We may learn from this that when we ask with faith, God does not give something other than what we ask for, but the very same thing. However, when we ask for one thing and receive something else, it is clear that either we did not make a good request or we did not ask with faith.
Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria
The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Luke, 11th Century
Since, after the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord the nature of the sad things has been changed, we no longer accompany the death of the Saints with mournings and lamentations, but rather celebrate over their graves. For the righteous, death after Christ is a journey to a better, happier and more blessed life.
Nikolaos P. Vassiliadis
Mystery of Death, Chapter 9: Death Before and After Christ; The Brotherhood of Orthodox Theologians pg. 225
The deiform soul, as Saint John Klimakos says, either ascends upward to heaven, or goes downward to Hades, while the earthly body returns to the earth from which it was taken. But through the grace of our Saviour Jesus Christ these two separated elements are once more joined together at His second coming, so that each of us may receive the due reward for his works. Who can grasp but an inkling of this mystery without being astonished? God raises man again from the earth after he has committed so many terrible crimes, despising the divine commandments, and He bestows on man the same immortality that he possessed originally, even though man has disobeyed the commandments which preserve him from death and corruption, and in his arrogance has drawn death upon himself.
St. Peter of Damaskos
Book 1: A Treasury of Divine Knowledge, Philokalia Vol. 1 edited by Palmer, Sherrard and Ware; Faber and Faber pg. 136, 8th century
The death of the Savior on the Cross was voluntary, because in the sinless human nature of the Theanthropos, free from original sin, death did not exist as an inherent necessity. Death is an inherent necessity in our bodies which are polluted by sin. Our Lord died freely, by virtue of His infinite love for us His creatures. Death had no authority at all over our absolutely sinless Lord. The Theanthropos gave up His spirit upon the Cross with His own will...When God commanded death to come...for death to be abolished by death, then death itself obeyed as a slave to the divine command and approached the Crucified One, but with fear and terror....This voluntary death is the death of Him who is Eternal Life itself, who is truly the Resurrection and the Life. It is a death of man, of course, but within the hypostasis of the Logos, the Incarnate God. And for this reason it is a death that resurrects...
Nikolaos P. Vassiliadis
The Mystery of Death, Chapter 6: The Crucifixion; The Orthodox Brotherhood of Theologians pgs. 146-147
The Lord died and His all-holy soul was separated from His all-pure body and descended into Hades. The lifeless body was received by Joseph, the respected and official member of the Jewish Sanhedrin (Mk. 15:43, Jn. 19:39) and by Nicodemus and was buried in a new grave. But from that very moment began the fulfillment of the mystery of our resurrection. For the Lord's body would undo the laws of corruption and would prove death powerless...the body of the Lord was naturally supposed to begin to decay and decompose. Yet it remained absolutely unaffected and incorrupt...as foretold by the Psalmist...'He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption' (Ps. 16:10). It could not be otherwise. For the pure body of the Lord was free of the death to which, because of sin and disobedience, original human nature had been subjected.
Nikolaos P. Vassiliadis
Mystery of Death, Chapter 7: The Descent of the Lord Into Hades; The Brotherhood of Orthodox Theologians pgs. 164-165
You grieve because the body dies? But this corruption is the cause of great joy! For what is being dissolved is death. That which is being destroyed is the mortality and not the essence of the body. When you see a statue thrown into the crucible and melted down, you do not say that the decomposition destroys the statue, but that another more beautiful creation is imminent. This is how you should think about the dead body and not mourn.
Nikolaos P. Vassiliadis
Mystery of Death, Chapter: Punishment Becomes a Blessing; The Orthodox Brotherhood of Theologians pg. 106
While, before the coming of Christ and the economy of the Cross, the name of death was fearsome, now its name is sleep, dormition or transfer (metastasis), and it is sweet, since it contains the profound hope of resurrection.
Nikolaos P. Vassiliadis
Mystery of Death, Chapter 9: Death Before and After Christ; The Brotherhood of Orthodox Theologians pg. 223