What is the Holy Mystery?
The Holy Mysteries, in other words, the sacraments, are the means through which humanity can participate in the mystical divine grace. In other words, everything that is in or related to the church is considered sacramental or mystical by the church.
The sacraments, like the church, contain the visible and the invisible. In each sacrament, external visible signs are combined with internal invisible grace. St. John the Baptist wrote that they are called mysteries because what we believe is not the same as what we see, and vice versa, we see one thing and believe another.
Mysteries are given to us individually - they are mediators (means) through which God's grace is given to each individual Christian. In the vast majority of cases, the priest mentions the Christian name of the person to whom the sacrament is administered. In a broad sense, the whole life of a Christian is considered as a single sacrament or a single sacred symbol. The diversity of the holy mysteries is expressed in many actions - some are performed only once in a lifetime (baptism, marriage), others - probably every day (communion, confession).
Sacrament (sacrament) and secret (mystery)
In the context of the Eastern churches, it is customary to use the term "holy mystery" because, first of all, it is a literal translation of the phrase "holy mystery" from the Greek. The two words "mysterion" (Greek) and "sacrament" (Latin) contrast in meaning. At first, "sacrament" meant the rite of swearing allegiance to the gods by Roman soldiers, which changed their status from ordinary people to special ones. By "mystery" we understand something else - a rite through which the truth of God's salvation, love, care, protection and presence is gradually revealed to us. Both words can be used, although they are different, but, fortunately, they do not exclude each other, but complement each other. In fact, we do change our status, and therefore God's revelation is revealed to us.
