Angels are spiritual beings who praise God and carry out His commissions. This is what we can say about the Angels in the first place.

The word Angel itself is of Greek origin, and it is translated as Messenger, Messenger. It can be applied to people when it comes to a person sent on a mission, and it can also be applied to a spiritual being sent on behalf of God. In this latter sense, the word Angel is used today.

According to the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, the Angels were created by God even before the creation of the visible world, created in great numbers as servants of God.

Angels serve God, glorify Him, and bring messages from God to man. By God's command, they are the guardians and defenders of people, the highest creation of God, destined for eternal heavenly glory.

Some of the Angels have fallen away from God. The Holy Scriptures do not say directly why this happened, we have only indirect indications of this and numerous testimonies of the Holy Fathers. According to these more than probable assumptions, one of the highest Angels was darkened by ... envy of God, rebelled against his Creator and carried with him a large part of the spirits. All of them were cast into hell and now represent an extremely evil and hardened God- and man-hating army. But we will talk about demons in the second part of this book.

Should a modern person believe in Angels? Everyone answers this question on their own. In any case, a skeptical attitude towards the biblical and patristic testimonies about angels and demons does not separate a person from God and the Church. We remember that the basis of our faith is faith in the One Lord in Three Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And the belief that the Son of God became incarnate for the salvation of people, suffered, redeemed us by death on the cross and rose again!

A Christian, I repeat, may not believe in angels, just as he may not know many mysteries and laws of nature created by God, but in this case he is vulnerable to the influence of dark demonic forces. Imagine, for example, that a person does not believe in the reality of radioactive exposure. How can you believe in it if you can't see it? But such a person risks being in the danger zone, being irradiated and getting sick.

The same is true of modern man, who does not believe in the existence of light and dark angelic forces. The light ones will still be with him, they will invisibly protect and preserve him. But the dark ones will try to destroy him. And not the body, but, first of all, the soul, that is, the dimension in man that inherits eternity.

We can say that radiation is recorded by devices, that we have a lot of examples of the impact of radiation on a person... Almost the same can be said about angels and demons. True, we do not have a device that would record the presence of the spirit, such a device is impossible in principle, because angels are alien to our world, our laws do not apply to them.2 But on the other hand, we have a lot of examples from all times (including no less from modern times), the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures, the testimonies of the holy ascetics of all times and peoples, finally, our own experience. And all this undoubtedly convinces us that angels and demons are not an ancient pious fiction, but a reality. And whether we believe in them or not, they still invisibly were, are and will be with man. Some will support, others will harm.

The greatest Protestant theologian of the 20th century, Karl Barth, wrote in his fundamental multi-volume work "Dogmatics of the Church" that the topic of angels can be described as "the most remarkable and difficult among all." For a Protestant who does not have the Tradition of the Church, this is indeed the most difficult topic,3 since in the Holy Scriptures the theme of the Angels is only outlined, its theological contours are outlined, but it has not received any development.4 Not so in Orthodoxy! The holy ascetics of the Church not only revealed this topic, we have a unique experience of contacts and meetings with the Messengers of God... And when at the beginning of the book I said that the Angels are "helpers and friends" for us, I did not say this on my own behalf. The Angels themselves declared themselves to be such, and the Angels themselves proved to be such.

In the story of the Angels, I will rely both on the testimony of the Word of God – the Bible, and on the stories of the ascetics of faith and piety, who have left us unique testimonies of communion with the light-winged and fiery Heavenly Messengers.

Nature of Angels

The Holy Psalmist describes the nature, that is, the composition of the angels, in these eloquent words: "Thou makest spirits by Thy angels, and a blazing fire by Thy servants."5 In explaining these words, St. St. John of Damascus in his work "An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" notes that the Divine David, speaking of the Angels, shows us "... their lightness and ardor, ardor, and insight, the rapidity with which they desire God and serve Him, their striving for the heavenly and freedom from any material conception."