When the Homily is about Immunology

Being saved from what?

The first few chapters of Bishop Kallistos' book How are we saved? deals with how an Orthodox Christian would respond to that all too frequent question: "Are you saved?" In essence, the question doesn't fit with Orthodox soteriology and so if one were to ask a cradle Orthodox Christian they might get a blank stare. Which, in the evangelical construct, is a default "no."
The best response (besides the blank stare) would be, according to Bishop Ware, the present continuous tense: "I am being saved." And the reasoning for this is that we do not view salvation as something that takes place once after "signing on the dotted line." Rather it is a process which requires our participation in the victory won by Christ.

Though I personally find proof-texts to be naturally problematic, here are a few none-the-less which seem to imply that salvation is a process: Phil 2:12, Phil 3:12, 1 Cor 9:27, 2 Tim 4:7, 2 Tim 2:12.

Of course sin is what we are saved from, and I think we probably all know the standard definition of the greek word for sin amartia "missing the mark." Taking it abit further, it is "going astray" or the "failure to achieve the purpose for which one is created."

Bishop Ware reminds us that sin is not "just disobeying rules, but also, and more profoundly, what the Greek Fathers term planh 'wandering', 'error', 'illusion.' Sin, that is to say, is to be viewed not primarily in juridical terms, as the transgression of a moral code, but rather in an existential perspective, as the failure to be one's own real self. Sin is the lack of true humanness."

Illusion....O to be Illumined! Christ have mercy....

more from Bishop Ware later...