"You want to know," says Blazh. Augustine, is the name of the Angelic nature? It is a spirit. Do you want to know his position? This is an Angel. In his essence he is a spirit, and in his activity he is an Angel."

The main ministry of the Angels is the continuous praise of God, co-celebration in the accomplishment of the great events of the Divine economy,16 as well as participation in the salvation of man. Concern for the salvation of man fell on the Angels after the fall of our forefathers, so St. Basil the Great says that this ministry of the Angels is "only temporary." After the end of the history of our world, the Angels, together with righteous people, will enter the eternal and blessed Heavenly Kingdom. Angels and people here will be friends and heirs of a blessed life.

Probably, there is no need to emphasize that the angels do not praise the Lord under compulsion. The incessant doxology is something completely spontaneous and comes from the Angels themselves, when they contemplate in utter amazement and ecstasy the endless Beauty of God and the greatness of His creation. This primary ministry of angels is mentioned in many testimonies of the Holy Scriptures.

The prophet Isaiah saw the Lord surrounded by ineffable glory, seated on a throne high and exalted. Around Him with reverence and fear "stood the Seraphim; each of them (had) six wings, two of which they covered their faces, not daring to look and not enduring the sight of God's glory; with the help of the other two, they flew, calling to each other, and all together in one Divine harmony sang: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts! the whole earth is full of His glory."17 Also on Christmas night, as the Evangelist Luke relates, "suddenly there appeared with an angel a multitude of heavenly hosts, glorifying God and crying out: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!" 18

The service of the Angels to the mystery of God's Economy is the fruit of both love and gratitude to the Creator, as well as the result of the desire for one's own progress on the path to endless perfection. For this reason the Angels desire with great trepidation to penetrate into the mysteries of the Divine Economy.19

The care of the angels for our salvation is the most well-known and beneficial angelic ministry for us. The Apostle Paul says that angels "are ministering spirits sent to minister for those who are to inherit salvation."20 From the Gospel we know that angels fulfill this ministry of theirs with great zeal and joy, and therefore they rejoice in heaven even "over one sinner who repenteth."21

How do the Angels receive the grace of God?

"Holy bread," the priest prays in the words of St. Ambrose of Milan before the Liturgy, "Living bread, sweetest bread. Bread of lust, Bread of the purest, full of all sweetness and incense! By Thee the angels in heaven feed abundantly; let the stranger on earth also be satisfied according to his strength with Thee!"

"The angels in heaven eat abundantly," and everyone wants to be satiated with the sweetness of contemplation of the Divinity... Man has the highest gift of God's love – the ability not only with his mind, soul, but even with his lips and body to receive the highest Holiness – the Body and Blood of Christ. An angel who does not have a body cognizes God and receives His divine currents of grace with his luminous being.

As one ascetic wrote: "What a lofty, truly heavenly, most blessed hunger! The Angels are also seized with thirst, but also with a heavenly and blessed thirst — a thirst for ever closer communion with God, for penetration by the Divine, for enlightenment by Him. Their thirst is a never-ceasing longing for God. A small semblance of this thirst occurs on earth. Thus the eagle, spreading its mighty wings in all its breadth, soars upwards, and flies, rises higher and higher... above... there, into the depths of the sky. But no matter how high he rises, he must descend again. This is how it happens: our mind, in moments of the greatest spiritual tension, inspiration, prayer, imperiously breaking the bonds of the flesh, like an eagle, soars to heaven, contemplates God, is imbued with Him, thinks about Him. But, alas, our mind, unstable, wavering, again falls from the heavenly heights to the bottom; is broken into a multitude of vain thoughts, dissipated. Not so with the Angels: their mind is incessantly, invariably directed towards God, does not deviate from Him for a single moment, it does not know turns back."

The angels "with a firm mind, with an unswerving desire to lead the Being" contemplate the Divinity, the Church sings about them. The angels are "inflamed with Divine love." Inflamed by this love, kindled by the dawn of the Divine being, from this Divine thirst the Angels themselves become "a God-bearing coal," "communion of the Divine Fire, as a flame is." "In the flaming fires stand before Thee the Cherubim, Seraphim, O Lord!"

On the path of constant striving and elevation to God, the Angels know neither fatigue nor any kind of stops, obstacles or obstacles. They do not know the most important, the most basic and difficult obstacle on this path – sin, which now and then binds the wings of our spirit with its bonds, constrains its flight to heaven and God. The angels are so rooted in goodness, so sanctified in their minds and with their whole being, that, according to the Holy Fathers, they can no longer sin. At first, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers, they were created by God with the possibility of sinning, then, by the unswerving exercise of their will in good, they passed into the state of the possibility of not sinning, and finally, having been strengthened in obedience to God, by the power of Divine grace they were so perfected that they reached the state of the impossibility of sinning.

In this most blessed holy state, the Angels remain in heaven to this day.