The Third Rome

"Two Romes have fallen. 
The third stands. 
And there will be no fourth. 
No one shall replace your Christian Tsardom!"

- Philotheus of Pskov

“The fall of the Orthodox capital of the world, the new Rome, Constantinople, led among the Russians to the notion that they had been called to make good this shame on Christianity, or, as Nestor Iskander says, ‘to annihilate and obliterate this evil and godless Ottoman faith and to renew and strengthen the whole Orthodox and unstained Christian faith.’”

Wil van den Bercken. 

Holy Russia and Christian Europe. East and West in

the Religious Ideology of Russia. 

London: SCM Press, 1999 

"To Forgive The Terrorists Is Up To God.

But To Send Them To Him Is Up To Me" 

- Putin.

“I would like to say a few words about the existing Orthodox empire of our most illustrious, exalted ruler. He is the only emperor on all the earth over the Christians, the governor of the holy, divine throne of the holy, ecumenical, apostolic church which in place of the churches of Rome and Constantinople is in the city of Moscow, protected by God, in the holy and glorious Uspenskij Church of the most pure Mother of God. It alone
shines over all the earth more radiantly than the sun. For know well, those who love Christ and those who love God, that all Christian empires will perish and give way to the one kingdom of our ruler, in accord with the books of the prophet, which is the Russian empire. For two Romes have fallen, but the third stands, and there will never be a fourth.”

"Why are we so hopeful about Russia? Why should it be the means of evangelizing nations of the earth? 

Because Russia has fire; it has zeal!!

Communism has that!"

The Consecration of Russia

"I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart...If people attend to My requests, Russia will be converted and the world will have peace."

In the apparition of July 13, Our Lady warned the three seers that if people did not stop offending God, He would punish the world "by means of war, hunger and persecution of the Church and of the Holy Father," using Russia as His chosen instrument of chastisement. She told the children that "to prevent this, I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart" and promised that, by this single public act, Russia would be converted and peace would be given to the world. 

The Mother of God cautioned that if Her requests were not granted, "Russia will spread its errors throughout the world, raising up wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer and various nations will be annihilated."True to Her word, Our Lady reappeared to Sister Lucy on June 13, 1929 at Tuy, Spain, when in a great and sublime vision representing the Blessed Trinity, She announced that "the moment has come for God to ask the Holy Father to make, in union with all the bishops of the world, the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart. By this means, He promises to save Russia."

When God sent Our Lady to convey His command that Russia be consecrated, it seems clear that He expected swift obedience from the Pope and bishops. The pastors of the Church, however, chose to delay and, on August 19, 1931, Our Lord Himself appeared to Sister Lucy in Rianjo, Spain and expressed His displeasure, saying "make it known to My ministers that, given they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution My command, they will follow him also into misfortune." 

Our Lord's warning is a grave one indeed, referring as it does to His command, through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, to the King of France that he consecrate his nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The King chose to ignore the command and thus condemned his dynasty and throne to the horrors of revolution, chaos and the guillotine.

The Blessed Virgin's request for the Consecration of Russia remains one of the most controversial aspects of the entire Fatima Message. While several popes have undertaken consecrations of the world since the request was made public (including Pope John Paul II in 1982 and 1984), sadly, none of these have fulfilled the specific requirements of Our Lord and Our Lady's requests. In repeated visits to Sister Lucy, Heaven's King and Queen have insisted that it is Russia (and Russia only) that is to be the object of this public act of obedience and prayer. In addition, Our Lord and Our Lady have indicated that the Holy Father is to be joined in the act of consecration by all the Catholic bishops of the world on the same day and at the same time in their respective dioceses. Interestingly, only Pope Pius XII's consecration of the world in 1942 included substantial involvement of the bishops. Sister Lucy has written that this imperfect act of obedience, while not fulfilling Our Lady's Fatima request, nevertheless hastened the end of the Second World War, thus sparing the lives of tens of millions of souls.

In response to Sister Lucy's question why He would not convert Russia without the Holy Father consecrating that nation to His Mother's Immaculate Heart, Our Lord replied "Because I want My whole Church to acknowledge that consecration as a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary so that it may extend its cult later and put the devotion of the Immaculate Heart beside the devotion to My Sacred Heart." 

The second documentary historical film by "UGOL" studio is about history of Christianity during the XII and XVI century in Russia. 

The film is a series of " The Slavic Nations' Search for God." info@ashevchenko.org

Great Schism

The Great Schism, also known as the East-West Schism, was the event that divided "Chalcedonian" Christianity into Western (Roman) Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.^[1]^ Though normally dated to 1054, when Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael I excommunicated each other, the East-West Schism was actually the result of an extended period of estrangement between the two bodies of churches. The primary causes of the Schism were disputes over papal authority -- the Roman Pope claimed he held authority over the four Eastern patriarchs, while the four eastern patriarchs claimed that the primacy of the Patriarch of Rome was only honorary, and thus he had authority only over Western Christians -- and over the insertion of the filioque clause into theNicene Creed. There were other, less significant catalysts for the Schism, including variance over liturgical practices and conflicting claims of jurisdiction.

The Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographic lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed. It might be alleged that the two churches actually reunited in 1274 (by the Second Council of Lyons) and in 1439 (by the Council of Basel), but in each case the councils were repudiated by the Orthodox as a whole, given that the hierarchs had overstepped their authority in consenting to these so-called "unions". Further attempts to reconcile the two bodies have failed; however, several ecclesiastical communities that originally sided with the East changed their loyalties, and are now called Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. For the most part, however, the Western and the Eastern Churches are separate. Each takes the view that it is the "One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church", implying that the other group left the true church during the Schism.

Origins

Since its earliest days, the Church recognized the special positions of three bishops, who were known as patriarchs: the Bishop of Rome, the Bishop of Alexandria, and the Bishop of Antioch. They were joined by the Bishop of Constantinople and by the Bishop of Jerusalem, both confirmed as patriarchates by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The patriarchs held both authority and precedence over fellow bishops in the Church. Among them, the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) was deemed to hold a higher status, by virtue of his position as the successor of Saint Peter. Moreover, the Pope's see was of particular importance, as Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire. Even after Constantine I moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330, the Pope retained his position as first among equals (primus inter pares) in the hierarchy, although this was not accompanied by any sort of veto or other monarchical powers over the other Patriarchs.

Disunion in the Roman Empire further contributed to disunion in the Church. Theodosius the Great, who died in 395, was the last Emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire; after his death, his territory was divided into western and eastern halves, each under its own Emperor. By the end of the fifth century, the Western Roman Empire had been decimated by the barbarians, while the Eastern Roman Empire (known also as the Byzantine Empire) continued to thrive. Thus, the political unity in the Empire was the first to fall.

Other factors caused the East and West to drift further apart. The dominant language of the West was Latin, while that of the East was Greek. Soon after the fall of the Western Empire, the number of individuals who spoke both Latin and Greek began to dwindle, and communication between East and West grew much more difficult. With linguistic unity gone, cultural unity began to crumble as well. The two halves of the Church were naturally divided along similar lines; they used different rites and had different approaches to religious doctrines. Although the Great Schism was still centuries away, its outlines were already perceptible.

Early schisms

The Great Schism was not the first schism between East and West; there had, in fact, been over two centuries of schism during the first millennium of the Church. From 343 to 398, the Church was split over Arianism, a doctrine supported by many in the East, though rejected by the Pope in the West. A new controversy arose in 404, when the Byzantine Emperor Arcadius deposed the Roman-backed Patriarch of Constantinople, John Chrysostom. The Pope soon broke off communion with all the eastern patriarchates, for they had countenanced Chrysostom's banishment. The division was healed only in 415, when the eastern patriarchs retroactively recognised Chrysostom as legitimate.

Another conflict broke out when, in 482, the Byzantine Emperor Zeno issued an edict known as the Henotikon, which sought to reconcile the differences between most of the Church (which believed that Jesus Christ had two natures: human and divine) and the monophysites (who believed that Jesus Christ had only a divine nature). The edict, however, received the condemnation of Pope Felix III. In 484, the Pope excommunicated Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople who urged Zeno to issue the Henotikon. The schism was ended in 519 -- over thirty years later -- when the Byzantine Emperor Justin I recognised Acacius's excommunication. However, the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem now embraced Miaphysitism and rejected the Council of Chalcedon. Thus, although technically reunited, the Church was in actuality diverging.

Great Schism

The catalysts of the Great Schism included:

• the insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed by the Roman church in direct violation of the command of the Council of Ephesus, an action called non-canonical by the Eastern church.
• disputes in the Balkans over whether the Western or Eastern church had jurisdiction.
• the designation of the Patriarch of Constantinople as ecumenical patriarch (which was understood by Rome as universal patriarch and therefore disputed).
• disputes over whether the Patriarch of Rome, the Pope, should be considered a higher authority than the other Patriarchs. All five Patriarchs of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church agreed that the Patriarch of Rome should receive higher honors than the other four; they disagreed about whether he had authority over the other four and, if he did, how extensive that authority might be.
• the concept of Caesaropapism, a tying together in some way of the ultimate political and religious authorities, which were physically separated much earlier when the capital of the empire was moved from Rome to Constantinople. There is controversy over just how much this so-called "Caesaropapism" actually existed and how much was a fanciful invention, centuries later, by western European historians.
• certain liturgical practices in the west that the East believed represented innovation: use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, for example. Eastern innovations, such as intinction (dipping) of the bread in the wine for Communion, were condemned several times by Rome but were never the occasion of schism.

This conflict led to the exchange of excommunications by the representative of Pope Leo IX and the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, in 1054 (finally rescinded in 1965) and the separation of the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches, each of which now claims to be "the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church." It should be noted that at the time of the mutual excommunications, Pope Leo IX was dead. Therefore, the authority of Cardinal Humbertus, the Pope's legate, had ceased; therefore he could not legitimately excommunicate Patriarch Cerularius.

The final breach is often considered to have arisen after the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. This Fourth Crusade had the Latin Church directly involved in a military assault against the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, and the Orthodox Patriarchate. The sacking of the Church of Holy Wisdom and establishment of the Latin Empire in 1204 is viewed with some rancor to the present day. In 2004, Pope John Paul II extended a formal apology for the sacking of Constantinople in 1204; the apology was formally accepted by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

Reconciliation

On November 27, 2004, in an attempt to "promote Christian unity", Pope John Paul II returned the bones (relics) of Patriarchs John Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen to Istanbul. The former of the two relics was taken as war booty from Constantinople by Crusaders in 1204, and many believe the latter was taken then as well. However, the Vatican says the bones of the second saint were brought to Rome by Byzantine monks in the 8th Century.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I together with other heads of self-governed Eastern Churches were present at Pope John Paul II funeral on April 8, 2005. This is the first time for many centuries that an Ecumenical Patriarch has attended the funeral of a Pope and has been interpreted to mean that dialogue towards reconciliation might have started.^[2]^^[3]^

Notes

1. ? "Great Schism" World Encyclopedia. Philip's, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. King County Library System. 17 March 2010 < http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t142.e4859>
2. ? John Burger. "Archbishop Hilarion on Christian Unity". National Catholic Register: America's most complete Catholic news source. February 7, 2011 < http://www.ncregister.com/blog/archbishop-hilarion-on-christian-unity/>
3. ? Jeffrey Donovan. "World: Pope's Dream Of Uniting Christianity Goes Unfulfilled". Radio Free Europe Free Liberty. April 8, 2005. < http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1058341.html>

See also

• Eastern Orthodox Church
• Roman Catholic Church

External links

• Byzantium: The Great Schism By Bsp. Kallistos Ware
• Catholic Encyclopedia article

Nicolaus of Cusa and the Council of Florence by Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche delivered this speech to an Institute conference commemorating the 550th anniversary of the Council of Florence, held in Rome on May 5, 1989. The speech was delivered in German and has been translated by John Sigerson. It has been slightly edited for publication.

In a period in which humanity seems to be swept into a maelstrom of irrationality, it is useful to recall those moments in history in which it succeeded in elevating itself from conditions similar to those of today, to the maximum clarity of reason. The 550th anniversary of the Council of Florence is the proper occasion for dealing with the ideas and events which led to such a noble hour in the history ofhumanity.

We would do well to orient ourselves according to this optimism, which is born of an unshakable faith in man in the image of God. For the dangers threatening us today in a near-apocalyptic manner are even greater than those which devastated civilization in the fourteenth century. Then, the dangers were the collapse of production and trade, the Black Death, belief in the occult, and schisms in the Church. Today, they are the threat that entire continents in the developing sector will be wiped out by hunger, the increasingly species-threatening AIDS pandemic, satanism's blatant offensive, and an unexampled process of moral decay. The parallels are all too evident, yet this has not halted our headlong rush today into an age even darker than the fourteenth century.

The principal problem arises when man abandons God and the search for a life inspired by this aim. As Nicolaus of Cusa said, the finite being is evil to the degree that he forgets that he is finite, believes with satanic pride that he is sufficient unto himself, and lapses into a lethargy which prevents him from developing all his powers, hence preventing him from discovering within himself the promise of his actual ``divine origin.'' But precisely because the Christian humanist image of man today is vulnerable todestruction from so many different flanks, it is urgent that we learn from the example of the Council of Florence.

The Catholic Concordance

I would like to outline the role which Nicolaus of Cusa played in the Council of Florence, in bringing about the union of the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches on the basis of the highest common denominator. At the time of the council's conclusion in 1439, Cusa was thirty-eight years old, and therefore, compared to the other Church fathers present, a relatively young man. However, if one takes into consideration Cusa's complete works, by which he became, so to speak, the ``gatekeeper to the new era'' and the founder of modern natural science, then it is not surprising that he should have contributed so much in practice and content, to make the union of the churches possible.

In the preface to his most important work, the Catholic Concordance, which was written in 1433 during the preceding Council of Basel, Cusa speaks of a new epoch in the spiritual history of humanity. In this work, the basis for human rights and for national sovereignty can be identified, in that Cusa defined the relationship between governor and the governed as a relationship based on natural law. And, although he conceded maximum autonomy to individuals and states, as also to individual churches, he made clear that no lower association can be on the side of reason if it places in jeopardy the interests of all and the union of the universal Church.

Having understood that the Council of Basel, because of its assertion of conciliar supremacy over the pope, had shown itself to be incapable of achieving union, Cusa asked himself how union with the Eastern Church could be achieved. With the schism of the Greeks (1054 a.d.) still in effect, the Council of Basel, which represented itself as a universal council, was in reality only a patriarchal council of the Western Church. To realize a universal council, in which all five patriarchs would participate, would require union with the Eastern Church and the consent of the Pope. What the reference points for such a union might be, became clear to Cusa when he studied the ancient texts of the preceding councils, an activity which he had undertaken in order to write the Catholic Concordance.

The Council of Basel Fails

When preparations for discussion of reunification with the Eastern Church began in July 1436, Cusa was assigned several important tasks. Because he was among the few who spoke Greek perfectly--as is demonstrated by a sermon from the year 1428 or 1430 containing many Greek quotations--he was elected council praecognitor and conservator of the decreeson Oct. 5, 1436.

When, on May 7, 1437 a schism occurred at the Council of Basel as a result of disagreements regarding the location of the unity council, some representatives of the minority current, loyal to the Pope's request that the council be held in Italy, left Basel. They were the bishops Digne and Oporto, and Cusa. The Greeks welcomed the minority request, and left Basel with them. This strengthened Pope Eugene IV, who sealed the minority decree with the bull Sabotoris et Dei nostri, issued on May 30, 1437.

Cusa in Constantinople

Cusa participated in negotiations with Florence, which initially failed due to the opposition of the Emperor Sigismond and of Charles VII of France. The decision on the location of the unity council was therefore postponed until the Greek delegation was to arrive. Eugene IV then sent a delegation to Constantinople on ships leased in Venice.

The delegation was composed of his nephew Antonio Condulmer, Mark, archbishop of Tarantaize, Christoph Gavatori, bishops Digne and Oporto, and Nicolaus of Cusa. The papal delegation reached its destination on Sept. 3, 1437, and the Greek delegate Dishypatos confirmed that only the Basel minority had the authority of the true council. The delegates, acting as representatives of the Pope and the council, opened negotiations with the Byzantine Emperor and the Patriarch.

Shortly thereafter, the Council of Basel delegation arrived in Constantinople, and even Emperor John VII, who had not succeeded in overcoming the conflict, decided to travel to Italy with the papal delegation. With him traveled the Patriarch Joseph II, representatives of all the patriarchs, and numerous fathers of the Eastern Church.

The Greeks were acting on the basis of the same considerations which had brought Cusa to conclude that union would be possible only with the consent of the Pope. This was likewise the gist of the advice offered by the delegates John Dishypatos and Emmanuel Miloti, who had collaborated closely with Cusa in Basel.

The Crucial Documents

Cusa had made good use of his stay in Constantinople. Before writing the Catholic Concordance, he had collected exhaustive source material on the synods which had taken place earlier in the East. He took with him a Greek manuscript which contained the acts of the Sixth and Seventh Councils, the Second and Fourth Councils of Constantinople of 680-681 and 869-870, and the Council of Nicea in 787.

He also took the Greek codex of the treatise of Saint Basil against Enomius, which played an important role in the debate over the Filioque i.e., that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. Since all the texts procured by Cusa dated back to the period before the schism, they had the effect of debunking the argument of the main Greek speaker, Mark Eugene, according to which the Filioque had been introduced only later.

Another decisive indication of the work of Cusa is the Codex Harlaiana, containing the texts of the Apostles and the letters of the New Testament. It becomes clear, that Cusa had personally researched that text, since in a gloss, he noted that the so-called ``Comma Johanneum'' (I John 5:7), was missing.

Other manuscripts brought back from Constantinople by Cusa, and today preserved in his library at Berncastel-Cues, are codices No. 8 and No. 9 with the Psalms; No. 18 with an exegesis of the Gospel according to Saint John written by the Greek fathers; No. 47, the prayers of John Chrysostomas; and No. 48, the exposition of the Nicene David Paphlagon on Gregory of Nazianzo. Cusa also acquired a manuscript with the Platonic Theology of Proclus, which he then gave to Ambrose Traversari in Ferrara for translation.

It is therefore possible to hypothesize that it was Cusa--whom Piccolpasso described as an ``expert in Greek and otherwise quite cultivated and endowed with universal gifts,'' as well as a ``discoverer of many manuscripts and the owner especially of Greek works, including those with Latin commentary and grammatical annotations''--who contributed the essential sources
which were to demonstrate the correctness of the Latins' argument on the Filioque, thus cementing theunion. As early as Oct. 17, 1437, Cardinal Cesarini, speaking with Ambrogio Traversari, had described the manuscripts on the preceding councils as valuable background material for the consultations with the Greeks.

During the discussions which took place during the council, first in Ferrara and then in Florence, the Latins raised the argument that the Filioque; was not an addition but simply a more precise explanation of an affirmation contained in the Credo. Even the fathers of the Second Joint Synod, they argued, considered it not an addition to the Nicene Creed, but a specification. In fact, they said, the Filioque; is an explanation contained in the words {who proceeds from the Father.} Since the Son participates in the Father in all essential aspects, the Holy Spirit proceeds necessarily both from the Father and from the Son.

This had also been the argument of St. Basil, who taught that the Father would be unthinkable without the Son and the Holy Spirit. The three persons, he wrote, must always be thought of together: If one thinks only of the Son, one thinks also on the one hand of the Father and on the other, of the Holy Spirit, just as the procession of the Holy Spirit is recognized also from the Son. Everything that the Father has, the Son has as well, except for the fact that the Son is not the Father. For this reason, with that sole exception, everything that the Father affirms, the Son also affirms. According to John 16:15, Christ himself states: ``Everything that the Father has is mine.''

This position was also presented by John of Montenero in the sessions going from March 2-24, 1439, when he spoke eloquently for the Latins. The argument struck the Greeks, particularly Isidor, Bessarion, Dorotheus of Mitilene, and Gregory Melissenos, chaplain of the imperial court. Isidor replied in the name of the Greeks that they needed some time to digest the argument fully, and that they would appreciate receiving it in written form, particularly the quotations from the Latin fathers. After having attentively studied the Patristic texts--in which a crucial role was played by John of Ragusa's comparison of the codex brought by Cusa with the text brought by Mark Eugene--on June 8 they recognized unity in the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit.

The Significance of the Filioque;

Even if the significance of the union of the Churches over the issue of the {ilioque is undervalued by the majority of our contemporaries, they are at the very heart of the values of our Christian humanist culture, and the values of the Christian West. If we lose this knowledge, we will also lose what is most precious, that which is at the basis of our conception of man.

The emergence of Christianity marks the greatest turning-point in human history. By becoming man, Christ broke the cyclical image of history, which had been the leading feature of pagan, pre-Christian myths and cults. With Christ, who was at the same time man and God, man made in the image and likeness of God became capax Dei, that is, capable of participating in God,and thus capable of infinitely increasingself-perfection and approach to God.

Only with the Son of God who becomes man, with the Passion and Resurrection, was man's redemption made possible. God's capacity to become man, and man's capacity to participate directly in God, is the basis of the inalienable dignity of every man. No other monotheistic religion believes that God has become man. What Christianity allows man is his liberation, his freedom through necessity.

Nicolaus of Cusa demonstrated passionately the correctness of the Filioque, not only through his service to the Church, but also by his teaching of the Trinity and his Christology, which are of immense speculative greatness. For Cusa, Christ gives meaning to the universe, and his followers are those who give meaning to man. Thus he writes in the beautiful sermon ``Confide, My Daughter'' of 1444, ``Let us seek in ourselves what Christ is! If we do not find him in ourselves, then we will not find him at all.''

Then, he continues with the following observation:

Until such time as man reaches life in his own humanity, the true cause of every life; in truth, cause of all that is true and acceptable; and in the Good, cause of all that is good and to which it is right to aspire--he will never reach his aim, he will never have peace."

How true! And how right it is, to affirm that the root of all unhappiness for those who today hastily and restlessly chase after pleasure, lies in the fact that they believe they can realize their own humanity in some way other than by ``seeking Christ within themselves.''

This is why the Filioque is so important for us today. The idea that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, but not from the Son, contains a different relationship between man and God. It is, in a certain sense, a more impersonal relationship: The Father is more the authority, whom man must obey, whom man may indeed love, but more from a distance. Man does not participate in equal measure in the process of creation, as is the case if the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son.

Microcosm and Macrocosm

For Cusa, man is the microcosm in which all the various elements and lawfulnesses of the macrocosm are united, thus uniting the order of creation. Each man recapitulates within himself in concentrated form, the whole history of evolution, from the inorganic to the spiritual--an incredibly modern idea for a thinker of the fifteenth century!

The fact that no form of life can fully developits capacities without participating in the next higher form, can be seen with animals, which only fully accentuate their potentialities once they come into contact at some point with that which is human; it can also be seen with man, who becomes fully man only if he participates in God. Thus, in Jesus Christ, man is enhanced to his maximum degree. Christ is, in fact, man in the most perfect manner, being at once fully God and fully man. For this, the perfection of man, and with him the perfection of all creation, are possible only if man is more than just man, and if he is at the same time also God.

A perfected meaning is given to creation only if it is understood that the divine Logos takes into its possession and service, the primordial creative image of the universe, and of the man who represents it--a man who possessed personally the highest capacity for self-perfection. Christ, as He who gave meaning to creation--what a wonderfully consoling thought! Yet, this very highest basis of existence is not too elevated for us, nor is it unreachable; it is up to us to open ourselves to this truth. As Cusa states in his the Vision of God, Christ is even closer to us than the father, the mother, the brother, or the friend.

Trinity Doctrine

Cusa was likewise drawing on Augustine and the school of Chartres, when he stated that man is in the image and likeness of the triune God. The unity and trinity of God consists in the fact that the three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are one single universal principle and one Creator.

It is truly fascinating to think that Cusa elaborated his trinitarian doctrine for the first time in On Learned Ignorance, a work which was born of discussions with the best and most cultivated Greeks during his crossing from Constantinople to Venice, which lasted three and a half months. He writes: ``Compared to unity in multiplicity, similarity in diversity, and the harmonic order in the universe, God is the first principle, the absolute unity, equality, and connection, and therewith the one and triune cause from which the all multiplicity and diversity creatively derive.'' He adds that divine ``unity'' spawns absolute ``equality,'' and that ``connection'' derives from both.

This speculative manner of understanding the Trinity occupied Cusa for his whole life, and, as emerges particularly from his On the Peace of Faith, he saw in it the best method for making the other religious representatives understand that the Christian trinitary concept does not have anything to do with a doctrine of three divinities.

Cusa writes: "Some name unity Father, equality Son and connection the Holy Spirit, since those designations--even though they are not proper, nevertheless suitably designate the Trinity. For the Son is from the Father and Love or Spirit from unity and the equality of the Son. That is, the nature of the Father passes over in the Son into equality. Therefore, love and connection arise out of unity and equality"

In another location, Cusa uses an analogical description of the divine Trinity, comparing it to the image of Love--the three elements of the loving, the loved, and Love. We can add that without divine Love, agape, man does not understand anything.

The Image of God

Cusa dedicated a later work, On Conjecture, to Cardinal Julian Cesarini. Here, he developed the idea that the Trinity of absolute unity, infinite equality, and connection in God, taken together with the corresponding relationship between God and his Creation, are conjecturally transferred to man and his relationship to what on various levels man ``creates, guides, and receives.''

Cusa wrote a personal letter to Cardinal Cesarini, affirming that the great similarity of man to God consists in the fact that man may participate with his insight, his justice, and his love, in divine unity, equality, and connection. In this form, man both encompasses within himself, at the microscopic level, and transcends the entire cosmos, and is, in his own way, simultaneously the receptive and the creative image of the triune God.

This is the essence of our existence.

Of course, man can choose to reject this fact. But in doing so, he violates the universal laws implicit in the order of Creation, and he cannot do so for long before nature rebels against him and brings about his demise. Or, as Pope John Paul II expressed it in the encyclical {On Social Concern,} nature will no longer recognize man as its master.

Our knowledge of the essential aim of our existence in God, as creative image of the triune God, is the most precious knowledge that we have. It is precisely this knowledge that we risk losing today. This is the central target of the satanic offensive today in all its convolutions. And precisely because the image of man thus defined is the focus of their attack, for the first time it is our entire human civilization which is at risk.

What is required, therefore, is an initiative which addresses the most important problem of our time, as the Council of Florence did with theirs. At that time, the problem was to bolster the unity of the Church against the onslaught of the Turks. Even if similar dangers stand out today, the central question of the existence of the human species, the punctum saliens of human history, is different today.

Urgent Tasks

Today, the lives of billions of human beings are threatened by economic injustice--a problem which was already addressed twenty-two years ago by Pope Paul VI in the encyclical On the Development of Peoples. In the time that has elapsed since then, the problem has worsened so dramatically, that only with the immediate realization of the ideas contained in the On the Development of Peoples and the On Social Concern, will it be possible to save the human species.

But, as in the Council of Florence, union will be attained only on the same high level as the {Filioque} principle itself. Even to solve the problems currentlyafflicting humanity, it is necessary to find in Cusa's works those metaphysical and ontological truths which will necessarily lead to their solution. Only with the development of all microcosms, i.e., of all men on this planet, so that they realize their full, God-given human potential, will it be possible to reach a Concordantia.

Therefore, may this 550th anniversary of the Council of Florence serve as the occasion to revive this grand proof of the capacity of man to act on the basis of reason, with our theme this time being the realization of a plan for the development of all peoples. For, participation in the triune God concerns each and every human being.

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