Statement of Faith

1) We believe in one unborn God the Father, Almighty, Creator of everything visible and invisible, having existence from Himself. And in the one Only Begotten - the Word, Wisdom, the Son, born without beginning and eternally from the Father, not an oral and mentally pronounced word, not an outpouring of the Perfect, not cut off and not the offspring of the impassive Nature, but a self-perfect, living and active Son; the true, equal and equal Image of the Father; for it is said that “this is the will of the Father: yes... as they honor the Father, so they honor the Son” (John 5:23); the true God is from the true God, as John says in his conciliar epistles: “And that we may be in His true Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God and the eternal life” (1 John 5:20); the Almighty from the Almighty; for over what he rules and what the Father possesses, He is in command of all and the Son, who is wholly of wholly, like the Father, also possesses all of them, as the Lord says: “He who has seen Me, has seen the Father” (John 14:9). And at the end of the ages he descended from the bosom of the Father, and from the Most Pure Virgin Mary he received our man, Christ Jesus, whom, of his own free will, he gave over to suffer for us, as the Lord says: “no one will take my soul from Me;... the imam will lay down the region, and the imam will again receive the region” (John 10:18). It is because of this man that He was crucified and died for us, He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Created for us “at the beginning of the ways” (Prov. 8:22), while on earth, showed us in darkness light, salvation from error, life from the dead and the entrance to paradise, from which Adam was expelled, and into which he again entered through the thief, as the Lord said: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), into which Paul also ascended; showed the entry into heaven, “where the Lord’s man is the forerunner who is below us” (Heb. 6:20), in whom he will judge the living and the dead. 2) We equally believe in the Holy Spirit, “who searches all things and the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10), anathematizing all teachings that are contrary to this. We do not imagine the Son-Father, like the Sabellians, calling Him one-existent, and not consubstantial (μονοούσιον καί ούχ όμοούσιον) and thereby denying the existence of the Son. We do not attribute to the Father the painful body that the Son bore on Himself for the salvation of the whole world. The Three Hypostases must be presented as inseparable from each other, as we imagine people physically, so that we, like the pagans, do not introduce polytheism; but imagine, as it were, a river, which, starting from the source, is not separated from it, although there are two types and two names. For the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, because the Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son is the Father’s Son. Just as a source is not a river, and a river is not a source, but both are one and the same water flowing from the source into the river: so the Divinity from the Father inexhaustibly and inseparably abides in the Son, as the Lord says: “I departed from the Father... and I go to the Father” (John 16:28). “He is in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18) always with the Father; and in the bosom of the Father the Divinity of the Son was never exhausted, for it is said: “I am a builder with Him” (Prov. 8:29). We do not imagine that God, the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, the Creator of the universe, the One from the One, was a creature or a creature, or came from something that does not exist, because Glory and Power equal to Him were eternally begotten from the Father; for whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father also. Everything was created through the Son, but He Himself is not a creature, as Paul says about the Lord: “Everything was created by Him, and He is before all” (Col. 1:16–17). He does not say that he was first created, but that he is before all; and the word created refers to the word all, and the expression: there is before all applies to one Son. 3) So, He by nature is the Perfect Birth from the Perfect, born before all the hills, that is, before any verbal and rational essence; as elsewhere Paul calls Him “the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15); but by calling him firstborn, he shows that He is not a creature, but the birth of the Father; for it is strange to use the predicate about His Divinity: creature. All things were created by the Father through the Son; one Son is eternally begotten of the Father; therefore, “the firstborn is of all creation,” God the Word, Unchangeable from the Unchangeable. The body that He bore on Himself for our sake is a creature. Jeremiah says about Him, according to the translation of seventy interpreters: “The Lord created salvation in a new planting, in which salvation men will live” (Jer. 31:22), and in Aquila the same saying is stated: “The Lord created a new thing in a woman.” But the new salvation created for the planting of us, and not the ancient one, with us, and not with those who lived before us, is Jesus, as the Savior, made man; The name Jesus is sometimes translated by the word: salvation, and sometimes by the word: Savior. Salvation from the Savior is just like illumination from light. So, the salvation created by the Savior is new, as Jeremiah says: “he created for us salvation ... new”; and as Aquila expresses: “The Lord created something new in the woman,” that is, in Mary, because nothing new was created in the woman except the Lord’s body, born of the Virgin Mary without carnal intercourse, as in the Proverbs from the Person of Jesus it says: “The Lord made Me the beginning of His ways for His works” ( Proverbs 8:22 ); It is not said: “before works I was created,” so that no one would accept this saying about the Divinity of the Word. 4) So, both sayings are written about Jesus, in relation to the body. For “at the beginning of the ways” the Lord’s man was created, whom He revealed to us for salvation, “for which the Imams were brought ... to the Father” (Eph. 2:18). He is the path that leads us to the Father, and the path is something physically visible; and this is the Lord's man. The Word of God created everything, being Himself not a creature, but a Birth, because among the number of creatures He created nothing equal or similar to Himself. To give birth is fitting for the Father, and to create is fitting for an artist. The work and the creation is the body that the Lord bore on Himself for our sake, “What came to us,” as Paul says, “is wisdom from God, and sanctification, and truth..., and deliverance” (1 Cor. 1:30), although the Word is before us and before every creature, and was and is the Wisdom of the Father. The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father, always abides in the hands of the sending Father and the bearing Son, and with Him He fills all things. The Father, having existence from Himself, as we said, begat the Son, but did not create it - He begot it like a river from a source, like a plant from a root, like radiance from light, yet we see this inseparable in nature. Through Him to the Father Glory, power and greatness before all ages and to all ages of ages! Amen. You might be interested in: