The great questions

How do I know God exists?

There is no proof that forces faith into your head, and it is a good thing there is not, because then it would no longer be love, it would be...

Last updated: July 9, 2026

Did Jesus truly rise from the dead?

This is what all of Christianity stands or falls on. Saint Paul says it bluntly, if Christ is not risen, then our faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15, 14).

What is the use of praying, if God already knows everything?

Prayer is not meant to inform God, who indeed already knows everything. It is for you to change, to enter into a relationship with Him. You do not pray...

Why did God become man?

God became man to bring us back to Him, but not from a distance, by entering our life Himself all the way to the end. Saint Athanasius the Great says...

What does salvation mean? Why do I need to be saved?

For Orthodox Christians, salvation is not primarily a legal calculation, a debt paid in a courtroom. It is a healing. Sin is not just a guilt to be erased,

Who is the Holy Spirit? What is the Holy Trinity?

Christians do not believe in three gods, but in One alone, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, three Persons, who love each other perfectly...

Do we truly have free will, if God already knows everything?

Yes, you are truly free. The fact that God knows what you will choose does not mean He chooses for you. Knowing is not the same as compelling....

What is sin? And what is the "ancestral sin"?

Sin is not primarily a list of broken rules, it is missing the mark, a breaking away from God, who is the source of life. As for the "ancestral sin,"...

Why does God allow suffering?

A short, clear Orthodox answer to the question: why does God allow suffering? Not a theory, but a Person who enters into our pain.

What is eternity?

What does eternity mean in the Orthodox faith? It is not endless time, but an entirely different way of existing — and it begins right now.

Why do I feel like God is distant?

Because feeling is not reality. God has not distanced Himself — but sometimes He withdraws the feeling of His presence, either to strengthen us or to wake us up. The saints lived this experience, and it did not destroy them.

Why did God forbid Adam and Eve to eat from the fruit of knowledge?

Not because God feared that man would know the good. In the Orthodox reading, the commandment was the first school of freedom: man was meant to receive life as a gift, not seize it against God.

Why did God send the Flood if children died too?

This is one of the hardest questions. Orthodoxy does not answer coldly: the Flood shows humanity sunk into widespread violence, but children should not be treated as personally guilty in the same sense. The final judgment of every soul remains in the hands of God, who is more just and more merciful than we are.

Why does God sometimes command the destruction of entire peoples in the Old Testament?

These texts are among the hardest. Orthodoxy reads them as historical judgments within a pedagogical stage of revelation, not as a Christian model to imitate. The fullness of God's will is seen in Christ, who stops vengeful violence and commands love for enemies.

How can we reconcile God's love with the violent passages of the Old Testament?

Not by denying the texts, and not by presenting God as violent in our own image. Orthodoxy reads the Old Testament through Christ: God works pedagogically in a brutal world, and the fullness of His face is revealed on the Cross, where He bears the world's violence instead of turning it back against us.

What is apophatic theology? Why do the Fathers say we cannot "know" God?

It sounds strange, a God you cannot know. But the Fathers do not say you cannot encounter Him, they say you cannot fit Him into the mind as a clear, finished idea. Apophatic theology means speaking about God by first saying what He is NOT, so as not to shut Him into a box too small for Him. It is a humility of the mind before Someone who entirely surpasses it, not resignation, but a path.

What is Saint Gregory Palamas's "essence-energies distinction," and why does it matter?

This is one of the most important and least known Orthodox teachings. In the 14th century, Saint Gregory Palamas showed that we must distinguish between God's essence, which no one has access to, and His workings, His uncreated energies, through which He truly makes Himself known and gives Himself to us. This is not a philosophical subtlety without stakes — it defends the very possibility of truly uniting with God, without turning Him into an idea and without believing oneself to be God.

Why did God allow evil and the devil to exist?

God did not create evil, He created only good beings, endowed with free will, including the angels. Evil entered through the choice of a created being, an angel who then became the devil, wanting to be like God, but without God. Evil therefore has no being of its own, it is rather a wound, a lack, a good will turned against the purpose for which it was made.

Will my body really rise again? How should the general resurrection be understood?

Yes, this very body, not just the soul, will rise at the end of the ages, changed and glorified, as Christ's body was after the Resurrection — recognizable, but no longer subject to corruption or death. Christianity does not believe only in the immortality of the soul, as some ancient philosophers did; it believes in the resurrection of the body, exactly as we confess in the Creed, "I look for the resurrection of the dead."

Are the laws of the Old Testament still valid today?

They are fulfilled in Christ, not mechanically repeated. The moral commandments remain, illumined and deepened by the Gospel, but Israel's ritual and civil laws are not imposed on Christians as a legal system.

Can God punish someone for a simple look back?

God does not mechanically judge an outward gesture. In Scripture, the outward gesture often reveals the state of the heart. The problem is not the eye, but desire turning back toward what God is handing over to judgment.

Can someone be saved at the last second after a life of crimes?

Yes, if the repentance is real, not theatrical. The good thief shows that God's mercy can work even at the last second. But no one should turn that mercy into a strategy for postponing repentance.

Did Adam and Eve really know what death was before they disobeyed?

Probably not by experience, but they had received God's word as a real warning. In Scripture, death is not only biological cessation, but separation from the Source of life.

Does God prefer obedience to justice?

No. In Orthodoxy, true obedience is not blind submission to injustice. Obedience to God includes justice, mercy, and truth. An 'obedience' that crushes love and justice becomes a distortion, not a virtue.

How do the Church Fathers interpret these difficult passages?

They do not read them simplistically. The Fathers preserve the historical sense, but also seek the spiritual, moral, and Christological meaning. For them, the key to Scripture is Christ, not our immediate impression before an isolated text.

Were the children who died in the Flood guilty?

No, not in the sense of personal guilt like adults who choose evil. They were caught in a world damaged by sin, and their ultimate destiny belongs to God, not to our speculation.

Why did David's baby die for his father's sin?

The text should not be read as if the child were guilty of David's adultery and murder. It shows that the sin of a king also wounds the innocent, and David himself is broken by the consequences of his act.

Why did God stop Abraham but not Jephthah when he sacrificed his daughter?

Because the two texts do not say the same thing. With Abraham, God stops the sacrifice and shows that He does not desire child sacrifice. With Jephthah, Scripture narrates a tragedy caused by a reckless vow; it does not say that God commanded it or approved it.

Why did Nadab and Abihu die for offering 'strange fire'?

This is not a mere technical ritual mistake. Nadab and Abihu were priests who entered the holy space disobediently, treating the fire of God as something manipulable. The text shows that holiness is not religious decoration.

Why did the firstborn of the Egyptians have to die?

The text is a judgment on slavery, on Pharaoh, and on the gods of Egypt, not a scene the Church reads with cold joy. The Passover of the Old Testament shows liberation, and in Christ its meaning is fulfilled differently: God's own Firstborn enters death Himself to set us free.

Why do innocent people die because of other people's decisions?

Because human beings do not live in isolation. Sin has real effects on others. This does not mean the victim is guilty, but that the fallen world is deeply bound together in suffering. Christ enters precisely this injustice and conquers it from within.

Why was Lot's wife punished for turning back?

The text is not about a simple movement of the eyes, but about a heart turning back toward Sodom while God is drawing it out of death. Her glance reveals attachment to the world from which she was being saved.

Why would God punish curiosity?

God does not punish sincere curiosity. The fall is not about humble questions, but about mistrust, pride, and the desire to take from God what should have been received in communion.