The Epistle Reading of the Annunciation (Part 1, variant)

Summary

Nikolaos Sotiropoulos, opening with prayer, expounds the Epistle reading of the Annunciation as the joyful beginning of humanity's salvation, when the bodiless God began to take flesh from the Virgin Mary, and links the feast with the deliverance of Greece attested by Saint Kosmas Aitolos and Theodoros Kolokotronis. Turning to Hebrews 2, he stresses that Scripture holds profound depths and that difficult passages demand careful theological attention. He interprets the chapter to show Christ as the Sanctifier, the same God who sanctified under the Old Covenant, who as man descends from Adam and therefore calls believers His brothers, identifying acts of mercy toward them as done to Himself. He defends the Chalcedonian teaching of Christ's unconfused and inseparable two natures against Monophysitism, and argues from Scripture that the devil is a real personal being rather than a symbol.