Prologue in Sermons: February 28

To Avoid Sins, One Must Reflect on Their Consequences

February 28

(From the Lemonarion, the story of the monk Julian, whom an Angel saved from fornication.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Why is it, brethren, that we are so inclined toward sin?

It is because we do not reflect on its consequences. We only wish to taste a little of sin’s sweetness, and about the rest we scarcely think at all.

“Oh well, nothing will happen; everything will pass; God will forgive everything,” we say — and like a foolish fish rushing onto the hook, so we hasten toward sin and fall into the claws of the devil. This is not good.

In order to avoid sin, we must reflect on what consequences will follow if we commit it, and flee from it as from fire.

Prologue in Sermons: February 13

What it Means to Crucify One’s Flesh with Its Passions and Desires

February 13

(Commemoration of our Venerable Father Martinian)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

The Apostle Paul says: “Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).

What does this mean?

The Venerable Martinian became an ascetic and withdrew into the desert at the age of eighteen. Having lived there twenty-five years, he once endured the following temptation from the devil. A certain harlot, putting on beggar’s clothing, went up the mountain where Venerable Martinian lived. Approaching the Venerable one’s cell in the evening, she began to weep and wail and asked the venerable one to save her from wild beasts. Martinian, suspecting nothing, let her into his cell and asked, “Who are you and why have you come here?”

The harlot replied, “Hating you and all monks, and likewise the ascetic life, I have come to tempt you into sin.”

November: Day 15: Teaching 2: Holy Martyrs Gurias, Samonas and Habibus

 

November: Day 15: Teaching 2:
Holy Martyrs Gurias, Samonas and Habibus
 
(On the Severity of the Sin of Adultery)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. On the feast of the Holy Martyrs Gurias, Samonas and Habibus, who appeared as terrible punishers of one Goth for adultery, combined with a false oath and perjury, it will be appropriate, my brethren, for us to reflect on the gravity of the sin of adultery, which is forbidden by the seventh commandment of the law of God and which, to the great sorrow of all true Christians, is quite often committed in our time with the sad weakening of Christian faith and piety.

II. We must speak to you, brethren, about this sin with extreme caution, so that its very censure does not become like the light of those lighthouses that contribute to the destruction of ships, although, in turn, they were intended to save them.