Orthodox Christian Cosmology, Ecclesiastical Gnosis and the Mystery of the Created Being

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleПравославная космология, церковный гнозис и тайна тварного бытия
3. Language term Russian
4. lemma author Asliturk, Miriam
5. lemma category Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning - Orthodox theological tradition and practice > Biblical interpretation
6. Publication date 03-07-2018
7. lemma work Клеман Оливье [Author]. Православная космология, церковный гнозис и тайна тварного бытия
8. lemma manifestations Официальный сайт храма Новомучеников и Исповедников Российских в Бруклине.
9. Keywords cosmology - Russian Orthodoxy - geocentrism
10. Url Click Here
11. Citations
    1. <p>Клеман, Оливье (2017). Православная космология, церковный гнозис и тайна тварного бытия. <em>Официальный сайт храма Новомучеников и Исповедников Российских в Бруклине. </em>Retrieved from: <a href="http://www.brooklyn-church.org/pravoslavnaya-kosmologiya-cerkovnyj-gnozis-i-tajna-tvarnogo-bytiya.html">http://www.brooklyn-church.org/pravoslavnaya-kosmologiya-cerkovnyj-gnozis-i-tajna-tvarnogo-bytiya.html</a> </p>
12. Lemma body

    1. The author believes that Christian saints see the divine nature of things: their cosmology, the logos of all things. The word is believed to have become “everything in all things” through the practice of embodiment. The divine word is thus seen as the source of physical, cosmic, and historical reality. The Western Church shared the same view on cosmology until the Middle Ages. According to the Orthodox view, cosmology is not a static observation but an active struggle to save the world. Orthodox cosmology is geocentric because Christ came on Earth and this makes it the spiritual centre of the universe. This does not imply, however, that it is a physical centre of the universe. According to Orthodox Christianity, all things have a “density”. Things carry their divine nature in their origin; this differs Orthodox Christianity from the transcendental view on the nature of things brought forward by Judaism, Islam, and post-Reformation Christianity.

       Orthodox Christian cosmology sees the world as coming from nothing. God created the universe by transforming non-existence into existence. The universe was not created out of an ideal world of gods as per Plato (428-348 BC). This Christian view made people see creatures and things not as emanations of spirits and gods but as independent living beings and things. According to the author, this view encouraged the development of science because people started studying the real nature of things. Humans as the crown of creation were seen as an opportunity for the universe to be with God. This opportunity, however, represents a risk as well because the freedom of the human being can lead to evil. The aim of humans is to make our universe the temple of God, to cultivate it and put it in order. The people of this Earth have the task of bringing the whole universe back to God, which is why Earth is the centre of the universe.