2025/07/18 by Lynch, Reginald
Arts and Humanities · #Baptism #Byzantine Studies and History #Byzantine Theology #Catholicism and Religious Studies #Chrismation #Image of Christ #Karl Barth and Christian Theology #Nicolaus Cabasilas #Seal of the Spirit
paper · doi:10.25365/exf-2025-4-20
openalex publication_date 2025/07/18 · openalex created_date 2025/12/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
In The Life in Christ, Nicholas Cabasilas uses Paul’s language of “sealing” and “forming” to describe the sacraments of Baptism and Chrismation as means by which the sacramental recipient comes to participate in the life of Christ as a new creation. Relying on images of Christ being “formed” and “portrayed” within the believer, Cabasilas draws on the earlier work of Clement and Cyril of Alexandria, and especially Gregory Nazianzus, to advance a theology of sacramental divinization in which the Christian is progressively conformed to the mysteries of Christ.