Fr. Rafail Noica: Man is Orthodox by Nature

Man is Orthodox by nature: Chinese, Italian, African, or any color of skin, he is Orthodox by his nature. Orthodoxy is man’s single reality. It is in human nature. This nature, little by little, became known; man lost it through the fall into sin, and the Psalmist weeps over man, that all men are liars, but I think it must be understood somewhat more like the Slavonic translation: “Every man is a lie.” 

If man has not discovered his identity—to speak in modern language—he lives a lie. Man is a lie until he becomes true in Christ, becomes like Christ Who is called the Truth. For man to rediscover his identity, so to speak, to come back to his senses, as we say in Romanian, God had to become incarnate, to become man, live our misery, live all the defects of the fall even to the point of death and hell. He did something that the first Adam did not know how. Because coming back to life through the Resurrection, He was able to ascend to Heaven and sit at the right hand of the Father, completing the human being’s path—if you like, the human being’s path of “becoming into being,” to the point of sitting at the right hand of the Father. 

Only in Christ can man come back to his true nature as identity; only in this way does he rediscover his true nature, as it was conceived by God before the ages, when He thought of making man in the divine image and likeness.

Source:

https://rafailnoica.wordpress.com/category/rafail-noica/