By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
(Transcribed Sermon delivered at Vespers for the Leavetaking of the Feast in the Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos, Palaio-Panagia, August 22, 2025.)
(Transcribed Sermon delivered at Vespers for the Leavetaking of the Feast in the Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos, Palaio-Panagia, August 22, 2025.)
We celebrate today as well, beloved fathers and brethren, most honorable rulers, the Leavetaking of the feast of the Most Holy Theotokos, specifically the feast of the Dormition of our Panagia, which is a very great feast of the Theotokos. We have the feasts that refer to Christ the Master, which are called the Despotic Feasts, and we also have the feasts that refer to the Most Holy Theotokos, which are called Theometoric Feasts.
Throughout this entire period, from August 1 until today, and tomorrow, when we will celebrate the services of Matins and the Divine Liturgy, we glorify the all-praised name and person of the Most Holy Theotokos. Every day in the holy churches we celebrate and chant the troparia — not only now, but throughout the entire year, with various feasts — and we clergy, the bishops and preachers, each time during the sacred service that we celebrate, try to contemplate some aspect of the personality of the Most Holy Theotokos. And I can say that we never tire of chanting the troparia for our Panagia and speaking about her.
If you consider it, other priests and clergy do this as well, but personally I have been speaking about our Panagia for more than fifty years. And because I have various archives and keep a record each time of what I say, I observe that only rarely do I repeat myself in sermons that I have given on other occasions. You understand, therefore, that our Panagia is a very great person. She is not simply, as we usually say, our mother who cares for us and loves us, but she has an enormously profound theological significance.
1. The Fall and the Restoration of Man
In order to explain this to you now, let me say that the Fathers of our Church consider her, and, of course, we also chant this in the Akathist Hymn to our Panagia, to be the restoration of Adam and the restoration of Eve. This is what the earliest Fathers of our Church say, beginning with Saint Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, and we continue to chant it today in our troparia. This has the highest spiritual and theological meaning. What does it mean that the Most Holy Theotokos is the restoration of Adam and the restoration of Eve?
To understand this, we must examine briefly the first book of the Old Testament, which is called Genesis. There it is related that God created the world and then created man, forming him according to His image and likeness. He gave him the noetic faculty and free will, so that he might proceed toward deification by grace.
Our Holy Fathers teach that this union of man with God could not come about simply through a natural virtue, but that there had to be an archetype, the prototype of this union. There had to be a person in whom uncreated divinity would be united with created humanity, so that in this way man might be deified and sanctified. That is, Adam and Eve were supposed to remain in the state they had received from God. They were given an impulse, the impulse of nature, so that by their free will they might move and be led toward God, and at some point this union of God and man would take place, in the manner known to God.
But Eve first, and then Adam, fell into a terrible sin. That is, the devil appeared and proposed to them another way of becoming gods, different from the way God had appointed for them. Thus Eve was faced with two choices. The first choice was to obey the will of God, the commandment of God, and the second choice was to obey the devil. This was the capacity of free choice. In other words, there was the natural inclination for man to be freely directed toward God; then, when the dilemma was presented, he began to consider these two possibilities.
Thus we have thought, judgment, opinion; then comes free choice, which activates the opinion. And so, between the two possibilities that she had, Eve chose the devil's proposal.
This means that the course that had been established for man from the beginning was changed. It is as if we were to say that the manufacturer of an object, for example, a car or an airplane, has built into it the capacity to move in a certain way. And at some point man wanted to change this movement and be directed according to another mode of movement. Instead of man being directed toward God, through this change of direction he was led in the opposite direction, into the jungle of the passions, and all the passions began to become active.
And while the original purpose of man's creation was for man to be naturally directed toward God, and for union to take place in a different way that we do not know, so that there would be a union between the created and the uncreated and man himself would be deified, this purpose was now lost. Consequently, the entire human race was under the bondage of the devil, sin, and death, and another human being had to be found who would do the opposite of what Eve and Adam had done.
And as Saint John of Damascus says, all the ages awaited the person who, after the deviation, would restore the course of man to the right path, so that the union of God and man could take place and, naturally, not only the deification of man would follow, but also the renewal of the whole creation.
And this took place through the person of the Most Holy Theotokos, from whom the God-man Christ came forth. This is why it is said that the Panagia is the restoration of Adam and the restoration of Eve. And God loved her. For this reason, she also moved human beings toward love for God. He loved her greatly and desired that through this means the restoration of the human race would take place — the restoration, the recapitulation of man.
2. The Way in Which Man Was Restored
How did our Panagia accomplish this within the Holy of Holies, so as to draw God’s love and become His Mother? Saint Nicholas Cabasilas, a writer who lived in Thessaloniki in the fourteenth century, when there was, of course, a very extensive discussion surrounding these matters and, naturally, surrounding the Most Holy Theotokos, says in his homilies that this was accomplished through four ways that the Panagia employed, in contrast to what Eve had done: “through eros for God,” “through strength of thought,” “through uprightness of judgment,” and “through greatness of understanding.” That is, the Panagia did the opposite of what Eve had done. What a blessed young girl she was! What a blessed woman, who lived for twelve years within the Holy of Holies! She employed these four ways.
First, “through eros for God,” that is, she loved God. The entire course of humanity, the entire current of the river, had to be changed. Can you imagine a river flowing, especially after a heavy rainfall, and someone changing the course of the river so that, instead of flowing toward the sea, it is directed somewhere else? The Panagia, therefore, changed the entire current of humanity. This happened first through love for God, “through eros for God,” as Saint Nicholas Cabasilas says. She loved God greatly.
Second, “through strength of thoughts,” that is, through mastery over her thoughts. Eve sinned because her thought was mistaken and prone to error, and it altered her course. The Most Holy Theotokos remained steadfast in her thoughts because she loved God and had a very great love for Him, and she kept her thoughts ordered.
Third, “through uprightness of judgment.” Judgment is the view or opinion we form about every matter. That is, we examine matters, we are initially ignorant, and then we arrive at an opinion. This opinion can be erroneous or it can be true. Here the Panagia acquired knowledge of God within the Holy of Holies. Therefore, she possessed this uprightness of judgment. This is what the Fathers of our Church call the unwaveringness of the gnomic will. While the natural will is man’s original course, the gnomic will is the seeking of what is unknown, after which one makes a choice among the alternatives. Thus, we see that the Panagia possessed “uprightness of judgment.” Since she loved God, she cast off ignorance, remained faithful to good thoughts and to the knowledge of God, journeyed toward God, and acquired unwaveringness of judgment.
Fourth, all of this occurs, as Saint Nicholas Cabasilas says here, through “the greatness of understanding.” She was mature; and when we say that she was a mature woman, she was not mature because she had acquired knowledge of worldly things, but because she had acquired knowledge of God, a journey and direction toward God, and had acquired a God-centered understanding.
Through these four characteristics, the Most Holy Theotokos, as I said earlier, drew the love of God, and God willed to become man from her and to bring about the original purpose of the creation of the world and of man. For, as I said previously, the original purpose of the creation of the world was the Incarnation, because through Christ the deification of man and the renewal of creation would take place. And this, therefore, was accomplished through the Most Holy Theotokos. God, because in the person of the Virgin Mary He saw the restoration of Adam and Eve, that the Virgin Mary had reached the state in which Adam and Eve were before the Fall, assumed human nature from her; the created was united with the uncreated (this is very important) in the hypostasis of the Logos. And thus we are given the possibility, together with the Panagia, to change the course of things and to follow our primordial path. This is the magnificence of the Most Holy Theotokos.
And from that time onward, we have the multitude of the saints. Naturally, there were saints in the Old Testament as well, but they descended into Hades; they did not go to Paradise, even though they were saints. Here, therefore, we have the new course of things, and this change in the course of humanity was accomplished through the Most Holy Theotokos.
3. The Way of Life of the Most Holy Theotokos as a Model for Us
What I analyzed earlier is a theological subject that one could develop in a lengthy presentation. But now you may ask me: What does this mean for us in practical terms?
Practically, it means, first of all, that we must view the Most Holy Theotokos not merely through human words and concepts, as a mother who loves us. Naturally, she does this, but we must see her through this course, through the reversal of that river which was flowing down into Hades and which she turned toward Paradise through the birth of the God-man Christ.
Furthermore, secondly, we must understand that we too should imitate the way that the Panagia chose and followed whenever we experience the assault of a temptation to sin. That is, in our fallen manner of life, a thought or a temptation arises and tells us to do something that God does not will. What should we do then? We should confront it in precisely these four ways.
“Through eros for God”: I love God and therefore cannot do what is contrary to God.
“Through strength of thoughts”: I must remain steadfast in my thoughts. Various thoughts come that urge us toward desire and sin, and we must remain steadfast in the will of God.
Then, “through uprightness of judgment,” we must arrive at something positive and remain steadfast in this judgment, saying: “I have temptations and difficulties, but I will remain here.” This is what a certain Athonite monk used to say. When they would ask him, “What are you doing, Elder?” he would answer, “I am staying here.”
Do you know how important this “I am staying here” is? A person may be married, and another thought comes to him, and he answers: “I am staying here, in my marriage.” Another person may have a particular way of life, and a temptation comes, and he says, “I am remaining steadfast here.” This is what “uprightness of judgment” means.
And, naturally, there is also the breadth of understanding. That is, one should possess a mindset that gives him steadfastness, sincerity, uprightness, and love for God, and thus drives away all thoughts and gives him inner freedom. For if a person becomes enslaved to the devil, as Adam and Eve did, then the entire course of things within him is changed.
May the Most Holy Theotokos teach us this way, which we should employ in order to journey toward God and acquire knowledge of and communion with Him. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
