“Saint Thomas the Apostle confessed both the visible and tangible God and the invisible God. This is Thomas’s great transformation—that he confessed not only Christ’s resurrection, but also His divinity,” Patriarch Daniel of the Romanian Orthodox Church said on Sunday at the historic “Saint George” Chapel of the Patriarchal Residence.
He underlined that the Apostle Thomas did more than believe—he bore witness.
“The hymns of today’s service show that when Saint Thomas, whom some of the Holy Fathers call Blessed Thomas, sought to know the truth of the Resurrection, he helped all later generations become convinced of it.”
“Thomas had doubt, but then he went beyond saying ‘I believe’ and declared: ‘My Lord and my God.’ He recognised that Jesus of Nazareth, though seen as a man, is by nature God as a person—the Lord of life and the eternal God who grants eternal life to humanity,” the Patriarch explained.
Sight beyond the senses
Patriarch Daniel said that Thomas touched a physical body and confessed the divinity of the One who had been crucified and risen.
“Faith is a spiritual vision beyond sensory perception, beyond physical sight. It is a way of knowing, a gift of God given to all people since the creation of humanity.”
He added that when God said, “Let us make man in Our image and likeness,” He made humanity capable of a relationship with Him because humans bear His image.
“Man was created in fact according to the image of the communion of the Holy Trinity. That is why a mysterious plural is used—‘in Our image and likeness,’ not ‘in My image and likeness,’” he said.
Sunday, the day of encounter
Patriarch Daniel also stressed the importance of Sunday as the day of encounter with the Risen Christ.
“This encounter is realised through Communion with the Body and Blood of the Lord. As Saint Cyril of Alexandria said in the 5th century, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist is a confession of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.”
“The reward or fruit of living faith is the salvation of the soul—that is, the union of the faithful person with the living eternal God,” he added.
At the end of his homily, Patriarch Daniel urged the faithful to cultivate faith and to recognise that all things, visible and invisible, are created by God.
Photo: Lumina Newspaper
