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Jesus Christ taught us by praying in the garden of Gethsemane. “ Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: yet, not as I will but as Thou wilt” He said. John Damaskin explains that was as a lesson to us when asking help in our trials from God we should be ready to prefer God's will to our own. It was also a proof that He did actually appropriate to Himself the attributes of our nature, two wills, showing natural mankind’s will to escape death. While knowing and accepting what is need to be done, the will of God. As inasmuch He is God and He is identical with the Father, of the same essence.

🌟☦️ Communion is a divine mystery. Despite some confusing verses ("do this in remembrance") it's neither formal nor symbolical. Many miracles of healing happened after receiving of Communion with faith.

🙏🌟☦️ The ancient church of St. Nicholas (originally it was wooden). The city is mentioned in the Chronicle in 862 AD.

For since the devil was glorying in the fact that man, deceived by his craft, was bereft of divine gifts and, being stripped of his endowment of immortality, had come under the grievous sentence of death, and that he himself, amid his miseries, had found a sort of consolation in having a transgressor as his companion, and that God, according to the requirements of the principle of justice, had changed his own resolution in regard to man, whom he had created in so high a position of honour; there was need of a dispensation of secret counsel, in order that the unchangeable God, whose will could not be deprived of its own benignity, should fulfil by a more secret mystery his original plan of loving kindness toward us, and that man, who had been led into fault by the wicked subtlety of the devil, should not perish contrary to God’s purpose. Accordingly, the Son of God, descending from his seat in heaven, and not departing from the glory of the Father, enters this lower world, born after a new order, by a new mode of birth. After a new order; because he who in his own sphere is invisible, became visible in ours; He who could not be enclosed in space, willed to be enclosed; continuing to be before times, he began to exist in time; the Lord of the universe allowed his infinite majesty to be overshadowed, and took upon him the form of a servant; the impassible God did not disdain to be passible Man and the immortal One to be subjected to the laws of death. And born by a new mode of birth; because inviolate virginity, while ignorant of concupiscence, supplied the matter of his flesh. What was assumed from the Lord’s mother was nature, not fault; nor does the wondrousness of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, as born of a Virgin’s womb, imply that his nature is unlike ours. For the selfsame who is very God, is also very man; and there is no illusion in this union, while the lowliness of man and the loftiness of Godhead meet together. For as “God” is not changed by the compassion [exhibited], so “Man” is not consumed by the dignity [bestowed]. For each “form” does the acts which belong to it, in communion with the other; the Word, that is, performing what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what belongs to the flesh; the one of these shines out in miracles, the other succumbs to injuries. And as the Word does not withdraw from equality with the Father in glory, so the flesh does not abandon the nature of our kind.»

St. Leo the Great on the natures of Christ «Accordingly, the same who, remaining in the form of God, made man, was made man in the form of a servant. For each of the natures retains its proper character without defect; and as the form of God does not take away the form of a servant, so the form of a servant does not impair the form of God. ...

Church consists of people who believe Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ chose the Church as a beloved bride. As bride and groom live apart before wedding, so the Church remains separately, waiting for her bridegroom to come. And during this waiting period the Church keeps the purity of the faith and teaching, and gets her ready for the wedding – meeting Christ. “Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Откровение 21:2) Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” (Revelation 19:7-9)

Sometimes The Church is compared to a ship. • The Church reminds us the Noah Ark. As the Ark was the only rescue from the Flood and the only place of safety in the waters, so the Church is the only place in the world full of temptations. • The Church as the Ark directed by God leads us to salvation. • As people in the Ark we are called to trust God fully. • There is place in the Church for everyone who wants to find salvation. It is open for everyone while it is possible. That’s why we should not keep silence and call people out while the doors are still open and salvation is near. • The waters of the flood are seen as a baptism “For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men”. (2Peter 3)

☦️🙏🌟 "Prayer", this word can be heard often, but in general it means little. Prayer should be in the form of the prayer RULE, and prayer rule of St Seraphim of Sarov is one of the best. Beware of pseudoorthodox myths about 'rosary' though, his Rule has nothing to do with that. His short Rule is based on the Rule of St Pachomius, which he practiced himself a certain period of his monastic life.

🙏 Thymiam of prayers ascends to God from distant hermitages even in our time, like during the centuries of blossom of early monasticism. Though Christ's Church is represented in liturgy regardless of place, in any parish, monks are expected to pray more attentively.

⚡️🌟 A prayer request. The ROC ordained Bishop Theodosius, good news, and sadly the same time the Uc-ne sentences the most devout servant of Christ, Met. Jonathan. May God help him survive.