Orthodox Ensign ☦️🔄🧎

A thread demonstrating that Orthodoxy proclaims that Christ was truly and really punished in our place for our sins –🧵

A very interesting thread. Would love to gather some opinions as I’ve personally heard from multiple Russian Orthodox that they DO NOT hold the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement. (PSA)

The last thing an orthobro sees after denying PSA

We believe, as St. Macarius of Jerusalem and all the Fathers of Nicaea did—that Christ took upon Himself the punishment due to us in His sinless flesh, in our place, for our sake. That, if not for His sacrifice, the penalty of the Cross was all we merited.

Peter Damian on Immaculate Conception.

St. Fulgentius of Ruspe on the meaning of Pascha, and how Christ was guiltless but took the penalty so that our guilt might "pass over" without penalty—

A beautiful prayer by St. Peter of Damascus, on surrendering the will to God, from the Philokalia:

St. Silouan the Athonite on the extraordinary love Christ displayed toward us His children, in dying for our crimes:

"I know, O Lord, that I am unworthy of Thy love, but deserve condemnation and every torment. But whether I will it or not, save me, O Lord!" –St. John of Damascus, from a prayer before sleep written by him, from Evening Prayers

I love this part of St. Augustine's Confessions. It shows the relationship between the atonement *proper* and Christus Victor, which comes afterward. "And therefore Victor, because the Victim."

"Whoever does not believe that Jesus is the Christ who took our sins upon Himself, and does not believe that Christ drank the cup of God’s wrath, and does not believe that our punishment was taken upon Himself by the Redeemer Jesus Christ—the Innocent One who died in place of...

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." –John 3:14-15

"[D]raw close to God and cleave to Him; for in a little while 'heaven and earth will pass away' (Mt. 24:35), and apart from Him there will be no firm ground on which to stand, no limit, nothing to check the fall of sinners." –St. Simeon the New Theologian, On Faith

St. Vincent of Lerins on the novel heresy of Pelagius and Celestius, who denied the necessity of grace and the guilt of all men:

The Doctor of Grace refutes and rebukes the Pelagians in their attempt to present Chrysostom as a denier of original sin: