20. Sins Against God.

This is what the priest should say to a contemporary youth, but these last words can be

used even when an older person is confessing, as a link between sins against one’s

neighbour and sins against God Himself, which he was previously unwilling even to

notice. He can continue like this: “You are amazed at how you could treat your words

and acts so lightly and not notice how reprehensible they were or what grief and spiritual

harm they brought to your neighbours. But do you know why you were so thoughtless?

Because you had all but forgotten God, and with Him your soul also, and had paid no

attention to it. Nobody will pay attention to his soul or even be able to do so if he does

not lay it open before God, pray to Him and hold Him in reverence. Thus you will

understand how wrong you were when you said at the beginning of confession that,

although you do not like praying to God, you live honourably and offend no one. You

will understand how far from the truth is the prejudice that has long been commonplace

in society — that prayer and religion in general do not concern a man’s life among

people, but only the secret recesses of his own soul, and so they are not so necessary as

all that for humanity, or else not necessary at all. Now you will understand that if you

prayed every day using the Church’s prayers, enumerating your sins, and if you went to

church and saw how Christians make prostrations to the ground while asking for a spirit

of ‘chastity, humility, patience, love and non-condemnation’xli — then you would not

remain in your state of spiritual indifference and would not burden your conscience with

the load of sins and sinful habits which is now crushing your soul. But besides neglecting

your soul in this way, haven’t you also consciously permitted yourself to abuse both God

and faith in Him? Haven’t you sinned by blaspheming and murmuring against Him? You

should realize that it is for this sin that the possessed and many of the insane have been

given over to their afflictions.

“Have you sinned by blasphemy? Have you made fun of the various beliefs of the

Church and her sacred customs, which you probably don’t understand at all? But you let

yourself do this, knowing that in the society you were in nobody would be able to expose

your ignorance of these matters and nobody would speak out in defense of his faith, just

as you probably didn’t speak out when you heard people make deliberately false and

unscrupulous attacks on the faith — isn’t this true? But perhaps in your better moments

you made a promise to God to correct your ways, and perhaps you also made vows to

Him that you would undertake some religious struggle or do some good work? Have you

fulfilled your vows? If not, do not be surprised when you are visited by feelings of acute

despondency or anger, grief or fear, which apparently have no cause. The Lord sends all

this to a sinful soul to make it stop and think whether it hasn’t done something to deserve

God’s anger, remember about the unfulfilled vow and then offer repentance and correct

this sin. The same consequences ensue if a Christian wittingly gives a false oath: are you

not guilty of this? — Look, the Ecumenical Councils prescribe a long period of

excommunication for this. If you haven’t done this, then don’t you sin by constantly and

irreverently swearing, which is a proof of the complete absence of the fear of God and of

contempt for God’s being? Further, perhaps you don’t know that all Christians are

obligated to attend at least the Liturgy every Sunday; according to the rules of the Holy

Apostles anyone who was absent from church for three weeks running with no

reasonable excuse, such as illness, was excommunicated from the Church and, if he

repented, was received back as one who had fallen away. If you are guilty of this, don’t

try to calm yourself with the thought that most of the people you know do the same: there

is plenty of room in Hell and God’s Judgement will not, of course, be influenced either

way by the number of sinners or of righteous ones . . . Do you pray, at least at home,

every day? Besides the fact that this is our obligation, you must realize that a person who

doesn’t pray or take part in church services will never be able to strengthen himself in

virtue or conquer his passions; furthermore, he will not be able to restrain himself from

failing ever deeper and deeper into the abyss of the passions — either depravity or

drunkenness, or demonic pride, or hard-healed cruelty, or love of possessions, or

despondency.

“Do not believe those who say, ‘I revere God in my heart, and He does not need

me to display myself before Him in church.’ They are lying. Would your father or mother

believe you if you told them that you love them, but never spoke with them or visited

them, while at the same time setting aside many hours for conversations with your

comrades and lady-friends, for theaters and outings? You should realize that if you

sincerely and firmly desire to be a human being, and not just a plaything of sinful

passions, then you must fulfill your duties as a Christian, as a son of the Church: for even

those who do so can only correct their lives by constant struggle against themselves and

through the grace of God, which is given to those who pray. But if a person does not flee

for refuge to the Church, then all he has left are beautiful words together with sinful

passions and vices. Admit that your faith in the miracles of Christ and the saints is weak;

you cannot possibly imagine how God hears our prayers. But if you are inclined to

distrust the evidence of Christ and the Apostles, why do you trust the various fables of

these adventurists — spiritualists, Khlysts and the like? Have you accepted that crazy

belief in reincarnation, which has been adopted in Europe from the ancient pagan

Buddhists in the form of Theosophy? Aren’t you generally superstitious? You have

probably known since childhood about the ignorance of the people — about the peasants

immersed in superstition; but aren’t the equally numerous superstitions of educated

society even more ridiculous and unproven? Is it not being just as superstitious, blindly

following the dictates of fashion and not stopping to think at all, when it accepts all the

new inventions and fantastic theories of the artisans of the press, beginning with those

with diplomas and ending with those who are utterly ignorant (such as those who try to

interpret the Apocalypse)?xlii Haven’t you also surrendered yourself to their superstitious

influence?

“And so lift up your gaze to Heaven, do not neglect thinking of your Redeemer,

do not live estranged from Him, do not give your heart over to superstitions and ‘old

wives’ tales’, as the Apostle calls them. Do not exchange Christ for Buddha with his

teaching of reincarnation, which is so alluring for our laziness and passions.”

Note: The followers of the teaching that souls reincarnate into more and more

perfect bodies come to a dead end when they are reminded of the appearance of Moses

and Elias on Mount labor after the death of John the Baptist. They either have to

renounce their beloved interpretation that John the Baptist is Elias born again, or else

admit that people can reincarnate into a former body. But they do not admit either of

these possibilities.