by Archpriest Pavel Velikanov
If death has been defeated, why do people still die?
Christ did not simply raise the dead—this had happened before, through the prophets and even during His earthly ministry. But those who were raised returned to this life only to die again. What took place in Christ is altogether different. After His Resurrection, He does not die. His human nature passes into a new mode of being in which death no longer has any place.
Saint Basil the Great offers an image that helps us understand why we still pass through death. Imagine a potter who lovingly fashions a beautiful vessel. An enemy, out of malice, pours molten lead into it. The vessel can no longer be used, and the lead cannot be removed. What can be done? The potter breaks the vessel and remakes it—this time free from the impurity.
The “lead” is sin, which has penetrated and distorted human nature. Only through death is a person fully freed from it. That is why we still die. Yet for us, death is no longer the end of life; it becomes a passage—from one mode of being to another.
The risen Christ is the first in whom God’s intention for humanity—to grant immortality—has been fulfilled. When we say that He has “conquered death,” we mean that He has overcome it in His human nature, opening this same path for us.
How do we know that Jesus Christ truly lived and rose again? Could it all have been invented?
There is substantial historical testimony to the existence of Christ. Ancient authors such as Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius refer to Him as a real historical figure. Even apocryphal texts—though not recognised as Scripture—serve as literary witnesses to the early memory of Christ.
Yet for Christians, the Resurrection is not merely a historical claim. It is the very foundation of faith. As the Apostle Paul writes:
“If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14).
Without the Resurrection, everything that followed—the descent of the Holy Spirit, the apostles’ preaching, the growth of the Church—would be inexplicable. Over two thousand years, no convincing evidence has been produced to show that the Resurrection did not take place.
There is also a striking psychological witness. After Christ’s death, His disciples were disheartened and afraid. They returned to their former lives—“I am going fishing,” says Peter (John 21:3). Everything seemed finished. And yet, suddenly, these same men begin to preach boldly, without fear of persecution or death. What could account for such a transformation, if not an event of overwhelming reality?
Their message was simple: Christ is risen. And they were prepared to die for it.
If Christ has shattered the gates of hell, why does the Church still speak of it?
In the Paschal hymns, we hear that Christ “has destroyed the gates of hell.” This does not mean that hell has ceased to exist. Rather, it means that its dominion has been broken.
Before Christ, humanity faced a clear divide: you were either alive, or you were in hell. This is why earthly life was so immensely valued by the Jewish people—they understood that beyond it, nothing awaited but suffering.
But Christ introduces a new dimension. He becomes the First to breach this boundary, entering hell and emerging from it into a transformed mode of existence—and not alone. He brings out with Him those who awaited His coming. By His descent into hell, He breaks its monopoly over the human soul.
Hell is not abolished, but it is no longer inescapable. A way out has been opened.
If Christ came to save us from sin, why do people still sin?
Before Christ, humanity lacked a clear measure of what it means to be truly human. There were the commandments given through Moses, but these largely restrained what was already destructive: do not steal, do not commit adultery. They set limits, but they did not yet heal.
Why, then, do people continue to sin after Christ? For the same reason that a musician, even knowing how music should sound, can still play out of tune. No one can force him to play well—not even God, who has given us freedom.
In the language of Christian ascetic teaching, the root of sin is ignorance of God—not simply intellectual ignorance, but a lack of living knowledge. When a person comes to know God as the One most deeply loved and desired, sin begins to lose its hold. One may still stumble, but no longer lives in conscious opposition to God.
Sin is often reduced to the breaking of moral rules. Yet a person may outwardly keep every rule and still be inwardly corrupt. Christ has indeed freed humanity from sin—but this freedom requires our response: the willingness to receive God and to follow His will.
The Church speaks of a universal resurrection. What will it be like?
No one knows. Any attempt to imagine it will fall short.
Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra offers a helpful insight. Reflecting on the risen Christ, he asks: what kind of body did Christ have after His Resurrection? He answers that Christ appeared bodily to His disciples not because He was bound by His resurrected body, but because He chose to reveal Himself in a way they could recognise.
The risen Christ—and His body—exist in a reality that is not accessible to us in this life. We cannot fully grasp it now. We will understand only when we ourselves are raised.
A similar intuition appears in the final book of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. When the characters enter the “real” Narnia, they find something strangely familiar: it resembles the world they knew, yet it is more real, more vivid, more alive. Everything is the same—and yet more truly itself. They are invited to go
“further up and further in.”
This suggests not a static existence, but a living, ever-deepening reality. What is precious to us here is not lost—it is transfigured.
Why did God have to come into the world and suffer on the Cross?
The answer can be very simple.
When a person asks God, “What have You done to overcome evil, sin, and death?” the Christian answer is not an argument, but a Person—Christ crucified.
What more could be done for the world?
Here lies what sets Christianity apart: the immeasurable love of God. For our very existence—for our freedom to choose, even to choose wrongly—God pays not with something external, but with His own life.
Translated by the Catalogue of Good Deeds
