#Saint Gregory of Nazianzus

This article traces the development of the theology of Christian art, from the reservations regarding images and music in the early centuries to the patristic and synodal justification of the icon, with a focus on the contributions of Saints John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite. Church art — iconography, unison chanting, sacred architecture — is understood as a Christological, Eucharistic and soteriological expression of the faith of the Orthodox Church.

Patristic literature from the 4th–5th centuries offers a wide-ranging interpretation of the resurrection of Lazarus as a symbol of post-baptismal penance, illustrated by the testimonies of Pope Damasus, Saints Gregory of Nazianzus, Ambrose and Jerome, who identify spiritually with Lazarus, and continued by the ecclesiastical exegesis of Chromatius of Aquileia and Peter Chrysologus, who link the miracle at Bethany to repentance, forgiveness and the joy of the general resurrection.

Divine love, rooted in the intra-Trinitarian life of the Holy Trinity, constitutes the archetypal model of man’s communion with God and of love for one’s neighbour. Through grace, the Holy Sacraments and liturgical life, human beings are cleansed of their passions, become deified and share in the inexhaustible love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the divine image being fully realised in communion and interpersonal love.

The article argues, drawing on the teachings of Saint Gregory the Theologian and Saint Maximus the Confessor, that the Church cannot be isolated from medical and political issues, as it perceives the human being as an integral psychosomatic entity. Through a theological analysis of death as disintegration and of the Covid-19 pandemic, the author demonstrates that compulsory vaccination and the social and moral divide between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated constitute a form of social death, to which the Church must oppose the unity of sacramental life.

The Holy Sacrament of Marriage is analysed from an Orthodox theological perspective as an icon of Christ’s union with the Church, possessing an ontological and ecclesiological character, not merely a moral or social one. Drawing on the Holy Fathers — John Chrysostom, Athanasius the Great, Nicholas Cabasilas and Gregory of Nyssa — the article interprets the themes of creation, divorce, submission and idolatry in the light of the communion between God and humankind.

Popânzălești Monastery in the former county of Romanați, founded in 1678 by the logothete Hamza Popânzălescu and dedicated to Saint Gregory the Decapolite, has undergone several phases of restoration over the years, the most significant being the restoration in 1853 by Saint Calinic of Cernica, and its re-establishment as a monastery in 1992, at the suggestion of Metropolitan Nestor Vornicescu.