the house: “I conjure with my life and mine, just as this blood was in me, so you strive for me.”

The ritual won't work if there is no chance of being together or the woman’s feelings are insincere, angry.

For the love of a man

Tired of loneliness or despair, women decide to perform rituals that can bewitch a man. What lengths they go to when they lose faith in their abilities!

• Touch the drink with your finger in the menstrual blood and dry it on yourself.
• Whispering on the salt that is used to salt food, they feed it to themselves.
• Shoelaces and underwear speak.
• “They sew it to themselves,” using a charmed thread to make invisible seams.
• They send SMS with neutral content, which are sent with an energy charge, fixed by something said in the dark before this spell: “Beloved, the palace of love is waiting for you, the doors are open, the maiden (name) is calling.”

But will it be love? Even if the feelings are sincere, if the love spell was forgotten or was more of a joke, a test of strength, not a single woman will fully believe that a happy life with a man was possible without spells. This can destroy an alliance of any strength. And those who have made a serious love spell will have to fear the consequences that may affect their children and grandchildren all their lives.

Love spell rules:

• complete concentration and positivity, faith that what you want will come true, it cannot be otherwise;
• pure thoughts - without malice, a clean body, preferably washed with holy water;
• if sheets, rags, tablecloths are used, then they must be new, unless otherwise provided, only purchased ones;
• objects for the ritual are also new - knives, bowls, candlesticks, matches;
• there should be nothing “closed” left on the body: you need to remove all jewelry, bracelets, rings, earrings, chains;
• loosen your hair and comb it well so that there are no tangles;
• read words without hesitation;

And the most important thing: Before you start, think again about whether you need to bewitch a guy or a man, take it upon yourself, if everything can work out without a love spell, but no - there are a lot of other men. And the impact is always a reason to doubt true feelings, a reason to doubt again and again how strong the love spell is. Magic corrodes the soul, especially for those who do not know how to work with it.

Please tell me a love spell

This spell is said during the dance, three times to oneself, while looking into the eyes of your loved one.

After the arrival of the new month, the girl says, simultaneously spinning on her right leg:

When you hear the cuckoo, say these words:

These words will help you make your boyfriend fall in love with you:

at 00.00 you light a candle and turn off the light. So:

on the island of Buyan there is a tree upside down,

under the roots is a board, under the board is my melancholy,

you devils, take this melancholy and give it to the servant of God (name)

Man before the Fall

Man, created in the image of God, came out of God’s hands holy, passionless, sinless, immortal, directed towards God. God Himself gave this assessment of man when he said about everything that He created, including man, that everything “is good” (Gen. 1:31; cf. Eccl. 7:29).

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes:

“It is told by Divine revelation that the first man was created by God out of nothing, created in the beauty of spiritual grace, created immortal, free from evil.”

Man is a complete unity of spirit, soul and body - one harmonious whole, namely, the spirit of man is directed towards God, the soul is united or freely subordinated to the spirit, and the body is to the soul. The man was holy, deified.

“Our nature,” says Saint Gregory of Nyssa, - was originally created by God as a kind of vessel capable of accepting perfection.”

The will of God, namely, is that man freely, that is, with love, strives for God, the source of eternal life and bliss, and thereby invariably remains in communion with God, in the bliss of eternal life.

This was the first man. That’s why he had an enlightened mind and “Adam knew every creature by name,” which means the physical laws of the universe and the animal world were revealed to him.

The mind of the first man was pure, bright, sinless, capable of deep knowledge, but at the same time it had to develop and improve, just as the minds of the Angels themselves develop and improve.

Rev. Seraphim of Sarov described Adam’s state in paradise this way:

“Adam was created to such an extent that he was not subject to the action of any of the elements created by God, that neither water could drown him, nor fire could burn him, nor could the earth devour him in its abysses, nor could the air harm him by any of its actions. All was subjugated to him as the favorite of God, as the king and owner of creation. And everyone admired him as the all-perfect crown of God’s creations. From this breath of life, breathed into Adam’s face from the All-Creative Lips of the All-Creator and Almighty God, Adam became so wise that There has never been a man from the ages, no, and there will hardly ever be a man on earth wiser and more knowledgeable than he. When the Lord commanded him to name the names of every creature, he gave to each creature such names in the language that fully signify all the qualities, all the strength and all the properties of the creature that it has by the gift of God, given to it at creation. It was by this gift of the supernatural grace of God, sent down to him from the breath of life, that Adam could see and understand the Lord walking in Paradise, and comprehend His words and the conversation of the holy Angels, and the language of all the animals and birds and creeping things that live on the earth, and everything that is now hidden from us, as fallen and sinners, and that was so clear to Adam before his fall. The Lord God gave the same wisdom and strength, and omnipotence, and all other good and holy qualities to Eve..."

His body, also created by God, was sinless, passionless, and thereby free from disease, suffering and death.

Living in paradise, man received direct revelations from God, who communicated with him, taught him a godlike life, and guided him to all good things. According to Saint Gregory of Nyssa, the man "enjoyed the Epiphany face to face."

St. Macarius of Egypt speaks:

“Just as the Spirit acted in the prophets and taught them, and was inside them, and appeared to them from the outside: so in Adam the Spirit, when it wanted, stayed with him, taught and inspired...”

“Adam, the father of the universe, in paradise knew the sweetness of God’s love,” writes St. Silouan of Athos, - The Holy Spirit is love and sweetness of the soul, mind and body. And those who know God through the Holy Spirit are insatiably eager day and night for the living God.”

Saint Gregory of Nyssa explains:

“Man was created in the image of God, that like might see like, for the life of the soul consists in the contemplation of God.”

The first people were created sinless, and they, as free beings, were given the opportunity to voluntarily, with the help of God's grace, be confirmed in goodness and perfected in divine virtues.

Man's sinlessness was relative, not absolute; it lay in the free will of man, but was not a necessity of his nature. That is, “man could not sin,” and not “man could not sin.” About it Saint John of Damascus writes:

“God created man by nature sinless and free by will. Sinless, I say, not in the sense that he could not accept sin (for only the Divine is inaccessible to sin), but in the sense that he had the possibility of sin not in his nature, but primarily in free will. This means that he could, assisted by the grace of God, remain in goodness and succeed in it, just as by his own freedom he could, with God’s permission, turn away from goodness and end up in evil.”

The meaning of the commandment given to man in paradise

In order for a person to develop his spiritual powers by perfecting himself in goodness, God gave him the commandment not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: “Thou shalt bring food from every tree that is in heaven; But from the tree, which you understand to be good and evil, you will not tear it down; And if you take it away one day, you will die” (Gen. 2:16-17; cf. Rom. 5:12; 6:23).

“God gave man free will,” says St. Gregory the Theologian, - so that he would choose good with his free determination... He also gave him the law as material for the exercise of free will. The law was the commandment, which fruits he could eat and which he should not touch.”

“In fact, it would not be useful for a person,” he reasons. Saint John of Damascus, - to receive immortality before he was tempted and tested, for he could become proud and fall under the same condemnation as the devil (1 Tim. 3:6), who, through an arbitrary fall, due to his immortality, was irrevocably and relentlessly established in evil; while the Angels, since they voluntarily chose virtue, are unshakably established in goodness by grace. Therefore, it was necessary for a person to be tempted at first, so that when, when tempted through keeping the commandment, he appears perfect, he accepts immortality as a reward for virtue. In fact, being by nature something between God and matter, man, if he had avoided attachment to created objects and united with God through love, would have been unshakably established in goodness by keeping the commandment.”

St. Gregory the Theologian writes:

“The commandment was a kind of educator of the soul and tamer of pleasures.”

“If we had remained what we were,” he asserts, “and kept the commandment, we would have become what we were not, and would have approached the tree of life from the tree of knowledge. What, therefore, would they become? “Immortal and very close to God.”

By its nature, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not deadly; on the contrary, it was good, like everything else that God created, only God chose it as a means of developing man’s obedience to God.

It was named so because through this tree man learned from experience what good is contained in obedience, and what evil is contained in resistance to the will of God.

St. Theophilus writes:

“Wonderful was the tree of knowledge itself, and wonderful was its fruit. For it was not deadly, as some people think, but the violation of the commandment.”

“The Holy Scripture called this tree the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” says St. John Chrysostom, - not because it conveyed such knowledge, but because through it the violation or observance of the commandment of God was to be accomplished. ...since Adam, through extreme negligence, transgressed this commandment with Eve and ate from the tree, the tree is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This does not mean that he did not know what was good and what was evil; he knew this, for the wife, talking to the serpent, said: “God said: do not eat from it, lest you die”; this means that she knew that death would be the punishment for breaking the commandment. But since they, after eating from this tree, were both deprived of the highest glory and felt nakedness, the Holy Scripture called it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: it, so to speak, had an exercise in obedience and disobedience.”

Saint Gregory the Theologian writes:

“They were commanded not to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was not planted with malicious intent and was not prohibited out of envy; on the contrary, it was good for those who would use it in a timely manner, for this tree, in my opinion, was contemplation, which only those who have been perfected by experience can approach without danger, but which was not good for the simple and immoderate in their desires "

St. John of Damascus:

“The tree of knowledge in paradise served as a kind of test, and temptation, and exercise of human obedience and disobedience; therefore it is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Or maybe it was given such a name because it gave those who ate its fruit the strength to know their own nature. This knowledge is good for those who are perfect and established in divine contemplation and for those who are not afraid of falling, for they have acquired a certain skill through patient exercise in such contemplation; but it is not good for those who are unskilled and subject to voluptuous lusts, for they are not established in goodness and are not yet sufficiently established in their adherence to only that which is good.”

Causes of the Fall

But by their fall, people upset their nature.

Etc. Justin Popovich:

“Our first parents did not remain in the state of primitive righteousness, sinlessness, holiness and bliss, but, having transgressed the commandment of God, they fell away from God, light, life and fell into sin, darkness, death. Sinless Eve allowed herself to be deceived by the crafty and wise serpent.
...that the devil was hidden in the serpent is easily and clearly seen from other places of Holy Scripture. It says: “And the great dragon was cast out, the ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, who enriched the whole world” (Rev. 12:9; cf. 20:2); “he was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44); “Through the envy of the devil death entered the world” (Wisdom 2:24).

Just as the devil’s envy towards God was the reason for his fall in heaven, so his envy towards man as God’s divine creation was the motive for the disastrous fall of the first people.”

“It is necessary to count,” says St. John Chrysostom, - that the words of the serpent belong to the devil, who was prompted to this seduction by envy, and he used this animal as a suitable tool in order, covering his deception with bait, to seduce first the wife, and then with her help the primordial one.”

Seducing Eve, the serpent openly slandered God, attributed envy to him, claiming in spite of Him that eating the forbidden fruit would make people sinless and leading everything, and that they would be like gods.

However, the first people may not have sinned, but with their free will they chose to deviate from the will of God, that is, sin.

Rev. Ephraim Sirin writes that inIt was not the devil who caused the fall of Adam, but Adam’s own desire:

“The tempting word would not have led those tempted into sin if their own desire had not served as a guide to the tempter. Even if the tempter had not come, then the tree itself with its beauty would have introduced their position into the struggle. Although the ancestors sought excuses for themselves in the advice of the serpent, but more , rather than the advice of the serpent, it was their own desire that harmed them" (Commentary on the book of Genesis, chapter 3, p. 237).

Etc. Justin Popovich writes:

“The serpent’s seductive offer causes a boil of pride in Eve’s soul, which quickly turns into an anti-God mood, to which Eve curiously succumbs and deliberately violates the commandment of God. ... Although Eve fell through the seduction of Satan, she fell not because she had to fall, but because wanted; violation of God's commandment was suggested to her, but not imposed. She acted on Satan's proposal only after she had first consciously and voluntarily accepted his proposal with all her soul, for she participates in this with both soul and body: she examines the fruit on the tree, sees that it is good to eat, that it is pleasant to look at, that it is beautiful for the sake of knowledge, reflects on it and only after that decides to pick the fruit from the tree and eat from it. As Eve did, so did Adam. As the serpent persuaded Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit, but did not force her, because he could not, Eve did the same with Adam. He could not have accepted the fruit offered to him, but did not do so and voluntarily violated the commandment of God (Gen. 3: 6-17)."

The essence of the Fall

In vain do some wish to see the meaning of the Fall allegorically, that is, that the Fall consisted of physical love between Adam and Eve, forgetting that the Lord Himself commanded them: “Be fruitful and multiply...” Moses clearly tells that “Eve sinned first.” alone, and not together with her husband,” says Metropolitan Philaret. “How could Moses have written this if he had written the allegory that they want to find here?”

The essence of the Fall was that the forefathers, succumbing to temptation, stopped looking at the forbidden fruit as an object of God’s commandment, but began to consider it in its supposed relation to themselves - to their sensuality and their heart, their understanding (Col. 7, 29), with deviation from the unity of God's truth in the multiplicity of one’s own thoughts, own desires not focused on the will of God, i.e. with deviation into lust. Lust, having conceived sin, gives birth to actual sin (James 1:14-15). Eve, tempted by the devil, saw in the forbidden tree not what it was, but what she herself desired, according to known species lust (1 John 2:16; Gen. 3:6). What lusts were revealed in Eve’s soul before eating the forbidden fruit? “And the woman saw that the tree was good for food,” that is, she assumed some special, unusually pleasant taste in the forbidden fruit - this is the lust of the flesh. “And that it is pleasing to the eye,” that is, the forbidden fruit seemed most beautiful to the wife - this is lust, or passion for pleasure. “And it is desirable because it gives knowledge,” that is, the wife wanted to experience that higher and divine knowledge that the tempter promised her - this worldly pride.

The first sin is born in sensuality - the desire for pleasant sensations - for luxury, in the heart, the desire to enjoy without reasoning, in the mind - the dream of arrogant knowledge, and consequently, penetrates all the powers of human nature.

The human mind became darkened, the will weakened, feelings were distorted, contradictions arose, and the human soul I lost my sense of purpose towards God.

Thus, having transgressed the limit set by the commandment of God, man diverted his soul from God, the true universal concentration and completeness, formed for it a false focus in its selfhood. The mind, will and activity of man turned away, deviated, and fell from God to creation (Gen. 3:6).

« Let no one think, - declares St. Augustine, - that the sin of the first people was small and light, because it consisted of eating fruit from a tree, and the fruit was not bad or harmful, but only forbidden; The commandment requires obedience, a virtue that among rational beings is the mother and guardian of all virtues. … Here is pride, for man desired to be more in his own power than in God’s; Here and blasphemy of the shrine, for he did not believe God; Here and murder, for he subjected himself to death; here is spiritual fornication, for the integrity of the soul is violated by the temptation of the serpent; here is theft, for he took advantage of the forbidden fruit; here and love of wealth, for he desired more than was enough for him.”

Rev. Justin Popovich writes:

"The fall has broken and rejected the Divine-human order of life, but the devil-human one was accepted, because by a willful transgression of God’s commandment, the first people declared that they wanted to achieve Divine perfection, to become “like gods” not with the help of God, but with the help of the devil, and this means - bypassing God, without God, against God.

By disobedience to God, which manifested itself as a creation of the will of the devil, the first people voluntarily fell away from God and cleave to the devil, brought themselves into sin and sin into themselves (cf. Rom. 5:19).

In reality original sin means a person’s rejection of the goal of life determined by God - becoming like God based on the godlike human soul - and replacing this with likeness to the devil. For through sin people transferred the center of their lives from God-like nature and reality to an extra-God reality, from being to non-being, from life to death, they have turned away from God.”

The essence of sin is disobedience to God as the Absolute Good and the Creator of all good things. The reason for this disobedience is selfish pride.

“The devil could not lead a person into sin,” writes St. Augustine, - if pride had not come into play in this.”

“Pride is the pinnacle of evil,” says Saint John Chrysostom. - For God, nothing is so disgusting as pride. ...Because of pride, we have become mortal, we live in sorrow and sorrow: because of pride, our life is spent in torment and tension, burdened with incessant labor. The first man fell into sin from pride, desiring to be equal to God».

St. Theophan the Recluse writes about what happened in human nature as a result of the Fall:

“To be subject to the law of sin is the same as walking in the flesh and sinning, as can be seen from the previous chapter. Man fell under the yoke of this law as a result of his fall or falling away from God. It is necessary to remember what happened as a result of this. Man: spirit - soul - body. Spirit to live in God, the soul is destined to organize earthly life under the guidance of the spirit, the body is to produce and maintain visible elemental life on earth under the guidance of both.When man broke away from God and decided to arrange his own well-being, he fell into selfhood, the soul of which is all self-indulgence. Since his spirit did not imagine any ways of doing this, due to his detached nature, he turned entirely to the area of ​​mental and physical life, where extensive nourishment was presented to self-indulgence - and he became spiritually carnal. a sin against his nature: for he should have lived in the spirit, spiritualizing both soul and body. But the trouble was not limited to this. From the self, many passions were born, which, together with it, invaded the soul-body area, distorted the natural forces, needs and functions of the soul and bodies and, moreover, they contributed much that has no support in nature. The spiritual fleshiness of fallen man became passionate. So, fallen man is self-indulgent, and as a result he is self-indulgent and feeds his self-indulgence with passionate spiritual fleshiness. This is his sweetness, the strongest chain holding him in these bonds of fall. Taken together, all this is the law of sin that exists in our lives. In order to free one from this law, it is necessary to destroy the indicated bonds - sweetness, self-indulgence, selfishness.

How is this possible? We have a detached power - a spirit breathed into the face of man by God, seeking God and only by living in God can find peace. In the very act of creating him, or blowing him out, he is put into communion with God; but fallen man, who was torn away from God, also tore him away from God. His nature, however, remained unchanged - and he constantly reminded the fallen, mired in spiritual-fleshness - horrified - of his needs and demanded their satisfaction. The man did not reject these demands and, in a calm state, believed in doing what was pleasing to the spirit. But when it was time to get down to business, passion rose from the soul or from the body, flattered by pleasure and took possession of the will of the person. As a result, the spirit was denied the task at hand, and the passionate soul-carnality was satisfied, due to the promised sweetness in nourishing self-indulgence. As we acted in this way in every case, it is fair to call this way of acting the law of sinful life, which kept a person in the bonds of fall. The fallen one himself was aware of the burden of these bonds and sighed for freedom, but he could not find the strength to free himself: the sweetness of sin always lured him and incited him to sin.

The reason for such weakness is that in the fallen the spirit lost its defining power: it passed from him into a passionate soul-physicality. According to his original structure, a person should live in the spirit, and by this we determine to be in his activity - complete, that is, both mental and physical, and to spiritualize everything within himself with the power of it. But the strength of spirit to keep a person in such a rank depended on his living communication with God. When this communication was interrupted by the fall, the strength of the spirit also dried up: it no longer had the power to determine man - the lower parts of nature began to determine him, and, moreover, ostracized - in which are the bonds of the law of sin. It is obvious now that in order to be liberated from this law, it is necessary to restore the strength of the spirit and return to it the power that was taken from it. This is what accomplishes the economy of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ—the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.”

Death is a consequence of the Fall

Created by God for immortality and godlike perfection, people, but according to St. Athanasius the Great, turned away from this path, stopped on evil and united themselves with death.

They themselves became the cause of the death of our forefathers, because disobedience fell away from the Living and Life-Giving God and gave themselves over to sin, which exudes the poison of death and infecting everything he touches with death.

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes about the first man:

“In the midst of undisturbed bliss, he poisoned himself spontaneously by tasting evil, in himself and with himself he poisoned and destroyed all his offspring. Adam... was struck by death, that is, by sin, which irrevocably upset the nature of man, making him incapable of bliss. Killed by this death, but not deprived of being, and death is all the more terrible as it is felt, he is thrown to the earth in chains: in rough, painful flesh, transformed into such from a passionless, holy, spiritual body.”

Rev. Macarius the Great explains:

“As in the crime of Adam, when the goodness of God condemned him to death, at first he suffered death in his soul, because the intellectual feelings of the soul became extinguished in him and, as it were, killed by the deprivation of heavenly and spiritual pleasure; subsequently, after nine hundred and thirty years, physical death befell Adam.”

After a person transgressed the commandment of God, he, according to the words St. John of Damascus,
“he was deprived of grace, lost his boldness towards God, was subjected to the severity of a calamitous life, - for this means the leaves of the fig tree (Gen. 3:7), - he put on mortality, that is, in mortal and rough flesh, - for this means clothing in skins ( Gen. 3:21), according to the righteous judgment of God, he was expelled from paradise, condemned to death and became subject to corruption.”

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes about the death of the souls of the first people after their fall:

“Both the human soul and body changed through the fall. In the proper sense, the fall was also death for them. The death we see and call, in essence, is only the separation of the soul from the body, which had already been killed by the departure from them of true life, God. We are born already killed by eternal death! We do not feel that we are killed, but general property the dead do not feel their mortification!

When the forefathers sinned, death immediately struck the soul; the Holy Spirit, who constitutes the true life of soul and body, immediately retreated from the soul; Evil immediately entered the soul, constituting the true death of the soul and body.... What the soul is to the body, the Holy Spirit is to the whole person, to his soul and body. Just as the body dies, with the death by which all animals die when the soul leaves him, so the whole person dies, both body and soul, in relation to true life, to God, when the Holy Spirit leaves him.”

Etc. Justin (Popovich):

By his willful and selfish fall into sin, man deprived himself of that direct, grace-filled communication with God, which strengthened his soul on the path of God-like perfection. By this, man himself condemned himself to a double death - bodily and spiritual: bodily, which occurs when the body is deprived of the soul that animates it, and spiritual, which occurs when the soul is deprived of the grace of God, which revives it with the highest spiritual life.

St. John Chrysostom:

“Just as the body then dies when the soul leaves it without its power, so the soul then dies when the Holy Spirit leaves it without His power.”

St. John of Damascus writes that “just as the body dies when the soul is separated from it, so when the Holy Spirit is separated from the soul, the soul dies.”

The soul died first because Divine grace departed from it, says St. Simeon the New Theologian.

St. Gregory of Nyssa:

“The life of the soul, created in the image of God, consists in the contemplation of God; her real life lies in communion with the Divine Good; as soon as the soul ceases to communicate with God, its real life ceases.”

Holy Bible says that death entered the world through sin:

“God do not create death” (Wisdom 1:13); “God created man in incorruptibility and in the image of His likeness created him; but through envy the devil brought death into the world” (Wisdom 2:23-24; cf. 2 Cor. 5:5). “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Rom. 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:21:56).

Together with the Word of God, the holy fathers unanimously teach that man was created immortal and for immortality, and the Church collectively expressed the universal faith in the revealed truth about this immortality by decree Carthage Cathedral:

“If anyone says that Adam, the first-created man, was created mortal, so that even if he sinned, even if he did not sin, he would die in the body, that is, he would leave the body, not as punishment for sin, but according to the necessity of nature: yes shall be anathema" (Rule 123).

The fathers and teachers of the Church understood Adam's immortality in the body, not so that he supposedly could not die by the very nature of his bodily nature, but that he could not die by the special grace of God.

St. Athanasius the Great:

“As a created being, man was by nature transitory, limited, finite; and if he remained in the divine good, he would, by the grace of God, remain immortal, imperishable.”

“God did not create man,” says St. Theophilus, - neither mortal nor immortal, but... capable of both, that is, if he strived for what leads to immortality, fulfilling the commandment of God, he would receive immortality from God as a reward for this and would become godlike, and if he turned to the works of death without submitting to God, he himself would become the author of his own death.”

Etc. Justin (Popovich):

“The death of the body differs from the death of the soul, for the body disintegrates after death, and when the soul dies from sin, it does not disintegrate, but is deprived of spiritual light, God-aspiration, joy and bliss and remains in a state of darkness, sadness and suffering, constantly living by itself and from yourself, which many times means - by sin and from sin.
For our first parents, spiritual death occurred immediately after the fall, and physical death occurred later.”

“But although Adam and Eve lived many years after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” says St. John Chrysostom, - this does not mean that the words of God were not fulfilled: “If you take away a day from it, you will die.” For from the moment they heard: “Earth are you, and to earth you will go,” they received a death sentence, became mortal and, one might say, died.”

“In reality,” he argues St. Gregory of Nyssa, - the soul of our first parents died before the body, for disobedience is not a sin of the body, but of the will, and the will is characteristic of the soul, from which all the devastation of our nature began. Sin is nothing more than a separation from God, Who is true and Who alone is Life. The first man lived many years after his disobedience, his sin, which does not mean that God lied when he said: “If you take one day from him, you will die.” For by the very removal of man from true life, the death sentence against him was confirmed on the same day.”

Consequences of original sin

As a result of the Fall all the powers of the human soul were damaged.

1.The mind has become darkened. He has lost his former wisdom, insight, foresight, scope and devotion to God; the very consciousness of the omnipresence of God has darkened in him, which is obvious from the attempt of the fallen ancestors to hide from the All-Seeing and Omniscient God (Gen. 3, 8) and to falsely imagine their participation in sin (Gen. 3, 12-13).

The minds of people turned away from the Creator and turned to creation. From being God-centered, he became self-centered, gave himself up to sinful thoughts, and was overcome by egoism (self-love) and pride.

2. Sin damaged, weakened and corrupted will people: she lost her primitive light, love of God and God-directedness, became evil and sin-loving and therefore more inclined to evil rather than to good. Immediately after the fall, our first parents developed and revealed a tendency to lie: Eve blamed the serpent, Adam blamed Eve, and even blamed God, who gave it to him (Gen. 3: 12-13).

The disorder of human nature by original sin is clearly expressed in the words of the Apostle Paul: “The good that I want, I do not do, but the evil that I do not want, I do. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Rom. 7:19-20).

3. The heart has lost its purity and integrity, given over to unreasonable aspirations and passionate desires.

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) writes about the breakdown of all the powers of the human soul:

“I plunge even deeper into examining myself, and a new spectacle opens up before me. I see a decisive disorder of my own will, its disobedience to reason, and in my mind I see the loss of the ability to guide the will correctly, the loss of the ability to act correctly. In a distracted life, this state is little noticed, but in solitude, when solitude is illuminated by the light of the Gospel, the state of disorder of spiritual powers appears in a vast, gloomy, terrible picture. And it serves as evidence to me that I am a fallen being. I am a servant of my God, but a slave who has angered God, an outcast slave, a slave punished by the hand of God.This is how Divine Revelation declares me to be.
My condition is a condition common to all people. Humanity is a class of creatures languishing in various calamities..."

Rev. Macarius the Great This is how he describes the destructive effect of the Fall, the state into which all human nature comes as a result of spiritual death:

“The kingdom of darkness, that is, that evil prince, captivated man from time immemorial... So the evil ruler clothed the soul and its entire being with sin, desecrated it all and captivated it all into his kingdom, so that no thoughts, no mind, no flesh, and finally, he did not leave a single part of it free from his power; but he blanketed all of it in a mantle of darkness... the whole man, soul and body, this evil enemy desecrated and disfigured; and he clothed man in the old man, defiled, unclean, ungodly, disobeying the law of God, that is, he has clothed him in sin itself, so that no one can see as he wants, but he sees evil, he hears evil, he has feet that strive to do evil, hands that commit iniquity, and a heart that thinks evil... Just as during a gloomy and dark night, when a stormy wind breathes, all plants waver, become restless and come into great movement: so man, having been subjected to the dark power of the night - the devil, and spending his life in this night and darkness, hesitates, restless and worried the fierce wind of sin, which pierces his entire nature, soul, mind and thoughts, and all his bodily members also move, and there is not a single mental or physical member free from the sin that dwells within us.”

“Man was created in the image of God and in the likeness,” says Saint Basil the Great, - but sin disfigured the beauty of the image, involving the soul in passionate desires.”
Etc. Justin (Popovich) writes:

“The disturbance, darkness, distortion, relaxation that original sin caused in the spiritual nature of man can be briefly called violation, damage, darkening, disfigurement of the image of God in man. For sin darkened, disfigured, disfigured the beautiful image of God in the soul of pristine man.”

According to teaching Saint John Chrysostom, until Adam had not yet sinned, but kept his image, created in the image of God, pure, the animals submitted to him as servants, and when he polluted his image with sin, the animals did not recognize him as their master, and from servants they turned into his enemies, and began to fight against him as against a foreigner.

“When sin entered human life as a habit,” writes Saint Gregory of Nyssa, - and from a small beginning, immense evil arose in man, and the god-like beauty of the soul, created in the likeness of the Prototype, became covered, like some kind of iron, with the rust of sin, then the beauty of the natural image of the soul could no longer be fully preserved, but it changed into the disgusting image of sin . So man, a great and precious creation, deprived himself of his dignity, falling into the mud of sin, lost the image of the incorruptible God and through sin put on the image of corruption and dust, like those who carelessly fell into the mud and smeared their faces, so that they acquaintances cannot recognize.”

A.P. Lopukhin gives an interpretation of the verse “And he said to Adam: because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying: you shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you; you will eat from it in sorrow all the days of your life; She will bring forth thorns and thistles for you...":

“We find the best explanation of this fact in the Holy Scripture itself, namely in the prophet Isaiah, where we read: “the earth is desecrated under those who live on it, for they transgressed the laws, changed the statute, violated the eternal covenant. For this, a curse devours the earth, and they are punished living on it" (Isa. 24:5-6). Consequently, these words give only a partial expression of the general biblical thought about the close connection between the fate of man and the life of all nature (Job 5:7; Eccl. 1, 2, 3; Eccl. . 2, 23; Rom. 8, 20). In relation to the earth, this divine curse was expressed in the impoverishment of its productive power, which in turn responds most strongly to man, since it dooms him to hard, persistent work for daily food."

According to the teachings of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, the image of God in fallen man was not destroyed, but deeply damaged, darkened and disfigured.

« Message from the Eastern Patriarchs” defines the consequences of the Fall this way:

“Man who fell through crime became like dumb creatures, that is, he became darkened and lost perfection and dispassion, but did not lose the nature and power that he received from the all-good God. For otherwise he would have become unreasonable and, therefore, not a man; but he retained the nature with which he was created, and the natural force, free, living and active, so that by nature he could choose and do good, run away and turn away from evil.”

Due to the close and immediate connection of the soul with the body, original sin produced disorder in the body of our first parents. Before sin it was in perfect harmony with the soul; This harmony was disrupted after sin, and a war between the body and soul began. Through the Fall, the body lost its primitive health, innocence and immortality and became sickly, vicious and mortal.

« From sin, as from a source, illness, sorrow, and suffering poured out on man.", says St. Theophilus.

Expulsion from Paradise

God removed the first parents from the tree of life, with the fruits of which they could support the immortality of their body (Gen. 3:22), that is, immortality with all the illnesses, sorrows and suffering that they brought upon themselves by their sin. That is, expulsion from paradise was a matter of God’s love for mankind.

“By sin, our first parents violated their God-given attitude towards visible nature: they largely lost power over nature, over animals, and the earth became cursed for man: “Thorns and thistles will grow for you” (Gen. 3, 18). Created for man, headed by man as his mysterious body, blessed for the sake of man, the earth with all creatures became cursed because of man and subject to corruption and destruction, as a result of which “all creation ... groans and is tormented” (Rom. 8:19-22)"
(Rev. Justin (Popovich)).

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) speaks of the many consequences of the Fall:

“We meet a hostile mood towards us of all visible nature at every step! At every step we meet her reproach, her censure, her disagreement with our behavior! Before man, who rejected submission to God, a soulless and animated creature rejected submission! She was submissive to man until he remained obedient to God! Now she obeys man by force, persists, often breaks obedience, often crushes her master, cruelly and unexpectedly rebelling against him. The law of the reproduction of the human race, established by the Creator after creation, has not been abolished, but it began to act under the influence of the fall; he has changed, become corrupted. Parents were subjected to hostile relations with each other, despite their carnal union; they were subjected to the pains of birth and the labors of education; children, conceived in the womb of corruption and sin, enter into existence as victims of death."

Heredity of original sin

Archbishop Feofan (Bystrov), interpreting the words from the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Romans: “By man alone sin came into the world, and death came into the world by sin, and so death came to all men, in whom all sinned” (Rom. 5:12), explains:

“The holy Apostle clearly distinguishes two points in the doctrine of original sin: parabasis or crime and hamartia or sin. By the first we mean the personal transgression of the will of God by our forefathers in their failure to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; under the second - the law of sinful disorder, which has entered human nature as a consequence of this crime.

When we talk about the heredity of original sin, we mean not parabasis or the crime of our first parents, for which they alone are responsible, but hamartia, that is the law of sinful disorder that has afflicted human nature due to the fall of our first parents, and “sinned” in 5.12 in this case should be understood not in the active voice in the sense of “committed a sin”, but in the middle passive, in the sense of verse 5.19: “became sinners”, “turned out to be sinners”, since in Adam human nature has fallen.

That's why St. John Chrysostom, the best expert on the authentic apostolic text, found in 5:12 only the idea that “as soon as he [Adam] fell, then through him those who did not eat from the forbidden tree became mortal.”

St. Macarius the Great writes that original sin is “a certain hidden impurity and a certain abounding darkness of passion, which through the crime of Adam penetrated into all humanity; and it darkens and defiles both body and soul.”

Yes and Blessed Theodoret says: “Therefore, when Adam, already under the death sentence, in such a state gave birth to Cain, Seth and others, then all, as descended from one condemned to death, had a mortal nature.”

Rev. Mark Podvizhnik:

“A crime, being arbitrary, is not inherited by anyone involuntarily, but the resulting death, being forced, is inherited by us, and is alienation from God.”

Rev. Justin (Popovich) writes:

“In the original sin of Adam, two points must be distinguished: the first is the act itself, the very act of violating God’s commandment, the crime itself (Greek “paravasis” - Rom. 5, 14), the transgression itself (Greek “paraptoma” - Rom. 5, 12 ); disobedience itself (Greek “parakoi” Rom. 5:19); and the second is the sinful state created by this, o-sinfulness (“amartya” - Rom. 5, 12,14). Since all people trace their origins to Adam, original sin was inherited and transferred to all people. Therefore, original sin is at the same time a hereditary sin. By accepting human nature from Adam, we all also accept sinful depravity, which is why people are born “children of wrath by nature” (Eph. 2:3). But original sin is not completely identical in Adam and in his descendants. Adam consciously, personally, directly and willfully transgressed the commandment of God, i.e. created sin, which produced in him a sinful state in which the beginning of sinfulness reigns.

The descendants of Adam, in the strict sense of the word, did not participate personally, directly, consciously and willfully in the very act of Adam, in the crime itself (in the “paraptoma”, in the “parakoi”, in the “paravasis”), but, being born from the fallen Adam, from of his sin-infected nature, at birth they accept as an inevitable inheritance the sinful state of nature in which sin dwells (/Greek/ “amartia”), which, as a kind of living principle, acts and leads to the creation of personal sins, similar to the sin of Adam, therefore they are punished like Adam.

The heredity of original sin is universal, for no one is exempt from it except the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

(Venerable Justin (Popovich). Dogmatics)

The heredity of original sin is universal

The universal heredity of original sin is confirmed in many and varied images by the Holy Revelation of the Old and New Testaments. Thus, it teaches that the fallen Adam, infected with sin, gave birth to children “in his own image” (Gen. 5:3), i.e. according to his own image, disfigured, damaged, corrupted by sin. The righteous Job points to ancestral sin as the source of universal human sinfulness when he says: “Who can be clean from filth? No one, even if he lived only one day on the earth" (Job.14:4-5; cf.: 15:14; Isa.63:6; Sir.17:30; Wis.12:10; Sir.41: 8). The Prophet David, although born of pious parents, complains: “Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and my mother gave birth to me in sins” (Ps. 50:7), which indicates the contamination of human nature with sin in general and its transmission through conception and birth. All people, as descendants of the fallen Adam, are subject to sin, therefore the Holy Revelation says: “There is no man who sins not” (1 Kings 8, 46; 2 Chronicles 6, 36); “There is no righteous man on earth, who will do good and not sin” (Eccl. 7:20); “Who can boast of having a pure heart? or who dares to decide to be clean from sins?” (Prov. 20, 9; cf.: Sir. 7, 5). No matter how much one searches for a sinless person - a person who would not be infected with sinfulness and subject to sin - the Old Testament Revelation claims that there is no such person: “Everything has turned aside. together there was obscenity; do not do good, not to one” (Ps. 52, 4: cf. Ps. 13, 3; 129, 3; 142, 2; Job 9, 2; 4, 17; 25, 4; Gen. 6, 5; 8, 21); “Every man is a lie” (Ps. 115:2) - in the sense that in every descendant of Adam, through infection with sin, the father of sin and lies acts - the devil, who lies against God and the God-created creation.

The New Testament Revelation is based on the truth: all people are sinners - everyone except the Lord Jesus Christ. Coming by birth from Adam, corrupted by sin, as the only ancestor (Acts 17:26), all people are under sin, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:9:23; cf. 7:14), all their sin-contaminated natures are “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3). Therefore, whoever has, knows and feels the New Testament truth about the sinfulness of all people without exception, cannot say that any of the people are without sin: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” ( 1 John 1, 8; cf. John 8, 7, 9).

In His conversation with Nicodemus, the Savior declares that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, every person needs to be reborn by water and the Holy Spirit, since every person is born with original sin, for “that which is born of the flesh is flesh” (John 3:6). Here the word “flesh” (Greek “sarx”) denotes the sinfulness of Adam’s nature with which every person is born into the world.

“There is a stench and a feeling of sin in human nature,” says Saint John of Damascus,- that is, lust and sensual pleasure, called the law of sin."

Rev. Justin (Popovich):

“The sinfulness of human nature, originating from Adam, is manifested in all people without exception as a certain ... sinful principle, as a certain ... sinful force, as a certain category of sin, as the law of sin, living in man and acting in him and through him (Rom. 7: 14-23). But man participates in this with his free will, and this sinfulness of nature branches out and grows through his personal sins.”

The belief in our inheritance from our ancestors of sinful corruption, called ancestral sin, has always existed in both ancient and modern times. new Church.

The general belief of the ancient Christian Church in the existence of original sin can be seen from ancient custom Churches baptize infants.

The baptism of children, in which the recipient of Satan on behalf of the children is denied, testifies that children are under original sin, for they are born with a nature corrupted by sin, in which Satan operates
(Blessed Augustine).

Regarding the baptism of children for the remission of sins, fathers Council of Carthage (418) in the 124th rule they say: “Whoever rejects the need for the baptism of small children and newborns from the mother’s womb or says that although they are baptized for the remission of sins, they do not borrow anything from the ancestral Adam’s sin that should be washed with the wash of rebirth (from which it follows If the image of baptism for the remission of sins is used over them not in its true, but in a false meaning), let him be anathema. For what was said by the Apostle: “By one man sin came into the world, and death came by sin: and so (death) came into all men, and in him all sinned” (Rom. 5:12) - should not be understood differently than as it has always been understood The Catholic Church, diffused and spread everywhere. For according to this rule of faith, even infants, who cannot commit any sins of their own accord, are truly baptized for the remission of sins, so that through rebirth, what they took from the old birth may be cleansed in them.”

In the fight against Pelagius, who denied the reality and heredity of original sin, the Church at more than twenty councils condemned this teaching of Pelagius and thereby showed that the truth of Holy Revelation about the universal heredity of original sin deeply rooted in her holy, conciliar, universal feeling and consciousness.

This doctrine of original sin is contained in the works of the Holy Fathers of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries. It is stated by St. John of Damascus in his “Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.”

St. Athanasius the Great writes that since all people are heirs of Adam’s nature corrupted by sin, then everyone is conceived and born in sin, for according to the natural law, what is born is identical to what gives birth; from someone damaged by passions is born a passionate person, from a sinner a sinner.

St. Athanasius the Great:

“Because it was finally necessary to pay everyone's debt; for, according to what was said above, everyone had to die, which was the main reason His coming; then, after having proven His deity by deeds, He finally makes a sacrifice for everyone, instead of everyone, betraying His temple to death, to set everyone free from responsibility for an ancient crime, but about Himself, in His incorruptible body, revealing the firstfruits of the general Resurrection, proving that He is higher than death.”

St. Cyril of Jerusalem:

“The sin of one man, Adam, could bring death to the world. If through the sin of one (Rom. 5:17) death reigned in the world, then will not life reign through the Truth of the One?”

“Death was necessary; there certainly had to be death for all people, because it was necessary to pay the common debt that lay on all people.”

St. Macarius the Great speaks:

“From the moment of breaking the commandment of God, Satan and his angels sat in the heart and in the human body as on their own throne.” “From the crime of Adam, darkness fell over all creation and over all human nature, and therefore people, covered with this darkness, spend their lives in the night, in terrible places.”

With the transfer of ancestral sinfulness to all the descendants of Adam through birth, all its consequences are transferred to all of them at the same time: deformation of the image of God, darkness of the mind, corruption of the will, defilement of the heart, illness, suffering and death. All people, being descendants of Adam, inherit from Adam the godlikeness of the soul, but a godlikeness darkened and disfigured by sinfulness.

Rev. Justin (Popovich):

“Death is the lot of all the descendants of Adam, for they are born from Adam, infected with sin and therefore mortal. Just as a contaminated stream naturally flows from a contaminated source, so from a progenitor contaminated by sin and death, progeny contaminated by sin and death naturally flows (Cf. Rom. 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:22). Both the death of Adam and the death of his descendants are twofold: physical and spiritual. Physical death is when the body is deprived of the soul that animates it, and spiritual death is when the soul is deprived of the grace of God, which revives it with a higher, spiritual, God-oriented life, and in the words of the holy prophet, “the soul that sins will die” (Ezek. 18:20; Wed: 18, 4)".

IN Messages of the Eastern Patriarchs it says:

“We believe that the first man created by God fell in paradise when he violated the commandment of God by listening to the advice of the serpent, and that from there ancestral sin extends to all posterity through inheritance, so that there is no one born according to the flesh who is free from this burden and who does not feel the consequences of the fall in this life. We call the burden and consequences of the fall not sin itself (such as atheism, blasphemy, murder, hatred and everything else that comes from the evil heart of man), but strong inclination towards sin... Man who fell through crime became like unreasonable animals, that is, he became darkened and lost perfection and dispassion, but did not lose the nature and power that he received from the Most Good God. For otherwise he would become unreasonable and therefore not a man; but he retained the nature with which he was created, and natural power - free, living and active, so that by nature he can choose and do good, avoid evil and turn away from it. And the fact that a person can by nature do good, the Lord pointed out to this when he said that the pagans also love those who love them, and the Apostle Paul teaches very clearly in his letter to the Romans (1:19) and in another place where he says, that “the pagans, having no law, create the lawful nature” (Rom. 2:14).”

We are delivered from original sin in the sacrament of baptism

It is impossible for a person to restore his nature damaged and upset by sin on his own, without the intervention or help of God. Therefore, it took the condescension or coming of God Himself to earth - the incarnation of the Son of God - to recreate the fallen and corrupted human nature, to save man from destruction and eternal death.

Saint Theophan the Recluse explains the essence of restoring human nature:

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” teaches the Apostle (2 Cor. 5:17). The Christian becomes this new creature in baptism. A person leaves the font completely different from how he entered it. As light is to darkness, as life is to death, so the baptized is opposite to the unbaptized. Conceived in iniquities and born in sins, a person before baptism carries within himself all the poison of sin, with all the burden of its consequences. He is in the disgrace of God, is by nature a child of wrath; damaged, upset in itself, in the relationship of parts and forces and in their direction mainly towards the proliferation of sin; subject to the influence of Satan, who acts powerfully in him, because of the sin that lives in him. As a result of all this, after death, he is inevitably a quitter of hell, where he must suffer along with his prince and his minions and servants.

Baptism delivers us from all these evils. It removes the oath by the power of the Cross of Christ and returns the blessing: the baptized are the children of God, as the Lord Himself gave them the name and name. “If you are children, then you are also heirs—heirs with God, and joint heirs with Christ...” (Rom. 8:17). The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the person who is baptized through baptism itself. He is removed from the dominion of Satan, who now loses his power over him and the power to act arbitrarily in him. By entering the Church, the house of refuge, Satan is blocked from entering the newly baptized. It's like he's in a safe haven here.

All these are spiritual and external advantages and gifts. What's going on inside? - Healing sinful illness and damage. The power of grace penetrates inside and restores here the Divine order in all its beauty, heals the disorder both in the composition and relationship of forces and parts, and in the main direction from oneself to God - to please God and increase good deeds. Why baptism is rebirth or new birth, putting a person in a renewed state. The Apostle Paul compares all the baptized with the risen Savior, making it clear that they also have the same bright and renewed being as humanity appeared in the Lord Jesus through His resurrection in glory (see: Rom. 6:4). That the direction of activity in the baptized changes is evident from the words of the same Apostle, who says in another place that they no longer “live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:15). “Even though I die, I die through sin alone, but the hedgehog lives; God lives" (Rom. 6:10). “We are buried with Him through baptism into death” (Rom. 6:4), and: “our old man is crucified with Him... because no one will work against us sin” (Rom. 6:6). Thus, by the power of baptism, all human activity is turned from self and sin to God and truth.

The words of the Apostle are remarkable: “For sin must not be wrought upon us...” and another: “Let not sin possess you” (Rom. 6:14). This allows us to understand that that which, in a disordered fallen nature, constitutes a force that attracts us to sin, is not completely destroyed in baptism, but is only brought into a state in which it has no power over us, does not possess us, and we do not work for it. . It is in us, lives and acts, but not as a master. From now on, supremacy belongs to the grace of God and to the spirit, which consciously surrenders itself to it. Saint Diadochos, explaining the power of baptism, says that before baptism, sin lives in the heart, and grace acts from without; after this, grace dwells in the heart, and sin attracts from the outside. It is expelled from the heart, like an enemy from a fortification, and settles outside, in parts of the body, from where it acts in fragmented raids. Why is there a constant tempter, a seducer, but no longer a ruler: he worries and disturbs, but does not command.”

Saint Gregory Palamas speaks:

“...although through divine baptism the Lord reborn us and through the grace of the Holy Spirit sealed us on the day of Redemption, he still left us to have a mortal and passionate body, and although He drove out the chief of evil from human souls, however, he allows him to attack from the outside, so that a person renewed, according to the New Testament, i.e. The Gospel of Christ, living in good deeds and repentance, and despising the pleasures of life, enduring suffering and being tempered in the attacks of the enemy, prepared himself in this century to accommodate incorruption and those future blessings that will correspond to the future century.”

Rev. John of Damascus:

For since God created us in incorruptibility , - and when we transgressed the saving commandment, he condemned us to the corruption of death, so that evil would not be immortal, then, condescending to his servants, like uterine and becoming like us. By His suffering He delivered us from corruption; from His holy and unblemished side brought us a source of redemption: water for our rebirth and washing from sin and corruption, blood is like drink, giving eternal life. AND He gave us commandments - to be reborn by water and the Spirit when the Holy Spirit flows onto the water through prayer and invocation. For, since man is two-part - from soul and body, He also gave twofold cleansing - by water and by the Spirit; - The Spirit, which renews the image and likeness in us, the water, which through the grace of the Spirit cleanses the body from sin and delivers from corruption; water, representing the image of death. By the Spirit who gives the pledge of life.

Rev. Simeon the New Theologian writes:

“Baptism does not take away our autocracy and self-will. But he grants us freedom from the tyranny of the devil, who cannot rule over us against our will.”

Saint Philaret explains:

“Adam,” according to the Apostle, “is naturally the head of all humanity, which is one with him, by natural descent from him. Jesus Christ, in whom the Divinity was united with humanity, graciously became the new omnipotent Head of men, whom he unites to Himself through faith. Therefore, just as in Adam we fell under sin, curse and death, so we are delivered from sin, curse and death in Jesus Christ.”

Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow and Kolomna writes in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology:

"The Church teaches that baptism blots out, destroys original sin in us: this means that it cleanses the actual sinfulness of our nature, inherited by us from our ancestors; that through baptism we come out of a sinful state, we cease to be by nature children of the wrath of God, i.e. guilty before God, we become completely pure and innocent before Him, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, as a result of the merits of our Redeemer; but it does not mean that baptism destroys in us the very consequences of original sin: inclination to evil more than to good, illness, death and others - because all these designated consequences remain, as experience and the Word of God testify (Rom. 7:23 ), and in regenerated people."

Distortions of the doctrine of original sin

According to Catholic teaching, original sin did not affect human nature, but only affected God’s attitude towards man. The sin of Adam and Eve is understood by Catholics as an infinitely great insult by people to God, for which God was angry with them and took away from them the supernatural gifts of righteousness, or primitive integrity. To restore the broken order, it was necessary, according to the teachings of Catholicism, only to satisfy the insult to God and thus remove the guilt of humanity and the punishment that weighed on it. Hence the jurisprudential doctrine of redemption, salvation, how a person should act in order to get rid of “wrath, punishment” and hell, the dogma of satisfaction to God for sins, supererogatory merits and the treasury of saints, purgatory and indulgences.

Orthodox theology The theological Catholic point of view is alien, not knowing the unchanging love of God for His creation, not seeing the distortion by sin of all the powers of the human soul, distinguished by the formal, legal nature of the formulas “insult - punishment - satisfaction for the insult.” Orthodoxy teaches that in the Fall, man himself departed with his soul from God and, as a result of sin, became impervious to the grace of God. According to St. Nicholas of Serbia, when Eve “...believed the beautiful serpent, a feigned lie, her soul lost harmony, the strings of divine music weakened in her, her love for the Creator, the God of love, cooled. ...Eve... Looked into her muddy soul and "I no longer saw God in her. God left her. God and the devil cannot be under the same roof." That. As a result of arbitrary sin, man lost communion with God, God's grace, holiness and perfection, the harmony of all mental and physical powers, lost true life and entered into the power of death. This nature, upset by sin, was inherited from Adam and Eve by their descendants. Original sin is understood by Orthodoxy not as a mechanical punishment of God for the sin of people, but as a disorder of human nature as a result of sin and the naturally subsequent loss of communion with God, as a distortion of human nature by an irresistible inclination to sin and death. According to this understanding of the essence of original sin, Orthodoxy understands the dogmas of atonement and salvation differently than Catholicism. We confess that God expects from a Christian not satisfaction for sins and not some sum of external, mechanical works, but repentance that transforms the soul, purification of the heart.

St. Basil the Great speaks:

“As Adam sinned because of evil will, so he died because of sin: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); to the extent that he moved away from life, to the extent that he approached death: because God is life, and the deprivation of life is death; That's why Adam prepared death for himself by moving away from God, according to what is written: “those who remove themselves from You perish.”"(Ps. 72:27)."

“Man is created in the image and likeness of God; But sin has distorted (ήχρείωσεν) the beauty of the image, drawing the soul into passionate desires.”

"Message of the Eastern Patriarchs" This is how the result of the Fall is determined. "Fallen through crime Human became like dumb creatures, that is, he became darkened and lost perfection and dispassion, but did not lose the nature and power that he received from the all-good God. For otherwise he would have become unreasonable and, therefore, not a man; but he retained the nature with which he was created, and the natural free force, living and active, so that by nature he could choose and do good, run away and turn away from evil.”

Prot. Maxim Kozlov writes:

"...according to Roman Catholic teaching, human nature did not suffer changes as a result of original sin, and original sin affected not so much the person himself as his relationship with God. ...the loss of a person's paradise state is interpreted precisely as the loss of a certain amount of supernatural gifts, without which “man is unable to communicate with God, without which the human mind is darkened by ignorance, the will is so weakened that it begins to follow more the suggestions of the passions than the demands of the mind, their bodies become subject to infirmities, illness and death.” The last phrase was a quote from the Roman Catholic Catechism of 1992. The Roman Catholic understanding of human nature determines several derivative provisions: firstly, since a person has simply lost his natural grace and at the same time human nature itself has not undergone any change, then this supernatural gift can be returned to a person at any time, and for this there is no need for the action of the person himself. From such a point of view, in order to explain why God does not return man to his heavenly state, nothing else can be imagined except that man must earn his justification, satisfy God’s justice, or that this justification must be earned for him, purchased by someone else ".

Orthodoxy claims that all God's actions towards man have their source not His insult and anger (in the human understanding of the passion of anger), but His unfailing love and justice. So, Rev. Isaac the Syrian writes:

“Whoever admonishes with the goal of making him healthy, admonishes with love; but whoever seeks revenge, there is no love in him. God admonishes with love, and does not take revenge (let that not be done!), on the contrary, He means that the image should be healed His... This type of love is a consequence of rightness and does not deviate into the passion of revenge."

St. Basil the Great writes about the foundations of God’s providence:

“God, by a special dispensation, gives us over to sorrows... because we are creations of a good God and we are in the power of the One who arranges everything that concerns us, both important and unimportant, then we cannot endure anything without the will of God; And if we endure something, it is not harmful, or not such that something better can be provided for».

“As Adam sinned because of evil will, so he died because of sin: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); to the extent that he moved away from life, to the extent that he approached death: because God is life, and the deprivation of life is death; That's why Adam prepared death for himself by moving away from God, according to what is written: “those who remove themselves from You perish.”"(Ps. 72:27)."

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov):

God, allowing us temptations and handing us over to the devil, does not cease to provide for us, while punishing, he never ceases to do us good.

Rev. Nicodemus Svyatogorets:

« All temptations in general are sent by God for our benefit... all the sorrows and torments that the soul endures during internal temptations and the scarcity of spiritual consolation and sweets, nothing else but the cleansing medicine provided by the love of God, with which God cleanses her if she endures them with humility and patience. And of course they prepare for such patient sufferers a crown, acquired only through them, and the crown is all the more glorious, the more painful the torment of the heart endured during them.”

St. Nicholas of Serbia:

“...the forefathers of the human race. As soon as they lost love, they darkened their mind. With sin, freedom was also lost.

...At a fateful moment, God-loving Eve was tempted by someone who abused her freedom. ...she believed the slanderer of God, believed a lie instead of the Truth, a murderer instead of the Lover of Mankind. And at that moment when she believed the beautiful serpent, a feigned lie, her soul lost harmony, the strings of divine music weakened in her, her love for the Creator, the God of love, cooled.

... Eve... She looked into her cloudy soul and no longer saw God in it. God left her. God and the devil cannot be under the same roof. ...

Listen now, my daughter, to this secret. God is a perfect person, therefore He is perfect love. God is a perfect person, therefore He is perfect life. That is why Christ uttered the words that shocked the world: “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6), meaning by the way the way of love. That is why love, as a path, is put in first place. For only through love can truth and life be comprehended. That is why it is said in the Word of God: “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cursed” (1 Cor. 16:22). How can one who is deprived of love not be cursed if at the same time he remains without truth and life? Thus, he curses himself. ...

God wanted to forgive Adam, but not without repentance and sufficient sacrifice. And the Son of God, the Lamb of God, went to the slaughter for the redemption of Adam and his race. And all out of love and truth. Yes, and the truth, but the truth lies in love."

Orthodox dogmas of atonement and salvation are based on this understanding of original sin. According to the immutable Truth God's sin entails alienation from God. As the Holy Scripture testifies, “retribution (“obrotsy” (glory) - payment) for sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). This is also spiritual death, consisting in alienation from God, the Source of life, for “sin committed gives birth to death” (James 1:15). This is physical death, which naturally follows spiritual death. " We must always remember that God is not only love, but also truth, and He has mercy righteously, and not arbitrarily"- writes St. Theophan the Recluse.

Without ceasing to provide for fallen man and desiring his salvation, God combined His mercy, His perfect love for the man He created and His perfect justice, Truth, by redeeming humanity with the Cross of Christ:

“The Only Begotten Son of God, unable to bear to see the human race tormented by the devil, came and saved us” (From the prayer of the rite of the consecration of the water of the Holy Epiphanies).

Orthodoxy teaches about the death of Christ the Savior on the cross, as an atoning, propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the human race, brought to the justice of God - the Holy Trinity - for the entire sinful world, thanks to which the revival and salvation of mankind became possible.

The essence of Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross- this is God’s love for man, His mercy and His Truth.

Archim. John (Peasant) said:

"... out of divine love for all people, the Lord drank the bitter cup of the greatest suffering.…out of His love for people, God gave His only begotten Son to suffering on the cross and death for the atonement of the sins of the entire human race.

The Sacrifice of propitiation was offered on the Cross (Rom. 3:25) the immutable truth of God for each of us. By the life-giving Blood of Christ shed on the Cross, eternal condemnation was removed from humanity.”

St. Philaret (Drozdov) spoke about the essence of redemption:

““There is a God of love,” says the same contemplator of love. God is love in essence and the very being of love. All His attributes are vestments of love; all actions are expressions of love. ... she is His justice, when she measures the degrees and types of her gifts sent down or withheld by wisdom and goodness, for the sake of the highest good of all her creatures. Come closer and look at the formidable face of God’s justice, and you will definitely recognize in it the meek gaze of God’s love".

Smch. Seraphim (Chichagov) Orthodox states doctrine of atonement, showing and that the Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ both original sin and its consequences in the souls of believers are forgiven, on it “the right of the Redeemer is based to forgive the sins of the repentant, to cleanse and sanctify their souls with His blood”, thanks to it “gifts of grace are poured out on believers” :

“The truth of God first of all demands that people receive reward for their merits, and punishment for their guilt. ... But since God is love in essence and the very essence of love, He predetermined for fallen man a new path to salvation and perfect rebirth through cessation in no sin.

At the demand of God's Truth, man had to bring satisfaction to God's Justice for his sin. But what could he sacrifice? Your repentance, your life? But repentance only softens the punishment, and does not get rid of it, because it does not destroy the crime. ... Thus, man remained an unpaid debtor to God and an eternal captive of death and the devil. The destruction of sinfulness in oneself was impossible for man, for he received an inclination towards evil along with being, with soul and flesh. Consequently, only his Creator could recreate man, and only Divine omnipotence could destroy the natural consequences of sin, such as death and evil. But to save a person without his desire, against his will, by force, was unworthy of both God, who gave man freedom, and man, a free being. ... The Only Begotten Son of God, Consubstantial with God the Father, took upon Himself human nature, united it in His Person with the Divinity and, thus, restored humanity in Himself - pure, perfect and sinless, which was in Adam before the Fall. ... He ... endured all the sorrows, sufferings and death itself assigned to man by the Truth of God, and with such a Sacrifice he fully satisfied Divine Justice for all humanity, fallen and guilty before God. Through the incarnation of God, we became brothers of the Only Begotten, became His joint heirs, united with Him, like a body with a head. ... The Redeemer’s right to forgive the sins of the repentant, to cleanse and sanctify their souls with His blood is based on this infinite price of the atoning sacrifice made on the Cross. According to the power of Christ’s merits on the cross, gifts of grace are poured out on believers, and they are given by God to Christ and to us in Christ and through Christ Jesus.”

Prot. Mikhail Pomazansky writes in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology about Catholicism’s distorted understanding of original sin:

"Roman Catholic theologians consider the consequence of the Fall to be the taking away from people of the supernatural gift of God's grace, after which man remained in his “natural” state; his nature was not damaged, but only became confused: namely, the flesh, the bodily side, took precedence over the spiritual; original sin is that guilt before the God of Adam and Eve is transferred to all people.

The basis of Roman Catholic teaching is
a) understanding of Adam’s sin as an infinitely great insult to God;
b) the insult was followed by the wrath of God;
c) the wrath of God was expressed in the taking away of the supernatural gifts of God’s grace;
d) the withdrawal of grace entailed the subordination of the spiritual principle to the carnal principle and a deepening into sin.

Hence the special understanding of the atonement performed by the Son of God: in order to restore the broken order, it was necessary, first of all, to satisfy the insult to God and thus remove the guilt of humanity and the punishment that weighed on it.

Alien to Orthodox theology Roman Catholic point of view, characterized by an explicit legal, formal character.

Orthodox theology perceives the consequences of ancestral sin differently.

Man after his first fall his soul departed from God and became insensitive to the grace of God revealed to him, stopped hearing the Divine voice addressed to him, and this led to the further rooting of sin in him.

However, God never deprived humanity of His mercy, help, grace.

But even the Old Testament righteous could not escape the common destiny of fallen humanity after their death, being in the darkness of hell, until the creation of the Heavenly Church, that is, before the resurrection and ascension of Christ: the Lord Jesus Christ destroyed the doors of hell and opened the way to the Kingdom of Heaven.

One cannot see the essence of sin, including original sin, only in the dominance of the carnal principle over the spiritual, as Roman theology presents it. Many sinful inclinations, moreover, severe ones, relate to the properties of a spiritual order: such is pride, which, according to the Apostle, is the source, next to lust, of general sinfulness in the world (1 John 2:15-16). Sin is also inherent in evil spirits who have no flesh at all. The word “flesh” in the Holy Scriptures refers to the unregenerate state, the opposite of the regenerated life in Christ: “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Of course, this does not deny the fact that a number of passions and sinful inclinations originate from the physical nature, as the Holy Scripture also points out (Rom. Chapter 7).
Thus, original sin is understood by Orthodox theology as a sinful inclination that entered humanity and became its spiritual illness.”

From the Catholic doctrine of original sin comes misunderstanding of the essence of salvation. Orthodoxy teaches that salvation is the cleansing of the soul, deliverance from sin itself: and “He will deliver Israel from all their iniquities” (Ps. 129:8); “for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21); “For He is our God, deliver us from our iniquities; For that is our God, who delivers the world from the charms of the enemy; The human race freed from incorruption ecu, life and incorruption of the world and the gift” (stichera of Octoechos). God demands from man not satisfaction for sins, but soul-transforming repentance, likeness to God in righteousness. In Orthodoxy, the matter of salvation is a matter of spiritual life, purification of the heart; in Catholicism, it is a matter resolved formally and legally by external affairs.

Prot. Mikhail Pomazansky This is how he sets out the way to save a person:

“The plant grows upward. The idea of ​​organic growth is inseparable from the spirit of Orthodoxy. It is also expressed in the Orthodox understanding of human salvation. The focus of a Christian’s attention is not “satisfaction with the truth of God,” not “assimilation of merit,” but the possibility and necessity of personal spiritual growth, the achievement of purity and holiness. The redemption of man, his grafting into the Body of Christ, are the conditions under which this growth can begin. The gracious powers of the Holy Spirit, like the sun, rain and air for a plant, nurture spiritual sowing. But growth itself is “doing,” labor, a long process, internal work on oneself: tireless, humble, persistent. Rebirth is not an instant rebirth from a sinner to a saved one, but an actual change in the spiritual nature of a person, a change in the content of the very recesses of his soul, the content of thoughts, ideas and desires, the direction of feelings. This work is also reflected in the physical state of a Christian, when the body ceases to be the master of the soul, but returns to the service role of the executor of the dictates of the spirit and the humble bearer of the immortal soul.”

“This is a fundamental difference in the understanding of salvation, that salvation is, according to the patristic understanding, deliverance from sin as such, and according to the legal understanding, deliverance from punishment for sin,” notes Archpriest. Maxim Kozlov. “According to medieval Catholic doctrine, a Christian should do good works not only because he needs merit (merita) to obtain a blessed life, but also in order to bring satisfaction (satisfactio) in order to avoid temporal punishments (poenae temporales).

Based on the understanding of original sin as a disorder of human nature itself, Orthodoxy asserts that no good deeds can save a person if they are done mechanically, not for the sake of God and His commandments, not from the depths of self-humbling and loving God souls, because in this case they do not attract the grace of God, which sanctifies and cleanses the soul from all sin. On the contrary, from the Catholic understanding of original sin arose the doctrine that, along with ordinary merits, there are supererogatory deeds and merits (merita superrogationis). The totality of these merits, together with meritum Christi, forms the so-called treasury of merit or treasury of good deeds (thesaurus meritorum or operum superrogationis), from which the Church has the right to draw to blot out the sins of her flock. This is where the doctrine of indulgences comes from.

Venerable Macarius of Egypt. Spiritual conversations:
About the state of Adam before he transgressed God’s commandment and after he lost both his own and the heavenly image. This conversation contains several very useful questions.
This conversation teaches that not a single person, unless supported by Christ, is able to overcome the temptations of the evil one, shows what those who desire divine glory for themselves should do; and also teaches that through Adam’s disobedience we fell into slavery to carnal passions, from which we are delivered through the sacrament of the cross; and finally, it shows how great the power of tears and divine fire is

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Scripture says that at the fall of our first parents, Eve was deceived, but Adam was not deceived. “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and fell into transgression” (1 Tim. 2:14). Eve herself agreed with this, saying: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Gen. 3:13).

The form of the serpent, of course, was Satan (see Rev. 12:9). He did not appear before Eve in the form of an angel, but, in all likelihood, took the form of a flying serpent, dazzling with the splendor of colors and brilliance and very wise. Using this image, he seduced Eve in three ways:

The first relates to the love of God. Apparently, Eve moved away from her husband and began to gaze intently at the forbidden tree with curiosity and admiration. She might wonder why God did not allow them to eat the fruits of it.

The snake sitting on the tree said in a questioning and ironic tone: “Did God really say: do not eat from any tree in paradise?” (Gen. 3:1). In other words: “And such a God do you serve, who finds satisfaction in denying you free access to all the beneficial and beautiful fruits in this wonderful garden?”

Sometimes we say: “Nothing can be done about the birds flying overhead, but we can prevent them from building a nest in ours.”