The Mystagogy of St Maximos the Confessor
Talk by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), part 2

Class #2: 
The text for this series is "On the Ecclesiastical Mystagogy", by Jonathan J. Armstrong, SVS Press.
The following sections were covered:
-- Part II. "Introduction to 'On the Ecclesiastical Mystagogy'", section (d) The Cosmological Dimensions of the Ecclesiastical Mystagogy.
-- Part III. The Transmission of the Ecclesiastical Mystagogy. 
-- The text of St. Maximus itself: "On the Ecclesiastical Mystagogy": Introductory comments by St. Maximus and Chapter 1: How and in What Mode the Holy Church Is the Image and Representation of God.

Topics discussed include:
- God's Essence and Energies/Activities; 
- The logoi, the pattern, potentiality that each being has from God to actualize itself; 
- The Divine Liturgy is a participation in the worship in heaven together with the angels (e.g., Cherubic hymn) and Christ is the High Priest; 
- One has to be united with God through Christ to call him Father ... we share Christ's relationship with the Father, Christ by nature, us by grace through the gift of the Holy Spirit; 
- Actualizing our potential to be parts of the Body of Christ; 
- On seeing the uncreated light ... the grace of God to those who earnestly seek him by purification, putting away the passions and ego, opening the nous through contemplative prayer; 
- Examples of those who beheld Christ: St. Sofrony, St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Symeon the New Theologian.

June 22, 2021
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