Today the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates Epiphany
A Christian Living Article from All-Creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

True Christian living requires us to live according to Kingdom standards which bring Heaven to earth.

FROM Felice Epifania a Lei e a tutta la Sua famiglia!
Submitted by Yuri Klitsenko

The Father, in the Beginning, saw the world as 'very good and blessed it.' And the Son, at the beginning of His Work, comes to sanctify nature, particularly water, since all living things are made primarily of water.

From a particular perspective, the world does not need this, because it has always been very good and has retained the original blessing. But human greed and pride has led to the abuse and destruction of this sacred earth. The annual blessing of the water, and of homes and of everything brought to be blessed in the coming year, can be understood as a healing of the human blindness to the inherent goodness and holiness of nature.

So-called 'pagans' do see this inherent sacred character of at least some of nature. Here is where Orthodox Christianity and traditional tribal beliefs connect, overlap. Both agree in the sanctity of nature, and both believe that God loves nature and desires to restore and bless it all, that He is concerned with nature and not just 'human' salvation. And both use natural elements to continue to bless and sanctify life. Western Protestantism condemns Orthodoxy for this, considering these rites 'pagan,' but they limit their understanding of 'mission' to the 'saving of souls' and fail to understand the original meaning in the Scriptures, misconstruing John 3:16 to mean only human beings and not the entire creation, as the original Greek text clearly states.

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