Let us also say something about the basic categories-principles of Orthodox Theology (see I ch.). Everything exists in three realities: person-hypostasis, essence, and energy. To everything that exists, we can ask three questions: Who? (= Hypostasis, Personality). What? (essence). How? (energies, way of existence; energies are always hypostasized). There is “I” and there is “my” nature (essence and energies), which is not “I”, but it is “mine”. I do not exist without nature, and nature does not exist without hypostasis. Man is twofold (hypostasis-freedom + nature-necessity) – two laws, two wills live in him. The will of the hypostasis – choosing, reasoning, the will of the essence – the law of necessity (“two laws live in me… I do not do what I want, but what I do not want I do… with my mind I want to do good, but in my nature lies the desire for evil…” – see Rom. 7).
In the fall of man, the hypostasis, instead of defining nature, began to be defined by a crippled, selfish, evil nature. Man became a slave to sin-egoism-self. The hypostasis becomes a person again (healed, resurrected) only in Christ, when it receives a new nature (not selfish, but hypostatic) – the Body of Christ, in which Goodness and the will of God dwell. This new nature desires only Good (in people – Christians – Goodwill) and wills Divinely! The goal, purpose, and teleology of all existence: “That all may be one, as the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father: I in You, and You in Me, We in them, and they in Us” (see John 17). Union with God, and in God with all other hypostases, is a mystery accomplished in human persons. On the path of repentance, on the path to union with God, a person never loses anything personal, even while renouncing their own will and natural inclinations (“deny yourself, your sinful, egotistical will”). Only in the free renunciation of everything natural to it does the human personality fully unfold in grace. That which is not free, that which is unconscious, has no personal value. Sufferings, afflictions (the cross, crucifixion) cannot become the path to the Goal (the unity of all in the Trihypostatic God-Love) if they are not accepted voluntarily (see the crucified thief on the left of Christ’s Cross – Luke 23:39-43). A perfect person is absolutely conscious in all their decisions: they are free from any compulsion, from any natural necessity. The further the personality progresses from lawlessness to Resurrection, the more conscious it becomes. Spiritual life, the growth of the human personality in grace, is always conscious, while unconsciousness is a sign of sin, a “sleep of the soul”. Therefore, one must always be vigilant, acting as “children of light” (see Ephesians 5:8), following the apostle Paul’s command: “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14). Christianity is the mystery of hypostatic being as communion-perichoresis (in humble love), so anything that is not conscious and voluntary has no relation to Christianity!
Thus, in this section, discussing the proclamation, preparation for baptism in the Holy Spirit, we emphasize consciousness, voluntariness, awareness, and responsibility! Love (= Hypostasis, Person) is always consciousness, freedom, and responsibility! Paganism is always magic, vain belief, empty belief (belief in nothing, the non-existent, or in the devil, the antichrist). The Church is a hypostatic reality, a conscious, loving reality where everything is conscious and light! There is no virtue-good without discernment and awareness! Unfortunately, this is not seen in Orthodox churches now – no proclamation-education neither in word (what life in Christ is, what the goal of human life is (acquisition of the Holy Spirit, baptism in the Holy Spirit), what the essence of this or that phenomenon-reality is), nor in active obedience to Christ, diligent fulfillment of all God’s commandments, experiential knowledge of one’s weakness, one’s sin – weakness-paralysis-mortality-hellishness-void-godlessness!? This catastrophic situation (the state of so-called Orthodox churches) can be described with the words: “I go – I don’t know where, I want – I don’t know what!? Be vigilant! Take heed to yourselves!
Thus, the catechumens must live (spiritually battle) according to the Constitution – diligently fulfilling the single commandment-law: To love God with all your being, with all your mind, with all your understanding, with all your strength, with all your life! And this commandment (To love God) is fulfilled with the help of another commandment, which naturally flows from the first (Love for God), and whose essence is: to love the image of God (that is, everything that belongs to the Beloved, God the Father). Whoever loves (or wants to love, strives to love) God must also love what is God’s (what is of God, what belongs to God, on which His seal – the image of God – stands), those (those) that (whom) God Loves (“For God so loved every hypostasis-person that He redeemed from hell-death at a very dear price – the Cross of His Beloved Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ”); God’s friends (every person and angel) must become my friends (“for each of whom I must lay down my soul”)! Whoever wants to love God (or claims to love God), but does not love God’s (that is, the image of God, people, and angels), has deceived themselves and is in delusion. So the catechumen must diligently fulfill this auxiliary commandment (to love one’s neighbor (every person) as oneself) in the name of the main and only commandment-law – To love God. (In the name of Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father, to love everything that is God’s – the image of God).