Deepthi 2022

Zo]vXn 2022
God within the covenant community, experiences
of alienation from this source are death-like and
are feared and lamented. Another way is to see
death as the result of a primordial divine curse
caused by human sin (Genesis 2-3). All suffering
and death are construed as divine punishment for
violations of the covenant or the moral order of
creation. Death is also understood as God’s enemy,
which will be defeated at the end of history (Isaiah
26; Daniel 12).
Diverse understandings of death are also
apparent in the New Testament. Although the early
church unanimously affirms that God has acted
through Christ to assure final victory over death,
tension is evident between seeing death strictly as
enemy and seeing death and resurrection as the
pattern of God’s way of salvation. God’s coming
kingdom is signaled by Jesus’ forgiveness of sins,
healing of the sick, and raising of the dead. Yet
Jesus also calls his disciples to give up their old
way of life in order to find new life (Mk. 8:34 ff.).
Different dimensions of death are implicit in
the New Testament portrayals of Jesus’ own death.
While Matthew and Mark stress Jesus’ experience
of abandonment, Luke describes Jesus as serenely
trusting in God and praying for his persecutors as
he dies. For Paul death is the wages of sin (Rom.
6:23) and the last enemy (I Cor. 15:26). As Adam
brought death, so Christ brings new life (Rom.
5:12 ff.). Christians die with Christ in baptism and
in everyday discipleship in hope of participating
in his resurrection. Whereas Paul interprets the
cross kenotically (Phil. 2:5 ff.), John views it
triumphantly (Jn. 19:30). Christ is the resurrection
and the life (Jn. 11:25), and he gloriously finishes
the work of salvation on the cross.
Correspondingly, Paul emphasizes more the
commencement, John more the present actuality
of new life in believers by the power of the Spirit
of Christ.
For most people death is the end of life. For the
Orthodox Christians it is the beginning of a new
life. Human death, in the Orthodox Christian
tradition, is the rupture of the psychosomatic
unity, the untying of the bond between body and
soul; it is the separation of the soul from the body.
This is not explicitly stated in the Holy Scripture,
but it is indirectly described by the words of Saint
James: ‘‘the body apart from the spirit is dead’’
(James 2:26). According to Saint Gregory the
Theologian, life is the tie between body and soul,
while death is their separation. 1 The soul is nonvisible
and, although being created and mortal by
nature, it is by grace immortal. 2 The visible and
tangible part of human nature is the body. Death,
considered as a biological phenomenon
exclusively, refers only to the body. The body is
subjected to the laws of nature. Due to its very
essence, these laws cannot influence the soul.
Accordingly, any attempt to define biological
death by referring to the changes of the soul’s
situation is arbitrary and may disregard that
difference in essence. At the moment of death, it
is not the ‘‘departure’’ of the soul from the body
that causes the latter’s collapse. The soul neither
enters nor exits the body, but co-exists with it.
Rather, it is the body’s own decaying that renders
it unable to ‘‘follow the course’’ of the soul and
receive its life-giving energy. 3
The value of a human life is epitomized by the
moment of biological death. It is at this point when
God’s proximity to man is realized in its fullest
form. As a result, Orthodox Christians treat it with
reverence, humility, and a deep sense of
mystery. We humans are immortal by grace, but
we live in mortal bodies, thus we experience
mortality. Our mortality is clear from the minute
we are born and continues throughout our lives. 4
In this respect, death is not merely a momentary
event, but also a continuous process. We could
say that man is biologically dead, when the
consequences of the process of mortality become
non-reversible. The body ceases to exist as such
from the very moment it ceases to support the
person. 5
Orthodox Christian theology considers death
as a mystery. Mysteries can neither be observed,
nor understood, or, even more so, defined. Every
effort to determine details that are by nature
inexplicable and inaccessible runs the risk to
profane the mysteries’ sacred character with false
knowledge and misleading definitions. 6 The life
of the Church abounds with incidents that,
although not rationally explainable, indicate that
death is not only a natural occurrence that can be
precisely defined, but also a spiritual event that
ought to be approached with humbleness and fear
of God. 7 Thus, Saint Seraphim of Sarov “passed
away, while he was praying: his soul separated
from his body before the body was dead - he was
holding a lighted candle in his hand.” 8 Moreover,
Russian tradition refers to the impressive story of
hierodeacon Serapion, who slept in the Lord on
June 25, 1859, while at his hermitage in Glinsk,
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