The Gospel of grace reigns in God’s realms of glory but is contested in satanic realms of vainglorious pride which live as if the Gospel had been withdrawn or cancelled and grace extinguished, leaving only self-centred self-obsession and the strain and stress of saving oneself by one’s own efforts. The regime of pride imposes alienating vanity on glorification, enforcing institutionalised violence, excluding compassionate love, destroying trust in the name of imperialist power and maintenance of kleptocratic control. Holy Orthodoxy was always vulnerable to regimes of pride because of its long-held flirtation with the Roman state and its successors, Byzantium and Moscow. But when kleptocratic criminality takes over the state, new levels of corruption and destruction manifest that oblige Orthodoxy to seek restoration through the glorification of the Gospel of grace, or die the death of institutional compromise and utter corruption.
Holy Orthodoxy fundamentally reveres the Gospel of grace because glorification is first of all glorification of God, then glorification of saints renewed by the grace of illumination, restored in the grace of purification. Without glorification, the reign of grace would be vulnerable to conventional compromise and reduction to ideological justification of ruling regimes. Witness to God’s reign of glory is often martyred by the forces of ruling regimes, but the witness of martyrs shares one voice with prophets and apostles, renewing Holy Orthodoxy from within. Orthodox right-glorification lives from grace and abides in grace, healing confusion by curing division. Persecuting powers cannot see the glory of grace nor seize its uncreated energy, because they are consumed by vanity and blindly violent in their ruthless cruelty. Consumed by fear, ruling powers cling to power by spreading fear, whereas love stands firm even when fear subverts the powers that be.
The Gospel of grace is glorious in its holiness and gracious in its loving kindness, powerfully renewing creation with uncreated energy. The Spirit breathes unceasing prayer for all into all who welcome uncreated grace. Seers are saved by the grace that cures them, freed by the glory that heals them. Without the Gospel, grace would be an easy victim of vainglory and pride and without the saving Name, there would be no Gospel, no grace, no glory. The Spirit’s unceasing prayer increases grace with grace, glory with glory, curing corruption with incorruptible holiness. Peace hallows saints with the grace of the Gospel, rightly interpreting the beauty of holiness. Holy Orthodoxy may be bruised by the corruption ruling powers impose, but is not destroyed by corrupted powers, being infused with the glory of the Gospel of saving grace.