Andrey Muzolf, lecturer at the Kiev Theological Academy, answers.

We will not find any comprehensive answer to this question in Orthodox theological literature. Theology is not only a “word about God,” but at the same time the word of God Himself, and therefore not everything in theology can be expressed in human language and accessible to human understanding. Thus, the holy Apostle Paul, describing one of his spiritual experiences, says that, being caught up to paradise, he “heard unspeakable words that a person cannot retell” (see: 2 Cor. 12: 4). Salvation, in the words of the supreme apostle, is “a great secret of piety” (1 Tim. 3:16), and therefore we must accept many truths on faith and not try to comprehend them with our limited mind.

One of these truths can be attributed to the idea of ​​the Eternal Council of the Most Holy Trinity. According to the majority of theologians, this term should be understood as a certain intra-ternary pre-eternal (that is, existing before the beginning of time) Divine plan for the creation of the world and, in particular, for the salvation of man.

The Holy Fathers note that God, being absolutely omniscient, even before He created the world, knew that the creature once created by Himself could fall away from its Creator, and therefore prepared all possible means for the future restoration and salvation of man. Moreover, according to the Monk Maximus the Confessor, for the implementation of this plan, the only possible becomes the Incarnation, that is, the coming into this world of God Himself, Who will have to become a person like us and sacrifice Himself for each of us. That is why the famous Christian writer - apologist KS Lewis once said: "The Lord saw the Crucifixion even when he was creating the first nebulas."

However, when we talk about a kind of Council between the Persons of the Holy Trinity, we must understand that the very word "advice" does not reflect the entire depth of the issue. As it was said earlier, human language is not sufficient in order to maximally adequately express certain Divine realities. So, the word "advice" causes a kind of dispute in our minds, the possibility of considering various, sometimes contradictory options related to the problem of "advice". But in this case, there was no dispute and could not be. The Holy Trinity is the trinity of Divine Hypostases with the unity of Divine nature, and since will is a property of nature, and not of a person, there can be no disagreement in the will of Divine Persons.

Proceeding from this, it is more appropriate to express the Pre-eternal Council with the concept of “Pre-eternal expression of the will,” because, by and large, there could be no meeting between the Persons of the Holy Trinity. This is evidenced, by the way, and reverend john Damascene: "God contemplated everything before his being, but each thing receives its being at a certain time, in accordance with His eternal deliberate thought, which is predestination, and image, and plan." It is these "thoughts", in the opinion of the monk, that constitute the Council of God.

Alfrey workshop "Sphere". Annunciation

F. Barocchi. Annunciation

D. Necklace. Annunciation

Dear friends! Today, on the eve of the feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos, I would like to tell you about one of my favorite Orthodox church chants sung on this holiday - the stichera "Eternal Council". If you are in church today for All-night vigil under the Annunciation, you will hear this stichera of the 6th voice. It is often sung at the Annunciation Liturgy as a sacrament concert.

D. Tissot. Annunciation

V. Nesterenko. Annunciation

I have had occasion to sing this stichera myself many times. Our choir sang it to the very old znamenny chant that I present in this post. The melody fits the words wonderfully. Calm, outwardly simple, but very beautiful, she so naturally leads to a jubilant exclamation: "Rejoice!" and majestically ends with the words: "The Lord is with you." An extraordinary feeling always covers both singers and listeners.

D. Vasari. Annunciation

Waterhouse. Annunciation

Here is this stichera.

Revealing the eternal advice to You, Young Woman,
Gabriel appears,
Kissing and prophetic to you:
Rejoice, unseeded earth,
Rejoice, burning bush,
Rejoice, deeply unseen,
Rejoice, bring the bridge to heaven,
And the ladder is high, in the form of Jacob,
Rejoice, divine stam of manna,
Rejoice, permission of the oath,
Rejoice, Adam's proclamation,
The Lord is with you.

D. Rossetti. Annunciation

A. Rekunenko. Annunciation

I would like to explain the Church Slavonic text that is not clear to everyone.

J. Kapkov. Annunciation

T. Gotch. Annunciation

What is this "Eternal Council"? In the modern sense, "advice" is the coordination of the intentions of several subjects. But when the Holy Scripture speaks of "God's advice", about the "advice of the Holy Trinity", then we mean the appearance of the act of the Divine decision to the world, made "according to the grace of the will." Thus, the word "advice" here means the same as "covenant."

Bulle. Annunciation

A. Allori. Annunciation

The word "eternal" - in modern version"Eternal" - means what happened "before the age", that is, "before the times", was predetermined by God even before the Creation of the world. The Lord knew about the impending fall of mankind and about the atonement for sins by the death of the Cross of the One who is born of the Virgin. And the Archangel Gabriel reveals this terrible Divine secret to the Virgin.

K. Crivelli. Annunciation

S. Shemet. Annunciation

"Rejoice!" - he exclaims, predicting Her future glory as the Mother of the King of Kings.

Bouguereau. Annunciation

A. da Messina. Maria reading

Icon of the Mother of God "Before Christmas and after Christmas Virgin"

"Before Christmas and after Christmas the Virgin" - there is an icon with this name. Only such a Virgin could become the Mother of the Savior.

Korzhev. Annunciation

A. da Messina. Annunciation

Gabriel compares the Virgin to an unseeded land and a burning bush. Not only Her bodily purity is meant here, but also the purity of the soul.

Moses before the Burning Bush

The burning bush (bush) is an image from the Old Testament. The prophet Moses saw such a burning and unburning bush, and God spoke to him from the fire. Living among people, seeing their passions, the Virgin remained immaculate - the fire of sin did not touch Her. And, like the Burning Bush, She was able to carry the Fire of the Divine in herself, and not be scorched by it.

Icon of the Mother of God "Burning Bush"

In the New Testament tradition, it is customary to call Mother of God By the Burning Bush, everyone probably knows about the icon with that name.

Borovikovsky. Annunciation. Sketches for Royal Doors

B. Jones. Annunciation

O great secret The Divine Conception says Gabriel, calling the Virgin the depth of the inconceivable, that is, impenetrable, which is impossible to understand and comprehend with ordinary human reason and feelings.

L. da Vinci. Annunciation

S. Matyard. Annunciation

Since Mary was born earthly parents, and was honored to be the chosen one of the Holy Spirit, then She was, as it were, a bridge between the Divine and the earthly worlds. And She leads us to the Heavenly world, firstly, by her example, and secondly, incessantly praying for the human race. This is why Gabriel calls Her the bridge to Heaven.

Borovikovsky. Annunciation. The central part of the triptych

“Jacob's ladder (ladder)” is also an Old Testament image.

Jacob's Ladder

Patriarch Jacob, whose virtuous life deserved God's special favor, once saw in a dream a staircase connecting earth and heaven, along which Angels ascended and descended. Calling the Mother of God in this way, Gabriel again emphasizes Her role as a link between the earthly and the Heavenly.

Murillo. Annunciation

Not everyone knows what “stamno of manna” is (variant: “pen of manna”). "Stamna", translated from Church Slavonic, means some kind of container, usually a vessel or bowl. The word "handle" has the same meaning, because a hand, a handful - this is the prototype of the cup. The manna that fell from heaven, that is, bread, was fed by the Lord to the Old Testament Jews during their forty-year wanderings in the desert after fleeing from Egypt. Christ is often called the Bread of Heaven.

Borovikovsky. Annunciation. Triptych

"Permission of the oath" - the abolition of the Divine curse, incurred by humanity through original sin. Expelling Adam and Eve from Paradise, the Lord sentenced them not only to earthly life full of labors and troubles, but also to mortality - "you are the earth and you will send back to the earth." But the Virgin gave birth to Christ, who by his death "redeemed us from the legal oath." It is not for nothing that in the troparion of the Annunciation it is sung: "This day of our salvation is the chief thing," that is, the beginning. Our salvation from eternal death began precisely with the conception of the Virgin from the Holy Spirit.

M. Nesterov. Annunciation

Gabriel says the same with the words: "Rejoice, Adam's proclamation." After death, Adam and Eve languished in hell, and only Christ, having risen, freed (called) them from there.

P. Champagne. Annunciation

And Gabriel concludes his greeting with the words: "The Lord is with Thee," once again confirming the Divinely chosen Virgin.

Listen to this chant in a magnificent performance of the United Choir of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary.

Let this chant be to you my humble gift for the Annunciation. Happy Holidays, dear friends!

2. The Eternal Council of the Most Holy Trinity on the salvation of the human race. Participation of Persons Prsv. Trinity in the salvation of man

Svshch. Scripture (Gen. 1:26) says that the creation of man was preceded by a certain mysterious meeting of Divine Persons. "And God said, Let us make man in our image and in our likeness." In Orthodox theology, this meeting of Divine Persons on the creation of man has received the name of the Eternal Council of God. The very word "advice" in relation to the eternal Divine plan for the salvation of man is found in St. Scripture (Acts 2:23). It should be borne in mind that the Slavic word "council" means "will", and not "consultation", for "consultation" in its meaning means the agreement of several wills, while in God the will is one. What is the essence of this Council, why exactly is a person honored with such Divine attention?

God created man as a free being who is able to abuse his freedom, turn his back on his Creator. Therefore, some modern theologians even speak of the creation of man as a kind of divine "risk". God foresaw that man would misuse his freedom and sin. And having sinned, he will need the Atonement. Therefore, God determined to save man and chose to do this necessary funds... These means are the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, and His atoning Sacrifice.

The essence of the Council is the voluntary consent of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity to bring Himself into an atoning sacrifice for the salvation of man and the whole world. Without this consent, the creation of the world would be just as impossible as without the creative action of the Father. The mystery of economy is only partly revealed to us, to the extent that it is necessary and salutary for us. In particular, we have absolutely no idea why God chose such a means to save people, and not some other, although if we proceed from the fact that God is omnipotent, He could probably find other ways to save people from condemnation. Why it was in this way that the Lord was pleased to save man, we do not know; it is no accident that the apostle Paul (Eph. 1: 9) speaks of the Atonement as the mystery of the will of God. God's advice on the salvation of man is called the Eternal Counsel. In the creation of man, God as the Creator manifests the greatest responsibility before His creation: by endowing man with freedom, which includes the possibility of abuse of it, God takes responsibility for the consequences of this abuse, makes a decision in the person of the Second Hypostasis of the Most Holy Trinity to take upon Himself and share with man all the consequences of his fall. Svshch. Scripture says that this decision was eternal, that is, God foresaw the fall of man and made a decision to save him even before the creation of the world. The Apostle Paul (Rom. 14:24) calls this decision a mystery, about which "from eternity it was kept silent." In Eph. 3, 9 he speaks of the mystery "hid from eternity in God." In Eph. 1, 4 the apostle says that "God chose us in Him (that is, in Christ) before the foundation of the world." And Christ Himself is called in Holy. Scripture by the Lamb intended as a sacrifice from the foundation of the world (I Pet. 1: 19-20 and Rev. 13.8).

What is the participation of the Persons of the Holy Trinity in the salvation of the human race?

God the Father belongs to the benevolent determination in the Council of God to save people through His Only Begotten Son:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Through the Incarnation and the atoning Sacrifice, the Son accomplishes our salvation. During His earthly ministry, the Lord repeatedly said that He came to do the will of the Father. “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to do His work” (John 4:34). "The works that the Father gave me to do, these very works that I do, testify of me that the Father sent me" (John 5:36). “Therefore the Father loves Me, because I give my life in order to receive it again; no one takes it from me, but I myself give it: I have the power to give it, and I have the power to take it again. I received this commandment from My Father. " (John 10, 17-18) The Apostle Peter (1 Pet. 1, 18-19) says that we are redeemed "from a vain life ... by the precious Blood of Christ, as a spotless and pure Lamb."

The Holy Spirit assimilates to the redeemed sinners the merits or, better to say, the redemptive fruits of Christ's Sacrifice and by His assistance accomplishes the work of salvation in the hearts of men: "God from the beginning, through the sanctification of the Spirit and faith in truth, chose you for salvation." (2 Thess. 2, 13) Everywhere in St. Scripture, which speaks of the grace-filled sanctification of a person, presupposes the action of the Holy Spirit. For example, Jn. 3, 5: "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God."

WHAT IS THE ETERNAL COUNCIL OF THE HOLY TRINITY? ANSWER: The Law of God says that the creation of man was preceded by the council of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. It is said: "And God said: let us make man in our image [and] in our likeness ..." (Genesis 1: 26). The Holy Fathers teach that this conference of the Persons of the Holy Trinity took into account everything that could happen to humanity. Since God is not limited in time and in Him there is no past and future, but only the present, He knows everything that was, everything that is, and everything that will be. The future and the past (in our understanding) for the Creator are always present. So, before the creation of mankind, everything that could subsequently happen to people was taken into account. The word "council" or "consultation" itself can only be used conditionally in relation to the Persons of the Holy Trinity; here it is more appropriate to use the word "will". For the word of God - it has creative power; and when the Lord says “let it be,” then everything comes true at once. The Council of Persons of the Holy Trinity took into account during the creation of man endowed with free will, that other free creatures - angels - misused this gift, and a third of them fell away from God. Humanity was created, according to the teaching of the Fathers, to make up for the number of the fallen angels. And what happened to their third should not have happened again. But God's foreknowledge showed what was to happen to the whole human race; and then the divine will was manifested that if people misuse the gift of free will, then the Son of God (the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity) will accomplish the work of redemption for the human race. The main means in the work of our redemption was to be the incarnation of the Son of God, who, according to his Divinity, must be consubstantial with God the Father, and according to His Humanity, consubstantial with all mankind. The Son of God in Himself was to heal the damaged nature of the human race. That was accomplished in the appearance of the Son of God in this world "for us for the sake of man, and for our salvation" and that was especially revealed in the sufferings of the Son of God on the Cross of Calvary. Even the righteous Job exclaimed about the judgments of God: “For He is not a man like me, so that I could answer Him and go with Him to the judgment! There is no mediator between us who would lay his hand on both of us ”(Job 9: 32-33). Our Lord Jesus Christ turned out to be such a mediator about whom Job the Long-suffering one cried out, about whom it is said: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim.2.5). According to the Divine, entering this world, according to Humanity - leaving it, the Son of God and performed the ministry of reconciliation between God the Father and fallen humanity. With His Blood He not only atoned for our sins and transgressions, but He also healed us from sinful death. His Blood possesses great power to burn sin, not only as an accomplished fact of our life, but also as an inclination to sin, as the law of sin at work in us. In this sense, the salvation of man is a Eucharistic action. To be saved in Orthodoxy means precisely - to transubstantiate. To which the Son of God calls us with the words: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me will live because of Me ”(John 6: 54-57). In the Rule of Thanks according to St. We find the following words for communion: “... go into my uds, into all the formations, into the womb, into the heart. The thorns of all my sins have fallen. Cleanse your soul, sanctify your thoughts. Compositions solidify with bones together. Enlighten the senses of a simple five. In other words, the salvation accomplished by the power of the atoning Blood of the Son of God is the complete healing of our nature. That is why in the Orthodox understanding, in contrast to the Protestant belief, the term "justification" is identical with the term "sanctification". It is said: “So we were buried with Him by baptism into death, so that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also can walk in a renewed life” (Rom. 6: 4). Renewed life is a changed nature, another, new being. All this is accomplished only in Christ and with Christ. For Catholics, with their "legal" theory, the Atonement is a ransom that was paid to God by God Himself; it turns out that God the Son paid the price of the Blood to God the Father. This theory does not stand up to biblical criticism. For Protestants, the Atonement is an amnesty that changes little in the very soul of a person; he remains the same sinner, but God forgives him. This approach also does not stand up to biblical criticism. We, the Orthodox, need not a ransom, not an amnesty, but healing. The Greek word itself, translated by us as "salvation", at its root contains a word that means healthy in translation from Greek. Therefore, it means recovery, healing from damage, a fatal disease, a chronic ailment. Christ by His incarnation and subsequent sufferings on the Cross heals us from the leprosy of sin, heals, that is, He gives us a new healthy way of life. It is necessary to pay attention to this significant difference in the Orthodox understanding of the term “salvation”. It is said about the Mystery of the Incarnation: “revealing to us the secret of His will according to His grace, which He first put in Him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, so that everything heavenly and earthly could be united under the head of Christ” (Eph. 1: 9-10). "First put in Him" ​​- and means that before the creation of man in the Son of God, it was God's pleasure to make Him the Redeemer of the entire human race. Consequently, the very preparation of the faithful to salvation was accomplished before the creation of the world. It is said: “... He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, so that we might be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestined to adopt us to Himself through Jesus Christ, according to the grace of His will” (Eph. 1: 4-5). The fact that the Son of God was to become the Sacrifice of Blood for the sin of mankind was also decided at the Eternal Council of the Persons of the Trinity, before the creation of the world. It is said that we are saved: "... by the precious Blood of Christ, as the immaculate and pure Lamb, intended even before the foundation of the world, but appearing in the last times ..." (1 Pet. 1: 19–20). The entire Holy Trinity participates in the work of our House-building (Salvation): God the Father has deigned to save people through His Only Begotten Son. It is said: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16). The Son of God has deigned to fulfill this Will of His Father. It is said: "The works that the Father gave Me to do, the very works that I do, testify to Me that the Father sent Me" (John 5:36). The Holy Spirit has deigned to assimilate the redeemed sinners with the gift of new Life in Christ and with Christ. It is said: "God from the beginning, through the sanctification of the Spirit and faith in the truth, chose you for salvation" (2 Thess. 2:13). Also, at the Eternal Council of the Holy Trinity, it was decided that the Son of God would accomplish the final redemption of mankind by ascending into the heavenly sanctuary of the Kingdom of ineffable light. It is said: “But Christ, the High Priest of future blessings, having come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not of such an arrangement, and not with the blood of goats and bulls, but with His own Blood, once entered the sanctuary and acquired eternal redemption” (Heb. 9.11-12); and again: “For Christ entered not into a sanctuary made with hands, which was built in the image of the true, but into heaven itself, in order to appear now for us before the face of God” (Hebrews 9:24). So, we see that the plan of our salvation was adopted at the Eternal Council of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, even before the creation of the world. And it is carried out with the participation of the goodwill of all Persons of the Holy Trinity, such a blessing is called the Divine House-building, the beginning of which was laid even before the existence of this world. Archpriest Oleg Stenyaev.

The Eternal Counsel of the Holy Trinity- beginningless, timeless (occurring before the century, before time - "before" the century, "before" time) God's plan for the world He created.

The eternal council of the Holy Trinity is called eternal, since it is carried out outside the time inherent in our created world. Eternal counsel is carried out in Divine eternity, preceding the existence of all created things and events. The eternal council defines the Divine concept of each being who is to receive life from God. The eternal council is called council, for all persons of the Holy Trinity participate in it.

Eternal advice is special advice. The Persons of the Holy Trinity participating in it exist inseparably and have a single Divine will. The ideas and designs of the eternal council are the ideas and designs of the one almighty God, which are always fulfilled and put into practice. Therefore, the word "advice" in this case is closer to the concept of willful prejudice, will, understood as a thought, plan or idea, which will certainly and inevitably come true.

According to the word of St. John of Damascus, God "I contemplated everything before it was, but each thing receives its being at a certain time, in accordance with His eternal deliberate thought, which is predestination, and image, and plan"... Divine thoughts, plans and images are the "eternal and unchanging advice" of God, in which "everything is inscribed, predetermined by God and unswervingly accomplished before his being." Divine advice is immutable, eternal and immutable, for God Himself is eternal and immutable.

At the eternal Divine Council of the Holy Trinity, a decision was made about the creation of man: "Let us create man in our image and in our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). At the eternal council, a decision was made on the Incarnation of the Son of God and the salvation of mankind.

The eternal advice about the salvation of the human race is a plan for the Incarnation as the union of the Divine and human nature in the God-man Jesus Christ, for the salvation and redemption of the human race through Him death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. This plan is the most important part of the general plan of God for the entire created world. The divine plan for the salvation of the human race is an eternal plan, like all plans of God. Foreseeing the human fall before the creation of the world, God in eternity determined the salvation of mankind.

The First Person of the Holy Trinity God the Father acted as the Author of this decision.

The Second Person of the Holy Trinity The Son of God, for the salvation of mankind, expressed his consent to the Incarnation, which is reflected in the words of Scripture: "You did not desire sacrifices and offerings, but you prepared a body for Me. Burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin are not pleasing to You. Then I said: behold, I am coming, as in the beginning of the book it is written about Me."(Heb. 10: 7-10) and also in words "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." (