"The temptation of piety is to reduce Christianity to piety; the temptation of theology--to reduce it totally to history."
"'A quiet and silent existence' is the summit of intelligence, of wisdom, of joy, and--I don't know how to say it better--of 'interestedness.' Humility is not to be crest fallen, dejected, nor to be a bigot. It is a royal and kingly virtue because humility stems from wisdom, from knowledge, from contact with life overabundant. The contemporary man is a man who constantly jumps to action. Our whole civilization is an energetic 'jump to action'--and man finds himself exactly where he was before he jumped."
"Amazing--in nature, in the world, everything moves. But in this movement (falling snow, branches lit by the sun, fields) each moment reveals a divine immobility, a fullness, in an icon of eternity as life.
Another strange thought: the whole world lives at the same time, the whole world lives this very minute, owns this minute; the rest is abstract numbers on a calendar."
"I am trying to clarify for myself what is the meaning of confessions as they exist and are practiced. I can understand the Catholic Confession--violation of a law. But I have to clarify the Orthodox Confession dogmatically (sacrament of repentance) and spiritually. In confession, the metamorphosis of the Church and of Christianity is most evident. The Church was born as a reality in opposition, externally visibly--and even more, internally invisibly--to this world. This metamorphosis consists of the fact that the Church gradually became a religious servicing of the world. In the beginning the sacrament of repentance was totally focused on one thing: on the betrayal of the Church, betrayal of her incarnated and revealed reality. Sin was considered a betrayal of the new life, a falling out of it. Sin was a rupture, a defection, a betrayal; sanctity was understood not as a moral perfection, but as an ontological faithfulness to Christ and His Kingdom. The moral teaching of the Church is eschatological, not ethical. For Christians, the essence of sin is the betrayal of Christ, the falling away from Him and the Church. So the sacrament of repentance is a return, through repentance, confession and regret, to the new life, already given, already revealed. Nowadays, Confession is not directed at that; its essence is different. It is directed toward a certain moral regularization--putting in order--of life in this world, of its laws. In other words, the sacrament of repentance began by being referred not to a moral law, but to faith and to sin as a falling away from faith ('no one who abides in Him sins...' (I John 3:6)). Now Confession is often a conversation about violations of moral laws, about weakness and sinfulness, but without referral to faith. And the answer is not about Christ, but something like, 'Try to pray more, fight temptations...' As everything in Christianity, the sacrament of repentance is eschatological; it is the return of man to the longed-for Kingdom and to 'the life of the world to come.' What it has become, I simply don't know, nor do I understand in what 'category' this absolution of sins falls after a few minutes' talk about one's weaknesses. I don't know!"
"'A quiet and silent existence' is the summit of intelligence, of wisdom, of joy, and--I don't know how to say it better--of 'interestedness.' Humility is not to be crest fallen, dejected, nor to be a bigot. It is a royal and kingly virtue because humility stems from wisdom, from knowledge, from contact with life overabundant. The contemporary man is a man who constantly jumps to action. Our whole civilization is an energetic 'jump to action'--and man finds himself exactly where he was before he jumped."
"Amazing--in nature, in the world, everything moves. But in this movement (falling snow, branches lit by the sun, fields) each moment reveals a divine immobility, a fullness, in an icon of eternity as life.
Another strange thought: the whole world lives at the same time, the whole world lives this very minute, owns this minute; the rest is abstract numbers on a calendar."
"I am trying to clarify for myself what is the meaning of confessions as they exist and are practiced. I can understand the Catholic Confession--violation of a law. But I have to clarify the Orthodox Confession dogmatically (sacrament of repentance) and spiritually. In confession, the metamorphosis of the Church and of Christianity is most evident. The Church was born as a reality in opposition, externally visibly--and even more, internally invisibly--to this world. This metamorphosis consists of the fact that the Church gradually became a religious servicing of the world. In the beginning the sacrament of repentance was totally focused on one thing: on the betrayal of the Church, betrayal of her incarnated and revealed reality. Sin was considered a betrayal of the new life, a falling out of it. Sin was a rupture, a defection, a betrayal; sanctity was understood not as a moral perfection, but as an ontological faithfulness to Christ and His Kingdom. The moral teaching of the Church is eschatological, not ethical. For Christians, the essence of sin is the betrayal of Christ, the falling away from Him and the Church. So the sacrament of repentance is a return, through repentance, confession and regret, to the new life, already given, already revealed. Nowadays, Confession is not directed at that; its essence is different. It is directed toward a certain moral regularization--putting in order--of life in this world, of its laws. In other words, the sacrament of repentance began by being referred not to a moral law, but to faith and to sin as a falling away from faith ('no one who abides in Him sins...' (I John 3:6)). Now Confession is often a conversation about violations of moral laws, about weakness and sinfulness, but without referral to faith. And the answer is not about Christ, but something like, 'Try to pray more, fight temptations...' As everything in Christianity, the sacrament of repentance is eschatological; it is the return of man to the longed-for Kingdom and to 'the life of the world to come.' What it has become, I simply don't know, nor do I understand in what 'category' this absolution of sins falls after a few minutes' talk about one's weaknesses. I don't know!"
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