What are deadly [“unto death”] and what are pardonable [“not unto death”] sins?

Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov (+1867), Bishop of the Caucasus and the Black Sea

 

Every deadly sin committed by an Orthodox Christian, if not healed through proper repentance, becomes the cause of his eternal damnation. Deadly sins for the Christian are heresy, schism, blasphemy, perjury, despair, suicide, adultery, every unnatural carnal sin, incest, drunkenness, sacrilege, murder, robbery, and every great, cruel, and inhuman injustice. Of these, only one—suicide—cannot be healed through repentance.

All, nevertheless, kill the soul, rendering it incapable of inheriting eternal blessedness, until it is cleansed through sincere repentance. And even if a person falls into a deadly sin only once, he dies spiritually. “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ So if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.” (James 2:10–11)

Whoever has committed a deadly sin, let him not despair. Let him turn to healing repentance. To this, the Savior calls him until the very last moment of his life, proclaiming through the holy Gospel: “He who believes in Me, even if he dies, shall live.” (John 11:26)

It is a great calamity is the persistence of a person in deadly sin; a great calamity is the transformation of deadly sin into a habit! There are no good deeds that could deliver a soul from Hades if that soul, before being separated from the body, is not cleansed from every deadly sin.

When is a sin pardonable (easily forgiven)? When someone, for example, is slightly carried away by gluttony and eats a little more than necessary; when he is slightly carried away by sensuality and fleetingly looks at someone with impure desire or accepts a shameful fantasy; when he carelessly utters some useless word; when he tells a small lie or steals something of little value or boasts or becomes angry for a moment; when he is saddened or bears a grudge for a short time against his neighbor.

For all these things, a person will easily be forgiven by the merciful God, provided that his fall, which is due to human weakness, is followed by awareness and repentance. The pardonable sin does not deprive the Christian of divine grace, it does not kill his soul as deadly sin does. Yet the pardonable sin is also spiritually harmful when we do not repent of it, but on the contrary, repeat it, continually adding weight to its burden.

The Holy Fathers say that a person drowns with a heavy stone tied around his neck just as much as with a sack of sand. This means that into the abyss of Hades we may be dragged down just as much by a single deadly sin as by the multitude of accumulated pardonable ones. What exceedingly evil thing did the rich man of the Gospel parable (Luke 16:19–31) do in enjoying his wealth? The cause of his destruction, as presented by the Gospel, was nothing other than his pleasure-filled life, which led him to complete forgetfulness of virtue and eternity. His entertainment became a passion, preventing him from realizing what true life is.

“We must guard our soul,” advises Saint Makarios the Great (Homily on the Freedom of the Mind, 4), “and prevent its communion with profane and wicked thoughts. For just as the body, when it unites with another body, is defiled and becomes unclean, so too the soul is corrupted when it unites with wicked and impure thoughts, especially when it agrees with them. And this happens not only with evil but also with other sinful thoughts, such as thoughts of unbelief, deceit, vainglory, anger, envy, and contention. We are called to reject all these thoughts by the apostolic exhortation: ‘Let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles body and spirit’ (2 Corinthians 7:1).”

 

Greek source: https://imlp.gr/2025/07/27/%cf%80%ce%bf%ce%b9%e1%bd%b0-%ce%b5%e1%bc%b6%ce%bd%ce%b1%ce%b9-%cf%84%e1%bd%b0-%ce%b8%ce%b1%ce%bd%ce%ac%cf%83%ce%b9%ce%bc%ce%b1-%ce%ba%ce%b1%e1%bd%b6-%cf%80%ce%bf%ce%b9%e1%bd%b0-%cf%84%e1%bd%b0-%cf%83/