Only in the Church, only through the eyes of the Church, is Christ perceived in the spiritual life of the Eastern tradition. In other words, He is seen in the Holy Spirit. Orthodoxy always sees Christ in the fullness of His Divinity, glorified and triumphant even in suffering, even in the grave. Exhaustion, κενωσις, is always replenished by the splendor of the Divine. Dead and resting in the tomb, Christ descends into hell as a conqueror and forever crushes the power of the enemy. In the resurrected and ascended Christ to heaven, the Church can see only one of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, "trampling down death" and "sitting at the right hand of the Father." The "historical" Christ, the "Jesus of Nazareth" as He appeared to the eyes of foreign witnesses, Christ outside the Church, is always completed in the fullness of Revelation given to His true witnesses, the sons of the Church, enlightened by the Holy Spirit. The cult of Christ's humanity is alien to the tradition of the Eastern Church, or, rather, this deified humanity is clothed here in the same glorified image as the disciples saw Christ on Mount Tabor; it is the humanity of the Son, through whom His Divinity is visible, common with the Father and the Spirit. The spiritual life of the Eastern Church does not follow the path of imitation of Christ. And indeed, it would seem to be somewhat inferior here, it would be some kind of external relationship to Christ. For the spiritual life of the Eastern Church, the only way that likens us to Christ is the path of acquiring the grace communicated by the Holy Spirit. The saints of the Eastern Church never had stigmata, external imprints that likened some of the great saints and mystics of the West to the suffering Christ. But, on the other hand, the saints of the Eastern Church were very often transfigured by the inner light of uncreated grace and were illumined, like Christ in His Transfiguration.

The source of fullness, which makes it possible to overcome any ossification, any limitation in teaching, is the experience and life of the Church. The beginning of this wealth and this freedom is the Holy Spirit. As a perfect Person, He is never perceived in His hypostatic being as a "bond of love" between the Father and the Son, a functional unity in the Trinity in which there is no place for functional definitions. Confessing the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, His hypostatic independence from the Son, the tradition of the Eastern Church affirms the personal fullness of the work of the Comforter who came into the world. The Holy Spirit is not a unifying force by which the Son would unite the members of His mystical body. If He bears witness to the Son, then as a Divine Person, independent of the Son, a Divine Person who communicates to each human hypostasis, to each member of the Church, a new fullness, in which created persons are revealed and freely and directly confess the Divinity of Christ, confirmed by the Holy Spirit. "Where the Spirit of God is, there is freedom" — the true freedom of individuals who are not blind members in the unity of the Body of Christ, who are not annihilated in their unity, but find their personal fullness; each becomes a kind of "whole" in the Church, for the Holy Spirit descends on each human person separately. If the Son communicates His Hypostasis to the renewed human nature, if He becomes the Head of the new body, then the Holy Spirit, who came in the name of the Son, communicates the Divinity to each member of this body, to each human person. In the kenosis of the Son who came to earth, the Personality is clearly manifested, but nature remains hidden under the "shadow of the slave." At the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Godhead reveals Himself as a Gift, while the personality of the Giver remains unrevealed. As if belittling Himself, as if hiding Himself as a person, the Holy Spirit bestows uncreated grace on human personalities. Man unites with God, adapting himself to the fullness of being revealed in the depths of his very personality. In unceasing labor on the path of ascent, in cooperation with the Divine will, created nature is more and more transformed by grace until its final deification, which will be fully revealed in the Kingdom of God. The same fullness of the Holy Spirit, the same striving for ultimate completeness, which transcends all that affirms and limits itself, is also manifested in Eastern ecclesiology. The Church is historical, concrete, precisely defined by space and time, unites in itself earth and heaven, people and angels, living and dead, sinners and saints, created and uncreated. How to recognize the glorified Bride of Christ under the external shortcomings and weaknesses of her historical existence,

"having no defilement or blemish, or any of these"

(Ephesians 5:27)? Could we not fall into temptations, into doubts, if the Holy Spirit did not constantly make up for human weakness, if historical limitations were not always overcome, if incompleteness did not always turn into fullness, just as water turned into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee? How many people pass by the Church, not noticing the radiance of eternal glory in the form of humility and humiliation. But did many recognize the Son of God in the "man of sorrows"? One must have eyes to see, and feelings open to the Holy Spirit, in order to recognize fullness where the outer eye sees only limitation and insufficiency. "Great epochs" are not needed to affirm the fullness of divine life that is always present in the Church. In the time of the Apostles, in the era of persecution, in the centuries of the Ecumenical Councils, there were always "secular-minded minds" who remained blind to the evidence of the manifestation of the Spirit of God in the Church. It would be possible to point out examples closer to our time... Crucified and buried Christ would not have been subjected to any other judgment by those who do not see the light of the resurrection. In order to be able to discern victory under the appearance of defeat, the power of God, accomplished in weakness, the true Church in its historical reality, it is necessary, in the words of the Apostle Paul, to accept

"Not of the spirit of this world, but of the Spirit of God, that we may know the things which have been given us of God"

(1 Corinthians 2:12).

The apophaticism inherent in the mystical theology of the Eastern Church appears to us, in the final analysis, as a testimony to the fullness of the Holy Spirit, a Person who remains unknown, although He fills everything and directs everything to its final completion. Everything becomes fullness in the Holy Spirit: the world created to be deified, human persons called to union with God, the Church in which this union is realized; finally, God allows Himself to be known by the Holy Spirit in the fullness of His being as the Most Holy Trinity. Faith, as an apophatic feeling of this fullness, cannot remain blind to those who enter into union with God. The Holy Spirit becomes in them the beginning of their consciousness, which is more and more open to the perception of Divine things. Spiritual life, according to the works of the ascetics of the Eastern Church, is never unconscious, as we noted in the last chapters of the essay. This consciousness of grace, the consciousness of God present in us, is usually called "gnosis" or spiritual knowledge (γνωσις πνευματικη), which St. Isaac the Syrian defines as "the sense of eternal life" or "the sense of hidden things" (387). Gnosis eliminates all limited consciousness, all ignorance, αγνοια, as its ultimate limit, that is, the utter hell. Perfect gnosis is the contemplation of the Divine light of the Most Holy Trinity; it is the fullness of consciousness, it is the parousia, judgment and entry into eternal life, which takes place, as St. Symeon the New Theologian says, already here on earth, until death and resurrection, in the saints who live in constant communion with God.

The consciousness of the fullness of the Holy Spirit, granted to each member of the Church to the extent of personal spiritual ascent, dispels the darkness of death, the fear of judgment, the abyss of hell, and turns one's gaze exclusively to the Lord, Who is coming in His glory. This joy of resurrection and eternal life turns Easter night into a "feast of faith" at which everyone, even in the smallest measure and in everything, perhaps only for a few moments, participates in the fullness of the "eighth day", which will have no end. The "Catechetical Sermon" of St. John Chrysostom [388], which is read annually at the end of Paschal Matins, perfectly expresses the meaning of the eschatological fullness towards which Eastern Christianity strives. To conclude our essay on the mystical theology of the Eastern Church, we could not find words more eloquent:

"If anyone is pious and God-loving, let him enjoy this good and radiant celebration. If any man be a wise servant, let him enter into the joy of his Lord rejoicing. If anyone has labored to fast, let him now receive a denarius. Whosoever hath eaten from the first hour, let him receive this day a righteous duty. If anyone comes at the third hour, let him give thanks to him. If anyone reaches the sixth hour, let him doubt nothing, for nothing is denied. If anyone is deprived of even the ninth hour, let him draw near, without hesitation, fear nothing. If anyone reaches the exact hour even in the tenth hour, let him not be afraid of delay: for the Lord is devout, he receives the last, as he also received the first: he rests at the eleventh hour of the one who came, as he did from the first hour: and he has mercy on the last, and pleases the first, and gives to him, and gives to him, and gives to this, and accepts deeds, and kisses the intention, and honors the deed, and praises the offering. Wherefore ye shall all enter into the joy of your Lord: both the first and the second, receive reward, the rich and the poor, rejoice with one another, abstinence and sloth, honor the day, you who have fasted and those who have not fasted, rejoice this day, the table is full: enjoy all of you; a well-fed calf: let no one go out of hunger; all enjoy the banquet of faith: all receive the riches of goodness. Let no one weep for misery, for the common kingdom has appeared. Let no one weep for sins, for forgiveness has shone forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for let us be freed by the death of the Saviour. Quench her, Who is saddled by her. The captive of hell, who descended into hell. Grieve him, having tasted of His flesh. And this received Isaiah cried out: "Hell, saith he, be grieved, give thy share to thy lot." Be grieved, for thou shalt be abolished. Be grieved, for you have been mocked. Be grieved, for thou shalt be dead. Be grieved, for thou shalt be cast down. Be grieved, for you will be bound. Accept the body, and be amazed at God. Accept the earth, and destroy the heavens. Thou hast received that thou hast seen, and hast fallen into that which thou hast not seen. Where is thy sting, O death? Where is your victory, hell? Christ is risen, and thou hast fallen down. Christ is risen, and the demons fall. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life lives. Christ is risen, and the dead are not one in the tomb: for Christ rose from the dead, the firstfruits of the departed. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."