On the Fourth and Fifth Days of the Creation of the World
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
By Fr. Daniel Sysoev
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
During these days, God created the luminaries from nothingness. By His will, the primordial light created on the first day of Creation was collected into the luminaries, as if into vessels. The planets were placed like mirrors to shine upon the earth. We also heard of the creation of the first beings, endowed with a living soul. On this day, I would like to reflect on what some current teachings oppose.
Nowadays, many people, even those who consider themselves Christians, profess a false doctrine of the planets. How many people do we have today who believe that their lives are somehow determined by the positions of the luminaries in the sky! And with the advent of the fashion for celebrating Chinese New Year, many Christians have begun calling themselves all sorts of animals. And this frenzy in our country reaches its peak with the arrival of the civil New Year.
This would be understandable if they were atheists, for an atheist is "a slave to all the elements," as the Apostle Paul says; such a person works for all the elements of the world. But a Christian, who has been freed from slavery to the elements of the world through the Blood of Christ the Savior, how dare he return to these feeble elements and think that they will somehow influence him?! Nevertheless, I have seen dozens, if not hundreds, of Orthodox Christians who sincerely believe that the stars influence, if not their fate, then their character. As if there are bad days and good days (if the day starts badly, it will continue to be bad). All these superstitions are spread with complete seriousness. There are countless people who consider themselves Orthodox, yet in reality they worship not God, but the luminaries. Because a real person who believes in horoscopes, who believes that he is subject to the voice of these luminaries, can he really be called a Christian? He is an idolater in the literal, not figurative, sense of the word. How did paganism itself originate? People worshiped the celestial bodies. Seeing the terrible, catastrophic impacts of celestial bodies on Earth (humanity has witnessed asteroid impacts and floods caused by cosmic objects), people decided that the celestial bodies themselves governed the world and were supposedly animate beings. There were even heretics in the Church — Origen, for example — rwho claimed that the Moon, the Sun, the stars, and even planet Earth itself were living bodies endowed with intelligence.
Even today, there are theories that the Earth is a living planet, that the stars and other luminaries are also alive. This is all a lie. The Lord says that He decided to create luminaries in the firmament of heaven to separate day from night, to mark the times, days, and years. The Lord appointed luminaries for man, and they were created precisely as luminaries. What does "luminary" mean? A lantern. A lamp, nothing more. The Lord doesn't even name them in this narrative, which came directly from His lips (because the six days of Creation, the Hexaemeron, can only be described by an eyewitness). And who witnessed the creation of the Universe, these six days? Only the Creator Himself. There are angelic writings about the appearance of the Universe, they come from rebellious angels — this is pagan mythology. It originates in the dark mind of Lucifer, who remembered something about the first days of Creation, which is why there are some similarities between pagan mythology and God's Revelation. The Hexaemeron narrative itself is a text received from God without any mediation. God Himself says that the luminaries were created for man to govern day and night, to indicate the times of Church feasts. Therefore, it is said that they were created for the times (Sacred Times) to determine the time of Easter, the time of the Nativity of Christ, which occurs after the solstice, and the day of the Annunciation of the Lord, which occurs after the equinox. All these feasts are celebrated on these days not by chance, but because the luminaries created by God signify them. Here we are, entering space, and the Bible predicts that humanity will enter space: "Though you soar high as an eagle and make your nest among the stars, yet from there I will bring you down, says the Lord" (Obadiah 1:4). People also navigate in space by the stars. All these luminaries were given to us so that we could navigate, move around, and determine the time for various agricultural tasks, and not so that they could determine human destiny. The luminaries are not God, and they are not used by God to direct human life, because man was created as something greater than the luminaries. The luminaries were created for man, not man for the luminaries. Therefore, when astrologers say that one can determine a person's destiny by the luminaries and that the luminaries rule the world, remember that this is utter madness.
What is the reason behind the fact that a person's character can sometimes be determined by the zodiac sign they belong to based on their date of birth? People are influenced by evil spirits that seek to destroy them. It is known that schizophrenia worsens during the full moon; this is because this illness is a direct result of Satan's influence on people. The devil wants people to blaspheme God's creation, namely, the Moon. When the Lord healed lunatics, He didn't blame the Moon; He was casting out evil spirits. Remember that anyone who blasphemes creation disagrees with God: after all, when God created the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, He said they were good. The stars are good things, even if I think they have a negative influence on me and that, being born under the sign of Scorpio, I'm obligated to bite everyone. No, that's not true.
Every person must remember that they are created by God, and if they are superstitious, then superstition will work. This has long been proven: if people believe in a black cat, then it will definitely work. And superstition works precisely because there are certain beings who begin to support it. The devil begins to arrange things so that grist flows to the mill of superstition. This is how astrology arose. God speaks of astrology in the Book of Isaiah: "Let your astrologers gather in Babylon and predict the day when they themselves will perish." But they can do nothing of the sort. Because their knowledge will be as wood, and their stars as fire that will consume them, and nothing will remain of them. In another place God says through the Prophet Jeremiah: “Do not believe the heralds of heaven, do not imitate the pagans: “do not learn the way of the pagans and do not be afraid of the signs of heaven, which the pagans are afraid of… the gods that did not make heaven and earth will perish from the earth and from under heaven” (Jeremiah 10:2, 11) — for our Lord is Truth, and all the tribes of the earth tremble before Him. And by His will all the heavenly bodies move. God is the Lord of the heavenly bodies; He rules over them. But God has not given anyone authority over man, for man is created in the image of God. Therefore, do not submit to the feeble elements of the world!
A constellation in itself is unimportant; it truly serves as an adornment to the heavens. The Bible mentions, for example, Orion and the Pleiades; it says that God brings forth the Big Dipper with her children, that God hung Orion, and He hung the constellations in the heavens: "Who created the seven stars and Orion?" (Amos 5:8). He hung them for decoration. And so, wherever the stars are in the expanse of the heavens, they were all created to shine upon the Earth. Despite what you might think, the light from the stars didn't take billions of years to reach the Earth; they immediately gave light to the Earth, because they were created for the sake of the Earth.
In a spiritual sense, the center of the universe is planet Earth, because our Lord was crucified here. Physically, the center is irrelevant. Because if we consider that everything in the universe is in motion, the center is the point where the observer is located — the Earth. If the Sun were stationary, we could say that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but given that the Sun also revolves around galaxies, and galaxies revolve around megagalaxies, the infinite motion of the Sun prevents us from seeing a true center. Therefore, the center is the place where our Lord was crucified and resurrected. If you visit Jerusalem, you'll see a place in the Temple of the Lord called the "Navel of the Earth," where the Holy Sepulcher is located, and it truly is the center of the universe. And the luminaries are for it! Therefore, when they say it's possible to have cosmic consciousness, remember that it's not true! We don't need cosmic consciousness. The planets are inanimate, and the Earth itself has no mind. It is a stone that is completely obedient to God and possesses no intelligence, just like the stars and luminaries. It is no wonder that the Church has placed anathema on those who believe that the luminaries are living beings. According to Church canons, such people are not allowed to receive Communion.
In the spiritual sense, cosmos refers to the sum total of human passions, the sum total of people who live by the laws of death, by the laws of decay, and the beings who lead this "life." Cosmos has its own prince, the prince of this world — the devil. However, the prince of cosmic space is not a creator, for cosmic space is in the hands of God, and He commands all the elements. It is inhabited by good angels, as John the Theologian says. There is a Guardian Angel of the Sun, mentioned in the Apocalypse. Other stars also have Guardian Angels. And by cosmos we mean the sum total of people living by the law of death — the global community, the cosmic community. And when occultists say that we are calling you to connect with the cosmic mind, they are telling the pure truth, but we often don't realize what that truth is. The devil is very cunning: even without lying, he is still lying. When we speak of the cosmic mind, we are talking about Lucifer, not God. For our God is called the supra-cosmic mind. He is above the cosmos; He commands all worlds. And therefore we must serve the Creator instead of creation and remember that since the luminaries are for us, we too must act according to God's will.
We must learn order from them: look at the stars in the sky; they perform in their order; not a single star moves from its place without God's will. In the greatest dance, so beautiful, they revolve before the eyes of God! Truly, the starry sky is the greatest adornment that reminds us of God. The stars speak of the handiwork of God. The heavens reveal the glory of God, and the work of His hands speaks of the expanse of the heavens: "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your hands, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained" (Psalm 8:4). And since the stars obey God, then we too must obey. As Saint John Chrysostom says: "Look at the stars, they all go in their own order." The enormous luminaries, they are all submissive to God. But man, a tiny speck of dust, is not submissive. Learn from the stars. Don't worship them, but simply learn from them.
Learn to serve God, learn to praise God, as the luminaries praise Him. Remember what we read at Matins? "Praise Him [the Lord], you heavens of heavens, and you waters that are above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded, and they were created." (Ps. 148:4-5), says King David. And let us learn to praise God, as the world's luminaries praise Him, and as all these huge sea monsters, whales, fish, all those animals that were created on the fifth day, which are endowed with a soul, albeit mortal, and which therefore glorify and exalt God: "Beasts and all cattle, creeping things and winged birds" (Psalm 148:10 ). All creations serve God, so we must learn to integrate into this hymn, and let us submit to God.
May God help us with this! Save us, Lord!
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
