This prayer is longer one. Herein I ponder in my own way about the sacred history of the universe and the church from the beginning until the moment of new heaven and new earth.
In the beginning You, O Lord, created the heavens and the earth. You filled the sky invisible to us with rational spirits, many-eyed cherubs and six-winged seraphim, incorporeal singers of Your Wisdom and Power. You divided them into different ranks, assigning to each his place and way of service. You placed Lucifer over them, endowing him with splendor, honor and greater knowledge of God. He, having not perfected and established himself in Your wisdom, having closed himself in his narcissism, claimed to be like You, making himself higher than You in his arrogance and pride, instead of gratitude for all Your great gifts, having repaid You with blasphemy, repaying You evil for good, and taking away to their destruction a multitude of angels who were close to him, who did not retain their dignity, but left their dwelling and were kept in eternal bonds, under darkness, for the judgment of the great day.
You created man and the human race in Your image and likeness. You settled him in a beautiful paradise and vouchsafed him all the blessings of paradise. The main blessing for him was fellowship with You face to face. You gave him free will and the opportunity to establish himself in goodness, commanding him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But man listened Your envious and treacherous adversary, the devil, who pretended to be a wise serpent, violating Your only commandment, in order to become outside of You like God, knowing good and evil. For this disobedience, You expelled our forefathers from paradise, commanding them to earn their livelihood by the sweat of their faces.
By Your just judgment, leaving the earth to disasters, damnation and death, depriving a human of his former communion with God, You, by Your own mercy, did not condemn Your creation to eternal torment for the sin of two people, giving people the opportunity to repent and reconcile with You. You guided our antediluvian forefathers on the right path through Your righteous Seth, Enoch and Noah. When people were corrupted and the first world was mired in sin, You handed it over to a just punishment, destroying it in the waters of the global flood. But You saved Noah and his offspring for the continuation of the human race, so that the righteous, Your servants and saints, whom You knew before the creation of the world, were born from him, so that they would fill the number of fallen angels and abide in You and co-reign with Your beloved Son Jesus Christ, for whom you created the world.
After the great flood, the human race again perverted from the path of goodness and the covenant made with You through the righteous forefather of our race Noah. The people again chose the path self-sufficiency and, being united in pride, despised You, desiring to go their own way of sin again. And You scattered our race throughout the earth, dividing them into different languages, races and peoples, to make their existence possible.
You chose the righteous Abraham, creating from him the people of Israel, as the core of humanity, the center of sacred history, from which Your Word Jesus Christ was to be incarnated at the time You determined. But even the race of Israel was corrupted into sin, and desiring to be like other peoples who did not know You, they were corrupted in idolatry. You sent them prophets from their family to admonish and exhort them to return to the ancient Covenant that their ancestors made with You through Your servant Moses. You admonished them with punishments, the invasion of foreigners, hunger, 70 years of captivity in Mesopotamia. And so You could hardly save a remnant of them, so that Your Anointed One could be born from the holy and pure Virgin.
When Your Anointed Jesus came into the world for its salvation, He was rejected by His people, but, having risen and revived after death on the Cross, He created a new people of God from people who accepted Him throughout the earth, as Your prophet Isaiah predicted:
'Who believed what we heard? Who saw the great power of the Lord in this? He ascended before You like a sprout, like a shoot from a root from a dry earth, He was inconspicuous, and there is no greatness in Him that we would pay attention to; nothing to attract us. He was despised, rejected by people - a sufferer who had known pain. People turned away their faces at the sight of Him; we abhorred Him, regarding Him as nothing. But He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our sicknesses; but we thought that He was smitten, punished and humiliated by God. But He was wounded for our sins and tormented for our iniquities; the punishment of the world was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. We all wandered like sheep, each turned to his own way: and the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and tormented, but He did not open His mouth. Like a lamb He was led to the slaughter, and like a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. He was captured and unfairly judged. But who can tell about His kind? For He was cast out of the land of the living; for the crimes of the people was struck. He was assigned a tomb with villains, but He was buried in a rich man's tomb, because He did not sin, and there was no lie in His mouth. Yet it was God's will to crush Him and give Him over to torment. When His life becomes a sin offering, He will see His offspring and lengthen His days; and the will of the Lord be done through him. He will look with contentment at the feat of His soul; through the knowledge of Him, He, the Righteous, the Servant of the Lord, will justify many and bear their sins upon Himself. Therefore You will give Him an inheritance among the great ones, and with the strong He will share the booty, for He gave His life to death, and was numbered among the wicked, while He bore the sin of many and became an intercessor for transgressors.'*
With Him as the cornerstone, You created Your Church and spread it over Your earth. For almost 300 years she was persecuted by the devil when idolaters tried to completely destroy her at the dawn of her existence, but then You blessed her with peace and she expanded. But we have not kept Your commandment to abide in love and unity with one another. One after another, splits followed on the basis of ungodly inter-ethnic hatred and theological strife. And the figurative prophecy from the second book of Ezra came true: “Your son the Messiah will be revealed, together with those who come with him. He will bring four hundred years of happiness to all these survivors.
At the end of that time, my son the Messiah and all human beings will die.
Then the world will return to its original silence, and for seven days it will be like it was at the beginning. No one will be left alive." ** For everyone who transgresses the teaching of Christ and does not abide in it, does not have God; he who abides in the teaching of Christ has both the Father and the Son.***
Lord, holy and righteous God, how long will lawlessness and injustice prevail on earth? How long will the evil one be strong, and the wicked tower up like the cedars of Lebanon? How long will You allow people to destroy Your earth? Come, Lord, to judge people and repay to each what he has chosen as his inheritance. Let truth arise, let the wickedness cease to prevail. May the Almighty appear on the throne of judgment, and may the earth give back those who sleep in it, and the ashes of ground those who silently dwell in it, and the store places give back the souls kept in them for resurrection.
Help us to watch over ourselves, so that we do not lose what we have labored for Christ's sake, but that we may receive the full reward.
To You, who is able to keep us from falling and put us before His glory blameless in joy, to the triune wise God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, glory and majesty, power and authority now and before all ages and forever and ever. Amen.
*Isaiah 53
**
2 Esdras 7: 28-30
*** 2 John
