By Father George Schoinas
We live in the age when we all speak without submitting ourselves to personal experience, without submitting ourselves to the price for the words we say. We believe that we should and can do so.
We all become teachers without having entered into the process of becoming students. Whoever does not take responsibility, whoever does not learn, whoever does not search like a hound to sniff out the teachings of the Saints of the Church, it is best that they shut their mouths.
And I say this first for us clergy who act as teachers, but I say it for you too because right outside the door of the church is someone making themselves a teacher to the other - or even worse one is making themselves an elder to the other, they want to guide, tell others what to do and how to do it.
This is because there is this desire to expand my ego, to get followers if possible around me, to be applauded by people even if I tell them nonsense and lead them to the devil.
All the great heresies were started by some people who wanted the applause of others and in order to be liked they started saying things that fit the mindset of the time. Thus they were led to the great errors and to the great heresies which our Church condemns with the anathemas, with its canons, as they were expressed in its synods.
From the book Η καρδία μου ενώπιον σου (Α), p. 172. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
We all become teachers without having entered into the process of becoming students. Whoever does not take responsibility, whoever does not learn, whoever does not search like a hound to sniff out the teachings of the Saints of the Church, it is best that they shut their mouths.
And I say this first for us clergy who act as teachers, but I say it for you too because right outside the door of the church is someone making themselves a teacher to the other - or even worse one is making themselves an elder to the other, they want to guide, tell others what to do and how to do it.
This is because there is this desire to expand my ego, to get followers if possible around me, to be applauded by people even if I tell them nonsense and lead them to the devil.
All the great heresies were started by some people who wanted the applause of others and in order to be liked they started saying things that fit the mindset of the time. Thus they were led to the great errors and to the great heresies which our Church condemns with the anathemas, with its canons, as they were expressed in its synods.
From the book Η καρδία μου ενώπιον σου (Α), p. 172. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.