For
a people like the South, whose poets spoke of dryads living in the trees and
whose theologians saw the creation as another ‘book’ of revelation about God
alongside the Holy Scriptures, the idea of holy relics should not present too
much of a problem. But they probably
will, at least in the short run, because of the false Augustinian teaching of
the sunderedness between God and His creation that has entered into the Western
churches (first with the Roman Catholics, and inherited from them by the
Protestants). Nevertheless, for those
with eyes to see and hearts that are not like stone, here are some good words about holy relics by St Justin
Popovich of Serbia:
Without
doubt, matter is represented in the human body in a manner which is most
puzzling, most mysterious, and most complex. The brain: What wondrous mysteries
pass between its physical and spiritual parts! How vast is the experience of
the human race. In no manner can one ever fully comprehend or grasp these
mysteries. Indeed, little of this is accessible to the human senses or
intellectual investigation. So it is also with the heart of man, formed as it
is entirely and solely from cosmic mysteries. So formed, too, are every cell,
every molecule, every atom. Everyone and all are set on their mystical path
toward God, toward the God-Man. Inasmuch as it was created by God, the Logos,
matter possesses this same theocentricity. Moreover, by His advent into our
earthly world, by His all-embracing condescension as God and Man for the
redemption of the world, the Lord Christ clearly demonstrated that not only the
soul, but matter also was created by God and for God, and that He is God and
Man; and for it, matter, He is all and everything in the same manner as for the
soul. Being created by God, the Logos, matter is, in its innermost core,
God-longing and Christ-longing.
The
most obvious proof of this is the fact that God the Word has become Incarnate,
has become man (St. John
1:14). By His Incarnation, matter has been magnified with Divine glory and has
entered into the grace- and virtue-bestowing, ascetic aim of deification, or
union with Christ. God has become flesh, has become human, so that the entire
man, the entire body, might be filled with God and with His miracle-working
forces and powers. In the God-Man, the Lord Christ, and His Body, all matter
has been set on a path toward Christ —the path of deification, transfiguration,
sanctification, resurrection, and ascent to an eternal glory surpassing that of
the Cherubim. And all of this takes place and will continue to take place
through the Divine and human Body of the Church, which is truly the God-Man
Christ in the total fullness of His Divine and Human Person, the fullness
"that fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:23). Through its Divine and
human existence in the Church, the human body, as matter, as substance, is
sanctified by the Holy Spirit and in this way participates in the life of the
Trinity. Matter thus attains its transcendent, divine meaning and goal, its
eternal blessedness and its immortal joy in the God-Man.
The
holiness of the Saints—both the holiness of their souls and of their
bodies—derives from their zealous grace- and virtue-bestowing lives in the Body
of the Church of Christ, of the God-Man. In this sense,
holiness completely envelopes the human person—the entire soul and body and all
that enters into the mystical composition of the human body. The holiness of
the Saints does not hold forth only in their souls, but it necessarily extends
to their bodies; so it is that both the body and the soul of a saint are
sanctified. Thus we, in piously venerating the Saints, also venerate the entire
person, in this manner not separating the holy soul from the holy body. Our
pious veneration of the Saints' relics is a natural part of our pious respect
for and prayerful entreaty to the Saints. All of this constitutes one
indivisible ascetic act, just as the soul and body constitute the single,
indivisible person of the Saint. Clearly, during his life on the earth, the
Saint, by a continuous and singular grace- and virtue-bestowing synergy of soul
and body, attains to the sanctification of his person, filling both the soul
and body with the grace of the Holy Spirit and so transforming them into vessels
of the holy mysteries and holy virtues. It is completely natural, again, to
show pious reverence both to the former and to the latter, both to soul and
body, both of them holy vessels of God's grace. When the charismatic power of
Christ issues forth, it makes Grace-filled all the constituent parts of the
human person and the person in his entirety. By unceasing enactment of the
ascetic efforts set forth in the Gospels, Saints gradually fill themselves with
the Holy Spirit, so that their sacred bodies, according to the word of the holy
Apostle, become temples of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:19; 3:17), Christ
dwelling by faith in their hearts (Ephesians 3:17) and by fruitful love also
fulfilling the commandments of God the Father. Establishing themselves in the
Holy Spirit through grace-bestowing ascetic labors, the Saints participate in
the life of the Trinity, becoming sons of the Holy Trinity, temples of the
Living God (II Corinthians 6:16); their whole lives thus flow from the Father,
through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. By piously venerating the holy relics of
the Saints, the Church reveres them as temples of the Holy Spirit, temples of
the Living God, in which God dwells by Grace even after the earthly death of
the Saints. And by His most wise and good Will, God creates miracles in and
through these relics. Moreover, the miracles which derive from the holy relics
witness also to the fact that their pious veneration by the people is pleasing
to God.
. . .
Source: ‘The Place of Holy Relics in the Orthodox
Church’, http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/relics_place.aspx,
accessed 7 March 2016
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