CITIZEN OF TWO WORLDS
Since through his body and soul man becomes a participant in both the intelligible and the sensible, he is a citizen of two worlds, yet a whole being, with a special vocation to spread the grace of God through the whole of creation, animate and inanimate. He is superior to the angels, because, as he is made in the image of God, he can be open to the entire universe, the sensible as well as the intelligible. He is akin to God and matter, a member of both families, made to enjoy both the divine and the terrestrial. In him and through him, matter too is to be redeemed. That is why Christ became man and assumed a material body. Man in Christ is the Savior of the world: he restores it to God so that it may be filled with his glory.
...God includes the whole universe in his creation as well as in redemption in Christ. This does not remove all distinctions between humanity and the rest of creation. Humanity has a special vocation as the priest of creation, as the mediator through whom God manifests himself to creation and redeems it. But this does not make humanity totally discontinuous with creation, since a priest has to be an integral part of the people he represents. Christ has become part of creation, and in his created body he lifted up the creation to God, and humankind must participate in this eternal priesthood of Christ.
Metropolitan Paulos Mar Gregorios
The Human Presence: Ecological Spirituality and the Age of the Spirit Pages 65 and 89, Amity House, New York 1987 First Published by the World Council of Churches 1978
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