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Church Fathers V3 - Fr George Grube - Saint Mina Coptic Orthodox ...

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+ He that is freed owes obedience to his deliverer. Therefore, we who desire to<br />

be Christians should imitate what Christ said and did.<br />

- St. Cyprian of Carthage<br />

+ There is no obedience beyond obedience to the <strong>Church</strong>. And if we only wipe<br />

the floor in the Lord’s house with a rag, this is set by God higher than any other<br />

work. There is no obedience higher than to the <strong>Church</strong>. And everything done<br />

in it, no matter what (both as you go in and go out) everything must be done<br />

with fear and trembling and with unceasing prayer, and nothing should ever<br />

be spoken in that sacred place, save that pertaining to that which is absolutely<br />

necessary.<br />

- St. Seraphim of Sarov<br />

+ If a man does not say in his heart, in the world there is only God and myself,<br />

he will not gain peace.<br />

- Abba Alonius<br />

+ Complete freedom from cares lies in complete obedience, in faith, to one’s<br />

spiritual father.<br />

- Nikon of Optina<br />

+ If someone were especially dear to me, but I realized that he was causing me<br />

to do something less than good, I should put him far from me.<br />

- Abba Agathon<br />

+ Even a pious person is not immune to spiritual sickness if he does not have<br />

a wise guide - either a living person or spiritual writer. This sickness is called<br />

“p r e ie s ior spiritual delusion, imagining oneself to be near to God and to the<br />

realm of the Divine and supernatural. Even zealous ascetics in monasteries are<br />

sometimes subject to this delusion, but of course, laymen who are zealous in<br />

external struggles (podvig) undergo it much more frequently. Surpassing their<br />

acquaintances in struggles of prayer and fasting, they imagine that they are<br />

seers of Divine visions, or at least of dreams inspired by grace. In every event<br />

of their lives, they see special intentional directions from God or their guardian<br />

angel. And then they start imagining that they are God’s elect, and often try to<br />

foretell the future. The Holy <strong>Fathers</strong> armed themselves against nothing so<br />

fiercely as against this spiritual sickness -pretest.<br />

- Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky<br />

+ For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the mistakes of sinners<br />

by force-it is necessary to make a man better not by force, but by persuasion.<br />

We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were,<br />

should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept<br />

from evil, not by force, but by choice.<br />

- St. John Chrysostom<br />

- 54 -

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