Holy Forefather Abraham.

God told Abraham to leave his home and his relatives and go to Canaan, the country between the Mediterranean and Jordan. Originally called Abram, Abraham received his new name from God as a sign of the covenant: Abram, which God named Abraham, means "father of a multitude" or "father of many nations." With his wife Sarah, Abraham journeyed to the land promised to him and his descendants.

The most sublime of the New Testament revelations, that of the Holy Trinity, was also prefigured in Abraham's life. This is the famous visit of the three angels of God to Abraham under the oaks of Mamre. Abraham addresses the three angels as one, calling them Lord. They eat in his presence and foretell the birth of Isaac from Sarah in her old age. In this visitation of God to Abraham, the Orthodox Church sees the prefiguration of the full revelation of the Holy Trinity in the New Testament.

Abraham's faith was united to his works, and was expressed in his works. Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, and the scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness;" and he was called the friend of God.

The life of Abraham reveals the inseparable unity of faith and obedience. His willingness to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac at God's command stands as the supreme test and vindication of his faith, demonstrating that true belief must be expressed through action and surrender to the divine will.

The fulfillment of the promise to Abraham comes in Jesus Christ. He is the descendent of Israel's first father in whom all the families of the earth are blessed. Thus, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, sings at her time of waiting for the Savior's birth, that all generations will call her blessed because the fulfillment has come from God "as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever" (Lk 1.55, see also Zachariah's Song in Lk 1.67–79).

Abraham lived to an advanced age, seeing the fulfillment of God's promises in the birth of Isaac and the continuation of his lineage. His descendants became the people of Israel, and through his line came Jesus Christ, the Savior of all humanity.

The salvation of the world which has come in Christ was prefigured in the life of Abraham, as well as the Christian doctrine about faith and works and the Christian revelations about the sacrifice, the priesthood, and even the most Holy Trinity. Abraham's life and faith have exercised an immense influence throughout the entire history of Christianity and Judaism.

Orthodox iconography has traditionally painted the Holy Trinity in the form of the three angels who came to Abraham. The most famous icon of the Holy Trinity, the one often used in the Church on the feast of Pentecost, is that of Saint Andrew Rublev, a disciple of Saint Sergius of Radonezh in Russia in the fourteenth century. Additionally, he is the patron saint of those in the hospitality industry.

Abraham is mentioned in the Divine Liturgy of Basil the Great, just before the Anaphora, and Abraham and Sarah are invoked in the prayers said by the priest over a newly married couple. Through the centuries, the Orthodox Church has held Abraham forth as the model of faith and obedience for all believers.

Abraham stands at the beginning of salvation history in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Righteous Forefather Abraham lived around 2000 B.C. His story is found in the Book of Genesis, Chapters 12-25. Abraham was the first patriarch of the people of Israel, and God made the first promise of His salvation of all the people of the earth to Abraham, with whom He also made His covenant to be faithful forever.

Salvation history, properly so-called, begins with Abram, whom God named Abraham which means "father of a multitude." The word patriarch means "the father of the people." God told Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed in his seed (Genesis 22:18), and ordered him to leave his home and his relatives and go to Canaan, the country between the Mediterranean and Jordan. Through his singular faith in the promises of God, he was justified before the giving of the Law and the coming of Grace; through his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, he portrayed the love wherewith God loved the world in sacrificing His only-begotten Son.

The Orthodox Church honors Abraham as the prototype of all believers and the spiritual father of all the faithful in Christ. The faith of Abraham is prototypical of all those who in Christ are saved by faith. The New Testament stresses faith as necessary for salvation. The model for this faith is Abraham. Abraham is perhaps the supreme example, being the common patriarch of Judaism (as the founding father of the Covenant between man and God) and Christianity (being seen as the prototype of all believers). He obeyed God's will, and went to the mountain to slay his child. God stopped him and placed a ram in Isaac's place saying "for now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me" (Gen 22.12).