The Deification as the Purpose of Man’s Life

The highly respected abbot of Gregoriou, Archimandrite George, has now published in English two small works which sum up the teaching of the monastic tradition on matters which are of importance for us all. In Deification he points out that the divinization is the ultimate goal of human existence, and that God does not wish us simply to become ‘better people’, but to live our lives immersed in the divine life of the Holy Trinity. This is something which the Orthodox Church teaches and offers to its members, whether they are able to ‘bear’ it or not.

The basis for this, as Fr George explains, is the Incarnation, for with the Incarnation and Christ’s subsequent Ascension, ‘human nature is now enthroned in the bosom of the Holy Trinity’. But even more fundamental is the attitude of God himself, who ‘wants and desires our deification’. God’s desire (for God ‘has fallen in love with the world’) is to be matched by our desire, for the image of God in us seeks its archetype and years for union with its Creator. The ‘tears of love for God, tears of divine eros’ are greater and higher than the tears of repentance shed for our sins, and lead us ‘to view things, the world and people from a different perspective’. Fr George points out that it was Mary who ‘first achieved deification’, though ‘in an exceptional and unique way’. We ourselves, through the sacraments, ‘become gods by grace’, and the Church in which the sacraments are made available is therefore much more than an ‘institution’. We may, of course, fail to fulfil our calling; but for Fr George it is the struggle itself which is everything.