What Orthodox Christians Believe About Angels

As excerpted from St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral website.

"The [guardian] angel will not retreat from us, unless we drive him away by our evil deeds. As the smoke drives bees away, and stench the doves, even so our stinking sin drives away from us the angel who protects our life." (Saint Basil the Great)

Created Long before Humans

Close-up of the icon mural on the ceiling at St. Volodymyr Cathedral of Toronto.

Saint John of Damascus tells us: "God is Himself the Maker and Creator of the angels; for He brought them out of nothing into being and created them after His own image. They are an incorporeal race, a sort of spirit or immaterial fire, even as the divine David says that ' His angels are spirits , and His ministers a flame of fire (Ps 103:6).

Angels were among the first part of God's creation. In the Creed we say, "I believe in one God...Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. Holy Scripture says, "When the stars were made, all My angels praised Me with a loud voice" (Job 38:7, LXX). The Apostle Paul tells us "By Him all things created that are in heaven, and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers" (Col 1:16). Heaven that was created in the very beginning according to Genesis (In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth) is generally understood by the Fathers to be an invisible heaven inhabited with powers on High. They believed that God created the angels long before He created the visible world.

Mankind Knew the Angels

Archangel Michael

Mankind knew about the existence of angels from their first days in Paradise. From Genesis we know that a Cherubim was placed with a flaming sword at the gates of Paradise after Adam and Eve were expelled. Later, Abraham encouraged his servant Nahor telling him that the Lord would send His angel with him to protect him. (Gen 34:7). Jacob saw angels during his sleep and while awake. (Gen 32:1-2).

In the time of the New Testament an angel informed Sachariah of the conception of the Forerunner and the Virgin Mary the Theotokos of the birth of Jesus. Angels announced the good news to the shepherds at the birth of Jesus and prevented the Magi from returning to Herod. Angles served Jesus after His temptation in the wilderness and appeared to strengthen Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was angels who informed the Myrrhbearing Women about His Resurrection. Angels informed the Apostles of His second coming as the time of His ascension into heaven. Angels help the apostles. They freed Peter from prison and instructed Cornelius. They told Paul to appear before Caesar. Angels are the foundation of the revelations given by John in his book of the Revelation.

Nature of Angels

Angels are active spirits with intelligence, will and knowledge. They serve God to carry out His will and glorify Him. The angels are bodiless and invisible to our physical eyes. They have no bodily needs or desires and passions, no cares about food, drink, clothes or shelter. Nor do they possess the impulse and cravings for procreation. They neither marry nor are given in marriage (Matt. 22:30). They have no worries about the future either, and no fear of death. For, though God created them before man, they are neither aged nor aging, but unchangingly youthful, beautiful and strong. They have no anxiety about their salvation and no struggle for immorality, being already immortal (Luke 20:36). Unlike men, they are not faltering between good and evil, being already good and holy as when God created them.

Peter informs us that in their might and power they surpass all earthly governments and authorities (II Peter 2:10-11). But as created beings they have limitations. They do not know the depths of the essence of God (I Cor 2:11). They do not know the future that only God knows (Mark 13:32). They do not fully understand the mystery of the Redemption yet they wish to (I Peter 1:12). They don't know human thoughts (III Kings 8:39). And thy cannot by themselves perform miracles without the will of God (Ps 71:19).

"An angel, then, is an intelligent essence, in perpetual motion, with free will, incorporeal, ministering to God, having obtained by grace an immortal nature. The Creator alone knows the form and limitation of the angelic essence; but all that we can understand is that it is incorporeal and immaterial. For all that is compared with god, Who alone is incomparable, we find to be dense and material. For in reality only the Deity is immaterial and incorporeal." Saint John of Damascus.

Number and Ranks of Angels

They are an extraordinary number of angels. In the book of Daniel it says, "thousand thousands ministered unto Him and the thousand times ten thousand stood before Him" (Daniel 7:10). And In Luke it is recorded that "a multitude of the heavenly host" praised our Lord (Luke 2:13).

We can only assume that with such a number there are differing degrees of perfection among their ranks. In Scripture we see some called angels and others archangels (I Thess 4:16; Jude, v 9)

The Tradition of the Orthodox Church teaches us that there is a Heavenly Hierarchy of angels. This was documented earliest by St. Dionysius the Areopagite one of the Seventy Apostles in On the Heavenly Hierarchy. He explained the angelic world as divided into nine ranks made up of three hierarchies with three ranks each.

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