Communion
“A false Eden represents a significant theme in the Scriptures—the attempt by human beings to make for themselves that which God had already given them or was going to give them. This theme is not about humans growing up and striking out on their own, but it is rather about breaking away from communion with God to try to take something on independently, which we saw with the taking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” (Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick)
“The most fundamental relationship in our human existence is that of communion. What we label as the Fall is nothing other than the rupture of communion between God and human beings. It is no accident that the Genesis account mentions shame as our first emotion in that rupture. How could it have been otherwise? Shame is what broken communion feels like…For Adam and Eve are not just the first human beings in the story; they are all human beings throughout all time. The Fall is repeated, relived, in numberless ways through the ages, and even numberless times within each single life. The rupture of communion with God is also a rupture of communion with ourselves and all creation around us. It is particularly a rupture of communion with other human beings…” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“Man was not created immortal, but by having his personhood he was made capable of communion with the immortal God. Death came to him not as a punishment in a juridical sense but as an existential consequence of the break of this communion; it came at the moment that man became introverted, and limited the ekstatic movement of his personhood to the created world. Sin, therefore, entered as idolatry, that is, as an ekstasis of communion with the created world alone. In this way, what sin did was of deep ontological significance: it made the limitation of creaturehood show itself in the existential contrast between being and nothingness.” (Metropolitan John Zizioulas)
“…the problem with sin is not primarily rule-breaking but disordered affections. When our desires are reordered toward the Creator, then our enjoyment of created things is purified from the passions and becomes a means for deeper communion with Him.” (Robin Phillips)
“To be in communion with God, you have first to be in communion with other people. The Lord behaves towards Judas in the same way as He does towards the other disciples, even though He knows he will betray Him. All the actions of His presence on earth combine to reconcile human nature and morals and to show them the real human image as made by God, as made to love.” (Petros Panayiotopoulos)
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