(Continued) 👇
The Resurrection of Christ, therefore, as “The Feast of Feasts” and “The Festival of Festivals,” is the fundamental truth and the ultimate event of Christian faith. It is the most decisive act of the liberation of humanity from the fear of death and devil’s power. It is the beginning of the new creation and the very assurance for the salvation of human beings affirmed by the certainty of the heavenly resurrection of the dead, which is a concept widely different from that of the Greek philosophical theory on immortality of the soul. It is precisely for this reason that we read in the later New Testament sources that Christ during the burial of his earthy body and his Resurrection “He also went and preached to the spirits that were in prison” (1 Peter 3:19).
This is the reason that the Byzantine painting tradition represents the fact of the Resurrection by the “Descent to Hades.” The descent to hades is also hinted at in another passage of this letter: “For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead,” 4:6, and in the Acts of the Apostles (2:24. 27-31). Many researchers consider that the principal literary source is the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, where we find the dialogue between hades and the devil.
The Resurrection, in other words, is not merely a fact of paramount historical importance, but it overarches history giving it a new sense, orientating it towards a new world, a new life, completely different from the conventional life of decay, strife and death.
Source፦ Publicorthodoxy.org
May the name of the Holy God be praised forever and ever in every tongue that He has created, today and always.
May the blessings of God's mother, the virgin, and the cross be upon us. Amen.
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