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Personal Identity

As creatures we possess not only a created nature but personal identity. We think we know instantly what a person is. To judge from what philosophers and psychologists say, you would think that whatever is best in the individual determines what the person is. Whereas the theologian knows that the person is a mystery, intelligible only by the contemplation of the Trinity. The priestly prayer of Christ in St John’s Gospel puts it in a

The Feast Day of the Archangels

CREATION OF ANGELS (5) The Holy Scriptures do not mention exactly when the angels were created, but the Church in its holy tradition, through the writings of its holy fathers, chiefly St. John of Damascus, St. John Cassian, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Dimitri Rostov, St. Dionysios the Areopagite – all of them believe that they were created from “nothing” prior to the sensible material world and