ST. ISAIAH THE SOLITARY I, ON GUARDING THE INTELLECT, SEC. 22
Here Isaiah the Solitary expresses the same confidence that Paul speaks of in Romans 8:38-39, that “nothing can separate us from the love of God.” All that is required is for the sinner to repent and return to God.
“Be attentive to yourself, so that nothing destructive can separate you from the love of God. Guard your heart, and do not grow listless and say: “How shall I guard it, since I am a sinner?” For when a man abandons his sins and returns to God, his repentance regenerates him and renews him entirely.
~EVAGRIOS THE SOLITARY I, ON PRAYER, SEC: 144
Notice that the grammar here suggests it is not the person but the person’s sins that deserve eternal punishment. The texts of the liturgy remind the faithful repeatedly that even though our sins merit punishment, God is love and it is God’s nature to be merciful.
“Until a man is completely changed by repentance, he will be wise always to remember his sins with sorrow and to recall the eternal fire that they justly deserve.”
ST. MARK THE ASCETIC I, ON THOSE WHO THINK THAT THEY ARE MADE RIGHTEOUS BY WORKS, SEC. 41
Here Mark the Ascetic is citing 1 John 5:16. While the Roman Catholic tradition has identified particular acts as “mortal” sins, in the Orthodox tradition we see that only a sin for which we don’t repent is “mortal.”
“There is a sin that is always ‘unto death’: the sin for which we do not repent. For this sin even a saint’s prayers will not be heard.”
ST. MARK THE ASCETIC I, ON THOSE WHO THINK THAT THEY ARE MADE RIGHTEOUS BY WORKS, SEC. 42
Mark suggests that salvation, while the work of God, nonetheless requires our participation. In the Orthodox tradition this is called synergism, a term that derives from the biblical statement of St. Peter that we are “cooperators” with God (synergoi).
“He who repents rightly does not imagine that it is his own effort that cancels his former sins, but through this effort he makes his peace with God.”
ST. HESYCHIOS THE PRIEST I, ON WATCHFULNESS AND HOLINESS, SEC. 12
While the prayers of the Orthodox Christian do not exhibit a morbid preoccupation with sin, they are characterized by repentance. This is not to be understood primarily as emotional regret for sin but rather as the person’s “change of mind.”
“Each hour of the day we should note and weigh our actions and in the evening we should do what we can to free ourselves of the burden of them by means of repentance—if, that is, we wish, with God’s help, to overcome wickedness. We should also make sure that we perform all our outward tasks in a manner that accords with God’s will, before God and for God alone, so that we are not mindlessly seduced by the senses.”
~Allyne Smith, Philokalia: The Eastern Christian Spiritual Texts (Selections Annotated & Explained. Translation by G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware).
