The answer
In the fullness of time, the Word came to the womb of the Lady Virgin Mary, and by the Holy Spirit Who came down upon her, He formed from her the flesh of the Saviour. It was pure from the ancestral sin, because it was without the seed of man, and hence devoid of the hereditary corruption. At the moment when the beginning of the humanity was formed, the divinity was united to it. There was no moment in time when the humanity of Christ was bereft of His divinity. This is why we cannot separate the humanity of the Master Christ from His divinity, for He was united to it from the beginning of the Incarnation. Likewise, we cannot separate Christ into two natures, a human nature and a divine nature.
From this came the expression of the Orthodox Faith with regards to Christ, “One nature of God the Incarnate Word.”26
His Holiness Pope Tawadros II
Notes
26 Translator’s note: In St. Cyril of Alexandria’s Letter 45.6 to Succenus, Bishop of Diocaesarea in Isauria, “[T]here is one phusis of the Word [of God] made flesh” (John I. McEnerney, trans. Letters 1-50. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2007. The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 76.).
Pope Tawadros II, My Faith: A Series of Dialogues on the Creed (Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, 2014), 72–73.
The pages in the book (72–73)
