Stars

St. Nikolai Velimirovich: . . . The error of the nature worshipers, the ancient as well as the modern . . .

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Thus then we Christians understand the earth, the sun and the stars as the symbols of spiritual reality and in no way as the reality itself. Pagans of all ages, however, have mistaken those luminous bodies of the firmament for reality. As soon as they took them for reality they began to worship them. That is how the pagans have been ensnared by a terrible error to worship the creatures instead of the Creator. The Greeks worshiped the earth under the name of goddess Gaia, and the sun under the name of Apollo. The sun was worshiped in Egypt under the name of Osiris, and the moon under the name Isis. The moon was worshiped in Babylon, Assyria, Arabia and in many other countries under the name Ishtar.The Persians, as fire worshipers, bowed before the stars as divinities.

The error of the nature worshipers, the ancient as well as the modern, was caused by the fact that their spirit did not guide their eyes but vice versa: their eyes guided their spirit. Similar to a blind person their spirit tottered after their physical eyes and worshiped everything that the eyes declared as reality, and consequently as divinity.

+ St.  Nikolai Velimirovich, The Universe as Signs and Symbols

The Universe as Symbols and Signs: An Essay on Mysticism in the Eastern Church

St. Dimitry of Rostov: The lives and praises of the saints are like the stars in brilliance. Because of their number, we do not know the names of all the saints; still, they . . .

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“The lives and praises of the saints are like the stars in brilliance. Because of their number, we do not know the names of all the saints; still, they amaze us by their radiant majesty, as do the stars, which while fixed in their position in the heavens, illumine all that is below, being seen by the Indians, yet not concealed from the Scythians, shining upon the land and guiding by their light those at sea. Similarly, the radiance of the saints, though their relics be entombed in sepulchers, is not bounded by the ends of this earth here below. Therefore, we marvel at their lives and are amazed at how God has glorified them that please Him.”

+ St. Dimitry of Rostov, The Great Collection of The Lives of the Saints, Vol. 1

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