Counsels for One Preparing for Confession

Archimandrite Lazar (Abashidze) (+2018)

(From the author’s work, Sin and Repentance in the Last Times)

 

 

It is said in Holy Scripture: My son, if thou come to serve the Lord God, prepare thy soul for temptation. Set thy heart aright, and be steadfast, and be not troubled in the time of visitation. Cleave unto Him, and depart not away, that thou mayest be increased at thy latter end (Sir. 2:1–3).

As soon as you resolve to fast, repent, and confess your sins, a multitude of obstacles, both inward and outward, will arise. The enemies of the human race, having learned of your intention, will begin in every way to trouble you outwardly through various circumstances, and inwardly through doubts, thoughts, and fears. But all this will disappear as soon as you show firmness in your intention.

One should confess as often as possible. The intervals between confessions should be filled with spiritual struggle and effort, strengthened by the preceding confession, and with expectation of and preparation for the next. Thus, the frequent confession of sins will guard your entire pious way of life and keep it sober. The grace of God, acting in the Mysteries of repentance and Holy Communion, perceptibly makes a person sensitive to his sins and infirmities; he is not so easily moved to sinful deeds and is strengthened in the truths of the Faith. The Church and all her ordinances become his own, close to his heart.

Although it is desirable to have one’s own spiritual father, this is by no means an indispensable condition for true repentance. For a person who truly suffers because of his sin, it makes no difference to whom he confesses it, provided only that he repent of it as soon as possible and receive absolution. Repentance must be entirely free and in no way compelled.

Confession is not a conversation about one’s shortcomings and doubts, nor is it an account of one’s life given to one’s spiritual father. Confession is a Mystery, not merely a pious custom. Confession is the fervent repentance of the heart, a thirst for purification arising from a sense of the sacred; it is a second Baptism, and consequently, in repentance we die to sin and rise again to holiness. Contrition is the first degree of holiness, while insensibility is a state of being outside holiness, outside God.

The first task of one preparing for confession should be the examination of the heart. For this, it is necessary to prepare for several days: to fast, read spiritual literature, pray more, read counsels and instructions concerning the Mystery of repentance, and recall and write down one’s sins. People inexperienced in the spiritual life usually perceive neither the multitude of their sins nor their loathsomeness. They say: “I have done nothing extraordinary; I have only minor sins, like everyone else—I have not stolen or killed anyone.” Many often begin their confession in this way. But what of self-love? The inability to endure reproaches? Hardness of heart? The desire to please men, weakness of faith, lack of love for one’s neighbor? Faintheartedness, spiritual sloth? Are all these insignificant sins? Can we claim that we love God sufficiently, that our faith is active and fervent? Do we love every person as the Savior commanded? Have we attained meekness, freedom from anger, and humility? How can our indifference at confession and our self-conceit be explained, except by petrified insensibility, by deadness of heart, by spiritual death? Why did the Holy Fathers and our teachers, who left us prayers of repentance, consider themselves the foremost of sinners, while we are convinced that all is well with us?! The more brightly the light of Christ illumines the heart, the more clearly all its defects, sores, and wounds are perceived. Conversely, people immersed in the darkness of sin see nothing in their hearts; and even if they do see something, they are not horrified, because they have nothing with which to compare it, for Christ is hidden from them by the veil of their sins.

In examining the moral state of one’s soul, one must strive to distinguish the principal sins from those derived from them, and symptoms from their deeper causes. For example, we notice—and this is very important—distraction during prayer, inattention during the divine services, and a lack of interest in hearing and reading Holy Scripture; but do not these sins arise from lack of faith and feeble love for God?! We must take note within ourselves of self-will, disobedience, self-justification, impatience with reproaches, unwillingness to yield, and stubbornness; but it is far more important to discover and understand their connection with self-love and pride. If we notice within ourselves a desire always to be in company and among people, and if we display talkativeness, mockery, and evil-speaking; if we are excessively concerned with our appearance and clothing, then we must carefully examine these passions, for most often it is in this way that our vainglory and pride manifest themselves. If we take the misfortunes of life too much to heart, endure separation with difficulty, and grieve inconsolably for the departed, is there not hidden within the force and depth of these sincere feelings of ours a lack of faith in the good Providence of God?

There is also another aid that leads us to the knowledge of our sins: before confession, we should recall the things of which we are usually accused by other people—those who live side by side with us, those close to us. Very often their accusations, reproaches, and criticisms are justified. Before confession, one must ask forgiveness of everyone before whom one considers oneself guilty, so as to approach the Mystery with an unburdened conscience.

In such an examination of the heart, one must take care not to fall into excessive scrupulosity and petty suspicion toward every movement of the heart. Once one sets out upon this path, one may lose the sense of what is important and what is unimportant and become entangled in trifles. In such cases, one must temporarily cease examining one’s soul and clarify it through prayer and good works.

Preparation for confession does not consist in recalling one’s sins as fully as possible, or even in writing them down, but in attaining that state of recollection, seriousness, and prayer in which, as though in the light, our sins become clearly visible. The penitent should bring to the spiritual father not a list of sins, but a feeling of repentance; not a detailed account of his life, but a contrite heart.

To know one’s sins does not yet mean to repent of them. It is true that the Lord accepts a confession that is sincere and conscientious, even when it is not accompanied by a strong feeling of contrition, provided that we confess this very sin—petrified insensibility—courageously and openly, without hypocrisy. And yet contrition of heart and sorrow for one’s sins are the most important things we can bring to confession. But what are we to do if our heart, scorched by the flame of sin, is not watered by the life-giving waters of tears? What if “spiritual infirmity and the weakness of the flesh” are so great that we are incapable of sincere repentance? Even so, this is no reason to postpone confession while waiting for a feeling of repentance. God may touch our heart during confession itself: the very act of confessing, of naming our sins aloud, may soften our heart, refine our spiritual sight, and intensify our feeling of repentance. Above all, prayerful preparation for confession and fasting help us overcome our spiritual sluggishness. By weakening our body, fasting disrupts the bodily comfort and complacency that are ruinous to the spiritual life. Yet fasting in itself only prepares and loosens the soil of our heart, which will then be able to absorb prayer, the word of God, the Lives of the Saints, and the writings of the Holy Fathers; and this, in turn, will lead to a more intense struggle against our sinful nature and move us actively to do good to those close to us.

Our insensibility at confession is rooted, for the most part, in our lack of the fear of God. It is toward this that our efforts must be directed. Therefore, it is very beneficial to read and reflect upon death, the Dread Judgment, the grievous state of sinners in hell, the fleeting nature of this life, and the boundless magnitude of eternity.

One should not wait to be questioned at confession, but must make the effort oneself, for confession is an ascetic struggle and an act of self-compulsion. One must speak precisely, without obscuring the ugliness of sin by means of general expressions. It is quite difficult, but necessary, when confessing, to avoid the temptation of self-justification; to renounce attempts to explain “mitigating circumstances” to the spiritual father; and to refrain from referring to others who supposedly led one into sin. All these are signs of self-love, of the absence of profound repentance, and of continuing to wallow in sin. Sometimes people refer to a weak memory, which supposedly prevents them from recalling all their sins. And indeed, it often happens that we easily and quickly forget our falls into sin. But is this due only to a weak memory? For example, we remember for many years those occasions when our self-love was especially painfully wounded, when we were undeservedly offended; or, conversely, everything that flatters our vainglory—successes, good deeds, praise, and expressions of gratitude. Everything in our worldly life that makes a strong impression upon us we remember clearly and for a long time. Is it not because we attach no serious importance to our sins that we forget them?

At confession people often say: We have already confessed a certain sin, yet we continue to be troubled by fear because of its gravity—that it will not be forgiven us—and we simply cannot forget it. What, then? Should we repeat it at confession or not? At confession, say everything that troubles you, everything that pains you; therefore, do not be ashamed to speak once again of your former sins. This is good; it will testify that you continually bear a sense of your own wretchedness and overcome all shame at revealing your sinful wounds.

Some are afraid and seem not to believe that their sins can be forgiven, and this fear sometimes assumes a morbid form. This feeling of fear rests either upon a lack of faith, hope, and love for the merciful Lord, or upon the frequent repetition of sins. Strive not to sin, and then, with God’s help, your anxiety that the Lord will not forgive you will also diminish. Do not dare to think that your sins are so great that it is not even worth repenting. Who receives our repentance? Who heals our sinful wounds? Almighty God. Take note: Almighty! The Almighty Physician! And as such, He makes forgiveness possible for even the gravest of all sins.

There are so-called unconfessed sins with which many people live for many years, perhaps even for their entire lives. They continually desire to reveal them to their spiritual father, but are too ashamed to speak of them, and thus year after year passes. Meanwhile, these sins constantly burden the soul and prepare it for eternal condemnation. Oh, how greatly one must fear unrepented sins! Our life, according to the Apostle, is as a vapor (James 4:14)—today we are alive, and tomorrow our departure may be at hand. Where, then, shall we conceal our sins there? We should be ashamed of sin, not of repentance. Repentance is a victory over oneself; it is a trophy of victory, so that one who has repented is worthy of every respect and honor.

The sign of perfect repentance is a feeling of lightness, purity, and ineffable joy, when sin seems as difficult and impossible as this joy had previously seemed distant.

Repentance will not be complete unless, in repenting, a person becomes inwardly confirmed in the resolve not to return to the same sin. But you may say: “How can I promise that I will not repeat the sin? Would it not be more correct to think that, most likely, the sin will be repeated because of our infirmity? After all, everyone knows from experience that after some time one inevitably returns to the same sins, and often, from year to year, no improvement is noticeable.” But in reality this is not so! There is no instance in which sincere repentance, a good desire to amend oneself, and Holy Communion received with faith have failed to produce beneficial changes in the soul. It is also difficult for a person to judge his own condition. Increasing demands upon oneself, greater strictness, and increasingly acute spiritual vision often create the impression that one’s sins have become more numerous and have grown stronger. The believer begins to think that he has become even more sinful and that his maladies have worsened; but in reality, much has already improved and much evil has been cast aside, while in its place things previously unnoticed have been revealed, and the struggle must continue with no less intensity.

Often the Lord, in His special Providence, conceals our progress from our eyes in order to preserve us from vainglory and pride. Conversely, lest we fall into despondency and fail to resolve to begin the struggle against sin, the Lord does not permit us immediately to see the full extent of our fall into sin, which is exceedingly dreadful, but opens our eyes gradually as we make progress. A sin may remain for a long time, but frequent confession and Communion of the Holy Mysteries have already loosened and weakened its roots. And is not the very struggle against sin, the suffering caused by sin, itself an acquisition?! “Do not be afraid—even if you fall every day and stray from the ways of God, stand courageously, and the Angel who guards you will honor your patience,” says Saint John Climacus.

And even if there is no such feeling of relief and renewal, one must have the strength to return to confession, to free one’s soul completely from impurity, courageously to bring forth all its deformities and every defilement—without concealment, without embellishment—and to cleanse it of blackness and filth. One who strives for this will always make progress!

Only let us not attribute our progress to ourselves, rely upon our own strength, or place our hope in our own abilities. By doing so, we may destroy everything we have acquired.

“Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions…”; “O Lord, grant me the thought of confessing my sins…”; “Gather my scattered mind, O Lord, and cleanse my frozen heart; as unto Peter, grant me repentance; as unto the publican, sighing; and as unto the harlot, tears.”

Amen.

 

Russian source:

https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Lazar_Abashidze/greh-i-pokajanie-poslednih-vremen/3

From Aegina to Fili

Saint Nektarios, Elder Philotheos, Metropolitan Cyprian, and the ecclesiology that holds the father and the son in one Church.

Fr. Athanasios Lampropoulos | July 14, 2026

 

 

Three Generations, One Formation

This is a story about a spiritual lineage, and it begins on the island of Aegina. There, in November of 1920, Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis reposed in the Lord: the wonderworker of modern Greece, the hierarch slandered by his own ecclesiastical superiors and vindicated by an ocean of miracles, the saint whose name is now carried by churches on every continent. Mark the date of his repose, because everything in this story turns on it. Saint Nektarios died in 1920. The calendar innovation entered the Church of Greece in 1924. The saint never saw it. Every Divine Liturgy he ever served, every feast he ever kept, every day of his sanctified life was lived on the Patristic calendar: the calendar the Old Calendar Greek Orthodox Church keeps to this hour. Whoever wishes to stand liturgically where Saint Nektarios stood can do so next Sunday. The ground has not moved.

Among the spiritual sons of Saint Nektarios was a young monk who would become one of the great confessing elders of the twentieth century: Philotheos Zervakos, later abbot of the Monastery of Longovarda on Paros. From the saint of Aegina he received his formation; and when the innovation came, four years after the saint’s repose, the elder took up his pen against it and did not set the pen down for the rest of his long life. From 1924 until his death he protested the calendar change in writing, from within the structures of the State Church, documenting that it had been imposed by no Synod, Ecumenical or local, that it stood under the synodal condemnations of the sixteenth century, and that it served the ecumenical programme he regarded as the great ecclesiological disease of the age.

And among the spiritual sons of Elder Philotheos was a young man from Agrinio, formed under the elder’s supervision and tonsured at the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos with the name Cyprian. Three generations, then, of a single formation: the saint, the elder, the monk. Aegina, Longovarda, and, in time, Fili. What makes this lineage the most theologically consequential father-son line in modern Greek Orthodoxy is what history did to it: in 1924 a line was drawn straight through its middle, and the lineage refused to be divided by it.

The Founding and the Crossing

In 1961, the hieromonk Cyprian founded the Monastery of Saints Cyprian and Justina at Fili, in the foothills above Athens, within the jurisdiction of the State Church, and became its first abbot. Let the year be noticed. 1961 was the very year in which the Ecumenical Patriarchate formally glorified Saint Nektarios, setting in the calendar of the Church the grandfather of this story. In the year the saint was raised to the altars, his spiritual grandson broke ground. No one planned the symmetry. Providence rarely asks.

Seven years later the monastery acted on the elder’s fifty years of documentation. On the Sunday of Orthodoxy 1968, the feast of the triumph of the true Faith over innovation, the Monastery of Saints Cyprian and Justina returned to the Patristic calendar; and in January 1969 it was received into the Old Calendar Greek Orthodox Church. The direction of the movement must be kept exact, because the whole theology of this article lives in it. The monastery did not go anywhere in 1968. It returned to where the Church of Greece had stood from the Apostles until 1924, and then stood still. It was the State Church that had moved, and that kept moving; the calendar of 1924 proved to be not a destination but a first step, on a course whose later stations, from joint prayers to sister-Church declarations, this journal has documented at length. The elder saw the direction in 1924. The son acted on it in 1968. The record since has done nothing but agree with them.

And the step was not a rupture between father and son. By the abbot’s own memoir, he had hesitated before it, troubled not by doubt about the calendar but by the sectarian extremism he had met among some Old Calendarists; and when he took the step, he took it with the explicit blessing of Elder Philotheos, given before the confession was made, not after it. When the State Church answered with a sentence of deposition, it was the elder, a clergyman of that same State Church, who answered the sentence in writing, arguing that it could not stand unless the First Ecumenical Synod fell with it. One confession, held by two men from two posts: the father within the structures, the son on the old ground, and between them no anathema; only the innovation, indicted from both sides of the line it had drawn.

The Ecclesiology That Keeps a Family Whole

Out of that bond came a theology. As first President of the Holy Synod in Resistance, to which office he was elected in 1985, Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili gave the Old Calendarist movement what it had possessed until then only in fragments: a complete, patristically documented account of its own position. The moderate confession, as it has come to be called, holds that the innovating jurisdictions are ailing members of the Church: wounded, declining, under a judgment that awaits a competent Synod which has not yet spoken, but not yet severed from her. Their mysteries remain mysteries, even as communion with them must be refused. The resistance of the Orthodox is therefore resistance within the Church against her disease, not the founding of a rival Church beside her. Canon 15 of the First-Second Synod supplies the mechanism; Saint Theodore the Studite and Saint Mark of Ephesus supply the precedent; the 1937 formulation of Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Florina, that the innovating hierarchy is schismatic in potentiality but not yet in actuality, supplies the juridical language.

The critics of this confession, on the rigorist flank and the ecumenist flank alike, have called it an artifice: a theology invented to validate an irregular position. The lineage answers them, because the confession is, in the exact sense, a filial theology, and its test is the family it was born in. Consider what each alternative does to these three men. Rigorism, which declares the New Calendar jurisdictions graceless, unchurches the elder: it makes Philotheos Zervakos, spiritual son of Saint Nektarios, a man of evident sanctity who reposed within the State Church, into an outsider to the Church of Christ. Ecumenist indifference, which treats 1924 as nothing, dissolves the son: it makes the stand at Fili a temperamental eccentricity and the old ground not worth standing on. Only the moderate confession keeps all three generations what they manifestly were. The saint in glory, who never saw the innovation. The father within, protesting in writing for half a century. The son without, keeping the ground. One faith, one family, one Church; and a disease within her, resisted from two posts. The theology was not constructed to justify an episcopate. It was lived at Fili a decade before that episcopate existed, and its deepest root is a question that had a face: what is the ecclesial status of my father?

And let one thing be said plainly, so that the confession’s generosity is not mistaken for hesitation. The moderate confession refuses to unchurch the New Calendar faithful; it does not therefore treat the two posts as equivalent. The protest within has been filed, published, and ignored for a hundred years. The stand without preserves, intact and liturgically alive, everything the protest sought to save: the calendar of the saints, the services unrevised, the boundary of the faith unblurred. The generosity of the Old Calendar Greek Orthodox Church toward those on the other side of the line is not the caution of a body unsure of its ground. It is the confidence of a Church that knows exactly where she stands, because she has never moved.

The Fruit

The tree is judged by its fruit, and the fruit of this confession is unity. In the summer of 1994, at the glorification of Saint John Maximovitch in San Francisco, Metropolitan Cyprian stood with the bishops of his Synod and Bishop Photii of the Old Calendar Church of Bulgaria in the cathedral sepulchre, among the hierarchs of the Russian Church Abroad, at the transfer of the relics of the saint; and that same year the Russian Church Abroad entered communion with his Synod. In March 2014, after years of theological dialogue, the Synod in Resistance which he founded was received into full and unqualified union with the Old Calendar Greek Orthodox Church under Archbishop Kallinikos: a union accomplished not by the capitulation of either side but by a common ecclesiological confession, healing the divisions of 1937 and 1979, and standing today, with its sister Churches in communion, among the largest and most stable bodies of True Orthodoxy in the world. The Metropolitan did not live to see it; he reposed in May 2013, after six years of the long silence that followed his stroke, at the monastery he had founded fifty-two years before. But the union was, in every meaningful sense, his; and through him, his father’s; and through his father, the saint’s.

The Living Chain

Saint Nektarios formed Philotheos. Philotheos formed Cyprian. Cyprian’s monastery at Fili now forms the priests of True Orthodoxy on three continents; its press and its theological school continue his work; and across Europe and beyond, parishes stand in the confession he articulated, among them parishes that bear the very name of the saint of Aegina where the chain began. The innovation of 1924 drew a line through a spiritual family and through the Church of Greece. It divided structures. It never divided the family, because the family carried a theology in which it could not be divided: the faith of the grandfather, protested by the father, kept by the son, and offered still, with the door open, to everyone on either side of a line the Church herself never drew.

 

A Note on Sources

Biographical details follow the synodal and monastic publications of the Metropolis of Oropos and Fili and the obituary notices of 2013. The spiritual paternity of Saint Nektarios over Elder Philotheos Zervakos, and of the elder over Metropolitan Cyprian, is documented in Cavarnos (Blessed Elder Philotheos Zervakos, Modern Orthodox Saints, vol. XI) and the biographical accounts of the Metropolis, together with the Metropolitan’s memoir How I Learned About the Patristic Calendar and How I Returned to It. The glorification of Saint Nektarios by the Ecumenical Patriarchate occurred in 1961. The ecclesiology of resistance is set out in the Metropolitan’s Ecclesiological Position Paper and The Heresy of Ecumenism and the Patristic Stand of the Orthodox (Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, Etna), with the 1937 formulation of Chrysostomos of Florina in his collected works. The events of 1994 in San Francisco are recorded in the eyewitness account in Orthodox America, vol. XIV, no. 129 (1994); the union of March 2014 in the joint announcement of the Holy Synod of the Church of the G.O.C. of Greece and the Synod in Resistance, with the common text The True Orthodox Church in Opposition to the Heresy of Ecumenism: Dogmatic and Canonical Issues.

 

Source: https://patristicwitness.com/ArticleDetail?id=6a56551f66e5143c4fbb0821

Demonic temptations

Archimandrite Seraphim Demopoulos (+2008)

 

 

…A fearsome demon is the demon of the flesh, which wars against the Christian day and night, in countless ways: through sight—guard your eyes very carefully, for they are the window through which death enters into your life—through hearing, the imagination, the memory, speech, desire, food, drink, sleep, rest, and countless other ways devised by the malice and hatred of mankind of the devil.

Against every attack, set a vigorous defense, saying a stubborn no and repelling the enemy with all your strength. One retreat prepares the way for another, and one repulse assists another. Many retreats and negotiations bring defeat, while many repulses bring victory and the final rout of the demons.

Flee the occasions of sin. Television [today we would say: the internet], printed materials, images, sightseeing, journeys, excursions, drinking, conversations with persons who cause harm, and whatever reason indicates to you is dangerous.

Beware of the demon of [carnal] impurity. It is hideous, foul-smelling, abhorrent, shameless, insolent; it reeks with the most disgusting filth and stench.

Fearsome also is the demon of gluttony: wanting to eat much food—flavorful, tasty, and elaborately prepared. A fearsome demon. It opens the way for other demons. By conquering the demon of gluttony, you conquer many passions and become a free man. The glutton is avaricious, gloomy, discontented, and quarrelsome.

One demon that torments modern man is the demon of sorrow. Woe to him who falls into its black, hairy hands. He is freed from it only with difficulty. Much toil and a great struggle are required. This demon does not release its victim until it has rendered him useless—whether through some bodily illness, some mental affliction, or deterioration over time. Beware greatly of this demon. At a bend in every man’s road of life, this demon waits patiently to leap and fasten itself upon you, and it does not abandon you until it has put you to death. The victim of this demon gives up on life. He is unfit for any spiritual struggle whatsoever: neither prayer, nor fasting, nor recollection, nor psalmody, nor laughter, nor work, nor recollection and meditation upon God. Sorrow and gloom are the painful end of a sinful life: utter destruction.

Beware of this demon. In order to overcome it, strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ and approach Holy Communion frequently, for it is the medicine for every illness of soul and body.

For all the passions, however, behind each of which a demon lies hidden, the physician and counselor is a good spiritual father: a spiritual father who possesses grace and experience, so that he may be capable of becoming the good physician of your soul. Take care, therefore, diligently to find such a physician; obey him and place your trust in him, so that you may progress spiritually and attain salvation in Christ.

 

Greek source:

https://imlp.gr/2026/07/18/%ce%b4%ce%b1%ce%b9%ce%bc%ce%bf%ce%bd%ce%b9%ce%ba%ce%bf%e1%bd%b6-%cf%80%ce%b5%ce%b9%cf%81%ce%b1%cf%83%ce%bc%ce%bf%e1%bd%b6/

 

On Accommodating the Unique Circumstances for Orthodoxy in Indonesia…

 

[Admin note: This text, excerpted from a Greek article written by a new calendarist priest with previous involvement in missionary work in Indonesia, discusses the challenging conditions which exist for the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Indonesia. Regardless of how one views the limited ecumenical events that the Orthodox Church of Indonesia has participated in, it is important to recognize the unique circumstances which they face as a minority religion in a hostile region.]

 

PANCASILA: State Ideology and Religious Coexistence

PANCASILA—the five principles that constitute the foundational ideology of Indonesia—expressly provides: “Unity in the spirit of one God” (Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa). This principle is not a mere declaration; it is a legally binding obligation for every religious community that wishes to operate lawfully within the state.

According to PANCASILA, all religions are required to coexist peacefully and cooperate for the sake of national unity. Refusal to participate in institutions of interfaith cooperation is not interpreted as “dogmatic exactitude”—it is interpreted as a rejection of the state ideology, with consequences ranging from the loss of legal recognition to accusations of “disturbing social harmony.”

The Legal Framework: PANCASILA and Religious Organizations

Indonesia is not a secular state with Western-style religious freedom. The Constitution officially recognizes only six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Orthodoxy does not exist as an autonomous category—Orthodox Christians are registered either as “Protestants” or as “Christians in general,” depending on the local administration.

This legal gap is not merely a matter of bureaucracy. It means that, without collective representation, the Orthodox Church of Indonesia has no access to:

• Official recognition as a religious legal entity

• Permits for the construction of churches

• Licenses for the operation of religious schools

• State funding for social initiatives

• Protection by local authorities in cases of religious violence

FUKRI (Forum Umat Kristiani Indonesia) is the only national institution in which the Orthodox Church of Indonesia (GOI) is recognized as an equal member—not as a “branch” of another confession, but as an autonomous ecclesiastical entity. Withdrawal from FUKRI entails the automatic annulment of this recognition.

The Law on Religious Organizations (Presidential Decree No. 1/PNPS/1965)

According to the law on religious organizations, every religious community that wishes to operate legally must be registered with the Ministry of Religious Affairs through an approved representative body. For Christians, this body is FUKRI. Without this registration:

• Priests do not receive authorization to conduct services.

• Churches are regarded as “illegal structures” and may be demolished.

• Marriages have no civil validity.

• Burials in public cemeteries are prohibited.

Participation in FUKRI is not an ecclesiological choice—it is a legal prerequisite for survival.

The Reality of Minorities

Indonesia ranks among the countries with the highest levels of religious violence against Christians worldwide. The incidents in Ambon (1999–2002), Central Sulawesi (2001–2002), and the continuing attacks on churches in Java are not merely historical references—they are the daily reality that shapes the Church’s decisions.

In this environment, isolation is not “witness”—it is suicide. The Orthodox Church of Indonesia numbers fewer than 50,000 faithful, scattered across thousands of islands. Without the collective protection of FUKRI, it would have no negotiating power whatsoever vis-à-vis the state apparatus or local Islamic pressure groups.

The Discernment That Saves

The Orthodox Church of Indonesia has never participated in a common Divine Liturgy with the heterodox. It has not recognized the validity of other Mysteries. It has not sacrificed its Eucharistic communion.

What it does is participate in joint works of social solidarity—cataract operations, humanitarian aid, and the defense of religious freedom. These activities are not “worship”—they are a ministry of love toward one’s neighbor, which the Lord commands irrespective of dogmatic differences.

The presence of Fr. Yacobus Jimmy Stephanus Boe at the event does not constitute ecclesiological recognition of the heterodox. It constitutes a witness that Orthodoxy exists, is alive, and claims its place in the public sphere in a country that would prefer to ignore it.

What Does Refusal to Participate Mean?

Let us consider what would happen if the GOI withdrew from FUKRI:

1. Immediate loss of legal recognition — Its churches would cease to be legal. The local authorities would have the right—and often the incentive—to close them.

2. Exclusion from state protection — In the event of religious violence, the GOI would have no access to state authorities. It would be “invisible.”

3. Economic destruction — Without access to state grants and international funding (which is channeled through recognized bodies), the Church would be unable to sustain missions, schools, and social programs.

4. Spiritual isolation — The Orthodox faithful, already few and scattered, would lose their only channel of communication with other Christians, even if that communication is limited.

Refusal to participate is not heroism—it is abandoning the flock into the hands of wolves.

Economy (oikonomia) is not a compromise with the truth—it is the adaptation of the method by which the truth is safeguarded to the circumstances. The Orthodox Church of Indonesia does not sacrifice the truth—it preserves its ability to confess it publicly in an environment hostile to it.

Conclusion

The participation of the Orthodox Church of Indonesia in FUKRI and in events such as National Easter 2026 is not:

• Ecclesiological recognition of the heterodox

• Common worship or Eucharistic communion

• Renunciation of the identity of the One Church

It is:

• A legal prerequisite for survival within the framework of PANCASILA, in a state that recognizes religions only through collective bodies.

• A political necessity for protecting the flock from religious violence.

• A witness to its presence in a public sphere that would prefer its disappearance.

• Economy that safeguards the Church’s ability to function tomorrow.

In environments where Orthodoxy is intertwined with statehood or with the social majority, faith can easily be transformed into a “habit” or a cultural identity. In the “desert,” however—where being a Christian makes one an exception or even a target—faith is stripped of its adornments and returns to its essence. And faith, in the desert of Indonesia, means surviving in order to confess it.

 

Greek source:

https://missionanatoli.wordpress.com/2026/04/29/%ce%b7-%cf%83%cf%85%ce%bc%ce%bc%ce%b5%cf%84%ce%bf%cf%87%ce%ae-%cf%84%ce%b7%cf%82-%ce%bf%cf%81%ce%b8%cf%8c%ce%b4%ce%bf%ce%be%ce%b7%cf%82-%ce%b5%ce%ba%ce%ba%ce%bb%ce%b7%cf%83%ce%af%ce%b1%cf%82-%cf%84/

 

The Three New Pillars of Orthodoxy

 

Sources:

Icons of St. Glycherie the Confessor of Romania and St. Philaret the New Confessor from the nuns of the Convent of Saint Elizabeth in Etna, CA. Icon of St. Chrysostomos the New, Confessor and Hierarch, from the nuns of the Convent of Saint Philothei in Enköping, Sweden.

The Profound Meaning of Childlikeness in Christ

+ Tychikos of Paphos | July 15, 2026 | Paphos, Cyprus

 

 

Saints Cyricus and Julitta, his mother,

Saint Vladimir, Equal-to-the-Apostles, King of the Russians,

Finding of the Precious Head of Saint Matrona of Chios

 

“Except ye be converted, and become as little children…”

 

Introduction

Our Lord and God Jesus Christ, when His disciples were preventing the children from approaching Him, rebuked them sternly, saying:

“Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and hinder them not; for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 19:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 18:16).

And elsewhere He adds:

“Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 18:3).

These words of Christ caused perplexity: how is it possible for us to become children again? Does He mean a biological return to childhood?

The Lord Himself makes it clear elsewhere that this is not a carnal, but a spiritual rebirth:

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

Childlikeness: Not Immaturity, but Purity

Christ does not call us to irresponsibility or spiritual immaturity. He calls us to return to the purity, simplicity, and trust possessed by a child before being defiled by the sin, malice, and hardness of the world.

Saint John Chrysostom characteristically says:

“Christ does not seek childhood in age, but rather the disposition and purity of the soul.”

If we have lost this childlikeness, we can regain it. The path is repentance, confession, prayer, the study of Holy Scripture and the lives of the Saints, our frequent participation in the Holy Mysteries—especially in the Divine Eucharist—and the unceasing spiritual struggle for the purification of the passions.

Saint Isaac the Syrian writes:

“Repentance is a door of mercy, through which man enters once again into innocence.”

The Loss of Childlikeness in the Modern World

Today, unfortunately, many children cease to be children from a very early age. The school environment, the mass media, television, mobile phones, social networks, and the internet prematurely alter their souls. This is not progress, but spiritual deterioration.

A contrary and radiant example is the Most Holy Theotokos. According to Holy Tradition, at the age of three she entered the Holy of Holies and remained there until her betrothal. She lost nothing; on the contrary, she gained everything: purity of soul, body, mind, and tongue. Thus she was deemed worthy to become the Mother of God.

Saint Gregory Palamas says:

“The Virgin purified her mind of every worldly thought.”

The Characteristics of Childlikeness According to Christ

1. Purity of Soul, Body, and Mind

Children have not yet had the opportunity to sin. If, however, this purity has been lost, it can be restored through ascetic struggle, repentance, and spiritual warfare, by mortifying the passions or redirecting them toward divine love.

“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8).

2. Complete Trust in the Father

Just as a child trusts his parents, so also do we trust in the Providence of God and the intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos.

“Casting all your care upon Him” (1 Pet. 5:7).

3. Freedom from Anxiety about Tomorrow

Without neglecting our responsibilities, but also without anxiety and depression.

“Take therefore no thought for the morrow” (Matt. 6:34).

4. Forgiveness and Forgetfulness of Wrongs

Children forgive quickly and become friends again.

“But if ye forgive not… neither will your Father forgive” (Matt. 6:15).

5. Trust Not in Oneself, but in God

Saint Anthony the Great says: “I do not fear God, but myself.”

6. Guilelessness and Absence of Suspicion

We should not think evil lies behind what we hear or see.

“Be ye… harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16).

7. Sincerity and Love of Truth

Children tell the truth without calculation.

“The truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

8. Simplicity and Humility

They do not love ostentation and grandiosity.

“Whosoever therefore shall humble himself… the same is greatest” (Matt. 18:4).

9. Compassion and Fellowship with Others

They share in the joy and sorrow of their neighbor.

“Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep” (Rom. 12:15).

Conclusion

To “become as little children” is not a return to immaturity, but a journey toward holiness. It is purification, humility, trust, and love.

“Christ desires simplicity, goodness, and a childlike heart” (Saint Porphyrios).

Let us therefore struggle to rediscover the lost child within us, that we may be deemed worthy not only to enter, but also to dwell in the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

Greek source:

https://orthodoxostypos.gr/%cf%84%ce%bf-%ce%b2%ce%b1%ce%b8%cf%8d-%ce%bd%cf%8c%ce%b7%ce%bc%ce%b1-%cf%84%ce%b7%cf%82-%cf%80%ce%b1%ce%b9%ce%b4%ce%b9%ce%ba%cf%8c%cf%84%ce%b7%cf%84%ce%b1%cf%82-%ce%ba%ce%b1%cf%84%ce%ac-%cf%87%cf%81/

 

 

Concerning the G.O.C., Walling Off, and the “Only Path”

Ioannis N. Paparrigas | July 16, 2026

 

We were sent an article [by walled-off new calendarist Fr. Dimitrios Athanasiou] that was published on Facebook.

[English translation: https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/07/one-non-commemorators-opinion-comments.html]

The author of the article essentially acknowledges Fr. Theodore’s contradiction, writing:

“On the one hand, Fr. Th. Z. says: ‘we will not create bishops of our own,’ but on the other hand, he hopes ‘that Orthodox Bishops will be found who will wall themselves off’ (A GLARING CONTRADICTION). If the latter were to occur (if serving bishops were to wall themselves off), from the perspective of those who have walled themselves off, this would not constitute the ‘founding of a new Church’ (as the G.O.C. are accused of doing), but rather the ‘healthy portion’ of the already existing hierarchy reacting.”

As we ourselves also pointed out yesterday, with the difference that he proposes to those who have walled themselves off that:

“Joining forces with an existing anti-Ecumenist hierarchy, such as that of Artemije (formerly of Raška and Prizren), is not merely an option, but the only path that preserves dogmatic and ecclesiological consistency in practice.”

We should, of course, emphasize that we personally do not like terms such as “only path” and similar expressions, because we have had bad experiences with terms of this kind... In any case, that is not the issue.

The author states:

“Since Fr. Theodore and those with him wanted a bishop to lead the walling off, why did they not recognize Metropolitan Artemije, who had been deposed by the Patriarchate of Serbia and who did precisely that? Fr. Theodore and other walled-off theologians maintain that Artemije proceeded with ‘uncanonical ordinations’ (he ordained ‘chorepiscopi’ without the approval of a synod), thereby creating de facto his own parallel hierarchy—a schism—in Serbia. The reality, however, is otherwise. Their refusal to ‘bow their heads’ to Artemije demonstrates the impasse of their theory. Fearing that they might be characterized as schismatics by the official Church, they isolate themselves even from those bishops who took the very step that they themselves proclaim.”

According to the author’s reasoning, “The reality, however, is otherwise,” and it is this: “Fearing that they might be characterized as schismatics by the official Church...”

And further on, he presents proposals that were implemented years ago by the G.O.C., such as, for example:

“Joining this particular Synod (ed. note: he means that of His Eminence Artemije) fully restores the necessary hierarchical structure (Bishop–Presbyters–Deacons) and guarantees the continuity of Apostolic Succession through future ordinations, preventing spiritual withering and a biological dead end,”..... “Joining his Synod is the only position that brings actions into complete alignment with words”...... “joining it creates a clear, cohesive, and well-organized ecclesiastical structure. This structure can withstand the pressure of time, organize parishes, catechize the faithful, and bequeath the anti-Ecumenist witness to future generations”..... “The theory of the ‘middle way’ has exhausted its limits. For anyone who rejects a return by way of compromise, joining forces with an existing anti-Ecumenist hierarchy, such as that of Artemije, is not merely an option, but the only path that preserves dogmatic and ecclesiological consistency in practice.”

Although, therefore, he accepts the above realities, he does not propose that those who have walled themselves off join the already existing Synod of Genuine Orthodox Christians, which has existed in Greece for many decades. On the contrary, he presents joining the Synod of His Eminence Artemije, which is in fact located in another country, as the “only path.”

This position creates an evident contradiction.

On the one hand, he acknowledges that the walling off of Orthodox Bishops does not constitute the founding of a new Church, but rather represents the healthy portion of the Hierarchy. On the other hand, he does not regard the already existing Synod of the G.O.C. as a possible ecclesiological solution for those who have walled themselves off, and for this reason he does not propose it.

The contradiction becomes even greater in view of the fact that he himself has repeatedly defended the G.O.C. of Indonesia through comments on our blog. [Trans. note: This concerns the G.O.C. of Indonesia controversially participating in certain ecumenical events.]

He has commented on our blog many times, essentially recognizing their Orthodoxy.

If the G.O.C. of Indonesia (who belong to the Synod presided over by Archbishop Kallinikos) are Orthodox, then the corresponding Synod to which they belong also constitutes an ecclesiological solution for those who have walled themselves off.

Nevertheless, when he seeks a solution for those who have walled themselves off, he completely suppresses any mention of the existence of the Synod of the G.O.C. and presents the Synod of His Eminence Artemije as the “only path.”

Since he accepts that the walling off of Orthodox Bishops does not constitute the founding of a new Church, by his own parenthetical comment (“as the G.O.C. are accused of doing”), he essentially also recognizes the ecclesiological framework within which the G.O.C. acted.

The well-known argument that the G.O.C. supposedly founded a “new Church” is essentially refuted by the above admission. Since no new Church is founded in this case, there is no difference whatsoever.

A full eleven years after the unilateral and uncanonical change of the festal calendar, Orthodox Bishops walled themselves off, took up the struggle of the Old Calendarists, and constituted the healthy portion of the hierarchy at that time that reacted against the innovation; subsequently, the Russians Abroad renewed the struggle of the Old Calendarists through new episcopal consecrations.

It emerges, however, from his own article that his argumentation is not applied according to the same standard in every case.

While he recognizes that the walling off of Orthodox Bishops does not constitute the founding of a new Church, and while he publicly defends the G.O.C. of Indonesia, he completely disregards the existence of the Greek Synod of the G.O.C. and presents joining the Synod of His Eminence Artemije as the “only path.”

In our humble opinion, his inconsistency and his own contradiction are evident.

 

Greek source: https://entoytwnika1.blogspot.com/2026/07/blog-post_16.html

Uniate Conversions to Orthodoxy

by Nicholas Maas

Mr. Maas, a former Greek Catholic, was received by Baptism into the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and attends St. John the Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

 

 

Much has been written about the problem of Uniate conversions to the Orthodox Church, and in particular about the reception into Orthodoxy of Greek Catholics in North America and Eastern Europe at the turn of the century. The use of economy (that is, Chrismation or a confession of faith) in receiving these converts from the Unia is often cited to support the general reception of Uniate converts in this way in contemporary times. This is the result of a misrepresentation of this earlier use of economy as a precedent-setting gesture on the part of the Orthodox Church. In reality, the instances of the use of economy in receiving Uniates into the Faith were relatively rare even in the nineteenth century— instances deemed necessary because of what were then very exceptional circumstances. It can be persuasively argued that today, especially in the free world, circumstances are such that the nineteenth-century exception to the rule of conversion by Baptism should be put aside completely and that Uniates should be received into the Church only by Baptism.

During the latter half of the nineteenth century, millions of Greek Catholics were finally able to break away from the centuries-old bonds of the much-despised Unia. These were people who had been forced by circumstances beyond their control into union with the Roman Church. They never desired to be Latins, never were Latins, and never accepted the confession of the Roman Church. A few of their Hierarchs—cowardly apostates or ambitious men—allowed the Church to be enslaved by force of arms and by so-called "treaties" dictated by the interests of political expediency. Thus it is that, when no political power could impede them, these people returned to the Orthodox Church by the millions—and without hesitation, one might add.

Now, in the latter half of the twentieth century, however, there is a clear understanding among Greek Catholics of what they are: Greek Catholics. They are not Orthodox held by some political force in a false union in which they do not believe. Indeed, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, for example, is one with Rome. Ukrainian Catholics willingly embrace the Latin Church. The Melkites, too, are obviously Greek Catholics and clearly constitute an eastern rite of the Roman Church. There is no fear of persecution that keeps Uniates where they are; there is no threat of death at the hands of the Austro-Hungarian army or some other bellicose element. To claim that converts from the Greek Catholic Faith in our day are anything but converts from the Roman Church is simply to play an intellectually dishonest game.

Let us not hesitate to be honest. Greek Catholics are Greek Catholics, or Uniates, not Orthodox. This is a simple statement of fact. Unfortunately, a strange confusion with regard to this fact took root among some Uniate believers following the Second Vatican Council. The post-Vatican II changes in Latin attitudes towards the Eastern Church led many Greek Catholics—whether by a deliberate design of the Council Fathers or adventitiously, one cannot say—to think of themselves as members of an "Orthodox Church in union with Rome." This has become one of the burning convictions of the Melkite Greek Catholics, especially. Any serious Orthodox Christian—or any serious Roman Catholic, for that matter—would find that idea ludicrous, if not totally insane. Orthodox are Orthodox simply because they are not in union with Rome. Nonetheless, this idea holds forth strongly among many Greek Catholics and, worse yet, among some Orthodox modernists! Here is a clear example of the abuse of economy, that treasure of the Church, being made the source of serious harm to the Faithful and of an ecclesiology which is as wrong as it is wholly dishonest.

By abusing economy and receiving contemporary Greek Catholics by Chrismation or economy, many Greek Catholics and unlearned Orthodox come to believe that Greek Catholics are legitimately Orthodox. With such an abuse of economy, political ecumenism advances farther, denigrating and misrepresenting the Church to which the convert is supposed to be converting. For the sake of converts from the Unia, it must be made clear that conversion to Orthodoxy is to embrace the fullness of Christ in the One Church which He established. Greek Catholics are not simply changing jurisdictions. They are members of the Roman Church and outside the Greek Orthodox Church. And we Orthodox are not just Greek Catholics without a Pope. We are Orthodox Christians who consider the idea of the papacy a heresy and a distortion of the Apostolic Church.

Modernist jurisdictions are causing untold harm to their own Churches when, instead of inviting solidly converted Orthodox into their ranks, they make of their half-converted Greek Catholic guests nothing more than disgruntled Uniates on the "Orthodox side" of the Schism. How can a mere disdain for Rome be a substitute for the compelling Grace that leads a true convert humbly to enter the Orthodox Church through the salvific Grace of the waters of Holy Baptism? How can a change from one side of the "political" spectrum to another really accomplish what conversion to the fullness of Orthodox Christianity entails?

And what of the poor convert? When the novelty of being a convert—of being on the other side of the fence, no longer under the thumb of the Pope— wears off, where does he go? For all intents and purposes, he must begin anew his search for Orthodoxy, for true Orthodoxy, his soul thus in danger because of the time wasted.

Economy is, of course, not without very practical application in the Church under unusual and exceedingly rare circumstances. But prudence must guide us in its application in the contemporary Church. If we abuse economy in the name of ecumenism, in the name of misrepresenting those things which separate the Mother Church of Orthodoxy from all who have deviated from her teaching, and as a tool for fostering political attitude changes rather than true conversions, then we misuse and denigrate one of the Church's great treasures of love—her ability to relax the law for the sake of the spirit—, making of a tool of love a crude hatchet by which to cut away the image of the Faith in frenzied attempts to distort the truth which she symbolizes and embodies.

                                                                                     

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VII (1990), No. 3, p. 10.

The Law of Love: Patristic Teaching on Social Ethics

by Father James Thornton

The following essay is taken from Bather James' doctoral dissertation (S.T.T.S., '90) and provides interesting insight into a much-neglected area of Orthodox studies.

 

 

In the long history of philosophical, religious, and ethical concepts, the greatest of all revolutions was that of Christian thought. As the Roman Catholic scholar Giordani, puts it:

...[Christ] established a new moral and religious order, leaving apparently intact the old social and political order. But having wrought a change in man at the very roots of his mind and heart, he made him a member of a new order, even from the point of view of social ethics and activity. [1]

It is obvious, then, that an abstract philosophy of ethical teachings is not the raison d'etre for Christian thought. Christianity is at once a matrix of beliefs about life, the worlds seen and unseen, of the Divine Creator and Benefactor, of moral precepts, and of an existence beyond the grave. Christianity, unlike the pagan systems which preceded it, is a religion which brings to bear abstract, "otherworldly" things on practical worldly concerns:

"The Church is indeed 'not of this world,' but it has nevertheless an obvious and important mission 'in this world' precisely because it [the world] lies 'in the evil.'" [2]

No one can read the Holy Gospels thoroughly and escape this conclusion. While Christ speaks of a kingdom "not of this world," [3] He insists that those who ignore those in want will themselves be judged harshly in His kingdom. [4] Christ's words in this respect are ultimately the root of the Orthodox Church's teachings on social ethics.

The Eastern Church Fathers, who express the conscience of the Orthodox Church, were exegetes par excellence, and thus followed in the footsteps of their Divine Teacher in understanding the issues of social ethics. So it is that the Orthodox Church insists that Christianity is "integral," as Father Florovsky writes, and that "faith and charity, belief and practice, are organically linked...." [5]

But what is the source of this link?

The Eastern Church, through the Gospels and the writings of the Fathers, has always insisted that the first law of the Christian religion is the "law of love." We must love God above all else and we must love our neighbors as ourselves. [6] We must, furthermore, love all of God's creatures, including our enemies. [7] Love links all creation together.

The religion of Christ and of the Fathers, then, is one which commands love, which insists that enlightened Christians serve the members of the human community and not seek to exploit them or attain power over them. [8] As Christians, we are bound to this service. The Church, in its early centuries, strove with great zeal to impart this notion of love to mankind, to a civilization utterly ignorant of the concept. It also sought to put this notion into action at the practical level.

St. John the Theologian writes that "God is love." [9] Love is an attribute of God. "The Goodness of God extends not to some limited region in the world, which is characteristic of love in limited beings, but to the whole world and all the beings that exist in it." [10] God's love is demonstrated in many ways. He created us in His image, for example. [11] He loved humankind even more than He loved His own glory, as St. John Chrysostom writes, in that He was willing to become incarnate, to live among His creatures and serve them, and to suffer and die for them. [12] St. Gregory the Theologian speaks of this in his twenty-third homily: "If someone were to ask us what it is that we honor, and what we worship, we have a ready reply: we honor love." [13] We see, then, that love is central to Orthodox Christian theology and its notion of practical living. [14]

Let us consider a particular aspect of Eastern Church theology which has great importance and bearing on the teachings of the Eastern Fathers with respect to love. Eastern Church theology differs from that of the medieval or modern Western confessions in a number of areas. One important difference is that the Eastern Church Fathers distinguish, in their understanding of the creation narrative in the book of Genesis, between the terms "image" and "likeness." The Western Church generally ignores this distinction. [15] While all human beings are born in God's image, the Greek Fathers assert, God's likeness is something towards which we must struggle. As the Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky says:

'Let us make man according to our image and likeness' (Gen 1:26). According to this design, man should not be only an image of God, his Creator, but should also bear His likeness. Yet in the description of the accomplished act of creation 'And God made man, according to the image of God he made him' (Gen 1:27), nothing is said about likeness. [16]

The image of God was given to all humankind and this, as we noted above, is proof of God's love for us. Various Fathers have emphasized various facets of the imago Dei. One of these facets is mentioned by St. John of Damascus who, because he wrote at length on the Orthodox doctrine of Icons, devoted considerable attention to this matter. He asserts that "the expression 'according to the image' indicates capacity of mind and freedom." [17] St. Gregory put it thus: "God honored man in giving him freedom, in order that goodness should properly belong to him who chooses it, no less than to Him who placed the first fruits of goodness in his nature." [18]

The image of God was retained by humankind after the Fall. However, it became obscured by evil, disobedience, discord, and pride—in a word, sin. Humans were intended for union with God, for perfect cooperation (synergia) with God, and even for eventual deification (theosis) by the Grace of God. [19] But man, in his freedom, chose another path, which involved "a rejection of the interior working of grace and a subsequent bondage to sin.... Having isolated himself from the grace of God, he became entrapped in his illusory self-worldview, which came to bear less and less resemblance either to the real world (and its corresponding potential) or to the 'image' within him...." [20]

The Fathers also teach that the individual human person is not a part of humanity, but is humanity. Just as the whole of human nature was contained in the first human being created by God, it is also contained in each of us. [21] Speaking of the first human, St. Gregory of Nyssa writes:

...The name Adam is not yet given to the man, as in the subsequent narratives. The man created has no particular name, but is universal man. Therefore by this general term for human nature, we are meant to understand that God by His providence and power, included all mankind in the first creation.... [22]

Thus, again to quote Lossky, "The divine image proper to the person of Adam is applied to the whole of mankind, to universal man." [23] Humankind, rightly seen, is united fully in this divine image which God has stamped on every individual. In the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa: "Thus man is made in the image of God, that is to say the whole human nature; it is that which bears the divine 'likeness.'" [24]

When individuals attain to perfection, they conduct themselves, in every aspect of their lives, with this unity of humankind in mind. Bonded in love to others, they act always in the interest of others, since their own self-interest is tied to that of others. When, on the other hand, humans act contrary to the manner in which all have been created, as they generally do in this fallen world, "the one nature common to all men...appears to us split up by sin, parcelled out among many individuals." [25] A person who acts in accordance with the fallen nature of the present world, instead of the image of God, becomes dominated by ego and by the worship of ego. He becomes separated from others and from his natural concern for them. The bond of love with them is broken.

Humans, while born in God's image, are not so born with God's likeness; rather, they have only the potential for the likeness of God in them. This likeness is something for which they must strive, for which they must indeed struggle more greatly. This likeness, St. John of Damascus states, "...means likeness to God in virtues (perfection)." [26]

Those who succeed in this struggle acquire, among other attributes proper to God's likeness, a facility for the utterly selfless love of all humankind:

In the love of our neighbor, philia, we come to see God in others. In community love, agape, we see ourselves in others and are united to our fellow men in the Energies of God. Being one with Christ, we are made one with all mankind. [27]

Such love must not only crown individual human efforts, but must be part of the effort from the very beginning:

If we begin the life lived in pursuit of virtue by cultivating in ourselves a love of our fellow man, we reach success in that life by dwelling in the love of God, which God has cultivated in the human heart; 'for,' writes the divine [St. John] Chrysostomos, 'the beginning and the end of virtue is love.' [28]

All charitable acts, all philanthropy, if they are not merely self-serving, are necessarily based on love. This love, in its highest degree, is acquired in the struggle for the likeness of God; or, rather, it fulfills this struggle. "For love is the 'union of all perfection.'" [29] The human being who is pure, who has acquired the Holy Spirit, who shines with God's likeness, possesses, as St. Issac the Syrian writes:

...a burning of the heart for all creation, for men, birds, beasts, demons and all creatures. And from remembrance of them and contemplation of them such a man's eyes shed tears: because of a great and strong compassion which possesses his heart and its great constancy, he is overwhelmed with tender pity and he cannot bear, or hear of, or see any harm or any even small sorrow which creatures suffer. [30]

The history of the Eastern Church is adorned with the stories of the lives of holy women and men who exemplify the teachings of the Fathers on social ethics and our responsibilities towards others. The early monastic Fathers and Mothers of the desert, in particular, have much to tell us about the love of God and of fellow humans, about charity, about equality, and, by their forthright renunciation of material things, about the true import of wealth and poverty.

As many historians have noted, with the rise of Christianity to official favor in the fourth century, the Church was inundated with nominal believers. Before the Peace of the Church under St. Constantine, Christians "...were bound to resist any attempt at their 'integration' into the fabric of the Empire." [31] With the great changes set in motion by the Emperor Constantine, another revolution of sorts appeared, spreading with tremendous rapidity throughout the Empire: monasticism. The monastic movement embodied a continued resistance to the world: "...Monks...[left]...the world in order to build, on the virginal soil of the Desert, a New Society, to organize there, on the Evangelical pattern, the true Christian Community." [32]

This "New Society" did not stand in opposition to the established Church authorities. It remained wholly a part of the Church and within Her organizational structure. This early monasticism became the ideal, the "barometer" of life for all members of the Church. In numerous battles with secular authority in the course of the centuries after St. Constantine (during the reign of the Arian Emperors of the fourth century, for example, or the Iconoclasts in the eighth century), the Church looked to the monasteries [33] for the embodiment, preservation, and protection of Christian doctrine and teaching.

One must note, in fact, that the Fathers of the Church, who insisted on faithfulness in both theoria and praxis, have nearly always been monastic saints. Thus in their adherence to the requirements of a theoretical life of renunciation and asceticism, they believed that monastics must, in practice, work. "Man was created for work. But work should not be selfish. One had to work for common purpose and benefit, and especially to be able to help the needy....Labor was to be, as it were, an expression of social solidarity, as well as a basis of social service and charity." [34] Even in their work, monastics expressed the care for their fellow man that is pivotal to Christian love.

Moreover, monasteries, by their very nature, insisted on the essential equality of all human beings, both in a spiritual sense and a material sense. Monks were enthusiastic practitioners of Christ's "law of love," and their example stands before the eyes of pious Orthodox Christians, monastics and non-monastics alike, as a genuine ideal and as a benchmark by which we might judge our own spiritual health. This "law of love" is extended to everyone. An historian, referring to the earliest monastics, writes that they were

...fathers of the people. Let disease or misfortune come: the holy man was at hand. Let land- owner oppress or bureaucrat extort: the champion of the poor was waiting. For what could an anchorite suffer at the hands of authority? The world could lose him nothing. He stood, rather, to gain a martyr's crown. [35]

For fifteen centuries, the lives of the desert monastics have inspired the Church faithful. Precisely because the Church insists that "we must find a goal and a view of life which can serve to guide human action and that can release us from a cycle of gratification that derides, belittles, and compromises our humanity," [36] it turned to the example of the Desert Fathers. As we have learned from these holy men and women the standard of many Christian virtues, so, too, we have learned from them the standard of Christian love, by which we form our social consciences as contemporary Orthodox Christians. A single excerpt from the Evergetinos gives us insight into this standard of the desert—into the standard set by those transformed in God, conformed to his image, and made like Him by Grace:

Abba Agathon was asked how sincere love for one's neighbor might be made manifest, and this blessed man, who had attained to the queen of the virtues to a perfect degree, responded: 'Love is to find a leper, to take his body, and gladly to give him your own.' [37]

 

Notes

1. Igino Giordani, The Social Message of Jesus, trans. Alba Zizzamia (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1977), 45.

2. Georges Florovsky, "The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church," chap, in Christianity and Culture, vol 2, The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Co., 1974), 142.

3. Jn 18:36.

4. Mt 25:31-46.

5. Georges Florovsky, "St. John Chrysostom: The Prophet of Charity," chap, in Aspects of Church History, Vol. 4, The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1975), 87.

6. Mt 23:37-39.

7. Mt 5:44.

8. Giordani, 47.

9. 1 Jn 4:16.

10. Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: A Concise Exposition (Platina, CA: St. Herman Press, 1984), 63.

11. "All of the Fathers of the Church, both of East and West, are agreed in seeing a certain co-ordination, a primordial correspondence between the being of man and the being of God in the fact of the creation of man in the image and likeness of God." Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), 114.

12. Pomazansky, 64.

13. Ibid., 63.

14. Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, trans. Carmino J. de Catanzaro (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), 172-3.

15. Typical of the Western view is that expressed in a popular Protestant theological manual: "The terms 'image and likeness'...do not distinguish different aspects of the imago, but state intensively the fact that man uniquely reflects God. Instead of suggested distinctions within the image, the juxtaposition vigorously declares that by creation man bears an image actually corresponding to the divine original." Baker's Dictionary of Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1960), s.v. "Man."

16. Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1983), 34.

17. Ibid.

18. Lossky, Mystical, 124.

19. John S. Romanides, Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1981), 46, and Lossky, Mystical, 196-216.

20. Hieromonk Auxentios, "Notes on the Nature of God, the Cosmos, and Novus Homo: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective," chap. in Contemporary Traditionalist Orthodox Thought (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1986), 11.

21. Lossky, Mystical, 120.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., and Lossky, Vladimir, "The Theology of the Image," chap.in In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), 125-39.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., 121.

26. Ouspensky, Icons, 34.

27. Bishop Chrysostomos and The Reverend James Thornton, Love (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1990), 54.

28. Ibid., 61-2.

29. Georges Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, vol. 3, The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1976), 206.

30. Ibid. Cf. John S. Romanides, "Jesus Christ-The Light of the World." In Xenia Ecumenica (Helsinki: n.p., 1983), 244-52.

31. Georges Florovsky, "Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert," chap in Christianity and Culture, vol. 2, The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Co., 1974), 72.

32. Ibid., 86.

33. In Eastern Church usage, the words "monastery" and "monk" are entirely inclusive terms.

34. Florovsky, "Antinomies," 87.

35. Robert Byron, The Byzantine Achievement: An Historical Perspective (NY: Russell and Russell, 1964), 158.

36. Bishop Chrysostomos, The Ancient Fathers of the Desert: A Second Volume (Brookline, MA: Hellenic College Press, 1986), 13.

37. A complete translation of this work is now in process, the first volume of which appeared recently. Bishop Chrysostomos, trans., The Evergetinos: A Complete Text, vol. 1 (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1988).

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VII (1990), No. 3, pp. 11, 16.