Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and his Synod have issued a special Encyclical for the Sunday of Orthodoxy [Protocol #213] in which he takes vehement issue with those whose opposition to the contemporary phenomenon of syncretist ecumenism is based, he claims, on their opposition to dialogue and to the reunion of Christians. 

He writes that their opposition is rooted in fear ("truth does not fear dialogue").  

The full text of his Encyclical can be found on that Patriarchate's website, www.patriarchate.org/documents/sunday-orthodoxy-2010.

In fact the Encyclical could have been entitled, "In Defence of Dialogue", the term dialogue occurring some twenty times through the text of Patriarch Bartholomew's Encyclical.  Clearly, Patriarch Bartholomew wants us to believe that ecumenism consists of nothing more than having conversations with other people.  As anyone familiar with the field knows, this is misleading to say the least.

This writer's preliminary reaction to this strongly-worded Encyclical was one of surprise.  Who are these people who refuse to countenance dialogue with heterodox Christians and non-Christians?

Patriarch Bartholomew minces no words in his characterisation of these anti-dialogists:  they have "challenged [these dialogues] in an unacceptably fanatical way".  

They are members of "certain circles that exclusively claim for themselves the title of zealot and defender of Orthodoxy"; they constitute a group of "opponents of every effort for the restoration of unity among Christians" and in their opposition, raise themselves "above Episcopal Synods of the Church to the dangerous point of creating schisms within the Church".  

Their work consists of "polemical argumentation" undertaken by "critics of the restoration of unity among Christians" and they "do not hesitate to distort reality in order to deceive and arouse the faithful".  They disseminate "false rumours that union between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches [sic] is imminent".  

They are an example of irresponsible "fanaticism" and "bigotry".  

The targets of Patriarch Bartholomew's vehement denunciation are likely all those who have written (or have signed) documents currently circulating in Greece and throughout the Orthodox world, most notably the Confession of Faith Against Ecumenism (full text can be found at http://oodegr.com/english/oikoumenismos/omologia_pistews.htm among other places) which is evidently recruiting more signatories daily.  One must stress that the authors and signers of these Confessions are not Old-Calendarists.  They are members - often prominent members - of Patriarch Bartholomew's own Church.  They may be dissidents; but they are insiders in dissension.

These Confessions of Faith take sharp issue with syncretist ecumenism as currently practiced by Patriarch Bartholomew and the incumbents of all the historic Patriarchates who are embodied members of syncretist ecumenism's chief institutional expression, the World and regional Councils of Churches.  

As of this writing, literally hundreds of monastic leaders, including Athonites (who fall directly under Patriarch Bartholomew's jurisdiction - he is their Patriarch!) as well as clergy and lay leaders, academics and theologians, throughout Greece and the wider Orthodox world, have actually signed their names to these anti-ecumenist statements.

And if they are indeed the intended targets of Patriarch Bartholomew's denunciatory language, two things come to mind.  

First, these anti-ecumenist statements clearly are not directed against dialogue with anybody. 

Second, it is surely curious that in an Encyclical devoted to the cause of dialogue above all else, Patriarch Bartholomew opts to not dialogue with members of his own constituency who are alienated by his approach to syncretist ecumenism but instead, subjects them to sustained invective (calling them bigots, fanatics, unacceptable, creators of schisms within the Church, polemicists, critics of unity, distorters of reality, deceivers bent on arousing the faithful, sources of false rumours and so on - quite a list, actually).

And since Patriarch Bartholomew's targets appear to be his own sons and daughters, canonically-speaking, and since they do not appear in fact to be attacking his ecumenist program because it involves dialogue, there would seem to be grounds to suspect that in focusing his (and his hearers') attention on dialogue Patriarch Bartholomew is sending out a red herring.  And the question always is, when this is the case, Why?  From what is the red herring meant to distract our attention?

That this group of traditionally-minded people - who clearly reject ecumenism - find themselves targeted by Patriarch Bartholomew's surprisingly abusive language enables us to see just how disturbing the ecumenist Patriarchates find this internal opposition, and how forcefully Patriarch Bartholomew has thrown down the gauntlet with respect to the conscientious objection to syncretist ecumenism on the part of a growing body of traditionalists who are willing to see their names publicly associated with a point of view sharply dismissed by the Patriarch of Constantinople as an instance of bigotry, fanaticism, schism-making and a failure to manifest Christian love.  It is quite an exercise.

But the fact is that I cannot remember any instance in which conservative members of the historic Patriarchates decry dialogue with non-orthodox people.  I can remember any number of instances in which conservative members of the historic, and now ecumenist Patriarchates have initiated dialogue with non-orthodox persons, above all on a personal or local level.  

I also recall that the great bone of contention for conservative Orthodox who find themselves under the canonical oversight of ecumenist Hierarchs is largely confined to those practices (by now routine) which place Orthodox delegates to ecumenist assemblies in the position of contradicting clearly-written and pragmatically-based canons which cover situations in which Orthodox and non-Orthodox people are in contact with one another - all those questions of joint, common prayer and worship, for example, or, in more dire cases, joint, common sharing of the Church's Mysteries, or of the sacraments of non-Orthodox communions.  

These matters were supposedly resolved at a conference which took place in Thessaloniki, in May, 1998, as I recall.  

There, representatives of the historic (and ecumenist) Patriarchates met, discussed, and agreed to forfeit such anti-canonical practices in the future.  As I recall, the next World Council of Churches assembly was in Harare, in Africa, and a large number - a majority, as I recall - of the representatives of those Patriarchates at Harare opted to break the promises they had made at Thessaloniki, and participated in the World Council's usual round of joint, common prayer and worship.  Business as usual, the considered decrees of oecumenical and regional councils of Hierarchs sacrificed to the ecumenist imperative.  

So blatant was the breaking of their own promises that a Greek Bishop, questioned about the matter at the time, opined that the various Patriarchates and their delegations obviously did not feel bound by the promises given at the Thessaloniki summit!  Well, what does one say to something like this?

At least one thing is clear - Patriarch Bartholomew, confronted by the continuing vitality of traditional and therefore anti-ecumenist points of view within the ranks of his own constituency, is now so frustrated that he abandons dialogue, and resorts to the extraordinary invective which we find him visiting on the heads of his own traditionalist constituents in this Encyclical!

Having apparently been forced to forfeit dialogue among his own people so spectacularly, one has to ask if an ecumenist dialogue that has blatantly failed to convince a significant group of those within has much chance of success among those without?

Patriarch Bartholomew, finally, suggests that those who oppose his approach to ecumenism lack love.  

I think that his opponents would likely point out that they demonstrate a love of Truth, and in that demonstration, offer a substantive, compassionate and durable love to their neighbours.  

This speaking the truth with love [Ephesians 4:14] is of course non-negotiable for true Orthodox Christians.  Truth without love is something other than truth, as love without truth is something other than love.  Each occurs when the other is present; each without the other is something less than itself.  

Although the question of truth rarely comes up in Patriarch Bartholomew's Sunday of Orthodoxy Encyclical, of course that question is at the heart of the matter for traditionalists under the canonical oversight of the historic (and currently entirely ecumenist) Patriarchates, as among us confessing Orthodox Christians living under the canonical oversight of non-ecumenist Hierarchs.  

To the extent that Patriarch Bartholomew's Sunday of Orthodoxy Encyclical this year clarifies these issues more sharply than he has done in the past, to that extent we welcome it and thank him for the clarification.

+Bishop Sergios of Loch Lomond
Sunday of Orthodoxy, 2010

Attention has recently been drawn to the fate of mankind after death.

As we approach the Sunday of The Second Coming of Christ, popularly known as “Meatfare”, we will hear one of the Saviour’s parables when the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 25: 31-46, is read:

When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye fed Me: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in: naked, and ye clothed Me: I was sick, and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came unto Me. Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? when saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? or naked, and clothed Thee? Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me. Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry, and ye gave Me nothing to eat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in: naked, and ye clothed Me not: sick, or in prison, and ye visited Me not. Then shall they also answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee? Then shall He answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

The indispensable Explanation of the Gospels by Saint Theofylaktos of Ochrid which we now have in an excellent English edition of 4 volumes (published by Chrysostom Press, Explanation by Blessed Theophylact of the Holy Gospel, www.chrysostompress.org), draws attention, in its comments on this parable, to the “gentleness”, fruitfulness and utility of sheep; and to the precipitous, unruly and fruitless character of goats.

Saint Theofylaktos refers to the fact that heaven and hell, as ultimate fates, are not assigned until God has judged the individual (The Explanation by Blessed Theophylact of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, p. 219, volume 1 of the above-cited series) - thus avoiding any soteriology smacking of predestination. And he goes on to give the rationale for this judgement: For He loves mankind and teaches us to do the same as well, not to punish until we have made a careful examination. (Op. cit. 219).

And given God’s loving fairness in all this, . . . those who are punished after the judgement will have no cause for complaint. (Ibid. p. 219).

Saint Theofylaktos notes that the fire to which the damned are consigned is the fire prepared for the devil (Ibid. p. 220). For as the demons are without compassion and are cruelly and maliciously disposed towards us, it is fitting that they who are of like mind with them, and who have been cursed by their own deeds, should merit the same punishment. See that God did not prepare the fire for men, nor did He make hell for us, but for the devil; but I make myself liable to hell.

It is striking that both the saved and the damned are surprised to find themselves in their respective circumstance (Then shall the righteous answer . . . when saw we Thee . . . . ? Then shall they [the damned] also answer Him saying . . . when saw we Thee . . . . ?)

The God-Man answers by referring both the saved and the damned to the deeds that characterized their relationship to others over the course of their life on earth, disclosing that in dealing righteously or sinfully with others they were all along dealing righteously or sinfully with the God-Man, Jesus Christ Himself!

Here the Saviour makes clear the distinction between that which is of God, and our own contemporary secular-hedonistic culture, presided over as it is by - inter alia - the French atheist-existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, who famously wrote L’enfer, c’est les autres (“Hell is other people”).

Nothing could contradict the word of the Word of God more clearly than Sartre’s terrible observation: for us, “other people” are literally the means of our salvation! Thus the evangelical equation, How we have lived earthly = how we will live eternally.

There is another Gospel in which our Saviour, the God-Man Jesus Christ, speaks of the fate of those who have died. Saint Luke records the Lord’s parable of the Rich Man and Poor Lazaros (Saint Luke, 16:19-31).

And there was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain poor man named Lazaros, who was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the poor man died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried. And in hades he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazaros in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazaros, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazaros evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

The lesson is the same. He who is indifferent to the plight of the “least of these My brethren” has no place in the bosom of Abraham, that is, in eternal life experienced as paradise.

There is a great gulf fixed between eternity as paradise and eternity as hell. And when the rich man, in torment, remembers his living brothers and asks Saint Abraham to send Lazaros back to earth, to warn them of the fate awaiting them, Saint Abraham refuses: the Rich Man’s living brothers have Scripture, and they must heed it.

The Rich Man disputes this with St. Abraham (!) and tells him (! !) that if one were to go to his brothers from the dead, then they will repent. But Saint Abraham has the last word in this unequal conversation (! ! !): If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

In addition to providing irrefutable scriptural evidence for the fact of intercessory prayer to the saints - the message conveyed is as clear as it is sobering.

The question also arises, naturally in a pluralist society, what will be the fate of those who are not members of the Body of Christ on earth, and there is of course that instructive word from Saint Paul the Apostle to the Nations in Romans 2: 11-16:

For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law: (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

The emphasis is on what is done (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified) throughout a man’s life.

Saint Paul leaves the matter of the fate of men to the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. Man’s fate is in the hands of God, where it belongs.

In 1 Timothy, 2:1-4, the Apostle to the Nations remarks I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

We trust God to know how to propose Himself to everyman, in a manner both effective and respectful of man’s freedom, because His own will is that all men . . . be saved.

We pray for all. At the time Saint Paul instructed Saint Timothy to pray for kings, and for all that are in authority he was referring to the Roman Empire, officially pagan and legally bound to the worship of daemons.

And yet, one prayed for them. One had to pray for them. That was part of the essential responsibility of Christians for others, it was the right way to live out one’s days on this infested earth. The rest is up to God. We do not always know what God will do, nor why. We most certainly do know what we must do, and why.

Saint John Chrysostomos commented on this section of Scripture - as always, remarkably:

And if we are commanded to pray for our neighbors, not only for the faithful, but for the unbelieving also, consider how wrong it is to pray against your brethren. What? Has He commanded you to pray for your enemies, and do you pray against your brother? But your prayer is not against him but against yourself. For you provoke God by uttering those impious words, ”Show him the same!” “So do to him!” “Smite him!” “Recompense him!” Far be such words from you the disciple of Christ, who should be meek and mild. From the mouth that has been vouchsafed such holy Mysteries, let nothing bitter proceed. Let not the tongue that has touched the Lord’s Body utter anything offensive, let it be kept pure, let not curses be borne upon it. For if “revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:10) much less those who curse. For he that curses must be injurious; and injuriousness and prayer are at variance with each other, cursing and praying are far apart, accusation and prayer are wide asunder. Do you propitiate God with prayer, and then utter imprecations? If you forgive not, you will not be forgiven. (Matthew 6:15) But instead of forgiving, you beseech God not to forgive; what excessive wickedness is this! If the unforgiving is not forgiven, he that prays his Lord not to forgive, how shall he be forgiven? The harm is to yourself, not him. For though your prayers were on the point of being heard for yourself they would never be accepted in such a case, as offered with a polluted mouth. For surely the mouth that curses is polluted with all that is offensive and unclean. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 13, First Series, p. 427, Hendrickson Publishers, 1999).

One always feels, in reading Saint John Chrysostomos, just how radical the Christian revolution was in its encounter with the hedonistic paganism of the Roman Empire.

In addition to his Mysteriological emphasis - the centrality of the eucharist in the life of Christians - Saint John Chrysostomos continues to stress the behaviour (interior as well as exterior) of the confessing Christian especially in his relationships with others - the list of what is at variance . . . what is far apart . . . what is wide asunder - in the actual life of confessing Christians grips our attention. We see how deeply provoked Saint John is by the wide horizon of Scripture, as the comprehensive, the catholic documentation of the Saviour’s actual words, forming the context of the liturgical evangelism of the Church throughout space and time.

And when we fail the “other” - The harm is to yourself, not him! To that fundamental truth, all our remembering of death must remain faithful!

And Scripture must be present not merely as the normative content of our answers to the great questions, it must also be present as the criterion by which we frame the question to begin with. Ask the wrong question - only wrong answers will be found; equally, ask the question wrongly, and the result will be similarly askew.

In placing Scripture at the heart of our attention as we ponder the universe and our place within it, we remain anchored in God.

And in placing Scripture at the heart of the matter, we are always following the Fathers.

+Sergios, Suffragan Bishop of Loch Lomond
The Sunday of the Second Coming of Christ, called Meatfare 2010

Last weeks sermon by His Eminence, Metropolitan Moses
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
 
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we are still in the midst of the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple that took place forty days after the birth of the God-Man. In the temple we encounter with Saint Simeon the manifestation of the greatest and most extraordinary paradox since time began.
 
As it says in the hymns of the Church, ‘The Ancient of Days is carried as a small Babe in the arms of His Virgin Mother into the Temple in the fulfillment of His own law.’
 
These words boggle the mind.
 
When we confront this reality, it is eminently obvious to us that there is no faith like our faith and there is a great distinction between the God of Israel and the many gods of the nations and their mythologies. The mind of man could not conceive that the Beginningless God Who created all things from nothing would become a small babe in order to fulfill a law that He gave to His creatures in order to show his love for us and in order to show us the way. Our unproud God has shown us the way to salvation through taking this path of humility.
 
I have read many and various tracks wherein people attempt to outline the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity or many and various other religions and Christianity and to be sure, there is no teaching or doctrine in any other religion that comes even remotely close to this.
 
And so now, in today’s Parable of the Prodigal and the Pharisee, our Savior, the God-Man reiterates this principle of humility, for He said
 
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
 
As you know, the Pharisees were strict keepers of the law and looked upon as righteous. The Publicans on the other hand we those that collaborated with the hated Roman authority to collect taxes. Furthermore, they made their fortune by overcharging the taxes and keeping the surplus, and thus they were looked upon as illegitimate members of the house of Israel.
 
The Pharisee stood and prayed, “O God I thank Thee.”
 
Thus far he made an excellent beginning, in fact, this is how spiritual men have advised that we begin all of our prayers. Then he added those foolish and infamous words:
 
“…that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess."
 
And so this Pharisee looks around and judges this other man that is found in the Temple, rather than facing God alone in the Temple. When we enter the church we should understand that this is a place of judgment and we should stand to face God and speak to Him. If we spend our time in Church looking around or idly chatting we rob ourselves of spiritual profit and, perhaps, never come to an experience of real prayer. I know parents with children need to keep an eye on them, but there are times, during prayers of repentance, that, even in group prayer we need to perceive ourselves in the community of believers, yet alone before God. If we exercise the awareness that there will be that day of final judgment wherein each of us will stand alone before God and have to make a reckoning, we will not be distracted with the affairs of others and will be more intense in our efforts during these opportunities to reconcile ourselves with God.
 
Instead of thanking God for His grace the Pharisee compared himself with men who are under the sway of sin. Instead of comparing himself to the virtuous in order to see what was lacking in his own life, the Pharisee abandoned self-examination in order to ridicule his brother. To make things worse, he also begins to congratulate himself in his virtues.
 
Is it spiritually wise to count our seeming virtues and congratulate ourselves? To answer this we need only remember the words of Solomon, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble” (Prov 3:34).
 
The wise Saint Paul gave us a model for intelligent spiritual reflection, when he said,
 
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3: 13-14).
 
Saint Anthony the Great explained a bit more for us concerning the correct attitude we all need to embrace regarding virtue and our progress therein, exhorting his disciples,
 
“Progress in virtue is not measured by time, but by fervor and fixity of purpose.”
 
In other words, in the life of virtue what is done is past and will not secure us for the future. Our past deeds can illumine our minds and help us for the future, but vigilance is required. If we do not keep our fervor to fix our will to remain obedient to God, we can become complacent and negligent and loose all of our former labors. There are the many examples from past and present of men that began well and practiced virtue and confessed the faith, only later to lose sight of their purpose and become compromised and a mere shell of their former selves.
 
Saint John Climacus explains for us the three ways the devil tries to subvert our efforts in the virtues. First, the devil tries to prevent us from doing any virtuous deed at all. Then if he doesn’t succeed at that, he attempts to lead us astray and make sure that whatever we do, it is not done according to God. [For example; when some seeming spiritual deed is actually done not for Christ and His Church, but for a personal agenda]. And if the devil fails in all of the above, he then tries to deceive us and puff us up with vainglory for our accomplishments. This vainglory can give birth to Luciferic pride which separates one from God.
 
Whenever any teaching concerning the virtues arises, the words of Saint Mark the Ascetic should always be included in the lesson. In his treatise On Those Who Think That They Are Made Righteous By Works, Saint Mark the Ascetic explains why it is spiritual deception to count up our virtues:
 
 “Every good work which we perform through our own natural powers causes us to refrain from the corresponding sin; but without grace it cannot contribute to our sanctification.. The self controlled refrain from gluttony; those who have renounced possessions, from greed; the tranquil, from loquacity; the pure, from self-indulgence; the modest, from unchastely; the self-dependant, from avarice; the gentle, from agitation; the humble, from self-esteem; the obedient, from quarrelling; the self-critical, from hypocrisy. Similarly, those who pray are protected from despair; the poor, from having many possessions; confessors of the faith, from its denial; martyrs, from idolatry. Do you see how every virtue that is performed even to the point of death is nothing other that refraining from sin? Now to refrain from sin is a work within our own natural powers, but not something that buys the kingdom” (Philokalia Vol I, p. 127, Saint Mark the Ascetic).
 
Works are necessary, but no matter what we accomplish, we are saved by the grace and mercy of God.
 
The saints of God are never overly confident, but rather even after much progress and labor they are filled with humility. Saint Moses the Ethiopian was once asked to come to a gathering of the fathers and to make a judgment on a brother who was convicted of sin. At first he refused to go, but then he consented to attend. As he went put a basket filled with sand on his shoulder. This basket had a hole in it and the sand trailed behind him. When he entered the assembly, some of the brethren asked him what this meant and he said for all to hear, ‘I am come to judge a brother for his sins and the sands of my own sins which I do not see run out behind me.’
 
And so, the saints teach us to hate sin and never despise the sinner. A young monk in Scete once asked one of the older monks, “What does it mean to hate sin?” The more experienced monk replied, “to hate sin is to condemn sin in ourselves, but to justify our neighbor.”
 
We need to hate all sins because they separate us from God, but we need to hate and fear pride all the more. We need only remember the words of Solomon, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble” (Prov 3:34).
 
Next in the parable, our Savior describes the example of the Publican:
 
“And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto Heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be gracious to me a sinner.
 
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
 
Whenever we approach prayer, whenever we come to Church, we need to remind ourselves that we are here to accomplish something. If we do not come with pain in our heart, then the experience can be empty and our exercise unfruitful. No matter what station we have in life, no matter what progress we have made spiritually, it is the Prayer of the Publican, the prayer of a broken hearted, humble man that we all need to use as our model for prayer. We are all tempted in many and various ways and we offend God in ways that we do not understand, but our God is merciful. If we approach God with genuine pain of heart and abasement, our offering is accepted. “—A heart that is broken and humble, God will not despise.”
 
We do not praise the Publican for his deeds, but for his unshakable faith in our Merciful Master and his spiritual discretion in knowing how to approach God. Saint Gregory Palamas unpacks for us one aspect of the Publican’s discretion and the depths of his pain of heart:
 
…Sometimes we humble ourselves when we pray and may we imagine that we will be rewarded with the same justification as the Publican. But it is not so. We must consider the fact that the Publican was despised by the Pharisee to his face, even after he had abandoned sin, and he condemned himself with contempt, not only not contradicting the Pharisee, but joining in with his accusation against him.
 
When you abandon evil doing, do not contradict those who despise or reproach you because of it. Join them in condemning yourself for what you are like and, though contrite in prayer, take refuge in the forgiveness of God alone, realizing that you are a rescued publican. Many have called themselves sinners, and so do we, but dishonor tests the heart…
 
[Homilies of Saint Gregory Palamas, Translated by Christopher Veniamin, Vol. 1 p 18-19]
 
Saint Gregory makes a very important point. To call to mind one’s sins and to sigh for a moment is not repentance. We only repent when we take ownership for what we have done wrong and are ready to endure what it takes to be healed. The phenomena of a supposed repentance on one’s own terms that avoids the detection of Church authority is pride and spiritual deception, from which may the Lord deliver us all.
 
In our endeavor to encounter our Lord through prayer let us remember the following words of Saint James the Brother of the Lord:
 
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you Cleanse your hands, ye sinner; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up” (James 4: 7-10).
 
When we come to Church, let us remember this parable and that the temple of God is a place of judgment wherein we each make answer for ourselves alone. If we do this we can imitate the Publican and entreat God with soul cleansing pain of heart and find reconciliation with God. Our God loves us and wishes to justify us, to purify us and make us His sons and daughters.
 
May God bless your efforts for this season of spiritual struggle and labor at virtue, and may you acquire spiritual wisdom. Amen.