again: Deign to listen to me, join the ecumenicals, more or less." And I said: "Let me die, if it pleases God, I will not unite with renegades! You are my tsar, but what have they to do with you? They have lost their own tsar 4, and it is to devour you too that they have come here. I will not lower my arms raised to heaven until God has returned you to me. >>> There were many of these messages 5. There was talk of this and that. The last word was: Wherever you are, do not forget us in your prayers! "Today still, a sinner, as long as I can, I pray to God for him.

The Holy Fathers reckoned that the pagan world was not excluded by the design of God from the circle of divine care. Although not having supernatural Revelation, the pagan world was not deprived of *natural revelation*. With the correct use of the natural abilities of his spirit, man can have definite knowledge of God, of the world, and of himself. In addition, having an innate idea of God in his mind and an inborn knowledge of the Divine Will in his conscience, man was capable of realizing the limits of his knowledge and, by a spiritual renunciation, was capable of looking for aid from above. However, paganism did not utilize all the possibilities of *natural religious development*. Pagan religion could have been considerably higher and purer than it was in fact.

Therefore, the Apostle Paul regards as answerable before the countenance of divine truth not only the Hebrews, who had the law given through supernatural revelation, but also the pagans, who, while not having the same revelation, were not left without *natural means of knowing God*.

Revelation was accomplished gradually. The Lord did not reveal Himself and His will at once. In the beginning, through miraculous and wonderful phenomena of nature and its laws, He gave the so-called *natural revelation*. Then He gave the supernatural revelation by means of spiritual prophets and through miraculous events in man's history, and, finally, He gave the full Revelation of good tidings in the Son, the God-Man, Christ.