Heavenly Family

The Heavenly Family consists of the Heavenly Father, the Heavenly Mother and the Divine Christ.

The members of the Heavenly Family each have an Archangel that represents them. These are called Mithras, Anhita and Sarus.

Archangels

Mithras is the Guardian of Social Order; Anhita the Divine and Pure Mother (often compared to the Virgin Mary), and Sarus is the Listener, (often compared to the Divine Jesus and sometimes St.Michael as the leader of the spiritual battle).

Mithras

Mithras is the righteous leader and guarantor of social order.

Mithras has a mature rounded character. He has an inclination to look at things as a whole and with dispassion. He is motivated by a desire to see good order in human affairs and he has all the ability needed to influence others to come into line.

Mithras is the divine personality that desires good order. He is the power that connects people to each other in the right way and produces the good social order.

Mithras takes a holistic view of the world and human society and seeks to bring it into good order. Mithras is regarded as the righteous leader, crown prince or king.

Mithras is like a prince who considers the whole picture and seeks to create the good order that underlies the flourishing of life.

Mithras the Righteous Leader. Mithras has a strong desire for righteous order. He is a leader of society and a governor of the relationships between people. He is trusted to seek the common good of all and to see justice done. He upholds the social bonds that create the productive community and encourages the mutual flourishing.

Mithras is a champion of social order. He is concerned for the whole picture. He is concerned for the good relations between people and that their mutual interaction should produce a happy result.

Anhita

Anhita is the divine mother who provides growing life with nutrition and shelter adapted to their needs.

Anhita is fulfilled as a mother, she has a love of life and a desire to nurture others, especially the young and vulnerable and to help sustain them and see them grow and flourish, protected from the wider uncaring world.

Anhita is the divine mother personality. She produces the processes that give birth to life and nurture and protect it. We see her acting as 'Mother Nature' and also acting through the human parent.

Anhita has a love of life and seeks to provide conditions for the best growing, protecting and healing of others. She is sometimes called Anhita the Pure as everything that comes from her is perfectly pure and good.

Anhita is like the mother who gives her pure love in care for her children.

Anhita the Mother. Anhita provides what is needed for the incipient and developing life to grow happily into a productive being who can shoulder the tasks of an adult existence. Anhita cares about her nurselings and cares for them. She provides a womb or shelter adapted to the needs of the dependent individual and protected from the harshness of the uncaring world outside. Anhita is known especially as a nurturer and protector and as a guardian of the purity of the conditions in which life grows.

Anhita is motivated by love of life and seeks to nurture, protect and heal.

Sarus

Sarus (or sometimes Saros) is the listener who is sensitive to the souls of all creatures and thus provides guidance as to the best moral path of action.

Sarus has a sensitive soul and a deep interest in individuals. He understand people and has respect for their innate dignity. He tries to help everybody and especially those in greatest need.

Sarus is the divine Listener. He listens to the nature and needs of individual beings and responds accordingly. He is also called the Obedient, because he obeys the requirements of the situation as he hears it and not any separate personal will.

Sarus is the divine personality that desires to be of service to individual people. He is concerned to uphold the dignity of all, and is willing to sacrifice himself so that others can escape the full consequences of their actions. Sarus pays attention to individuals one at a time and seeks to save them from their sins.

Sarus is a teacher to us. Because of his empathy and knowledge of all beings and desire to help them he is a worthy teacher of morality.

Sarus is like a monk who serves the individuals he comes across.

Sarus the Listener. Sarus is a sensitive character and easily sees himself in the place of others. He feels the experience of each individual soul and desires that the best thing happens to them for their development and happiness.


Archdemons

Angels tending to evil

Azidus is a being of desire. He is inspired by an unbridled lust for power (and other delights as well). He has an anguinic (snake-like or reptilian) character lacking usual human emotions and empathy for others. He is obsequious to those above him in the power-chain, but cold-heartedly manipulates those who can be instruments of his success and ruthlessly eliminates his rivals.

Lucifer is the revealer of knowledge of cause and effect without revealing what is good and bad. Lucifer encourages a dispassionate, cold-hearted, instrumental view of the world. Lucifer is useful to the technologist and the technocrat, but considered a dangerous being by Christians. Lucifer's cold-heartedness makes him a sympathetic ally of Azidus the cold-hearted lustful one.

Chrestus Magtus

Chrestus Magtus ("The Mighty Servant") represents 'Human might in the service of the Good'.

Chrestus Magtus is a partial aspect of Auramazda, the Wise Lord.

Chrestus Magtus is the 'Useful One and the Strong'. Chrestus is the conscious human agent in striving for the Good. Chrestus has a love of life, a desire to see the individual and common flourishing. Chrestus is the good servant of the world-soul, seeking its increasing flourishing.

Chrestus Magtus is the best kind of human being - the fully adult human being, mature in mind, soul and soul.

Adult in mind, Chrestus Magtus has Eunoia or Good Thinking - able to see things clearly, the web of cause and effect relationships and awareness of the good - the ultimate good and the instrumental good.

Adult in soul, Chrestus Magtus has spiritual strength and emotional maturity. Chrestus is caring and courageous and his emotional engagement matches the true needs of the situation.

Adult in hand and body, Chrestus Magtus is strong, healthy and capable. Chrestus has all that is needed to take effective action and change the state of the world.

Chrestus and Jesus

We can describe someone as Chrestus if they are a good and useful person, someone who works to support the flourishing of life.

Historically among the ancient speakers of the Greek language a person was given the title Chrestus if they were considered an exceptionally good and useful person. Jesus was called Chrestus (the Good) as well as Christus which meant annointed. The two words sounded similar when spoken and were confused.

Zorochristians don't believe that Jesus alone can claim the title Chrestus, for Chrestus is a phenomenon that transcends any single individual. Neither Jesus, nor anyone else, is able to fully represent the richness of the personality of Chrestus. Over-identification of Chrestus with a Jesus in history provides a distorted idea of what Chrestus needs to be.

We don't believe that God calls us all to be copies of the historical Jesus, but that there are varied paths that we can take depending on our nature. This variety is represented in Zartochrestianism by the Chrestoprosopa and the saints. Sarus is considered first among the Prosopa by Zorochristians and his personality has a similarity to that of Jesus. However other Prosopa such as Mithras have important characteristics which Jesus lacks and must also be considered to gain a rounded understanding of what Chrestus is.

To recap: Firstly we believe that Jesus as a man came to demonstrate the idea of the divine saviour of the individual and that it is this divine being which can express itself through many people that should be the focus of attention, rather than the historical person.

Secondly we believe that the Jesus-personality (which for us is similar to the Sarus-personality) cannot save mankind alone. We believe that we need additional personalities to work with him - particularly Mithras and Anhita.

We believe that Chrestus Magtus can save mankind from the terrible predicament it is getting itself into. He can work as the divine saviour of mankind - to bring people out of a bad life of poverty, danger or slavery into a better life of freedom and fulfilment. He is the potential divine saviour of the world and its inhabitants if we work to pave a way for his arrival into his full glory.

amended Oct 4024 ZHE