The second step is that right (righteous) spiritual life, thanks to which the believer grows into a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13) and becomes capable of receiving special sanctification by the Holy Spirit. For the seed of Baptism among evil and slothful Christians (Matt. 25:26) remains unsprouted and therefore barren (Jn. 12:24), but when it comes to good ground, it sprouts and bears the corresponding fruit. This fruit (and not the seed) signifies the sought-after communion with the Holy Spirit – holiness. The parable of the leaven, which the woman took and put into three measures of flour, until everything was leavened (Matt. 13:33), clearly expresses the nature of this mysterious change of man and his communion with the Holy Spirit in the Church, and the real significance of the sacraments in this process. Just as the leaven put into the dough exerts its effect gradually and under very definite conditions, so the "leaven" of Baptism "leavens" the natural man into a spiritual one (1 Corinthians 3:1-3), into a "new dough" (1 Corinthians 5:7) not instantaneously, not magically, but in time, with the corresponding spiritual and moral change indicated in the Gospel. Thus, it depends on the Christian who has received the talent of justification freely (Rom. 3:24) to destroy it in the ground of his heart (Matt. 25:18) or to multiply it.

The latter means a special communion with the Holy Spirit of the baptized person. And this is one of the most important principles of the Orthodox understanding of spiritual life, Christian perfection, and holiness. Simply and briefly it was expressed by St. Symeon the New Theologian: "All the efforts and all the podvig of him (the Christian - A. O.) must be directed to acquiring the Holy Spirit, for this is the spiritual law and well-being"[4]. The same thing was spoken of in one of the discourses by St. St. Seraphim of Sarov: "The goal of the Christian life is to acquire the Spirit of God, and this is the goal of the life of every Christian who lives spiritually"[5].

Thus, it turns out that the believer, who has received in the sacraments the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, also needs His special "acquisition," which is holiness.

SCRIPTURE AND THE CHURCH

There is, at first glance, a kind of discrepancy between the concept of holiness in Holy Scripture, especially in the New Testament, and the tradition of the Church. The Apostle Paul, for example, calls all Christians saints, although in their moral level there were also people among them who were far from holiness (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:1-2). On the contrary, from the very beginning of the Church's existence and in all subsequent times, Christians distinguished by special spiritual purity and zeal of Christian life, podvig of prayer and love, martyrdom for Christ, etc., have been called saints by her.

However, both of these approaches do not mean a difference in the understanding of holiness, but only an assessment of the same phenomenon on different levels. The New Testament use of the term stems from what believers are called to be who have made a promise to God of a good conscience (1 Peter 3:21) and have received the gift of the grace of Baptism, although at the moment they are still carnal, that is, sinful and imperfect. Church tradition, on the other hand, logically completes the New Testament understanding, crowning with a halo of glory those Christians who have fulfilled this calling by their righteous life. That is, both of these traditions speak of one and the same thing - about the special participation of a Christian in the Spirit of God, and determine the very possibility of such participation by the degree of zeal of the believer in the spiritual life. "Not everyone who says to Me, Lord! God! He shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven............ depart from me, you workers of iniquity" (Matt. 7:21-27). "The kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away" (Matt. 11:12).

Out of his calling to another, new life in Christ, the Apostle calls all Christians saints, and by this name he emphasizes the opportunity that has opened up for all believers to become a new creature (Gal. 6:15). Those who have become different in relation to the world, who have acquired the Holy Spirit and manifested His power in our world, have been called saints by the Church from the very beginning of its existence.

HOLINESS

A broad analysis of the concept of holiness is given in his "Pillar..." Priest Pavel Florensky. Here are some of his thoughts.

"When we speak of the Holy Font, of the Holy Myrrh, of the Holy Gifts, of the Holy Repentance, of the Holy Marriage, of the Holy Oil... and so on, and so on, and, finally, about the Priesthood, which word already includes the root "holy," then we first of all understand precisely the otherworldliness of all these Sacraments. They are in the world, but not of the world... And this is precisely the first, negative facet of the concept of holiness. And therefore, when, after the Sacraments, we call many other things holy, we have in mind precisely the specialness, the isolation from the world, from the everyday, from the worldly, from the ordinary, from that which we call holy... Therefore, when God is called Holy in the Old Testament, it means that we are talking about His supermundaneness, about His transcendence to the world...

And in the New Testament, when the Apostle Paul many times in his epistles calls the Christians of his time saints, this means, first of all, in his mouth, the separation of Christians from all mankind...

Undoubtedly, in the concept of holiness, after its negative side, there is a positive side, which reveals in the holy the reality of another world...

The concept of holiness has a lower pole and an upper pole, and in our consciousness it constantly moves between these poles, ascending up and descending back... And this ladder, traversed from the bottom up, is thought of as the path of negation of the world... But it can also be considered as passable in the opposite direction. And then it will be thought of as a way of affirming the world reality through the consecration of the latter" [6].

Thus, according to Father Pavel, holiness is, first, alienation from the world of sin, the denial of it. Secondly, it is a concrete positive content, for the nature of holiness is divine, it is ontologically affirmed in God. At the same time, holiness, he emphasizes, is not moral perfection, although it is inseparably connected with it, but "co-existence with unworldly energies." Finally, holiness is not only the negation, the absence of all evil, and not only the manifestation of another world, the Divine, but also the unshakable affirmation of "the world reality through the sanctification of the latter."