Excerpts from new book: Exomologetarion: A Manual of Confession by Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite
Excerpt #1:
CHAPTER 6
Concerning Thoughts
Just as so-called diagnostic physicians not only know how to treat external and visible wounds of the body, but also, by measuring the pulse, they learn the internal and invisible maladies of the heart, of the bowels, and the other unseen workings of the human body, and are therefore able to treat them. Likewise, Spiritual Father, it is not enough for you only to know how to treat the external passions of the soul, those acts and deeds and effects of sin, but it is also necessary to know through the confession of the penitent the internal wounds of his soul, which are the hidden passions in his heart and the passionate and evil thoughts, and so treat them with great scrutiny and care. For this reason we thought it good to inform you a little about some general and vital matters concerning thoughts.
How many types of thoughts there are
Know then, Spiritual Father, that in general, all thoughts are of three types: some thoughts are good, some thoughts are vain and idle, and some thoughts are bad. Concerning good thoughts, it is not necessary to discuss here in detail how and from what aspects of the soul they arise, for we are satisfied that these are good and therefore beneficial and salvific to the soul. We say this only, Spiritual Father, that if someone says to you during confession that he has good thoughts, you should counsel him to take care to be humble and to never trust in himself and become prideful: 1) because a person on his own is not able to do a good work or say a good word or even think a good thought without the power and help of God: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor. 3:5); 2) because the devil is so cunning and evil, that many times he brings evil from good and through good thoughts throws those who are not careful into self-esteem, and conceit, and haughtiness, from which is caused the destruction and death of the soul. So says Paul: “Sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good” (Rom. 7:13); 3) because man never remains in one state, but is so changing and so quickly alters that, with his thoughts, in one instant he is found in Paradise and in another instant he is in hell, as one Saint said. And St. Isaac says: “By the mind we improve, and by the mind we become unprofitable,” hence the one who today has good thoughts may very well have evil ones tomorrow; and 4) tell him that the devil has greater envy and wages a fiercer battle against those who have good thoughts, so that he should have more fear and greater care over himself.
What vain thoughts are and how they are corrected
Those thoughts which are not profitable unto the purpose and aim of salvation, as much as to our own soul as to that of our neighbor, and do not look to the necessary requirements and constitution of our body, but to the superfluous and more-than-necessary things, even if they are good, I call vain and idle. According to the Shorter Rules of Basil the Great, vain and idle thoughts arise from the idleness of the intellect that is neither engaged in necessary things, nor believes that God is present and searches our hearts and thoughts: “Mental aberration comes from idleness of a mind not occupied in necessary things. For the mind is idle and careless from lack of belief in the presence of God Who tries the heart and reins… He who does this and what is like to it will never dare or have leisure to think of any of those things that do not conduce to the edification of faith, even if they seem to be good.” Concerning these vain and idle thoughts, I say, advise the penitent not to allow his intellect to meditate upon or ponder over them: 1) because just as we have to give an account for idle words on the day of judgment, as the Lord said: “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Mt. 12:36), so likewise we have to give an account on the day of judgment for idle and vain thoughts, and indeed, if we willfully left our intellect to go after them. And it is thence apparent, because the Lord reproaches and condemns those servants who remain idle: “Why stand ye here all the day idle?” (Mt. 20:6); 2) because those vain thoughts deprive us from profitable and salvific thoughts, which we are able to have instead of them; and 3) because these idle thoughts are in themselves evil, as they are the cessation of good and become the beginning of evil, and as giving way and permission to the devil to sow in our idle intellect the tares of evil thoughts. Thus does Gregory the Theologian confirm this: “May evil and its original cause, the devil, be destroyed. For while we were idle, the evil one planted tares in us (cf. Mt. 13:25), in order that the neglect of good might become the beginning of evil, just as the beginning of darkness is the retreat of light.”
The causes of bad thoughts
Know that, in general, bad thoughts derive from two causes, one external and the other internal. The external cause of bad thoughts is the sensible objects of the five senses, that is, those things seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched, like bad and indecent and theatrical sights, obscene words and lewd songs, scents and colognes and perfumes, luscious foods and pleasurable drinks, fine and soft clothes and comfortable mattresses. All these things cause passionate and hedonistic thoughts in the soul, and then sinful and death-bearing thoughts. Thus, the Prophet Jeremiah on one hand says: “Death has come up into our windows” (Jer. 21:9), the windows meaning the five senses. On the other hand, Gregory the Theologian rather interpreted this saying in broader terms: “And it is kept until the fifth day (that is, the sacrificed Paschal Lamb), perhaps because the Victim, of Whom I am speaking, purifies the five senses, from which comes falling into sin, and around which the war rages, inasmuch as they are open to the incitements to sin.”
The internal causes of bad thoughts
The internal causes of bad thoughts are four:
1. The imagination, which is like a second sense and receives and records all of the images and perceptions which enter through the five senses, that is, of those things touched, tasted, smelled, and especially of those things heard and seen, is called an internal sense, because it portrays the things sensed so grossly and clearly, just as the external senses. It is a common sense, according to Aristotle, because it receives commonly the experiences of all the senses; and this naturally, because just as lines are disconnected at the perimeter of a circle but converge at its center, so also the five senses, which are disconnected on the outside, converge in the imagination of the soul, but they converge without confusion. So then, from the imagination are born bad thoughts in the soul, making it sense them as really present and to noetically conceptualize through memory those things that it should not have outwardly seen or heard or smelled or tasted or touched, even though it is sensibly far from these things and is settled peaceably in a deserted place. For this reason, in his tetrastich Iambic Poetry, the Theologian said:
"A vision caught me, but was checked.
I set up no idol of sin.
Was an idol set up? The experience was avoided.
These are the degrees of deceit of the adversary.”
Do you hear? He says an idol of sin was set up and was not recorded in the imagination. The soul escaped the experience at once, that is, it escaped from consenting to the thoughts and from the committal of sin.
2. The passions are a cause of bad thoughts, which are generally two: love and hate, or pleasure and pain, for we are moved passionately either because we love something as pleasurable, or because we hate it as painful. Specifically, the passions are divided into the three aspects of the soul: the intelligent, the appetitive, and the incensive. The passions of the intelligent aspect, according to Gregory of Sinai, are unbelief, blasphemy, evilness, curiosity, double mindedness, gossip, love of applause, pretension, pride, and others. The passions of the appetitive aspect are fornication, adultery, debauchery, greed, unchastity, incontinence, love of pleasure, self-love, and others. The passions of the incensive aspect are anger, bitterness, shouting, audacity, revenge, and others. From these passions of the soul, then, bad thoughts are generally and immediately born, these also being divided into three categories like the passions. From the passions of the intelligent aspect of the soul come bad thoughts, which are generally given the name blasphemous thoughts. From the passions of the appetitive aspect come the so-called obscene thoughts. From the passions of the incensive aspect come the so-called evil thoughts. For this reason the above-mentioned Gregory of Sinai said that: “The passions are the causes of thoughts,” and Abba Isaac also calls the passions assaults, because they attack within the soul and stir up passionate thoughts.
3. An internal and initial cause of bad thoughts is the demons, for those accursed ones, being light spirits and found superficially around the heart, speak there through internal suggestion and whisper softly from inside all the blasphemous thoughts, all the obscene thoughts, all the evil thoughts, and simply all the bad thoughts. They train the imagination with obscene and impure idols from the senses, as much as when a person is sleeping as when awake. From these the aforementioned passions in the three aspects of the soul are stirred up and make the wretched soul to be a cave of thieves and a slum of the passions. For this reason the abovementioned Gregory of Sinai said: “Occasions give rise to thoughts, thoughts to imaginations, imaginations to the passions, and the passions give entry to the demons… but no one thing in the sequence is self-operative: each is prompted and activated by the demons. The imagination is not wrought into an image, passion is not energized, without unperceived hidden demonic impulsion,” and in another place he says: “Thoughts are the promptings of the demons and precursors of the passions.” In agreement with this, St. Isaac says, “I hold as a truth, nevertheless, that our intellect, without the mediation of the holy angels, is able of itself to be moved toward the good uninstructed; however, our senses (the interior ones, that is) cannot come to know evil or be incited by it without the mediation of the demons.”
4. An internal cause of thoughts, however remote, is the passionate and corrupted condition of human nature which was brought about by the ancestral sin. This condition remains in our nature also after baptism, not as ancestral sin as such (for this is removed through baptism, according to Canon 120 of Carthage), but as a consequence of the ancestral sin, for the exertion and test of our free will, and in exchange for greater crowns and rewards, according to the theologians. For after the fall the intellect lost its innocent memory and thought which it had fixed formerly only on the good; but now when it wishes to remember and think upon the good, it is immediately dispersed and also thinks upon the bad. For this reason the divine Gregory of Sinai said: “The source and ground of our thoughts is the fragmented state of our memory. The memory was originally simple and one-pointed, but as a result of the fall its natural powers have been perverted: it has lost its recollectedness in God and has become compound instead of simple, diversified instead of one-pointed.”
Excerpt #2:
F.
Concerning Fasting on Wednesday and Friday
Canon 69 of the Holy Apostles designates that…
...any hierarch or priest or deacon or subdeacon or reader or chanter who does not fast during Great Lent and Wednesday and Friday is to be deposed. If a layperson does not fast during these times (unless he cannot fast on account of bodily illness), he is to be excommunicated. Do you see how the Apostles numbered the Wednesday and Friday fast together with the fast of Great Lent? Therefore, just as the fast of Great Lent consists in the eating of dry foods, namely, to eat but once a day, at the ninth hour, without consuming oil or wine, likewise, the fast of Wednesday and Friday is to be conducted in the exact same manner. St. Epiphanios also says: “We fast on Wednesday and Friday until the ninth hour.” Likewise, Philostorgios says that the fast of Wednesday and Friday does not consist in the abstention from meat, but it designates that one is not to eat any food until the evening. St. Benedict (Canon 41) also designates that the fast of Wednesday and Friday is until the ninth hour. And Balsamon forbids the consumption of shellfish on Wednesday and Friday just as during Great Lent. Let us therefore stop insensibly thinking that the fast of Wednesday and Friday is not an Apostolic directive, for behold, the Apostles in their Canons number this fast together with that of Great Lent, and in the Apostolic Constitutions they number it together with the fast of Holy Week, saying:
"One must fast during Holy Week and Wednesday and Friday.” But why should I say that this regulation is only of the Apostles? It is a regulation of Christ Himself, for this is what the Apostles say in Book V, ch. 14 of the Constitutions:
"He (that is, Christ) commanded us to fast on Wednesday and Friday.” We therefore fast on these days according to the Holy Hieromartyr Peter (Canon 15): “On Wednesday because on this day the council of the Jews was gathered to betray our Lord; on Friday because on this day He suffered death for our salvation.” The divine Jerome says the same thing.
Therefore, because the fast of Great Lent is equal to the fast of Wednesday and Friday it follows that, for those who are sick or weak, the relaxation of the fast is also to be equal during these fasts. For this reason, as Canons 8 and 10 of Timothy allow a woman who is pregnant during the Great Fast to consume as much wine and food as is necessary for her condition, this also applies to the fast of Wednesday and Friday. The same holds for those who have become weak from excessive sickness, that is, they are allowed to consume oil and wine during these fasting periods. So says the divine Jerome: “The fast of Wednesday and Friday is not to be broken unless there is great necessity.” The divine Augustine says the same.
But because those who are lovers of the flesh desire to eat and break the fasts of Great Lent, Wednesday, and Friday, or pretend that they are sick (without actually being so), or if they are indeed sick they say that oil and wine are not sufficient to carry them through their illness, because of these pretenses, a Spiritual Father or hierarch should not believe only the words of those claiming these things, but should ask an experienced and God-fearing physician about their condition, and according to his recommendation, allow the sick to break the fast.
We must also note the following, that just as there must be a fast from food on Wednesday, Friday, and Great Lent, there must also be a fast from pleasures of the flesh. For this reason weddings cannot take place on these days, because the divine Paul commands that married couples are not to come together during a time of prayer and fasting: “Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer” (1 Cor. 7:5). And the divine Chrysostom, bringing the saying of Joel as a witness: “Sanctify a fast… let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet” (Jl. 2:15-16), says that even newlyweds, who have strong desire, vigorous youthfulness, and unfettered urges, are not to come together during a period of fasting and prayer. How much, then, are other married couples, who do not have such impulsiveness of the flesh, not to come together? Therefore, Balsamon says that married couples who do not exercise self-control during the Great Fast are not to commune on Pascha and are also to be penanced. Likewise, married couples who come together on Wednesday and Friday must be corrected through penances.
Concerning the fast of Monday, even though designated in the Rubrics for monastics, many people in the world however, and especially women, observe this fast. Worthy of mention and trustworthy is the saying which some wise men put forward concerning fasting on Monday: “Our Lord commands that if our righteousness does not exceed that of the Scribes and the Pharisees (cf. Mt. 5:20), we will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven. And because the Pharisees fasted two days of the week, as the Pharisee said: ‘I fast twice in the week’ (Lk. 18:12), we Christians, then, are obligated to fast three days of the week, in order for our righteousness to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees.” That the Pharisees fasted on Wednesday and Friday is clearly stated by the divine Chrysostom, explaining the words of the Pharisee: “Twice in the week.” Although Theophylact when explaining the Gospel passage about the Publican and the Pharisee says, along with others, that the Pharisees fasted on Monday and Thursday, not on account of some commandment, but according to tradition, believing that Moses ascended the mountain on Thursday and descended on Monday. St. Meletios the Confessor says that we should fast on Monday in order to always begin the week with fasting.
Excerpt #3:
PART THREE
COUNSEL FOR THE PENITENT
CHAPTER 1
How Everyone Should Prepare Before Confession
What is repentance?
My brother sinner, this is the preparation you must undergo before you repent and go to confession. Know firstly that repentance, according to St. John of Damaskos, is a returning from the devil to God, which comes about through pain and ascesis. So you also, my beloved, if you wish to repent properly, must depart from the devil and from diabolical works and return to God and to the life proper to God. You must forsake sin, which is against nature, and return to virtue, which is according to nature. You must hate wickedness so much, that you say along with David: “Unrighteousness have I hated and abhorred” (Ps. 118:163), and instead, you must love the good and the commandments of the Lord so much, that you also say along with David: “But Thy law have I loved” (ibid.), and again: “Therefore have I loved Thy commandments more than gold and topaz” (Ps. 118:127). In brief, the Holy Spirit informs you through the wise Sirach what in fact true repentance is, saying: “Turn to the Lord and forsake your sins… Return to the Most High, and turn away from iniquity, and hate abominations intensely” (Sir. 17:25-26).
The aspects of repentance
Know secondly that the aspects of repentance are three: contrition, confession, and satisfaction.
Contrition
Contrition is sorrow and perfect grief of the heart, which comes about in a person who, on account of the sins committed, disappointed God and transgressed His divine Law. This contrition comes only to the perfect and those who are sons of God, because it only proceeds from the love for God, just as a son repents simply because he disappointed his father, and not because he was deprived of his inheritance or because he will be ousted from his father’s house. Concerning this the divine Chrysostom says: “Groan after you have sinned, not because you are to be punished (for this is nothing), but because you have offended your Master, one so gentle, one so kind, one Who loves you so much and longs for your salvation as to have given even His Son for you. On account of this, groan.”
Affliction
Related to contrition is affliction, which is also a sorrow and imperfect grief of the heart, which comes about, not because a person disappointed God by his sins, but because that person was deprived of divine grace, lost Paradise, and gained hell. This affliction belongs to the imperfect, that is, to the hired hands and slaves, because it proceeds not out of love for God, but out of fear and out of love for themselves, just as a hired hand repents on account of losing his wage and a slave repents because he fears the disciplines of his master.
So you also, my brother sinner, if you wish to acquire this contrition and affliction in your heart, and through these for your repentance to be pleasing to God, you must do the following.
Confess to an experienced Spiritual Father
First, search around and learn who is the most experienced Spiritual Father, because Basil the Great says, just as people do not show their maladies and bodily wounds to just any physician, but to experienced physicians who know how to treat them, so also sins must be revealed, not to just anyone, but to those who are able to heal them: “The same fashion should be observed in the confession of sins as in the showing of bodily diseases. As then men reveal the diseases of the body not to all or to chance comers but to those who are experienced in their treatment; so also the confession of sins ought to take place in the presence of those who are able to treat them, as it is written: ‘Ye that are strong bear the infirmities of the weak’ (Rom. 15:1) - that is, take them away by your care.”
How one is to examine his conscience
Second, just as you would sit down and count your money after a certain business transaction, in like manner go to a particular place, my brother, and two or three weeks before going to the Spiritual Father you found, especially at the beginning of the four fast periods of the year, sit down in that place of quietude, and bowing your head, examine your conscience, which Philo the Jew calls: “The testing of the conscience,” and become: “Not a defender, but a judge of your sins,” according to the divine Augustine. Consider, like Hezekiah, the whole span of your life in sorrow and bitterness of soul: “I will ponder all my years in the bitterness of my soul” (Is. 38:15). Consider also how many sins you committed in deed, word, and by coupling with thoughts, after you last confessed, counting the months, weeks, and days. Remember the people with whom you sinned and the places where you sinned, and diligently reflect upon these things in order to find every one of your sins. This is how the wise Sirach counsels you from one side saying: “Before judgment, examine yourself” (Sir. 18:20), and from the other, Gregory the Theologian says: “Examine yourself more than your neighbor. Account of actions is superior to an account of money. For money is subject to corruption, but actions remain.”
And just as hunters are not satisfied with merely finding a beast in the forest, but attempt through every means to also kill it, likewise, my brother sinner, you should also not be satisfied with merely examining your conscience and with finding your sins, for this profits you little, but struggle by every means to kill your sins through the grief in your heart, namely, through contrition and affliction. And in order to acquire contrition, consider how much you have wronged God through your sins. In order to also acquire affliction, consider how much you have wronged yourself through your sins.
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Posted on 03/09/06.
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Ecumenism: Origins - Expectations - Disenchantment (Table of Contents)
Ecumenism in Practice
Metropolitan HIEROTHEOS of Nafpaktos and St. Blasios
The Church of Bulgaria vis-à-vis Ecumenism
Metropolitan NATHANAEL of Nevrokop, Bulgaria
The Church of Serbia vis-à-vis Ecumenism
Bishop ARTEMIOS of Raskas and Prizrin
Orthodox Mission in an Inter-religious and Inter-christian Milieu
Bishop PANTELEIMON of Ghana
From the Union Attempts after the 11th Century to the Contemporary Ecumenical Movement
Archimandrite Joseph, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Xeropotamou, Mount Athos
Love and Truth in Ecumenical Dialogue
Geron Moses the Athonite
Mount Athos and Ecumenism
Geron Lukas Philotheitis
The Ecumenical Patriarchate and Ecumenism
Archpriest George Metallinos, Dean, School of Theology, Univ. of Athens
Is Orthodox Participation in the W.C.C. Justified?
Archpriest Theodore Zisis, Professor, School of Theology, A.U.Th.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Ecumenical Movement
Archimandrite Demetrios Vasiliadis, Secretary of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of the Jerusalem
The Liturgical Renewal Movement and Ecumenism
Archimandrite Nikodemos Barousis, Abbot of the Monastery of Panagia Chrysopodaritissa
Ecumenical Movement – Pastoral Consequences – Cypriot Actuality
Archimandrite Christophoros Tsiakkas, M.A. Theology, U.K., Sec. of the Snyodal Committee on Heresies of the Church of Cyprus
Contours of Conversion and the Ecumenical Movement
Hieromonk Alexy (Trader) of Karakallou
Romanian Ecumenism: A Challenge for the Orthodox Church of Romania
Hieromonk Vessarion, Holy Archangels Monastery, Neamts, Romania
The Church of Russia vis-à-vis Ecumenism
Archpriest Valentin Asmus, Professor, Theological School of Moscow
The Stance of the Church of Greece and Theology vis-à-vis Ecumenism
Archpriest John Fotopoulos, B.D., LL.B.
Joint Prayer with the Heterodox (Theological and Liturgical Consideration)
Fr. Paraskevas Agathonos D.D.
The Consequences of Orthodox Participation in the Ecumenical Movement on the Orthodox Witness to the Heterodox West
Fr. John Reeves
The Mystery of Baptism and the Unity of the Church
Fr. Peter A. Heers
Ecumenism and the New Age, Inter-religious Meetings and Dialogue
Monk Arsenios Vliangoftis D.D.
The Theological Identity of Protestantism
Demetrios Tselengidis, Professor, School of Theology, A.U.Th.
The Dialogue with the Anti-Chalcedonians: Problems and Achievements
Jean- Claude Larchet, Professor of Philosophy
Obstacles to Dialogue: the Ordination of Women, Marriages and Ordinations of Homosexuals
Christos Livanos, Chairman of the Orthodox Brotherhood of “Saint Athanasius”, Toronto, Canada
The Church of Poland vis-à-vis Ecumenism
Anthony Mironovitch, Professor, Department of Orthodox Theology, University of Bialistok
Ecumenism Distorts the Image of the God-man
Panagiotis Sotirchos, Author-Journalist
The Problem of Uniatism in Ukraine
Ivan Diatsekno, Professor, Ecclesiastical School “The Ladder”, Dviepropetrovsk
Posted on 02/28/05.
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