Saint Nikolaj Velimirović: Where Christ is more absent, there the vulgar and the barbaric abound.

There are some theologians in the Orthodox Church who follow in the footsteps of heretical theologians, considering that the Gospel is not strong enough to sustain and defend itself on its own within the worldly storm.

The glorious Lord of ours said: I receive not glory from men (John 5:41). The position of the heretics is exactly the opposite of that of the Savior of the world. They seek the glory of men. They fear men. That is why they cling to the so-called “glorious men” in human history, in order to support the Gospel and become more pleasing to the people of this world… Let the heretical theologians and the leaders of the heretical churches be ashamed, who with the help of Christ have been exalted as rulers and lords of all the peoples of the earth.

While Christ says: without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5), the heretical world in a thousand ways expresses the following thought: without Christ we can do everything. The entire modern civilization is directed against Christ. All modern sciences compete over which will deliver the strongest blow to the teaching of Christ. It is the revolt of vulgar maidservants against their mistress; it is the revolt of worldly science against the heavenly science of Christ. Yet all this revolution in our days ends in what is written, with such clarity: professing themselves to be wise, they became fools (Rom. 1:22).

Everywhere one sees what we call the vulgar and the barbaric. Where Christ is more absent, there the vulgar and the barbaric abound. Falsehood and violence triumph.

The theosophical view that truth is scattered among all religions, philosophies, and mysteries also prevailed among the heretical theologians of the Western world.

Truth in no way tolerates being united with half-truth and falsehood.

The Orthodox Church is the only one in the world that has preserved the faith in the Gospel as the only absolute truth which needs neither defense nor support from any philosophy or worldly science.

 

Greek source: https://katanixi.gr/agios-nikolaos-velimirovits-ekei-poy/