“When modern people use the term “person,” we mean it as synonymous with “individual.” In other words, we unconsciously assume the worldview of the Many, in which each person is a totally separate entity. If that’s your assumption, then the idea of three persons sharing one essence sounds like a contradiction. But the ancient Christian idea was different. For them, a person was—by definition—a relational thing. To be a person meant to be defined by your relationships to other persons….Personhood, as I have argued, is the mode in which nature exists in its ekstatic movement of communion in which it is hypostasized in its catholicity. And this is what makes Christ the head of a new humanity (or creation) in that He is the first one both chronologically and ontologically to open up this possibility of personhood in which the distance of individuals is turned into the communion of persons.” (Dr. Zachary Porcu, Metropolitan John Zizioulas)
“Being human is a cultural event. No one is human by themselves and no one becomes human without the help of those around them. This is so obvious it should not need to be stated, but contemporary man often imagines himself to be his own creation. The exercise of individual freedom is exalted as the defining characteristic of our existence: “I am what I choose to be.” To suggest that most of who and what we are is beyond the realm of choice would seem to be a heresy, an insult to the modern project.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“A civilization that grew out of Christianity and received the prefix “post-” is a civilization corroded by individualism. The attitude towards everything in the world is determined by our “personal choice” and “private opinion”. “I want it that way”, and “I think so,” people say on any occasion. Strangely enough, in such conditions people have less and less ability to make well thought-out personal judgments. They think the same things more and more often, because they get information from the same TV programs. The triumph of individualism actually leads to the triumph of monotony and inexpressiveness. In relation to religion, this dull amorphousness hides behind commonplaces like, “Don’t mess with my soul”, “Faith is a personal matter for everyone”, and so on.” (Archpriest Andrei Tkachev)
“If you spend a lot of time with certain people, you generally pick up their mannerisms, vocabulary, inflections, and even their sense of humor, outlook toward life, or beliefs. The Christian idea of the person is like this but even more so. The idea is that, at the deepest level of our being, we define each other and even bring each other into existence. You’ll notice that it takes two humans to make another human. That’s always seemed very significant to me: even your existence you owe not to one but to two other people coming together out of a passionate desire for each other. This is an important clue to our nature. Our love for one another, expressed physically, leads to the creation of new human persons. You literally owe your existence to a relationship.” (Dr. Zachary Porcu)
“To live as an individual is to live under the protection of the mask—a protection that damages the possibility of relationship and prevents me from fulfilling my vocation as a person in relationship. But to live as a person in relationship requires me to acknowledge and accept my vulnerability Paradoxically, through attempting to protect myself, I gradually kill myself, and only when I voluntarily step out from behind my self-protective masks and allow myself to be vulnerable, seen through the veil, can I find fullness of life.” (Andrew Williams)
“…although we are created as personal beings, our personhood is something that is becoming. We are moving towards the fullness of our person. The fullness of who we are is something hidden, something that shall be revealed.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“By becoming a child of God, we become more of a real person, no longer an autonomous individual. We become who we really are and were meant to be." (Father David L. Fontes, PsyD)
“We are all called to be saints no matter who we are, no matter where we are, and no matter what we do, and yet not all respond to this call.” (Archimandrite Sergius)
“...today many people are looking for their identity, for their place in the world, for who they are. The only place we can find who we are is in God.” (Albert S. Rossi)
“A healthy self-image is not one of pride or arrogance, but one that coincides with God’s viewpoint. It is choosing to accept God’s evaluation, learning to see ourselves as God sees us, agreeing with who we are in His eyes, and giving Him permission to make us what He designed us to be. In His eyes, every person is valuable.” (Mary Southerland)
“Living in this present age, we are constantly exposed to the secular assumptions of modern society…The word"body” (soma) is a case in point. The translators of the Old Testament…applied a very specific meaning to soma. Indeed, our modern notion of the body as the individual’s corporal or physical substance rarely appears in the Old Testament…Saint Paul’s use of"body” [in the New Testament] corresponds most closely to our modern concept of the"total person.” (Dynamis 1/8/2015)
"...labeling people in life can be very destructive. When we fail to look at the person, but rather group him/her impersonally...we failed to see him/her as a person loved by God and others. Yet let someone who group us unjustly, and we are the first ones to defend our personhood. We might be categorized by others, or we may categorize others, but in reality, all of us belong to only one God..." (Marianne C. Sailus)
“When societies deny personhood as an intrinsic quality of humans, they commonly digress into injustice and dehumanize portions of their populations...the Church is formed from out of ordinary existence through a radical conversion from individualism to personhood” (Rice Broocks, Metropolitan John Zizioulas)
“As Christians we are here to affirm the supreme value of direct sharing, of immediate encounter —not machine to machine, but person to person, face to face.” (Metropolitan Kallistos Ware)
"God’s character goes into the creation of every person.” (Life Application Study Bible, Psalms 139:13-15)
“What do we mean by the terms person and personal? Based on the fact that we are made in God’s image – and knowing that He creates, deliberates, proposes, decides, and communicates – we understand that human beings are likewise persons with the capacity to do these sorts of things. What is remarkable about mankind is that each and every man bears within his breast what Saint Gregory the Theologian calls a"divine particle” that confers self-awareness and a modicum of freedom of choice.” (Dynamis 3/5/2014)
"As persons created in the image of God we are not only free, we are also unique and unrepeatable. Just as no two fingerprints are exactly alike, so no two people are exactly alike. Of course, our society often tries to suppress our uniqueness. Indeed, it seems as though our human identity is reduced to our Social Security number. Yet no matter how dehumanizing modern life may be, it can never suppress the absolute uniqueness of the human person, for that uniqueness is the imprint of God upon us all. God calls us all to grow into His likeness, but in a way that is unique to each of us.” (Clark Carlton)
"...the Holy Spirit is not a spirit that possesses us and takes away our freedom or absorbs our personhood. The unity of the Church in the Holy Spirit does not mean a flattening of human personality. But the purity and integrity of our unique personality is distorted by sin. And so the holier we become, the more we discover our true selves.” (Archimandrite Vassilios Papavassiliou)
“But how can we acquire holiness? How can we become saints? Through continuous repentance, by getting up every time we fall, by battling with our passions and forever cutting away the sin that distorts the purity and"beauty of the Divine Image in which we were made. The holy Image of God is present within every one of us, but we must cut away the sin that mars and conceals it if it is to become manifest, just as a sculptor produces a work of art by the act of cutting away.” (Archimandrite Vassilios Papavassiliou)
“Our oneness in Christ does not destroy our individuality…God is almighty and all-powerful; but even so, He cares for each of us personally.” (Life Application Study Bible, Ephesians 4:1112, Isaiah 40:12-31)
“The term, person, is difficult to define because people by nature defy definition. We can classify people according to age or height or race or sex, but these things cannot begin to explain the mystery of personhood.” (Clark Carlton)
"Each person is a valuable and unique creation of God…Remember this when prejudice enters your mind or hatred invades your feelings.” (Life Application Study Bible, Genesis 5:3-5)
"Make no mistake, from a Christian point of view prejudice from a moral and spiritual point of view is a serious wrong because it is sacrilegious. Sacrilege, as defined by the Oxford American Dictionary, is"disrespect or damage to something sacred.” As Christians, we believe life comes from God and that human beings are created in"the image and likeness of God.” To then disrespect or damage others in our thoughts and actions is to profane God’s creation.” (Sacramental Living)
“Prejudice in any form is in direct opposition of these commands of love from our Lord and it actually separates us from Christ. ‘Such a person is outside the spiritual teachings as set down by Christ and the great saints who followed His footsteps. The entire therapeutic pedagogy of the Eclessia is built on the practice of humility. To follow Christ means to have the capacity to coexist with other people who may be radically different from you.’ ” (Sacramental Living, Kyriacos C. Markides)
“Jesus commanded us to love one another which is the essence of Christianity. Loving one another has much to do with understanding and appreciating differences and not letting them be an artificial barrier to community.” (Sacramental Living)
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