"The manner in which we [the Orthodox and the West] exist has become ontologically different … the Orthodox Christian does not live in a place of theological and conceptual conversations, but rather in a place of an essential and empirical lifestyle and reality as confirmed by grace in the heart [Heb 13:9]. This grace cannot be put in doubt either by logic or science or other type of argument … However, the change of man’s essence, theosis by grace, is a fact that is tangible for all the Orthodox faithful. Grace is not only obtained through the transformed relics of the saints which is totally inexplicable without acceptance of the divine. Grace also radiates from living Saints who are truly in the likeness of the Lord [Luke 8:46] (Patriarch Bartholomew, 1997)."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hypostatic_union