Letters of St. Ambrose of Optina. Letter 390.
You write about your brother who suffers
from mental illness of suspicion, as if the secret police is chasing
him everywhere and through everyone, so he suspects evil intents and
connections with the secret police in the people closest to him. This
mental disease had occurred to him due to the fact that he was ashamed,
or simply did not want to repent of his childhood sins considering them
unimportant. But conscience – the incorruptible judge – reminded him
with its reproaches of the need to repent, suggesting that he is wrong
and is to blame; but he, instead of repenting, turned the reproaches of
the conscience into a police pursuit. When this was joined by unbelief
and long refusal of the communion of the Holy Mysteries, it further
strengthened his mental illness of unfounded suspicion.
You are afraid that he will become completely mad... But it is the lightest evil and misery. In this case, at least, his life would be saved, if he is in the insane institution, and a man in madness is no longer responsible for what he does in this condition. Of course, he shall bear responsibility for the previous deeds.
It will be good, if you could manage to bring your brother to the monastery of St. Sergius and to serve with him a prayer service in the caves before the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Chernigov, having arranged beforehand a good confessor for your brother. After the prayer before this icon, the mentally damaged people came to the common sense and confessed well and were healed through it.
You are afraid that he will become completely mad... But it is the lightest evil and misery. In this case, at least, his life would be saved, if he is in the insane institution, and a man in madness is no longer responsible for what he does in this condition. Of course, he shall bear responsibility for the previous deeds.
It will be good, if you could manage to bring your brother to the monastery of St. Sergius and to serve with him a prayer service in the caves before the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Chernigov, having arranged beforehand a good confessor for your brother. After the prayer before this icon, the mentally damaged people came to the common sense and confessed well and were healed through it.
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