Orthodox Wisdom Newsletter

“The Christian needs to avoid sickly spirituality, as much the feeling of superiority for one’s virtue as the feeling of inferiority for one’s sinfulness. To have a complex is one thing, to be humble is quite another. Melancholy is one thing, repentance something else.”

~ St. Porphyrios, Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit

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Male and Female: The Sacramental Mystery of the Crucified Christ, Pt. 2

Fr. Stephen Freeman

☦️ Dear fellow pilgrim,

As some of you know, I have been working on a new project that I think you will find of great interest (and I’m very excited to share it with you)! I will be writing more about it in next week’s newsletter, so please stay tuned.

As I’ve mentioned before, becoming Orthodox in the modern world has particular challenges. There is a great deal that needs to be unlearned, especially for those of us who were previously heterodox Christians (that said, in this quote St. Porphyrios refers to some of his own native Greeks who obviously struggled with the same problem).

Today’s quote highlights one of these challenges: the temptation to look externally “Orthodox” while not actually changing within. Fr. Seraphim Rose also spoke at length about this problem (and I will be quoting extensively from him on this issue in next week’s newsletter!), and it’s one that requires particular vigilance. Here’s St. Porphyrios:

For many people, however, religion is a struggle, a source of agony and anxiety. That’s why many of the religiously minded are regarded as unfortunates, because others can see the desperate state they are in. And so it is. Because for the person who doesn’t understand the deeper meaning of religion and doesn’t experience it, religion ends up as an illness, and indeed a terrible illness. So terrible that the person loses control of his actions and becomes weak-willed and spineless, he is filled with agony and anxiety and is driven to and fro by the evil spirit. He makes prostrations, he weeps, he exclaims, he believes he is humbling himself, and all this humility is a work of Satan. Some such people experience religion as a kind of hell. They make prostrations and cross themselves in church and they say, “We are unworthy sinners,” then as soon as they come out they start to blaspheme everything holy whenever someone upsets them a little. It is very clear that there is something demonic in this.

In fact, the Christian religion transforms people and heals them. The most important precondition, however, for someone to recognize and discern the truth is humility. Egotism darkens a person’s mind, it confuses him, it leads him astray, to heresy. It is important for a person to understand the truth.

~ St. Porphyrios, Wounded By Love, p. 94

The modern world is increasingly a world that encourages us to create a variety of personas, perhaps the most obvious being an online persona and an offline persona. This is something that comes “naturally” as one is able to present oneself differently online than in real life. And there are other spheres for which we create personas (for our school or work environment, etc.). The problem, of course, is that when we create different personas, we lose our natural integrity. For many people, they lose sight of their true self, and they don’t even know that it is happening.

In order for us to live authentic, integrated lives, we need to make sure that we have one persona – our true self – that is consistent regardless of where we are, or who we are with. The Church’s spiritual path encourages this honesty and integrity, so all we need to do is to be faithful to this path, and if we are vigilant in being honest we will find our way to our true selves.

May God help us find the path to our true selves, so we can be authentic witnesses to the image of God within us!

In Christ our Lord,

Herman