What are angels? Well, angels happen to be the only creatures besides us human beings that were created by God in His image and likeness. What does that mean, “created in God’s image and likeness?” It means that, among lots of other things, they were created with a free will. When something has a free will, it means that it can decide to obey God by doing His will, or disobey God by doing whatever they want to do. We humans also have a free will, but with us, it is a constant struggle between doing God’s will and doing our own. With the angels, their decision to do God’s will or their own was made a long time ago. Once their decision had been made, it was and will be their decision permanently for the rest of time. This is why there are the good angels (who are generally just called “Angels”) and there are the bad angels, that is, those angels who decided to do their own will and disobey God forever. They are generally called demons, or devils.

All this decision making happened before we humans were created. God had just created the angels, and he had decided to test them, to see which ones would obey Him and which ones wouldn’t. Now, there was one particular angel whom God had created as the smartest, most powerful, and the most gifted of all the angels. His name was Lucifer, which means “one that brings light.” God had created him to be one of his chief assistants. Sadly, Lucifer looked at all of the great gifts that he had been given and, instead of giving God the proper credit, attributed his greatness to himself. Blinded by his tremendous pride, he claimed that HE was just as great as God, and that he should be God and rule as God. He did not think that he should serve God, if he was just as great as God. This was of course not true, but Lucifer was able to convince many of the other angels to follow him in disobeying God, by not serving God. While all of this was happening, a lowly archangel named Michael challenged Lucifer by shouting “WHO is like God?” Who is as great and powerful as God? Who can ever be excused from obeying God? God created us, so who can ever be greater than He who brought us from nothingness into existence? Michael understood that Lucifer was lying outrageously and so, strengthened by the truth, he led all the holy angels who had not been deceived by Lucifer’s lies against him and his horde of bad angels. After a long and fierce battle, Michael and the Holy Angels drove Lucifer and the bad angels out of Heaven forever. Lucifer’s name was then changed to satan, and his followers were called demons (or devils). Fortunately, there are more good angels than bad, and the good angels are always happy, for they are always doing God’s will. Hopefully, we will also try to do God’s will, and then we will share in their happiness.

Now, the angels are divided into nine categories, or choirs, depending upon the type of angel. These nine different types of angels all have different tasks, depending upon the different choirs they were created in. The names of these choirs are as follows: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. These nine choirs are divided into three groups, or hierarchies, with each hierarchy consisting of three choirs of angels. The hierarchies categorize the choirs in a semi-general way.