Humankind—the Crown of Creation

For you fashioned a man by taking dust from the earth,

and honoured him, O God, with your own image.

You placed him in the Paradise of delight.

(Anaphora of the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great)

118. “Lord ... what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that  you  care  for  him?  Yet  you  have  made  him  little  less  than  God,  and crown him with glory and honour. You have given him dominion over  the  works  of  your  hands;  you  have  put  all  things  under  his  feet”  (Ps 8:1, 4-6). With these words Holy Scripture extols humankind. The Lord God set humanity to govern creation: “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Gn 1:26).
119. In the course of six days God creates the world, preparing it for human-kind: “It was not to be looked for that the ruler should appear before the subjects of his rule; but when his dominion was prepared, the next step was  that  the  king  should  be  revealed”(Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 2: PG 44, 132).  Having  created  humankind,  God crowns his creation. “In what then does the greatness of human-kind consist, according to the doctrine of the Church? Not in his likeness to the created world, but in his being in the image of the nature of the Creator”(Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 16, PG 44, 177).
120. Based on the above, Gregory of Nyssa teaches that the dignity of the human being lies in the fact that by its very nature humanity is higher than all creation, since it was created in the royal image of its creator and freely and with full authority rules over its desires(See Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 3-4: PG 44, 134-136). The dignity of humankind is in the image of God. The Lord himself preserves human dignity as inviolable and cares for the human being:Who else is there that ministers to you more faithfully than I? All creation I created to serve you; the heaven and the earth serve you: the one with its moisture, the other with its fruits. For your sake the sun serves with its light and with its warmth, and the moon and  the  stars  lighten  the  night.  For  your  sake  the  clouds  nourish the earth with rain, and the earth brings forth all manner of grasses with their seeds and the trees with their fruits to serve you. For your sake the rivers bear fish and the wastes rear beasts(Kirill of Turov, Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Easter). 

Humankind—in the Image and Likeness of God)

121. The Book of Genesis reveals a profound bond between humankind and God:  “Let  us  make  humankind  in  our  image,  according  to  our  likeness” (Gn 1:26). In his commentary upon these words, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons explains: “The image of God is the Son, according to whose image  humankind  was  made;  and  for  this  reason  he  appeared  in  the  last  times,  to  render  the  image  like  himself”(Irenaeus of Lyons, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 22). It  was  precisely  in  the  image of Christ, the incarnate Son of God, that humankind was created. Humanity is the “image of the Image,”(See John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Orientale Lumen [Light of the East], (May 2, 1995), 15; see also Gregory of Nyssa, On Perfection, To the Monk Olympius: PG 46, 272) existing “in Christ,” in whom the human being is adopted by God. It can only be understood “through Christ”(See John  Paul  II,  Encyclical  Redemptor  Hominis  [The  Redemption  of  Man]  (March  4,  1979), 11).
122. As affirmed by the Holy Fathers, humankind in its essence is the image of the Prototype—the inexpressible, unknowable, and immortal God (Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 16: PG 44, 177). Humankind has the capacity of “intellect and free will” (John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, II, 12: PG 94, 920) and the interior power of self-determination (See Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, 16: PG 94, 177). Thus, the Holy Fathers affirm that the image of God in humankind is the ground of our being, existence, and personal self-determination.
123. Humankind, as the image of God, always aspires to its Prototype: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for you, O God” (Ps41[42]:2). The Holy Fathers referred to this aspiration as the longing of humankind to attain the likeness of God. In the words of Gregory of Nyssa, “truly herein consists the real assimilation to the Divine, that is, in making our own life in some degree a copy of the Supreme Being” (Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection: PG 46, 89-92). Saint  John  of  Damascus  believes  that  “the  phrase  ‘after  his  likeness’  means likeness in virtue [to God] so far as that is possible”(John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, II, 12: PG 94, 920).
124. Every  human  being  that  comes  into  the  world  is  called  to  grow  in  likeness  to  God—to  achieve  divinization  [also  known  as  deifica-tion, the process of theosis]: “God has given us, through these things, his  precious  and  very  great  promises,  so  that  through  them  you  may  escape  from  the  corruption  that  is  in  the  world  because  of  lust,  and  may become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4). This partaking in God’s nature constitutes human happiness. Likeness to God can be attained by us only by free choice and assent, and by cooperation with God’s grace. “Our likeness to God requires our cooperation. When the intellect begins to perceive the Holy Spirit with full consciousness, we should realize that grace is beginning to paint the divine likeness over the divine image in us”(Diadochos of Photiki, On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination, 89:PG 65, 1203).

From Christ Our Pascha, 

the Catechism of the Ukrainian Catholic Church