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