The Dormition of the Mother of God
and
The Doctrine of Theosis

Homily given by Fr. George Hackney
St Matthias Church Centre, Lincoln
15th August 2010

 

The fourteen days of our Summer Fast are done, and today we celebrate the Feast of the Dormition (in Greek, Koimeesis; in Russian, Oospeyenyee) of the Mother of God (Theotokos, Bogoroditsa), Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 

She was the child of Joachim and Anna and, while still a very young girl she was engaged to be married to the man Joseph.  Before the marriage ceremony was done she received, through an Angel, a revelation from God. The revelation shattered all her plans for an ordinary life. The angel told her that she was chosen to become the human mother of a divine child - without human seed.  Joseph would not be the father. The child would be the fruit of the Holy Spirit. God would take flesh in her womb.
 

Now when God created mankind (whether that was by the 'miracle of a moment' or the slow miracle of evolution: it matters not), He granted human beings the terrible gift of free will.  God would not make living robots. He would make us free - as God himself is free. So Mary was given a choice. She could have rejected the angel’s message. She could have refused to co-operate with God’s plan.  After all ,millions of men and women refuse to co-operate with God every day. But Mary submitted to God.  She could have said "No", but she said "Yes".  She uttered those famous words "be it unto me according to Your Word."  And in that moment of surrender her theosis began.  In a unique manner the Holy and Eternal Word of God took flesh and blood and bone from her body.  She became pregnant with divinity enfleshed: God incarnate, made Man.

 

Protected by Joseph she gave birth to Christ our God, and they called Him JESUS.  She nursed him.  She raised him.  She was the first to love Him, adore Him, worship Him.  She was the First Christian.  She grieved when she saw Him hated, despised and rejected by men.  Scripture tells us that she pondered all His sayings in her heart.  She followed Him to the Cross on Calvary.  She watched Him die.  She wept at His tomb.  She rejoiced at His resurrection.  She was present with with the Apostles when the Holy Spirit filled both her and them at Pentecost.

 

She spent the rest of her life in the company of the Holy Apostle St John.  At last, being human, she died and was buried.  Three days later the Apostles opened her tomb to let St Thomas, (who arrived too late for the funeral) take a last look at her body.  But the tomb was empty.  Just like the tomb of Jesus her Son.  It was clear then that she was the first of the human race to be completely and totally saved and redeemed by Christ the Saviour.  He saved His mother before He saved anyone else.  Where is the Panagia now?  Where is Marytoday?  At this moment?

 

She is in Heaven - body and soul reunited after death.  Transfigured, Saved, Redeemed, Transformed and Deified by her obedience and the Grace of the Holy Spirit.

 

Now there is a word to make you think!  Deification (Obozhyestvlenie, Theosis).  That is the traditional Orthodox Christian word for the fulness of salvation.  Mary the Mother of God was the first person to experience salvation in all its fulness.  She was Deified. She experienced Theosis.
 
She was the first, but she is not the last!  You and I, each one of us, and every man, woman and child is offered the same fulness of salvation.  The same Deification. The same Theosis.  Mary has arrived: we are still on the journey.  Her deification is complete: ours has just begun.  So much could be said about this!

 

For the moment notice what the Holy Apostle Saint Peter tells us in his second letter in the New Testament:
"You may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature." (2 Peter 1:4)

 

This teaching of St Peter is taken up by St. Athanasius of Alexandria, who writes: "The Son of God became human, that we might become divine."

 

Does this mean that we are each expected to become independent little gods and godesses, as the Mormons falsely teach?  The Mormons say that the God and Father of Jesus Christ was once an ordinary man who turned himself into a god by great effort.  They say that the destiny of every Mormon is to become an independent god - each with his own personal planet in the sky to rule over.  This is false.  This is not original Christianity.  This is not what the Orthodox Church means by Deification or Theosis.

 

So what is the Orthodox meaning of salvation by Deification?  By Theosis?
 
First of all let us be clear that Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God in Three Persons is unique. Mary is not a god, or a goddess, in the way that Father, Son and Holy Spirit is God.  You and I will never be gods.  We will always be simple human beings.  But by the grace of God we are invited to share the energy of the Divine Nature.  We shall never become God, but we are invited to become like God.  We are invited to attain to the true Image and Likeness of God.  We are expected to become by Grace what God is by Nature.  In other words we are invited to become godly people.  Yes - god-like people.

 

How can this be?  How does this happen?  There are two stages in the process of Salvation by deification.  And they may overlap or run side by side.  The first is the imitation of Christ.  We study the Gospel.  We learn what Christ did.  We listen to what Christ said.  Then we try to imitate him, so far as we are able.  We try to become true disciples and followers of Christ.  This is the imitation of Christ.

 

The second stage goes further than that.  The second stage goes beyond mere imitation.  In the second stage we open our hearts and minds - our very soul - to be drenched by the Holy Spirit.  Saturated in the Holy Spirit.
 
In the imitation of Christ (by fasting, prayer and helping others) we are practising morality.  We striving to become good and moral people.  But God invites us to go further than that.  There is something beyond and greater than morality, and that is Holiness (Svyatost, Agiótita).
 
Morality is natural: Holiness is supernatural.  Holiness cannot exist without a moral foundation, but it goes above and beyond morality.  It is more than morality.  When Christ tells us to strive for perfection, when St Peter and St Athanasius tell us we can share in the Divine Nature, they mean that we can share in the supreme quality of God Himself: and that is Holiness.  Men and women can become Holy as God is Holy: that is the fulness of salvation.

 

We call the Mother of God "Panagia", a Greek word which means "all-holy". Since her Dormition and entry into Heaven many others have followed her.  The saints in their hundreds, thousands, millions.  By fasting and obedience; by prayer and sacraments; by compassion, kindness and works of mercy; by deep repentance and openness to the Holy Spirit, each and every one of them entered into the long process of deification.
 
Yes, it is a process.  Deification, becoming like Christ, sharing in the Divine Nature, is not a quick and easy business.  It does not happen suddenly.  It isthe fruit and result of a life-time and more of co-operation with with God.  The Greek word for this is "synergy" - a word more commonly used today to describe business agreements.
 
As God is good, wise, joyful, merciful, compassionate, strong, perfect, eternal and holy, so we, by submission to his Spirit, may gradually become good, wise, joyful, merciful, compassionate, strong, perfect, eternal and holy.

 

The process of deification begins with our baptism and continues through our lifetime.  It finds its total fulfilment (as it did for Mary) only after death.  This process is what we mean by "our life in Christ" and also "Christ’s life in us."
 
You may be surprised that this most Orthodox of Christian beliefs about "salvation by deification" was also taught by one of the famous Church of England priests who founded Methodism in the 18th century: The Revd Charles Wesley.  Wesley summed up the doctrine of deification beautifully in the words of one of his many hymns:

Heavenly JESUS, Life divine,
Change my nature into thine!
Move and spread throughout my soul,
Actuate and fill the whole!
Be it now no longer I Living in the flesh, but Thou.