‘Whosoever remains in Me and I in them bears much fruit.’ The Panaghia, like no one else, lived this truth. She was above all the one who remained in Christ and Christ remained in her as she was pregnant with Him, but He also remains eternally in her. Chiefly in this way, the Panaghia is she who bore
‘much fruit’, Christ Himself.
The Lord here certainly means bearing spiritual fruit in general, spiritual life as such. That’s not a human work, though it might sound like it is. A man is one who lives and develops spiritually, but Christ is the one who acts within man, as long as man con- sents and takes part; and the Spirit of God imbues all the acts of man.
We too are called to remain in Christ, and for Christ to remain in us in such a way that the abundant fruit that we will bear is Christ Himself.
Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos (†)
From the book: Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos, “SPIRITUAL MESSAGES” Panorama Thessaloniki, 2017
