All the truths of Orthodoxy are derived from one truth and are reduced to one truth, boundless and eternal. That truth is the God-man Christ. If you live out any truth of Orthodoxy to the end, you will have to find that its heart is the God-man Christ. In fact, all the truths of Orthodoxy are nothing more than various variants of one truth: the God-man Christ.

Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy with the God-man and nothing else and no one else. Hence the second name of Orthodoxy – the God-man. In it, nothing happens according to man and from man, but everything comes from the God-man and happens according to the God-man. And this means: man experiences and learns the basic, eternal truth of life and the world only with the help of the God-man, in the God-man. One more thing: man learns the complete truth about man, about the goal and meaning of his existence, only through the God-man. Without Him and outside of Him there is no true man, because man is true man only through the God-man and in the God-man. Outside of Him, man turns into providence, into a scarecrow, into nonsense, and in place of man you find the waste of man, fragments of man, the gnawings of man. Hence, true humanity is only in the God-man. And there is no other under heaven.

Why is the God-man the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy? Because he has resolved all the questions that torment and gnaw at the human spirit: the question of life and death, the question of good and evil, the question of earth and heaven, the question of truth and lies, the question of love and hatred, the question of justice and injustice. In a word: the question of man and God.

Why is the God-man the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy? Because by His earthly life He most clearly showed that He is the incarnate, humanized, personified eternal truth, eternal justice, eternal love, eternal joy, eternal power: all truth, all justice, all power, all divine perfections He brought from heaven to earth. And not only did He bring them, but He also taught us, and gave us the grace-filled powers to transform them into our lives, into our thoughts, into our feelings, into our deeds. Hence our calling: to embody them in ourselves, and in the world around us.

Look at the best among the best in the human race. In all of them, the God-man is what is best, and most important, and most eternal. For He is – the holiness of the saints, the martyrdom of the martyrs, the righteousness of the righteous, the apostleship of the apostles, the goodness of the good, the mercy of the merciful, the love of the loving.

Why is the God-man everything and everyone in Orthodoxy? Because He, as One of the Holy Trinity, is the incarnate Son of God, irreplaceable both as God, and as Comforter, and as Protector, and as Teacher, and as Savior. Tormented by earthly tragedy, man finds only in Him, the all-merciful Lord Jesus: a God who can truly make sense of suffering, a Comforter who can truly comfort in every trouble and sorrow, a Protector who can truly protect from every evil, a Savior who can truly save from death and sin, a Teacher who can truly teach eternal truth and justice.

The God-man is everything and everyone in Orthodoxy, because he has immensely magnified man: he has raised him to God, he has made him a god by grace. And this is truly not belittling man at the expense of God, but filling man with all divine perfections. Like no one else, the God-man glorified man: he bestowed upon him eternal life, eternal truth, eternal love, eternal justice, eternal joy, eternal good, eternal bliss. And man, the God-man, became divine majesty.

While the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy is the God-man, the fundamental truth of every otherology is man, or the fractions of his being: reason, will, senses, soul, body, matter. Nowhere is there an integral man in otherology, he is all broken into atoms, into fragments. And all this in the glory of the greatness of man. But, as much nonsense as “art for art’s sake” is, so much is “man for man’s sake” nonsense. That path leads to the most vile pandemonium, where the supreme idol is man. And nowhere is there a more vile idol than him.

The initial truth of Orthodoxy is: man is not for the sake of man, but for the sake of God. Or more fully: for the sake of the God-man. That is why we, in the name of man, remain with the God-man. In Him alone is the rationality of the human being possible, in Him alone is the justification of human existence possible. In that truth are gathered all the secrets of heaven and earth, all the values ​​of all the worlds that man can think about, all the joys of all the perfections that man can achieve. Indirectly and directly, in Orthodoxy the God-man is everything, and in Him then man too, and in allegory he is only a naked man.

In the very thing, Orthodoxy is nothing other than the miraculous personality of the God-man Christ, extended through all the centuries, extended as the Church. Orthodoxy has its own seal and its own sign by which it is recognized. It is the bright face of the God-man Jesus. Everything that does not have that Face is not Orthodox. Everything that does not have the God-man justice, truth, love, eternity is not Orthodox. Everything that seeks to realize the Gospel of the God-man in this world by the methods of this world is not Orthodox, but means slavery to the third temptation of the devil.

Saint Abba Justin (Popović)

Source: The Friend of God Foundation