You can answer: if you do not believe, it is your business, but He will not cease to be because of this. And the worst thing is that the Judgment will not disappear from this either. This, of course, is a "good" principle, the principle of the ostrich – to hide your head in the sand. The dogma of the Trinity is internally consistent, that is, we do not say that God is Triune in essence and One in essence – this would be a logical contradiction.

We do not say that He is Triune in Person and One in Person – that would also be a logical contradiction. But we know that He is Trinitarian: three Persons, three Selves, three Self-Consciousnesses, and one Essence. And all three are one God, one kingdom, one glory, one might, one dominion, one power. So, we believe in three Persons. The First Person is the Father. His name is Father.

Moreover, the word, as St. Cyril of Alexandria says, the name Father is greater than the name God. Why? Because God is the Father regardless of creation. He is the eternal Father. Is it possible to be a father without children? Is it possible to be a childless father? Of course not. Therefore, God the Father always has a Son. It is very important to remember that the Son was born of the Father without a mother. Many people think, mistakenly think, some Muslims have the idea that Christians believe that He is the carnal Son of the Father. This is nonsense.

The bodiless Father gives birth to the bodiless Son. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, His other name is the Logos, the Son, the Word. He's the Word of the Father. As our mind expresses itself in words, it can be said that our mind begets the word, so the Father begets the Son, who is the eternal Self-revelation of the Father. The Father is beginningless, He has no beginning. Not only in the sense of time, but also in the sense of time, none of the Divine Persons has a beginning—the Pre-eternal Father, the Pre-eternal Son, the Pre-eternal Holy Spirit. They are all eternal. They are all holy. They are all perfect.

But it has no beginning in the sense of origin. The Father is the source of being in Himself. He unites life in Himself, as it is said in the Word of God. He possesses all the fullness of the divine nature and gives all of it in birth to the Son. God the Son, the Word of the Father, is the eternal Revelation of the Father, the seal of the image of the Father, the eternal icon of the Father, the radiance of His Glory, the Light that shone forth from the Light. He is eternally begotten of the Father. Or it is born. — Why was he born and is being born?

"He is born because He is always perfect, there is no flow, no process in Him. And He is born because He is eternally from the Father. That is, He did not break away from the Father in His birth. How does it happen in our birth? The child is separated from the mother. Not so in God. The Father is all in the Son, and the Son is all in the Father. And He was born before all ages, that is, before all time.

Here you are teaching the Symbol of Faith, it says: "... who was born of the Father before all ages." And His birth is not subject to any passionate characteristics, it is like a candle being lit from a candle. The Father begat the Son, but He did not grow weary, He did not decrease. And Jesus Christ is called the Power of the Father. He's the eternal Power of the Father. The Father begat Silas, but He Himself was not weakened. Christ is called the Wisdom of the Father.

The Father begat Wisdom, but did not become foolish. Just as a candle from a candle lights up and does not shrink. In the same way, the Equal gives birth to the Equal. Therefore we say that He is "of one essence with the Father," that is, He has the same essence as God the Father. Otherwise, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, there would be no glory for the Father in the birth of the Lesser Son. Imagine: here is your daughter.

Would you be happy if your daughter became just like you? And they would be dissatisfied if your daughter became lower than you (in terms of upbringing, development). In the same way, it is honor for the Father in heaven that the Son is fully equal to Him. And God the Son differs from God the Father only in one way – birth, in that He is begotten of Him. The three Persons of the Trinity differ from each other only in personal characteristics.

The attribute of the Father is to be Beginningless, Unbegotten, the attribute of the Son is to be Begotten of the Father, and the attribute of the Holy Spirit is to be Proceeding from God the Father. Without these qualities, Personalities would mix. There was a heresy that confused Personalities, saying that in fact God is one Person with three masks. There is another heresy – "Jehovah's Witnesses", who say that the Son of God is a creation, but this is a blasphemy against God.

We know that He is the Word of the Father, and therefore, of course, He is of one essence with the Father. Therefore, anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. Why, in fact, do we say that non-Christians will not be saved? Because they blaspheme the Son. The Son is the Self-revelation of the Father. Salvation is union with the Father. Is it possible to unite with the Father apart from His Self-revelation? Can you find out what's on my mind without my word?

Can you learn about the Father without His Word? Of course not. Real knowledge is that you connect with someone you know. You really get to know a person when you live the same life with him. And our task is not just to know God theoretically, what His properties are. We have now found out, but this is not enough to save us. You need to live a common life with Him. And Who gives this life? Son.

As Christ said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). "Or maybe faith in the Son alone is enough to come to the Father?" — No, I don't. You still need to live His life. Therefore, in fact, the person who does not live in the Church, who has left the Church, that is, from the Body of Christ, is lost, although he can believe in the Son.

Do you understand why the confessions of Christianity are not saved? They are outside of communion with the Universal Church. The situation is very simple. We have said: the Church is a kind of reality of the communion of the Holy Spirit. The Church cannot disappear, cannot hide, cannot disappear and reappear. Cannot be restored.