“To Die Before You Die”

by Stavroforemonk Symeon Agiomicheltítēs

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

— Psalm 116:15 (LXX)

“He who fears death is not a Christian, for Christ has trampled down death by death.”

— St. Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation

“O life, how can You die? How can You dwell in a tomb? Yet by Your death You destroyed the reign of death, and raised up all the dead from Hades.”

— Lamentations of Holy Saturday, Stasis II

The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity — activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for men… It is fateful and ironic how the lie we need in order to live dooms us to a life that is never really ours.”

 — Ernest Becker

The dread of death is the universal ache of fallen man. Ernest Becker’s psychological treatise, The Denial of Death, identifies this fear as “the mainspring of human activity,” observing that modern man desperately creates meaning projects to circumvent mortality.¹ Yet the Orthodox Church, especially through her Holy Week hymns and the writings of the Fathers, offers a more piercing diagnosis: the fear of death is not just psychological but ontological—it is the lived consequence of estrangement from God, the loss of our logos, and the disintegration of the self.

Within the Orthodox tradition, death is not natural to man. The hymns of Pascha declare with radiant defiance, “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!”² This is not poetic metaphor but theological proclamation: death has been ontologically overturned, not bypassed, but entered and defeated from within. Thus, the Church does not merely offer consolation in the face of death; she proclaims its radical transfiguration.

Death as Alienation from the Logos

St. Gregory of Nyssa teaches that man was not created mortal; death is a condition that “entered into human nature through the abuse of free will.”³ Likewise, St. John of Damascus affirms that “God did not make death, but it was we who introduced it by our wickedness.”⁴ This is echoed liturgically during the Holy Friday lamentations: “I see Your strange and awesome Crucifixion… whereby You have brought death to death.”⁵

The Fathers interpret death not merely as biological cessation, but as a rupture in communion—a dislocation from the personal logos given by God. According to St. Maximus the Confessor, each human person has a unique logos, a divine meaning or destiny that corresponds to the Logos Himself.⁶ Death, then, is ontological deafness: the soul no longer hears its divine calling. It is spiritual amnesia, a forgetfulness of who one is in Christ.

The False Self and the Illusion of Immortality

Becker’s insight—that man constructs elaborate illusions to deny death—has a deep analogue in Patristic spirituality. The Fathers consistently warn against the phantasma (φαντασία), the delusional imagination that tries to preserve the ego by clinging to temporal achievements. St. John Climacus writes, “He who loves the world is a stranger to the tears of repentance.”⁷

In the Paschal Vigil, the Church confronts this illusion directly: “Let us cleanse our senses, and we shall behold Christ shining with the unapproachable light of the Resurrection.”⁸ To “cleanse the senses” is not only to purify passions but to deconstruct the self-fabricated identity, the “lie we need in order to live,” as Becker puts it. The Fathers teach that true life begins only when one accepts death—not just physical death, but the death of the ego.

Achievement and the Ladder of Descent

Orthodox tradition radically redefines achievement. In the world, greatness is marked by mastery and memory. In the Church, greatness is marked by humility and forgetfulness of self. During the Holy Friday services, the Church venerates Christ not as conqueror, but as “the One lifted up upon the Tree,” whose power is revealed in kenosis (κένωσις), the voluntary emptying of divine majesty.⁹

Thus, human achievement is only salvific when it imitates the descent of Christ. St. Paul describes this in the kenotic hymn: “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). This descent is re-presented liturgically as the Church sings: “The Noble Joseph took down Your most pure Body from the Tree, wrapped it in fine linen, and laid it in a new tomb.”¹⁰ The Noble Joseph is the image of all Christians: those who embrace the Crucified, entomb their own pride, and wait in the stillness of Holy Saturday.

The Logoi and the Restoration of Identity

St. Maximus’ doctrine of the logoi clarifies the mystery of human personhood: each person is a living intention of God, called to realize their logos in synergy with divine grace.¹¹ Identity is not self-made but grace-revealed. This is nowhere more profoundly experienced than in Baptism, the liturgical death and resurrection of the human being: “As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). This chant echoes during Paschal Orthros as a triumphant reminder of our recreated identity.

The movement toward one's logos is thus a journey of kenotic love, not of self-assertion. The Resurrection does not erase the wounds of death but transforms them into the signs of glory, as Christ appeared with His wounds intact. As the Doxastikon of Paschal Vespers proclaims: “Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free.”¹²

Conclusion: The Fear of Death Has Been Overthrown

Ernest Becker’s insight into human denial of death finds its resolution in the hymns of the Orthodox Church. The “life that is never really ours,” to use his words, is the life of self-delusion, driven by fear, constructed on sand. But the Church proclaims, with radiant clarity, a life that is truly ours: a life received through dying with Christ and rising in Him. The great paradox of Orthodoxy is that only by descending into death do we ascend into life.

Holy Week and Pascha do not offer a sentimental escape from mortality. They reveal the Cross as the Tree of Life and the Tomb as the Bridal Chamber. The Orthodox Christian, therefore, does not deny death but dies before death—through repentance, asceticism, and love—so that death itself becomes the gateway to eternity. For as we chant in Paschal Matins:

“Yesterday I was buried with Thee, O Christ.

Today I arise with Thee in Thy Resurrection.

Yesterday I was crucified with Thee.

Glorify me with Thee, O Savior, in Thy Kingdom.”¹³

 

Notes

1. Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: Free Press, 1973), 1.

2. Paschal Troparion, Orthodox Church Service Book.

3. St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection, PG 46.

4. St. John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book II.

5. Holy Friday Lamentations, Stasis I.

6. St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua to John, trans. Nicholas Constas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), Ambiguum 7.

7. St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 7.

8. Paschal Canon, Ode 1.

9. Holy Friday Aposticha, Vespers of the Taking Down from the Cross.

10. Apolytikion of Holy Saturday, Vespers Liturgy.

11. Maximus, Ambigua to John, Ambiguum 41.

12. Paschal Doxastikon, Vespers.

13. Paschal Matins, Ode 3.