The Christian knows that he depends only on God, because by denying himself, he has freed himself from everything. Always doing what is pleasing to the Father, He is led by the Word and, according to His obedience, is "purified, illumined, enlightened, and vouchsafed to see the revelation of great mysteries, the depths of which no one has ever seen or would ever see" [1]. When Jesus says that the pure in heart will see God, he means a direct view of the Creator and the creature. A Christian introduces the Lord into his relations with people and, becoming His servant, serves Him. In the hope of the glory to which the universe is destined, he already sees the world transformed. Other people can see the light and unity of the world through the saints.

Indeed, it is important to believe that holiness illuminates not only our brothers but the cosmos as a whole. The fate of the world is in the freedom of matter. Now it is enslaved, but "the creation was subjected to vanity, not voluntarily, but by the will of Him who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself would be freed from slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Romans 8:20-21). God has liberated the cosmos through the saints and for the symphony that is to reign in the transfigured universe.

In the hope of this transfiguration, in the historical formation, the purpose of which is to approach the fullness of times, holiness belongs to the ecclesial community as a whole. This is the building which, in the words of the Apostle Paul, "being built up in order, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, on which you also are built up into the habitation of God by the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:21-22).

This completely excludes the individualistic understanding of salvation and the moment of salvation. We are all carried by a single stream of God's love. St. Isaac the Syrian could not bear the thought that someone would remain in hell forever: "And what is a merciful heart? Kindling of the heart for all creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for all creation. At the remembrance of them, at the sight of them, the eyes watered from the great and strong compassion that envelops the heart. And the heart is softened, and it cannot endure, or hear, or see any harm or even a little sorrow experienced by the creature. Wherefore he prayeth hourly for the dumb, and for the enemies of the truth, and for those who do him harm, that they may be preserved and purified. And he prays for the nature of those who crawl out of great pity. It is aroused in the heart without measure of assimilation to God in this" [2].

No one works out his salvation alone or only for himself. A person is a fact of love. If the Lord lives in his heart, He expands it into infinite spaces, and this is what gives him an understanding of the mysteries of the new creation. "Joined together," as the Apostle says, believers will attain "a perfect understanding of the mystery of God" (Col. 2:2). Only together with one another will we accomplish the work of "edifying the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12-13). We do not strive for the solitary perfection of the believer, but for the perfection of the "perfect man" in the conciliar sense, that is, Christ as a whole, as Head and as Body.

Any theological conversation about holiness must begin with the Trinity, since holiness is the Trinitarian life in us. "No one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son" (Matt. 11:27). If we are once and for all transferred into the bosom of the Divine Trinity, if we participate in this unceasing life of love, then we turn to people to bear our witness to them; and if we are transformed into fire together with them, then the world will burn and be transfigured in its march to the age to come.

We proceed from the deep conviction that the source of our knowledge of man is God. Only God reveals the nature and destiny of man. From this point of view, the foundation of Christian anthropology lies in the New Testament assertion that we are "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). First of all, from this revelation comes the famous patristic formula: "God becomes man so that man may become God." With this formula begins the doctrine of the deification of man. The fundamental thing here is that man does not abandon his humanity in order to remain an image and become the likeness of God. And God, by giving Himself to man, does not become smaller, and man does not become more human when he is torn away from God. Humanity in this case becomes, so to speak, a weakness and a compromise with sin. In view of this, the Fathers strive to substantiate the idea that our nature is ascent, and not fall. Accepted by Christ, at once glorified and hidden in Him, our nature sits at the right hand of the Father, sharing the dignity and majesty of the divine nature. Our sanctification is a ceaseless ascent, the transformation of our being into a new creature. This transformation began with the Head. "Since God became man, man can become God. He ascends in the Divine ascent to the same extent as God humbled Himself out of love for people, when, without changing, He took upon Himself the worst in our situation," writes St. Maximus the Confessor.

Despite the immutable gulf between the essence of the Creator and the essence of the creature, God remains in some way accessible. In order for us to be worthy of the name of "partakers of the divine nature," there must be something in God to which we can participate. Through God's eternal impulse toward us—his divine energies, as the Fathers call them, as opposed to an entity that remains incomprehensible—the Godhead actually lives in us. Grace is the true light that illuminates existence as a whole.

A person becomes the God he loves. The desirer revolves around the Desired, already participating in His life, in His being. "This participation in divine things is the similarity between the communicants and that to which they participate," affirms St. Maximus the Confessor. A person, in his soul and in his body, receives a sanctifying glory that permeates him completely. That is why St. Maximus ventured to proclaim: "Having become a god by deification, the creature henceforth bears within itself and manifests only the energy common to God and His chosen ones, or, rather, henceforth there is only God, inasmuch as He fills the whole wholeness of His chosen ones with all His wholeness."

This is the highest point of unity. But unity is prepared by unceasing effort, by a sincere striving for grace and an effort to find it. "The kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away" (Matt. 11:12). There is a storm in the world, a storm in our hearts, but it is not a question of bringing good weather to our rooms. We must settle down with Jesus, put aside worldly cares. We must give ourselves to Jesus with our hearts. The symbol of this will to purification is the invocation of the holy Name of Jesus. Through concentration on this Name, through this reality of Jesus in us, we move towards Him in our hearts, we enter with Him into a fiery rush of love.

However, the giants of spiritual life have always looked upon their spiritual feats as a simple preparation for the reception of heavenly gifts. That is why St. Seraphim of Sarov said at the beginning of the nineteenth century: "Prayer, fasting, vigil and all other Christian deeds, however good they may be in themselves, are not the only ones that the goal of our Christian life consists in, although they serve as the necessary means to achieve it. The true goal of our Christian life is to acquire the Holy Spirit of God."

This means that there is no technique of holiness, or even a discipline that would mechanically prepare for it. Ascetic effort in itself is already the fruit of grace, and it is not enough during the entire life of the ascetic to drive away demonic delusions. Imagination and human talk about deification remain dangerous obstacles. The greatest seriousness in the fulfillment of the Beatitudes, the taming of the gaze, the "circumcision of the senses," as Origen says, the statutory fasts, and prolonged prayer are supported by the gifts of the Spirit, and they themselves are the stones on which the ascetic stands and awaits these gifts. According to the rule of Tradition, "when united, the righteousness of works and the grace of the Spirit fill the soul with blessed life, in which they become identical."

Struggle and charisma, a gift of grace, are united in personality. Nature is no longer distorted by sin or demonized by temptation. It becomes beautiful, like the dawn of the last Sunday day, which will not be twilight. In the inner asceticism acquired in conversion, the Christian feels how light the Lord's yoke is. The heart, where passions and slavery once dwelt, becomes the place where the kingdom is revealed, where the light is seen, and where the believer keeps the treasures entrusted to him by God. The ability of a being to contemplate, the receptacle of the image of God in a person, the heart of a believer is preserved by the Spirit. The mind, which must remain cold, watches so that the heart is not blinded by the fervor of the "lusts of the flesh." Balance, clarity of mind in a converted person is exactly what the great spiritual fighters of the East said: "the mind descends into the heart" under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

This ideal of holiness does not change to the taste of the ages. It is not related to the life form. Whether a monk or a layman, a man or a woman, married or single, whether he leads the life of a farmer or works in industry or in the field of high technology, his heart endures the same temptations and receives the same strength from God. We are not faced with a choice between social or political activity, on the one hand, and the transformation of the inner being, on the other. A Christian always has faith, which consists in agreement with God and the inner life of man himself. The Holy Spirit is not on one side and mental, social, or family life on the other. In all the states of life, one thing inspires – the Gospel absolute, for in it salvation lies. There is only that surge of love which, proceeding from the heart of the Trinity, inflames us and the world, constantly transforms us and holds us before the Lord. We stand before Him in boundless humility, but He Himself gives us His Spirit again and again every day. "The patience of the saints" awaits sinners with tears. The saints know the abysses, but they also know that God is stronger than our hearts, and that the hell of man must turn into a day filled with light. Holiness is an Easter gift, a hymn of joy, sung in the hope of the omnipotence of love.