This is a beautiful, beautiful text. It’s taken from A Spiritual Psalter, compiled by Theophan the Recluse. Here we read a very succinct explanation of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

He Who is from God, God the Word, the only-begotten Son of the Father, of one essence with the Father, Being from Being ineffably begotten of the Father without a mother before all ages – the very same is born in the last days to a daughter of men, to the Virgin Mary without a father. God is born incarnate, wearing flesh borrowed from her, having become man, which He was not, and remaining God, which He was, in order to save the world. And He is Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of the Father and the only-begotten of His Mother.

I confess One and the Same as both perfect God and perfect Man, in two natures, united in one hypostasis or person, recognized as indivisibly and unconfused and unchangeably God Who was clothed in flesh, animated by an intelligent and rational soul, and came to resemble us in every way except sin.

One and the Same is earthly and heavenly, temporal and eternal, both with and without beginning, timeless and subject to time, created and uncreated, suffering and free of suffering, God and Man and perfect in both. One in two natures, in both Unitary.

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