3. Der hl. Justin, Apologien. Bibliothek der Kirchenvater, t. I.

      4. L. Ouspensky, Essai sur la Theologie de I'Icone, Paris 1960.

      5. V. Zenkovsky, Freedom and Sobornost, in the journal "The Way", Paris 1927, Nr. 7.

      6. G. Dejaifve, Sobornost ou Papaute, «Nouvelle revue theologique», Louvain 1952, Nr. 84, 85.

      7. P. B. Plank, Katholizitat und Sobornost', Wurzburg 1960.

      8. Hymnen der Ostkirche. Dreifaltigkeits, – Marien – und Totenhymnen, Munster 1960.

      9. Vl. Solovyov, Reading on God-manhood (1877-81), Collected Works, St. Petersburg 1901-03, vol. III.

      10. S. Bulgakov, the Comforter. On God-manhood, Paris 1936.

      11. S. Bulgakov, Philosophy of the Name, Paris 1953.

      12. S. Bulgakof, L'Orthodoxie, Paris 1958.

      13. J. Meyendorff, Introduction a l'etude de Gregoire Palamas, Paris 1959.

      14. Starec Siluan, Leben, Lehre, Schriften, Dusseldorf 1959.

      15. B. Schultze, Russische Denker, Wien 1950.

      16. R. Guardini, Der Herr. Betrachtungen uber die Person und das Leben Jesu Christi, Wurzburg 1937.

      17. N. Berdyaev, The Science of Religion and Christian Apologetics, in the journal "Put" 1927, Nr. 6.

      18. G. Fedotov, Orthodoxy and Historical Criticism, in the journal "Put" 1932, Nr. 33.

      19. L. A. Zander, Einheit ohne Vereinigung, Stuttgart 1959.

CHAPTER TWO. THE HUMILIATED CHRIST

     From the preceding chapter we could understand that the Eastern Church never considers Christ in any one aspect only, either only in His Divinity or only in His humanity. It thinks and experiences the Savior as the Divine-human fullness. It is from this point of view that the East examines every manifestation of the life and deeds of Christ. And this is the path that leads to an understanding of even the subtle attributes of the Person of Christ.

      This way or point of view, let us say method, is preserved in the concept of the suffering Christ. The suffering and death of Christ in the Christian experience of the East are so inseparably connected, on the one hand, with His Divinity, and on the other, with His Humanity, that this connection reveals the suffering and dying Christ in a completely different light, unusual for the Western Christian. A purely human view of the suffering and death of Christ as a psychophysical event is unacceptable to the Eastern Church. Therefore, detailed descriptions of Christ's sufferings, such as those of K. Emmerich, the Eastern Church does not. [83] None of the saints of the Eastern Church has stigmata, which also indicates that the Eastern Church does not experience the mutilated Christ as deeply as the Western Church. [84] Nor does the Eastern Church investigate the purely biological process of Jesus' death: from what, from a medical point of view, Christ died, whether His heart was touched by the spear of a soldier, whether His blood did not begin to decompose before He was buried. What was the real cause of Christ's death—was it general exhaustion while He was hanging on the cross, or was it caused by muscle spasms similar to tetanus (tetanus) or perhaps something else. These questions are constantly raised and resolved in Western apologetics. They even became the basis for the emergence of special literature. For the Eastern Church, all this is alien and even disgusting. Eastern theologians do not consider it possible to raise such questions, considering them a kind of desecration of the sufferings of Christ, because in the very formulation of such questions lies an atheistic point of view on sacred events. [85]

      This, of course, does not mean that Christ did not suffer and did not die, as was asserted in the Manichaean heresy of the Docetists. This conception of Christ's suffering and death is strongly rejected by the Eastern Church. Christ came to earth not in the form of a ghost, but in the form of a bodily True Man: "Christ became man, having partaken of me in the flesh," as the Byzantine liturgy declares (Monday of the first week of Holy and Great Lent, ode 9). [86] Therefore, not only could He suffer, but He did. After all, human suffering is nothing but a personal reflection of a distorted world order. And as long as we live in this distorted order, we must suffer. And here Christ is no exception. And He, as the True Man, was also included in the order of this world and participated in the common earthly destiny, not excluding either suffering or death. This is so obvious that the Eastern Church does not even emphasize it and does not substantiate its faith with this. Is it surprising that Christ, being a man, ate, rested, dressed, washed? So can it be surprising that He suffered? There is no problem here, and there is nothing to surprise us.