| For a sinner there is no greater relief and happiness than to receive forgiveness and peace of conscience. The Gospel is rich with examples of repentance. One sinful woman in the house of Matthew, upon receiving pardon for her transgressions, in gratitude washed the feet of Christ with her tears and wiped them with her hair (Luke 7:38). On the other hand, a disregard of conscience along with recurring sins, darkens the soul to such a degree that man can undergo, as Saint Paul forewarns, «shipwreck of his faith» so that he can irrevocably sink into evil ( 1Tim. 1:19 ). Psychological side of conscience The study of the relationship of conscience to the spiritual attributes of man is the domain of psychology. Psychologists attempt to clarify two issues: a) Is conscience an attribute of man with which he is born, or is it the result of learning and encountering lifés experiences in the environment in which he develops? b) Is conscience a result of the way our mind, feelings, and will operate, or is it an independent characteristic? In response to the first question, closer examination of man " s conscience convinces us that it is not the result of learned attitude or physical instinct in man, but has an unexplainable higher source. For example, children develop conscience before any adult teaching or modeling takes place. If physical instinct dictated to conscience, then it would induce man to behave in a profitable or pleasurable way. However, conscience often induces man to do that which is unprofitable or unpleasant. In spite of the appearance that evildoers enjoy the good life and virtuous people suffer, conscience tells us that a higher justice must exist. Eventually all have to receive their just reward. The universal presence of conscience for many people is the most convincing argument for God " s existence and the immortality of the soul. Regarding the relationship of conscience to other spiritual attributes of man: with his mind, feelings, and free will, we observe that conscience not only speaks of that which is theoretically good or evil, but she also obliges man to do good deeds and shun evil. Good deeds are followed by feelings of joy and satisfaction, whereas deeds of evil produce shame, fear, and spiritual unrest. In all of these manifestations, conscience uncovers in us the awareness of free will and responsibility. |
| If we analyze human customs and habits, we will see that in all places and at all times lack of faith becomes prominent and widespread, which gives rise to empty and false fears. People often fear a shortage of food supplies; sometimes they fear that they will lack necessary items during an illness; at times they fall into despair over ever-growing rumors of war. All of this occurs because they have an erroneous and doubtful understanding of God’s benevolence and His omnipotent strength: this is also the cause of our mind’s poor and sad concern over temporal things, as opposed to a concern for achieving a blessed eternal life. God’s Providence manifests itself with the greatest wisdom: not every transgression is normally punished straightaway; however, neither is it left totally unpunished. If God never punished vileness, many people would think that there is no Providence. On the other hand, if every transgression were immediately followed by punishment, it would then be thought that there is no reward or punishment after death. Therefore God, by punishing only some people, reveals His Providence; by not punishing others directly after their transgressions, He threatens them with punishment directly after death, in the next life, if they do not repent in this life. Everything is done by God with great wisdom and forethought. In a like manner, all the contradictory manifestations that we come across in our lives, are all wisely directed by God’s Providence; all earthly misfortunes are transformed by God into a benefit and advantage for us; even sinful transgressions are tolerated in order to bring us to our senses, and to achieve our salvation through repentance. For to do good deeds and to tolerate heinous ones is characteristic exclusively of divine Providence, since God would never allow the existence of evil were He not as mighty and good as to produce good consequences from all evil deeds. God’s Providence is concealed from us, unfathomable to us, but it comprises an all-encompassing order for ruling the world rationally and justly. We are usually quite observant of the external order of universal and particular events; however, the wondrous and wise Providence of God, which activates the cosmic mechanism and preserves and directs its activity, is hidden from us, and we cannot see it. It is for this reason that many people, seeing a contradiction – from a human point of view – in the well-being of bad persons and the tribulations of good ones, assert that God’s Providence does not exist, but that everything occurs through man’s will and reason, or through blind luck or misfortune. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Bogomils AUGUSTINE CASIDAY “In the reign of the good Christian Tsar Peter 927–69 there was a priest called Bogomil, (meaning: worthy of God’s compassion) but in reality Bogunemil (unworthy of God’s compassion), who started for the first time to preach heresy in the country of Bulgaria” – thus, Cosmas the Presbyter describes the matter in his 10th-century Discourse (Hamilton and Hamilton 1998: 114–34). But a problem immediately confronted Cosmas and other observers, and it continues to confront modern scholars, because in order to evaluate and criticize Bogomil’s heresy, Cosmas and others instinctively turned to categories that derived from classical denunciations of earlier heresies. The framework of those denunciations will be considered before we turn to evidence about Bogomil’s teachings, and then to the history of Bogomil’s communities. The major heresy invoked to understand the Bogomils was dualism, a pronounced insistence on the substantial existence of two fundamental and opposed principles: good and evil. A typical dualist identifies evil with matter and good with spirit, and so regards creation as a domain in which evil and good intersect. The best-known dualist movement was Manichaeism, with the result that Byzantine Christians used the word “Manichaean” indiscriminately to describe any and every sort of dualistic spirituality. We can see this process at work in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, where Bogomil is anathematized in these terms: “Anathema to papa Bogomil who, in the reign of Peter of Bulgaria, stirred up this Manichaean heresy and spread it through every town and countryside.” Another dualist Christianity known as Paulicianism was a recent precursor of Bogomil’s teachings that originated in Armenia and moved into Bulgaria (Runciman 1947: 26–62; Hamilton and Hamilton 1998: 5–25). The extent to which Bogomil’s teachings are actually related to Manichaeism and Paulicianism is debatable and one’s position in that debate will largely determine how historical details are integrated in the attempt to describe Bogomilism. |
| Our ill-wishers often tell fairy tales – the tales assimilated in the whole world, as clichés tend to be easily assimilated indeed. But one should not think by clichés. Here is a cliché offered to you: the Church in Russia has merged with the state. So people tend to repeat: ‘You know, the Church has merged with the state’, or ‘The Church influences Putin’. Perhaps the Church influences a person from the Christian point of view. I do not know because I have never measured the extent of this influence. God willing, we want to influence everybody – both statesmen and ordinary people, so that the moral principle the Church preaches may be assimilated by the consciousness of our people. – Owing to the informatization of the post-industrial society, the unification of the society is developing. Social networks are spreading on the basis of the Internet as citizens seek to become a source of information. On the other hand, in the global information society, America, using her power in computer programs, seeks to broaden her influence to the whole world. Traditional values systems have encountered a new trial called ‘the arrival of the information society’. They have encountered a relativity of the value system when the distinction between evil and good is obliterated. How is the Russian Orthodox Church going to oppose the arrival of the post-industrial information society? What will be Russian national values in the information society and will they be able to survive? —In speaking about what happens today in the information space, the principal, may be, danger to the human personality should be noted, which lies in the loss of the ability to distinguish between good and evil. What is going on today has not fallen on us in the last years. It has been prepared by the social development during, at least, 200-300 years. But in the 20th century we saw the development of a notion described by philosophers as post-modernism. Post-modernism is rejection of the objective truth. Post-modernism has transferred responsibility onto the individual. In this approach, it is the individual that is the beginning and the end in the effort to elaborate a criterion for distinguishing between good and evil. The individual himself and nobody else is believed to define what is right and what is wrong; each has his own understanding of good and evil. There is neither objective notion of good, nor objective notion of morality. |
| But the new creation in Christ, the second Adam, allows us to perceive the profound meaning of a division which certainly had nothing “super-imposed”: Mariology, the love of Christ and the Church, and the sacrament of marriage bring to light a fullness that originates in the creation of woman – fullness not glimpsed, however, except in the unique person of the Virgin, for our fallen condition always endures, demanding for the accomplishing of our human vocation not only the integrating chastity of marriage but also, and perhaps primarily, the sublimating chastity of monachism. Can one say that Adam, in his paradisiacal condition, was really immortal? “God did not create death,” says the Book of Wisdom. For archaic theology – St. Irenaeus for example – Adam was neither necessarily mortal nor necessarily immortal: his nature, rich in possibilities, malleable, could be constantly nourished by grace and transformed by it to the point of surmounting all the risks of aging and death. The possibilities of mortality existed but in order to be made impossible. Such was the test of Adam’s freedom. The tree of life at the center of Paradise and its nourishing of immortality offered therefore a possibility: thus, in our Christo-ecclesiastical realities, the Eucharist, which heals us, nourishes and fortifies us, spiritually and bodily. One must feed oneself with God to attain freely deification. And it is in this personal effort that Adam failed. As for the divine interdiction, it poses a double problem: that of the knowledge of good and evil, and that of the interdict itself. Neither knowledge in itself, nor that of good and evil, is bad. But recourse to this discernment implies an existential inferiority, a fallen state. In the condition of sin, one must certainly know good and evil to do one and avoid the other. But for Adam in Paradise this knowledge has no use. The very existence of evil implies a voluntary separation from God, a denial of God. As long as Adam remained united with God and fulfilled His will, as long as he nourished himself with His presence, such a distinction was of no use. |
| V. Putin: " Today society is expected to consider good and evil equal " Moscow, December 12, 2013 Vladimir Putin has read his annual Message of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly. This year the message was read on the day of the 20th anniversary of the Russian Federation " s Constitution, which was adopted on December 12, 1993, by a nationwide vote. In his address Vladimir Putin has particularly stressed that Russia will continue to defend traditional values: " The meaning of conservatism is not that it impedes movement forward and upward, but that it impedes movement backwards and downwards—to chaotic darkness and the return to a primitive state " " Today in many countries the norms of morality are being revised, national traditions and differences between nations and cultures are being obliterated. Now not only conscious acknowledgement of everybody " s right to freedom of conscience, political views, and private life is required from society, but also compulsory recognition of equality (though this may seem very strange) between good and evil—two opposing concepts. This destruction of traditional values " from above " not only leads to negative consequences for societies, but it is also completely anti-democratic, as it is carried out on the basis of abstract ideas, in defiance of the will of the national majority, which does not accept the ongoing change and suggested revision. And we know that there are more and more people in the world, who support our stance on the protection of traditional values, which over thousands of years have been the spiritual and moral foundations of our civilization, of all peoples: traditional family values, genuine human life, including religious life—not only material, but also spiritual life, values of humanism and diversity of the world. Of course, this is a conservative stand. But, according to Nikolai Berdyaev, the meaning of conservatism is not that it impedes movement forward and upward, but that it impedes movement backwards and downwards—to chaotic darkness and the return to a primitive state. Over recent years we have seen that attempts to impose a supposedly more progressive model of development on other countries have in fact turned into regression, barbarity, and great bloodshed " . Pravoslavie.ru 14 декабря 2013 г. ... Смотри также Комментарии Мы в соцсетях Подпишитесь на нашу рассылку |
| A second spiritual guideline is about organizing our time, tasks, and priorities. A sense of peace and stability in spiritual life cannot be obtained without setting a reasonable order in our daily lives according to our particular stations and responsibilities. Good order begins with simple things such as a fairly regular time for going to sleep and rising each morning. It is helped by the discipline of regular and healthy meals. It requires serious commitment to diligent accomplishment of our work in our various occupations, but also to taking time for exercise, relaxation, and recuperation. The centerpiece of these practical tasks is developing a discipline of quiet time with God—a “holy hour” of reading, reflection, and prayer. The holy hour is holy because it is devoted to personal communion with God, the abiding source of renewal and strength for true Christian living in a complex and confusing world. . If you keep television viewing and other really unhelpful entertainment to a minimum, there will be much time to nourish the mind and heart with good books, building up a healthy worldview of principles, priorities and values, and strengthening the soul with heartfelt prayer in seeking God’s forgiveness, guidance and transformative power. A third spiritual guideline is about being attentive to and guiding our inner dispositions, thoughts and feelings. The saints called this discipline “invisible warfare”—that is to say, “guarding the mind” or “guarding the heart” by being alert and vigilant to fight off intruding evil thoughts while making room and welcoming good thoughts and prayerful dispositions. For example, do not compare yourself with others and be thankful to God for the gifts and opportunities God has given you. Avoid gossip, criticizing, talking about others, complaining, and wasting precious, which is yielding to the devil and his works. Keep a clear conscience and a warm feeling toward God. When falling to sin, whether in thought, word or deed, immediately repent of it to God deep within your being and begin the warfare again. If serious sin is involved, you should think about holy confession to your priest or an intimate Christian friend. Live each day by faith, hope, love and joy, knowing that God loves you dearly, Christ is near you, and the grace of the Holy Spirit surrounds you. Victory in spiritual warfare is ultimately God’s victory, wherever God’s grace finds humble, receptive, and obedient hearts. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Metropolitan Kliment believes high speed is disadvantage of the Internet Source: Interfax-religion.com Natalya Mihailova 27 November 2014 Moscow, November 27, Interfax - Head of the Publishing Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Metropolitan Kliment is sure that high speed of the Internet helps promote evil. “The main characteristic of the Internet is that its speed is very high, it means that every evil appears and spreads in it very fast. And to do evil, you don’t have to be very smart,” the hierarch said a Thursday press conference in Moscow. However, the church official believes, that the Internet itself “isn’t personification of evil.” “It’s just a technology of accumulating and conveying the information, the same as clay tablets, birch bark documents, papyrus, parchment, stone walls and other technologies of transferring information,” the hierarch said. According to him, other factors are important when creating “something good, deep, talented.” “To create such works, even considering modern technologies, much time and effort is needed as well as certain spiritual mood,” the metropolitan said. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Metropolitan Kliment believes high speed is disadvantage of the Internet Natalya Mihailova " The main characteristic of the Internet is that its speed is very high, it means that every evil appears and spreads in it very fast. And to do evil, you don " t have to be very smart, " the hierarch said a Thursday press conference in Moscow. However, the church official believes, ... Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. |
| The Godly-wise fathers teach us that it is always better to reproach ourselves and in every unpleasant situation to lay the blame on ourselves, and not on others. Then we will find rest and spiritual peace, and we will hold fast to the true path to salvation. Joy We must begin with thanksgiving for everything. The beginning of joy is to be content with your situation. Complaining Especially beware of complaining, no matter who it is against. Complaining is worse and more harmful than anything else. It is more beneficial and peaceful to blame yourself at all times for everything, and not others. You must especially beware of complaining against Divine Providence which arranges everything good and beneficial for our souls through the Mother of God. But due to our faintheartedness, we often are foolishly disturbed and we grieve senselessly over something arranged for our spiritual benefit. Self-Love Our self-love interferes and opposes every good deed of ours, spoils it and corrupts it, and it especially hinders the offering of pure prayer to God. From egoism and self-love come all misfortunes. They do not like when others touch us and they get so stirred up that you can’t protect yourself from their thoughts. They produce disgusting thoughts, like locusts, that devour not only spiritual fruit, but the leaves and the root itself. Selfishness The root of all evil: selfishness and stubbornness, mixed with envy and seasoned with delusion of the enemy. Therefore one must in every way strive to extract this evil root: with humility and obedience, imitating the Lord Himself, Who humbled Himself to the form of a servant, and was obedient unto crucifixion and death on the cross. Self-Reproach For whatever you are guilty of before God and man, offer repentance and humble yourself, do not dare to condemn or judge anyone, but in every unpleasant situation strive to lay the blame on yourself and not others, either for your sins or that you caused this sorrow—through carelessness and inexperience. |
| Grant us to live chastely in deed and word, that we may obtain a virtuous life, and not fall away from thy promised blessings; for blessed art Thou forever. Amen. Prayer VII, of St. John Chrysostom May be done in an Antiphonal manner 1. O Lord, deprive me not of Thy heavenly good things. 2. O Lord, deliver me from the eternal torments. 3. O Lord, if I have sinned in mind or deed, forgive me. 4. O Lord, deliver me from all ignorance, forgetfulness, faintheartedness, and stony insensibility. 5. O Lord, deliver me from every temptation. 6. O Lord, enlighten my heart which evil desire hath darkened. 7. O Lord, as a man I have sinned, but do Thou, as the compassionate God, have mercy on me, seeing the infirmity of my soul. 8. O Lord, send Thy grace to my help, that I may glorify Thy holy name. 9. O Lord Jesus Christ, write me Thy servant in the Book of Life, and grant me a good end. 10. O Lord my God, even though I have done nothing good in Thy sight, yet grant me by Thy grace a good beginning. 11. O Lord, sprinkle into my heart the dew of Thy grace. 12. O Lord of heaven and earth, remember me Thy sinful servant, shameful and unclean, in Thy Kingdom, Amen. 13. O Lord, accept me in penitence. 14. O Lord, forsake me not. 15. O Lord, lead me not into temptation. 16. O Lord, grant me good thoughts. 17. O Lord, grant me tears, and remembrance of death, and compunction. 18. O Lord, grant me the thought of confessing my sins. 19. O Lord, grant me humility, chastity, and obedience. 20. O Lord, grant me patience, courage, and meekness. 21. O Lord, implant in me the root of good, Thy fear in my heart. 22. O Lord, vouchsafe me to love Thee with all my soul and thoughts, and in all things to do Thy will. 23. O Lord, protect me from evil men, and demons, and passions, and from every other unseemly thing. 24. O Lord, Thou knowest that Thou doest as Thou wilt: Thy will be done also in me a sinner; for blessed art Thou unto the ages. Amen. Prayer VIII, to our Lord Jesus Christ O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, for the sake of Thy most honorable Mother, and Thy bodiless angels, Thy Prophet and Forerunner and Baptist, the God-Inspired apostles, the radiant and victorious martyrs, the holy and God-bearing fathers, and through the intercessions of all the saints, deliver me from the besetting presence of the demons. |
|
|
