First Discourse. Discourse of the Great Righteous One and Wonderworker Father John of Kronstadt, Concerning the Departure of Certain Persons From the Bosom of the Orthodox Church

“The devil and the entire fallen assembly of evil spirits strain with all their might, in unity and cunning, with malice and subtlety, to distort, pervert and destroy the wise, all-good and eternal purposes of God concerning the appointment, perfection and eternal blessedness of mankind; to distort and corrupt the soul and body of man, to defile, rot, chill and alienate people from God and from one another; they strive to give every thought, every feeling, every movement of the will a sinful, unclean, senseless, absurd and destructive direction; they strive unceasingly to blaspheme and belittle God and His saints, all that is holy and great. The devil even strives by all means to corrupt God’s Word through false human wisdom and thereby deprive people of the light, truth of God and salvation of the soul, as he has done and does through various heresies of the first centuries and subsequent ones—concerning the person of Jesus Christ and the union in Him of two natures—the divine and the human—and concerning the relationship of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity; concerning the veneration of holy icons, relics and the like. Thus he corrupts and distorts God’s Word and human souls through the false wisdom of Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans. Lutherans and Anglicans do not believe fully in the Gospel, although they call themselves evangelicals, not believing in the transubstantiation of bread and wine in the holy Eucharist.”