Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you have been bought with a high price. Therefore glorify God both in your bodies and in your souls, which are the work of God (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Take care of your body as the temple of God. Take care of it! It must be resurrected, and you must give an account to God of what you have done with your body. Just as you take care to heal your body when it falls ill, so take care to prepare it for the Resurrection by cleansing it of all passions.

Venerable Abba Isaiah

Your body, Christian, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who desires to dwell in you. Therefore have care for the temple, lest you offend Him who dwells in it.

Venerable Ephraim the Syrian

On the basis of the Bible, the Holy Fathers teach that the soul and body are not alien elements united in an individual only for a time, but are given simultaneously and forever in the very act of creation: the soul is "betrothed" to the body and inseparable from it.

Only the totality of soul and body is a complete person-hypostasis: neither soul nor body are such in themselves: "For what is man if not a rational living being composed of soul and body? - says St Justin the Philosopher. - So, is the soul in itself a man? No... And can the body be called a man? No... Only a being consisting of the union of both is called a man."

In all cases when Christian ascetic literature speaks of enmity between the flesh and the spirit (starting with the Apostle Paul: "the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh"; Gal. 5:17), it refers to the sinful flesh as a collection of passions and vices, and not to the body in general. And when "mortification of the flesh" is spoken of, it means mortification of sinful inclinations and "carnal lusts," not contempt for the body as such. The Christian ideal is not to humiliate the flesh, but to purify it and free it from the consequences of the fall into sin, to return it to its original purity and make it worthy of being likened to God.

Hegumen Hilarion (Alfeyev)

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