An Instruction to the Common People During a Visitation of the Diocese: On Salvation

Beloved brothers! The unspeakable mercy of God has placed me, unworthy, as your pastor; it has granted me to visit you, to unite my poor prayers with your prayers, and finally to converse with you. About what shall we converse, brothers? Let us speak about our salvation.

We are all brief sojourners upon the earth. Each of us will sojourn upon it as long as God has appointed, and then will die, will surely die. And our houses and gardens and fields and possessions, and even our very bodies will be taken from us by death. The soul alone, the soul with its deeds, good or evil, will go into eternity; in eternity it will either constantly be blessed and rejoice, or constantly suffer, weep and groan. Let us therefore speak about how we may be saved, how we may please God, how we may be delivered from bitter hell, how we may inherit the paradise of sweetness.

Brethren! Prepare yourselves to listen carefully to my words, that you may understand them and remember them. Having the opportunity to speak with you rarely, I intend now to impart to you the most necessary teaching. “O Lord! You shall open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Your praise” (Ps. 50:17).

Whoever desires to be saved must belong to the one holy Orthodox Church, be a faithful son of it, and obey all its ordinances. If anyone does not obey the Church, if anyone has separated himself from the Church, if anyone is a schismatic, then no matter how many bows he makes, no matter how much he fasts, no matter how much he prays, he cannot be saved. The Lord compared one who does not obey the Church to an idolater: “if” anyone “disobeys the Church”, He said, “let him be to you as a heathen and a tax-collector” (Mt. 18:17). Even in the Old Testament, when Saul offered a sacrifice without authorization, contrary to the Lord’s commandment, the prophet Samuel said to him: “It was foolish of you, because you did not keep the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you” (1Sam. 13:13). “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying His voice? Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice, and paying attention is better than the fat of rams. For as divination is sin, and stubbornness is iniquity and idolatry is transgression” (1Sam. 15:22–23). In the New Testament, the beloved disciple of the Lord testified that the Lord receives our prayer only when that prayer is offered in accordance with the will of the Lord (1Jn. 5:14). The prayers of those whose deeds oppose God are not accepted but rejected by God (Mt. 7:21–23). The schismatic and heretic are devoid of humility, as the devil is devoid of humility, and therefore they are devoid of salvation, as the devil is devoid of it. Once the demon appeared to the venerable Macarius and said: “Macarius! You fast much, but I do not eat at all; you sleep little, but I do not sleep at all; you overcome me in one thing only – in your humility.” The schismatics observe long and severe fasts, spend whole nights in prayer, and make numerous bows, but alas! they labour in vain because they will not humble themselves. Without humility it is impossible to be a disciple of Christ. The Lord said: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt. 11:29). Whoever has not humbled himself is not a disciple of Christ, has not yielded to Christ. True humility comes from obedience, said the holy John of the Ladder, and likewise the Lord manifested His humility through the fact that He “was obedient even to death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). Without obedience to the Church there is no humility; without humility there is no salvation: “I was humbled, and He saved me”, said the prophet (Ps. 114:5). Heresy and schism contain, moreover, a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which is a mortal sin, unforgivable by God to man neither in this age nor in the age to come if man persists in this sin. Even the blood of the martyrs cannot cleanse this sin according to the teaching of the holy John Chrysostom. This sin is cleansed only when a man renounces his heresy, leaves the schism, and unites himself to the holy Church.

Whoever desires to be saved must pray to God, however little and however often. On weekdays pray to God at home: in the morning upon rising from sleep; at night before going to sleep; before dinner and before supper. Do not even have breakfast or supper without remembering God and making the sign of the cross upon yourself. On feast days and Sundays you must participate in the public prayers of the Church. Go to Matins, to the All-Night Vigil, to the Divine Liturgy, and to Vespers. It is great happiness for a sinful man to be able to visit the Church of God: he can entreat God to forgive him his sins and grant him salvation. David was a glorious and wealthy king, and also a prophet, but he asked one thing of the Lord: “One thing I have asked of the Lord, that I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to visit His holy temple” (Ps. 26:4). David recognized that he had been given the ability to go to church as a very special mercy from God: “As for me”, he says, “through the abundance of Your mercy I will enter into Your house; I will bow down toward Your holy temple in the fear of You” (Ps. 5:8). In general, prayer is the greatest virtue, the means of uniting man with God. The holy Fathers call prayer the mother of all virtues, because through it one can obtain from the merciful Lord all the other virtues, all temporal and eternal blessings, as the Lord testified: “Ask”, He said, “and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you”. To the commandment about prayer the Lord added the promise that He will hear our prayer: “Everyone who asks receives; everyone who seeks finds; and the door will be opened to the one who knocks. Your Father in heaven will give good gifts to those who ask Him” (Mt. 7:7–8, 11). Prayer must be performed with faith; it must be grounded in charity and freedom from malice. What the soul is to the body, faith is to prayer; as the body without soul is dead and incapable of movement, so prayer without faith is dead, lacking power and efficacy. What foundation and groundwork are to a house, freedom from malice is to prayer. Just as a house cannot stand without a foundation but must fall, so prayer that is not grounded in freedom from malice cannot rise to God but sinks into fleshly wisdom and is destroyed by it. The Lord said: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (Mk. 11:24–25). Prayer not only grants us temporal and eternal blessings, not only draws God’s blessing upon us, it protects us from disasters and rescues us from the greatest sorrows. It drew the prophet Jonah from the belly of the whale; it delivered King Hezekiah from the death that had been announced to him. “Pray that you do not enter into temptation” (Lk. 22:40), said the Lord. On the other hand, one who neglects prayer exposes himself to many and various sorrows and may lose salvation itself.

Whoever desires to be saved must, according to his strength, perform spiritual and bodily almsgiving. Spiritual almsgiving consists in forgiving our neighbors their sins, that is, the offences and injuries inflicted upon us by our neighbors. Bodily almsgiving consists in rendering what help one can to a neighbor with bread, clothing, money, and hospitality. The Lord said: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Mt. 5:7), that is, they shall be saved. On the contrary, judgment without mercy awaits the unmerciful (Jas. 2:13), that is, the unmerciful shall not be saved.

Whoever desires to be saved must bring to God careful repentance for his sins, both in his daily prayers and especially before his spiritual father in the sacrament of confession. The divinely-inspired prophet proclaims: “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin” (Ps. 31:5). Observe the order of words spoken by the Holy Spirit: first a man recognizes his sins through devout self-examination; then he rejects those excuses by which a cunning conscience usually tries to justify sin; finally, the repenting man becomes his own accuser and reveals to the Lord, in the presence of his spiritual father as witness, all his sins, sparing not his self-love. Then he receives from God the forgiveness of his transgressions. The Apostle said: “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jn. 1:9). Therefore, “if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1Jn. 2:1–2). We have an almighty Advocate – our Lord Jesus Christ! We have an all-powerful cleansing from our sins – our Lord Jesus Christ! Having destroyed our sins through confession before our spiritual father by means of such an Advocate and through such a cleansing, we assuredly receive the joyful pledge of our salvation. After cleansing ourselves through confession before the spiritual father, we must with fear of God, faith, and love partake of the most holy Body of Christ and the most holy Blood of Christ, which is necessary for salvation. The Lord said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life in you”, that is, you do not have salvation. “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life”, that is, has salvation (Jn. 6:53–54). One should commune, at least during all four fasting periods, four times a year. If, unfortunately and to one’s misfortune, worldly cares do not permit even this, then one must at least commune once a year without fail.

Whoever desires to be saved must bear magnanimously all the sorrows that will be permitted to him during this brief earthly pilgrimage. Should there be crop failure, or should insects or hail destroy the already ripened grain; should there be the death of livestock, fire, illness of oneself or family members, the death of one of the nearest relatives, persecution and injury from a powerful person – all of this must be borne with great-heartedness, without murmuring, and especially without blasphemy. The Lord commanded us to possess our souls in patience (Lk. 21:19); “he who endures to the end”, He said, “shall be saved” (Mt. 24:13). This means: salvation comes not to the one who endures patiently one sort of sorrow and gives way to sadness and murmuring in the face of other sorrows, but to the one who bears all sorrows, all calamities, whatever may be permitted to him during earthly life, with magnanimity until his very end, until the day and hour of his death. Magnanimous endurance of sorrows is an active, living consciousness of one’s sinfulness! Magnanimous endurance of sorrows is an active, living knowledge and acknowledgment of the Redeemer! Magnanimous endurance of sorrows is following our Lord Jesus Christ. “Christ suffered for us”, said the holy Apostle Peter, “leaving us an example, that you should follow in His steps” (1Pet. 2:21). No voluntary ascetical struggle, no voluntary deprivation and self-inflicted suffering can bring the soul as much benefit as the involuntary sorrows sent by God. Every voluntary ascetical struggle is not free from self-conceit and vainglory, more or less obvious; but the ascetical struggle into which the soul is raised by sorrow sent by God is free from the aforesaid subtle and destructive passions. Through this struggle abundantly profitable humble-mindedness is brought to the soul, and true repentance is bestowed upon it. Sorrows sent by God are a reliable sign to a man that that man is chosen by God, beloved by God. “As for me”, testified the Lord, “those I love I rebuke and discipline” (Rev. 3:19). For this reason the Apostle comforts the sorrowful and suffering one thus: “My son, do not disregard the discipline of the Lord or be disheartened when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He chastises everyone He receives as a son. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children” (Hebr. 12:5–7). Such is the dignity of earthly sorrows when borne with magnanimity! They are a gift from God (Phil. 1:29); they are a sign of adoption by God! To learn to bear sorrows with patience and magnanimity, one must meet each coming sorrow with the words of the blessed thief: “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong. Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom” (Lk. 23:42). It is also helpful to remember and repeat the words of the much-suffering Job. “Should we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10) “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised forever” (Job 1:21). All the saints inherited the Kingdom of Heaven through many sorrows and deaths! All the saints glorified and thanked God for the trials and tribulations sent to them, through which they were cleansed as gold in a furnace, and became capable of eternal blessedness. Magnanimous endurance of sorrows sent by God is crucifixion upon one’s own cross. The confessor of his own sinfulness becomes a confessor of the Redeemer, and from his cross ascends into paradise to the eternal enjoyment of heavenly joys, of which earthly sorrows are the faithful pledges.

It is necessary for one desiring to be saved to engage in reading divine books. “Blessed is the man”, said the holy prophet David, “who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord” “and on His law he meditates day and night” (Ps. 1:1–2). Our mind, darkened by sin, cannot possibly be satisfied with regard to salvation by its own thoughts, which are weak, wavering, and deceptive; it necessarily must acquire divine thoughts from the Word of God through careful reading or attentive hearing of the Word of God and be enlightened by them. One must engage in the study of the Word of God very reverently and very often, so that it may be a guide to us in the work of salvation, because our own thoughts can easily turn us aside from the path of salvation, accepting falsehood as truth. Our own thoughts are so corrupted by sin that they even contradict and oppose the Word of God. It is a great misfortune to trust in them! On the contrary, it is a great blessing when one unfailingly holds to the Word of God as a blind person holds to the hand of his guide. The holy Fathers called reading and hearing the Word of God the queen of all virtues. The Word of God reveals to us all the sinful passions living and acting in our corrupted nature, reveals all their devices, exposes evil when it covers itself with the mask of virtue to deceive us. The Word of God reveals the schemes and designs of our enemy the devil, teaches us how we must resist this cunning enemy who craves our destruction. The Word of God ceaselessly calls us to repentance, proclaiming to us the infinite mercy of God to fallen mankind suffering under the yoke of sin; it instructs us how to repent, how to make that repentance effective and fruitful. The Word of God shows us all the perversity and vanity of this world; it portrays before us the ruinous consequences of being deceived by the world and by sin; it reveals to us the magnificent eternity with its rewards for a pious earthly life and its terrible punishments for iniquities committed on earth. The Word of God teaches us most detailed and precise instruction about virtues and the means of acquiring virtues, how to become pleasing to God. In short, the Word of God teaches us salvation.

Whoever is a faithful son of the Orthodox Church, whoever daily, and better yet hourly, in every place remembers God and asks Him for mercy and help, whoever on Sundays and feast days carefully visits the temple of God, and at home prays every morning and evening, whoever is merciful to the poor and to strangers, whoever brings repentance for his sins and partakes of the holy Mysteries of Christ, whoever bears magnanimously the sorrows sent to him by God, whoever carefully studies the Word of God – such a one has with him a precious pledge of salvation. There is still a struggle ahead of him: he must necessarily guard his treasure, his salvation, from sins, particularly from mortal sins.

What is a mortal sin? A mortal sin is one which kills eternally the soul of the man who commits such a sin. If a man dies in mortal sin without having brought proper repentance for it, then demons seize his soul and drag it down to the underground, dark and suffocating abysses, to hell for eternal torment. The mortal sins are the following: heresy, schism, apostasy from the Christian faith, blasphemy, sorcery and witchcraft, murder and suicide, fornication, adultery, unnatural sexual sins, drunkenness, desecration of holy things, robbery, theft, and every cruel and inhuman offense. Of all the mortal sins, only suicide has no repentance; the other mortal sins, by the great and unspeakable mercy of God toward fallen mankind, are healed by repentance. Repentance for a mortal sin consists in confessing the sin to one’s spiritual father, accepting from him the penance, and thenceforth not falling into that sin again. But how many who fall into mortal sin find it impossible to bring repentance! One became intoxicated with wine, and in that state his soul was separated from his body; another went to steal and rob, and the wrath of God struck him down in the very act of his crime! Guard yourselves, brethren, from mortal sins! I repeat to you: mortal sin kills the soul. If anyone dies in a mortal sin without having had time to repent of it, his soul goes to hell. There is no hope whatsoever for his salvation.

What is the meaning of venial sins? These are sins in thought, word, and deed in knowledge and ignorance, which do not kill the soul but only wound it more or less. The holy ones are not free from these sins; but the holy ones watch over themselves, and when they notice a transgression into which they have been drawn by the weakness common to all men, they immediately heal it through repentance. If the separation of soul from body occurs at a time when a man has not yet washed away his venial sins through repentance, the soul is not dragged down to hell because of these sins; it is allowed to undergo examination from evil spirits in the air on the way to heaven, with whose cooperation these sins are committed by men, and is given the opportunity to make restitution for the transgressions through good works. If the soul has sufficient good works, especially if during earthly life it gave much alms, then it atones for these transgressions through this almsgiving and other good works; the gates of heaven are opened to it, and it enters heaven for eternal rest and rejoicing. But it happens that a soul has so many venial sins and so few virtues that because of the multitude of venial sins it is dragged down to hell. The holy Fathers compare a mortal sin to a heavy stone, while a venial sin is like a grain of sand. If a heavy stone is tied around a man’s neck and he is plunged into the depths, he will drown: thus a single mortal sin is sufficient to sink the soul into the abyss of hell. A few grains of sand constitute almost no weight: thus in the holy ones a venial sin, greatly diminished and pulverized by constant watchfulness over oneself and constant repentance, has almost no influence on their eternal fate. But that same venial sin in souls devoted to worldly cares, especially to worldly pleasures, acquires extraordinary weight and dragging the wretched soul to hell as readily as a mortal sin does. For instance, if someone spoke a witty and even improper word, and then repented of it, his sin is easily forgiven; but if someone constantly utters witty, impious, and even vile words, then for his constant idle talk and foul language he can readily be subjected to eternal torment in hell. Venial sins, through their multitude, can bring the same destruction to the soul that a mortal sin brings. Thus a sack filled with fine sand tied around a man’s neck can drown him just as readily as the heaviest stone.

The root of all sins, said the holy Apostle Paul, is the love of money, and after the love of money, in the opinion of the holy Fathers, gluttony, whose strongest and most abundant expression is drunkenness. Because of the love of money Judas committed the most terrible crime among human crimes: he betrayed the Lord. Because of the love of money innumerable crimes are committed: God’s laws and civil laws are broken, justice is trampled, injustice is protected, the poor are oppressed, and the money-loving grasper enriches himself to his own perdition. The heart of the money-lover is closed to mercy, and he deprives himself of God’s mercy or salvation, which is given to the merciful alone. Given over to drunkenness, to what crimes is man not capable? He is inflamed with wine as if with hellfire, raves, becomes mad like a frenzied one. He is ready for adultery, he is ready for quarrels, for fights, for robbery, for murder. All crimes seem suitable to one stupefied by drunkenness. For all this, his crimes cannot be compared to those of the money-lover, whose crimes are premeditated, covered with the mask of justice, far-sighted, permeated and filled with Satanic cunning, often acting in the broadest sense and scope, shaking and undermining the well-being of entire nations. Not without reason does the holy Gospel say that into the money-loving Judas, to assist him and to guide him in his infernal plots, “Satan entered” (Jn. 13:27).

Beloved brethren! In my brief discourse to you I have set forth, according to the poverty of my understanding, the path of salvation, the means to salvation, and the manner of preserving from corruption the salvation acquired through virtue.

Be saved, brethren, be saved! The earthly life of each of us is very short – how quickly it passes! How suddenly death creeps up on each of us! In that terrible hour of death every gluttony and drunkenness, every fornication and adultery will appear to us as a foul and deep pit and abyss. How we will grieve that we wallowed in that pit! Then we will know that the enjoyment of every passion is the most wretched, the most sorrowful delusion. Blessed is the one who has made provisions for his salvation, made provisions for it through his prayers, through his alms, through his repentance. Such a one will enter into the joy of his Lord; such a one will enter into paradise, where flow rivers of the grace of God, where the eternal festival of salvation is celebrated.

On the contrary, the soul which during earthly life was sunk in sins – fierce demons will drag it down to hell. O brethren! Inexpressible are the torments which await sinners in the dungeons of the underworld. There is eternal darkness and at the same time unquenchable fire; there is gnashing of teeth, there is the sleepless worm. There are heard unceasing cries and groans! Men plead for mercy; but there is no one to hear and take heed to the most urgent and most pitiful pleas. There men ask for help and deliverance; but there is no one to help and to deliver. “It is impossible to describe in words,” says the holy Cyril of Alexandria, “it is impossible to depict and imagine the calamities and sufferings which befall the souls cast down into the abyss of hell. Every human utterance fails in the attempt to express the fear and trembling which seize the prisoners of hell; there is no human tongue capable of expressing their anguish and weeping.”

Brethren, let us strive through a pious life to avoid the terrible torments of hell and to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever among you has lived piously until now should continue in such a life. Whoever until now has allowed himself to live a sinful life should bring repentance, and from now on should begin to live a virtuous life. “As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live” (Ezek. 33:11). Amen.

The Alphabetical Patericon; The Life of the Venerable Macarius the Great, of Egypt. The Menaion Reader. January 19.

Homily 4. On Obedience.

The Discourse of the Venerable Mark the Ascetic. On Those Who Suppose Themselves Justified by Works, Chapter 35. The Philokalia, Part 1. “Prayer is called a virtue, and if it is also the mother of virtues: for it gives birth to them from union with Christ.”

See the Euchologion, the rite of the small schema.

“The Flower-Garden” of the venerable monk Dorotheos; Saint Peter of Damascus. On Profitable Reading, On Discernment, Book 1. The Philokalia, Part 3 and many other Fathers.

Word on the Departure of the Soul. The Psalter with the Practice.