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."

Further, St. John says: "Thus the Angel is an essence endowed with intellect, constantly moving, free, incorporeal, serving God, having by grace received immortality for its nature: only the Creator knows the form and definition of this essence. And it is called incorporeal and immaterial in comparison with us. For everything is in comparison with God... turns out to be both gross and material, because only the Divinity in the strict sense is immaterial and incorporeal."

What else can we say about these amazing celestials?

Angels have no gender, no age... "Angels do not undergo change. There is neither boy, nor youth, nor old man among the angels, they remain in the state in which they were created in the beginning, and their composition is preserved pure and unchanged" (St. Basil the Great).

Although angels are incorporeal, they are spatially limited. "For when they are in heaven, they are not on earth, and when they are sent to earth by God, they do not remain in heaven" (St. John of Damascus).

Like bodiless spirits, the Angels know neither our space nor time; Our modes of locomotion, which involve many efforts and difficulties, are unknown to them. Angels are fleeting, fast-moving: they are now in one place, in the twinkling of an eye in another; there are no walls, no doors, no locks for the Angels. "They," teaches St. Gregory the Theologian, "walk freely around the Great Throne, because they are swiftly moving minds, flames and divine spirits, swiftly transported through the air." And they pass through the "closed doors" and see through the walls, and no fortress, the firmest, the highest, and the most impregnable, is able to restrain their flight. On their swift-flying wings the Angels fly irresistibly, freely: before the noise of their spirit (Dan. 14:36), like smoke, all space disappears.

And yet, their corporeality is of a completely different order, so subtle and elusive that it has led some theologians to speak of the perfect spirituality of the Angels. However, they are not absolutely spiritual, for God alone is the all-perfect and absolute Spirit. Angels are spiritual, so to speak, relatively. They are spiritual for us, for our nature. In the space of our universe, they really, as St. John of Damascus says, "are not held back by walls, doors, locks, or seals." For God, they are just a creation. Of a different kind than people and in general everything that belongs to this cosmos, but an ordinary creation.

It is impossible to describe the Angels. Once again, I will draw attention to the fact that they belong to a completely different level of world existence, our categories are hardly applicable to Angels.