Fr. Rafail Noica: "Adam, Where are You?"

This life, which in the terminology of the New Testament is called repentance, is nothing other than a dynamic search for eternity, the Adamic response to God’s call...

The Church is where, at God’s calling—let’s say like in Paradise: “Adam, where are you?”—Adam, instead of responding as he did in Paradise, can respond: “Here I am!”; where, at the voice of God’s calling, a person presents himself before God (and I say: he presents himself as he is!), and where he receives this discovery from God and begins, with divine inspiration, his journey from the non-being that we are still in to being. 

This life, which in the terminology of the New Testament is called repentance, is nothing other than a dynamic search for eternity, the Adamic response to God’s call, and this “Here I am!” when Adam, instead of continuing to hide behind trees because he was sinful, comes to God as he is; the same thing that we do in the Sacrament of Confession—we show ourselves as we are, and I say: “Without fig leaves” (God covers us with clothing that is more true than our fig leaves). God is He Who lifts us out of non-being; God is He Who empowers us in this journey from non-being to being. “Becoming into being” is this: repentance; the dynamic surge toward eternal life. It presupposes correct understanding, that God Himself spoke to Adam, that true revelation came from God’s mouth. Neither pagan religion nor the Prophets could give humanity a clear explanation of this journey, this truth by which man can reach his true destiny. 

The correct understanding of this truth, for which God had to descend by means of His Incarnation, for which God had to assume our “penance” of death on account of sin, the sacrifice on the Cross, descent into Hades, Resurrection on the third day, ascent to Heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father, and the Second and fearful Coming—as all that emanated from this is called Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the correct understanding, right worship of God.

In the spiritual confusion of the ancient world, a world that culminated in the Old Testament and the Lord’s coming, Orthodoxy is represented by an Abel who is killed by his brother; by Seth who replaces Abel; by Enoch, a nephew of Seth; then Noah, through whom God saves what He can of the ancient world; by Abraham and Melchisedek; by Moses and the Prophets, and by the Mother of God, who is the pinnacle of humanity, the pinnacle of the Adamic response; and all the culture from Moses to Christ: this represents Orthodoxy, right worship. In all the jumble of the primitive spirituality of the Old Testament world, there were some voices and a nation and a culture that, for better or worse, held onto the True God. In the New Testament, that is, the historical period after the Testament of Christ, God Incarnate, Orthodoxy is expressed, as it is taught in theology as well, through different dogmas that should nonetheless not be understood in the letter, as a dead language, but in spirit and truth, as the Savior said to the Samaritans; an understanding that allows man to follow the true way leading to salvation.

What is salvation? In this age, salvation is a dynamic upsurge. Salvation is manifested by the fact that, step by step, correct understanding enters our hearts, more light comprises us, a light that is manifested by our deeds. What deeds? Well, we are not true humans; our anthropology, of course, is Christ the Man, and after Him are the Saints. A Saint is not a person that has been previously programmed by God to be put on a high pedestal in order to glorify him. A Saint is a person who step by step walked this path correctly, who slips less and less, until his life becomes what Christ foresaid: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also” (John 14:12)–miracles, raising the dead, prophetic words, dispassion—in the worst conditions.

The martyrs who suffered (and, in a way, they didn’t suffer), were able to bear unimaginable torture, and not only hefty, heroic men, but also women and even children who were able to sanctify the earth with their blood. Where did this power, this life come from? This is what is known as salvation in its historical aspect. But salvation in its final aspect, of course, is sitting at the right hand of God the Father together with the Man Jesus. But for now, salvation in its dynamic aspect is manifested in such deeds. Performing miracles, for example, is only one such thing, and not the most prized one by the saints in history. The most prized ones by saints in history are the virtues like humility, for example, which is the open door of love–love being the word to which all the divine commandments can be reduced. 

Excerpt from a conference titled “Fasting and Forgiveness: the Destiny and Vocation of Man in Orthodoxy” held in Alba Iulia on April 25, 2002