Humility does not Consider itself to be Humble

St Ignatius (Brianchaninov). "On prelest". On true and false humble-mindedness.

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) (1807-1867)

'Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility' (Col 2:18).

True humility is found in obedience and following Christ (Phil. 2: 5-8). True humble-mindedness is spiritual wisdom. It is a gift of God; it is the work of divine grace in the mind and heart of a person.

But there can also be a voluntary humble-mindedness - it is created for itself by the vain soul, the soul deceived and flattered by false teaching, the soul that flatters itself, the soul that seeks flattery from the world, the soul that totally strives for earthly success and earthly pleasures, the soul that has forgotten eternity and God.

Voluntary, self-invented humble-mindedness consists of a countless variety of tricks through which a person's pride tries to snatch the honour due to true humble-mindedness, seeking it from the blind world, from the world that loves its own, from the world that praises sins masqueraded as virtue, from the world that hates virtue when virtue appears in its holy simplicity, in the holy and firm obedience to the Gospels.

Nothing is as antagonistic to Christian humility as willful humble-mindedness that rejects the yoke of obedience to Christ, and under the hypocritical mask of service to God instead blasphemously serves Satan.

If we will constantly look at our own sins, if we will try to study them in detail, then we will find in ourselves not a single virtue, certainly not humble-mindedness.

Danger of Prelest

Hieromartyr Bishop Arsenius (Zhadanovsky). "Spiritual Diary".

Hieromartyr Bishop Arsenius (Zhadanovsky) (1874- 27.9.1937)

Not only the people indulging in vices and passions are in the enemy's nets, are the accomplices of the enemy of our salvation, but those who set themselves the task to live piously are not left alone by the same enemy; he is trying to lure these Christians in his nets too, but rather based on their piety - that is, he involves them into so-called prelest, or spiritual delusion. Prelest is a perverted, wrong disposition, supposedly high, spiritual, but in fact false, deceptive, fake, sham, - this is the internal state of our hearts, of which the Apostle Paul says that one can only have a form of godliness, but be denying the power thereof.

Yet everyone in his feeble, sinful nature is more or less susceptible to this delusion. You thought that you said well, did well - that is delusion. You were dreaming about your talents, abilities - again delusion. Accepted praise, took a delight in it - and that is delusion too. The Holy Fathers distinguish two kinds of spiritual delusion in its extreme development. The first kind is when a person begins to imagine that he saw the Lord, the Mother of God, Angels, spirits, and considers himself worthy of such visions. The second kind of prelest is when a person has a high opinion of himself, thinking that he lives a high spiritual life, that he fasts a lot, he is a clairvoyant person, a miracle worker, that he is able to perform great ascetic feats, that he is destined to teach and guide people. This kind of delusion is called “conceit”, because in this case the person conceited opinion about himself.

St Diadochos on Obedience

St Diadochos of Photiki. "On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination One Hundred Texts".

41. It is well known that obedience is the chief among the initiatory virtues, for first it displaces presumption and then it engenders humility within us. Thus it becomes, for those who willingly embrace it, a door leading to the love of God. It was because he rejected humility that Adam fell into the lowest depths of Hades. It was because He loved humility that the Lord, in accordance with the divine purpose, was obedient to His Father even to the cross and death, although He was in no way inferior to the Father; and so through His own obedience He has freed mankind from the crime of disobedience and leads back to the blessedness of eternal life all who live in obedience. Thus humility should be the first concern of those who are fighting the presumption of the devil, for as we advance it will be a sure guide to all the paths of virtue.

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/what-is-obedience/150-obedience-for-monks/685-st-diadochos-on-obedience

Elder John Guides about Jesus Prayer

Letters of Valaam elder John (Alexeev). Letter 164.

Schema-hegumen John (Alexeev)

New Valamo

23.4.1956

Honorable Inok Fr…

You write to me that you are eager to start the labour of unceasing Jesus prayer, but some are telling you that Jesus prayer will bring you into spiritual deception. Oh, there are new blasphemers against the Jesus prayer: they do not understand what they are saying. One gets into spiritual deception not because of this prayer, but because of pride, self-confidence and willfulness. It would be good to speak about this prayer in person, for it is impossible to write everything. However, I will try to write in short words, in the way I can.

The spiritual life is the highest of all sciences; it can be called ‘spiritual philosophy’. Of course, not many can understand this philosophy. Most people understand spiritual life as external labour only. But, this external labour is needed as a means to reach the spiritual inner life. Unfortunately, some stay with the letter, which kills the spirit, and do not have a slightest idea about inner spiritual life.

Differences between True and False Healers

Kalashnikova T.P. "True and false healings".

Qualitative characteristics	Russian Orthodox faith healers	False miracle workers
Moral character	Humility, meekness, respecting others before self, fear of God, modesty, truthfulness	Pride, arrogance, vanity, sometimes outward religiosity, guile, affectation, desire to be exalted, to attract, to seduce
Attitudes toward the reward for treatment	Non-acquisitiveness, gratuitousness	Pursuit of profit, gain, wealth, luxury, commerce
Attitude to publicity	Hiding one's gift of miracles and hiding positive results	Promoting successful cases of treatment, seeking publicity, self-glorification, and fame
Methods of treatment	Prayers, anointing sick body parts with holy oil, laying hands; using sacred objects, the sign of the cross, sometimes herbs, and holy water. Gentle calm voice, no violence	Hand manipulations, passes, non-contact massage, staring, incantations, conspiracies, shouting, elements of violence, suppression of other people' will, hypnotism, magnetism, etc.
Positive effect is caused by	divine grace through the faith of the patient and the healer's special divine gift	By natural causes, sometimes by coincidences, through self-hypnosis, faith of the patient, or through forces of a non-divine (demonic, mortal world)
The emergence of the gift of miracles	As a consequence and reward for righteousness, prayerful deeds, fasting, humility, while denying from following one’s own will	Often it is spontaneous just because of a longing for recognition as a miracle worker
The nature of healings	Healings are complete: both physical and spiritual, connected with the revival or strengthening of the healed person's true faith. It is possible to heal from all diseases and even to raise from the dead	Healings are only of an external nature, covering the physical aspect, but spiritually they have a negative impact
Side effects of healing	None	Multiple, mostly of a mental, spiritual kind. However, sometimes they can remain undiscovered for a long time.

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/kinds-of-spiritual-delusion/136-healing-ability-from-demons/1034-differences-between-true-and-false-healers

Evagrios the Solitary on Prelest and Demonic Tricks

Evagrios the Solitary. “On Prayer: One Hundred and Fifty-Three Texts”.

(In Russian Philokalia, this text is attributed to St Nilus of Sinai).

94. Take care that the crafty demons do not deceive you with some vision; be on your guard, turn to prayer and ask God to show you if the intellection comes from Him and, if it does not, to dispel the illusion at once. Do not be afraid, for if you pray fervently to God, the demons will retreat, lashed by His unseen power.

95. You should be aware of this trick: at times the demons split into two groups; and when you call for help against one group, the other will come in the guise of angels and drive away the first, so that you are deceived into believing that they are truly angels.

Vision of the Satan in Immense Light

St Isaac the Syrian. "The Ascetical Homilies".

A person called Malpa, who came from Edessa, was the author of the heresy of Euchites but he was a great ascetic and went through the harshest ascetical practices. It is said that in time of being a disciple of Julian the Blessed, also called Sava, he visited with him for a short time Mt Sinai and Egypt and there heard mysterious homilies of St Anthony about the purity and salvation of the soul. St Anthony was explaining that the mind made pure can contemplate the mysteries of the Holy Spirit and the soul by God’s grace can become passionless if only keeps the commandments and returns to its primitive healthy nature of Eden.

Knowing that the Elder Saw All the Sins of a Person, the Girl Concealed her Sin Anyway

Protopriest Vladimir Vorobyev. "Hieromonk Pavel Troitsky".

Story of Hegumenia Iuliania, when she was a young girl and wrote letters to elder Paul (Troitsky)

It was as long as several years before I felt enough courage to confess a special sin. I suffered a lot because of that but could not do anything about it. I feared to write to Fr Pavel about that, just putting at the end of every my letter to him the words of asking forgiveness and prayers. I believe it was for his prayers only the Lord gave me enough courage and I could confess my sin.

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/concealment-of-sins-in-confession/1017-knowing-that-the-elder-saw-all-the-sins-of-a-person-the-girl-concealed-her-sin-anyway

It is Foolish to Pay Attention to Night Dreams

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov). "On prelest". About Night Dreams.

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

Demons use dreams to disturb and injure human souls. Likewise, inexperienced monks, by paying attention to their dreams, harm themselves. It is therefore essential here to determine the exact significance of dreams in a person whose nature has not yet been renewed by the Holy Spirit.

During sleep, the state of a sleeping person is so designed by God that the whole man is in complete repose. This repose is so complete that a person loses consciousness of his existence and is in a state of oblivion or self-forgetfulness. During sleep, all voluntary activities and labour governed by the will and reason stop. Only that activity continues that is essential for existence and cannot be relinquished. In the body, the blood continues its circulation, the stomach digest food, the lungs maintain respiration, the skin perspires. In the soul, thoughts, fantasies, and sensations continue to be produced, only without dependence on the will and reason, but by the action of our unconscious nature.

A dream consists of such fantasies accompanied by their peculiar thoughts and sensations. It often seems strange, as if it bore no relations to the person's voluntary and purposeful thoughts and imaginings, but appears spontaneously and whimsically in accordance with a law and demand of nature. Sometimes a dream bears an incoherent impression of voluntary thoughts and fancies, while sometime is a result of a particularly moral state of mind. Thus, a dream in itself cannot and should not have any significance. The desire of certain people to see in the ravings of the dreams a prediction of their future or the future of others or some other meaning is ludicrous and quite illogical. How can that be which has no cause for its existence?

The Third Kind of Prayer Requires Seclusion with Setting aside the Cares

Letters of Valaam elder schema-hegumen John (Alexeev). Letter 233.

Schema-hegumen John (Alexeev)

9.9.1956

Christ is in our midst.

Most God-loving Elena,

I received your letter and will answer it briefly. I can hardly read your illegible handwriting, it is impossible to decipher it at once.

You are writing, ‘I got into the maelstrom of daily routine and cannot set myself up for the prayer’. It is good to speak in person about prayer, but I am going to write briefly with my own words. The prayer has three names, i.e. oral, noetic and noetic-cordial. The oral prayer is spoken by the tongue aloud, when you are alone; and in silence, when you are in the company of the others. The noetic prayer is said by the mind only. The noetic-cordial prayer is the unity of the mind and the heart; do not strive to it, it is unsuitable to your lifestyle. This kind of prayer needs seclusion, it cannot exist without seclusion and the seclusion also cannot exist without the prayer. It is the seclusion in the full sense of the word that I am talking about, the seclusion with setting aside the cares[1] of this swift-passing temporary life. You have an active life, and, as you have said to me, your attentiveness is in your chest, so be satisfied with that. Do not strive to the high stages, everything is good in its time and in its place. If you enclose you mind in the words of the prayer, then, according to St. John of the Ladder, it is the second stage of the prayer (Step 28, chapter 19).

The Monk, who did not Repudiate a Vision, Became Possessed

“The Great Watch”. From the private diary of Hieroschemamonk Jerome.

Father Ephrem in spiritual delusion

Fr. Ephrem, a native of Don, came to our monastery being already a mature man, and since he in the world had his own ship and was familiar with seamanship, the monastery ship was entrusted to him, where he worked hard for several years. He was an attentive monk who had accepted the image of repentance, he prayed diligently to God for the abandonment of his sins in the world. In this mood of spirit, he accepted imperceptibly a temptation from the enemy to find out, whether God had forgiven him for his sins or not. As a result, he became keen to see any sign of his absolution, but did not feel the need to first consult his spiritual father on this important matter. Having received such a proud and presumptuous compulsion from the enemy, he began to pray hard for it, while the enemy prepared him for acceptance of the delusion by tricking him with such manner.

Other People’s Sins were Revealed to Abba Eulogios

St Ignatius (Brianchaninov). "Paterikon".

A presbyter (hieromonk) Abba Eulogios, while celebrating the Holy Liturgy, was overwhelmed by the Divine Grace so much, that he could see the spiritual condition of anyone who came to him. Often he forbade to some monks who drew near to take the Holy Communion, saying, ‘How dare you draw near the Holy Communion, having unclean thoughts? This night you enjoyed unclean lustful thoughts, thinking, that both an unclean sinner and a pure man can draw near the Grace of Christ’. He also rebuked other people of different sins. ‘Do not take the Holy Communion for a short time,’ he used to say to them, ‘and repent sincerely to have your sins be pardoned and you became worthy of the Communion with God. The man who does not repudiate any communion with sinful thoughts cannot draw near to the Holy Mysteries of God.’

The communion with sinful thoughts means agreeing and enjoying them by one’s own will, but not the involuntary submission to their flood: the second cannot be avoided, but anyone can withstand them.

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/concealment-of-sins-in-confession/1011-other-people-s-sins-were-revealed-to-abba-eulogios

Letter to a Person who has Strayed into the Nets of the Enemy’s Deception

St Macarius of Optina Letters. Letters to laity. Letter 445

St. Macarius of Optina

Highly esteemed in the Lord N.N.,

I have received your letter, which was sent in March of this year, and I am astonished, indeed, that not knowing me at all you should choose to describe to me your strange experiences, and ask my advice about all your doubts. I, knowing myself being both physically and spiritually weak, should prefer to refuse to talk about things so difficult and high for me. I was going to refuse to answer your questions; but considering your faith with which you seek advice and feeling sorry about your condition in the past and in the present, which you described, I dared to write you (after having taken counsel with our fathers since God is known to have placed the right word of guidance even in the mouth of dumb beasts). I will try to give you some relevant passages of the teaching of the Holy Fathers, and will try to represent actions of the enemy’s deception in order to warn you not to follow it although it may falsely look like the truth. 

By the way, you yourself once had mentioned your suspicions of having strayed into the enemy’s nets. In the light of knowledge of the Holy Fathers you would see that more clear and embrace this truth, then, leaving the lies, follow cautiously the doctrine of the Holy Fathers. Here are some passages I have prepared for you.

The spiritual deception, according to Gregory of Sinai (Philokalia, part 132; in the Russian Philokalia Vol.5, P.233) has two reasons from the men’s side: pride and sinful life, for this reasons a man is made a laughing stock for spiritual enemies. God permits this temptation in order that man should come to his senses, do penance and change his ways if he wants.

False Vision of the Mandylion

Lives of Athonite ascetics. Elder Fr. Nicodemus, a Greek († 1867).

Once his cell was covered with snow so that he could not leave it. To such a misfortune, he run out of his supply of dried bread, and he was left without food for a long time, so he became extremely exhausted because of hunger. At that time, a demon appeared to him in the glow of light, sitting on the throne, in the form of the Holy Trinity and said: ‘I am the holy trinity, bow to me, receive grace and eat!’ At this time the elder was shown tables with various food, the smell of which greatly wounded the smell of the starving man. The elder fell down and begged God not to let him be mocked by the enemy. He was praying in such a way for a long time, and God took pity on the elder and chased away the demon. It was only then that the elder stood up when the smell of food disappeared.

By instructing the disciple Nilus about noetic prayer, the Elder taught him: as much as it is possible work on it relentlessly and not believe any vision or dream; even if Christ himself came, do not believe and say: ‘I do not want to see Christ in this life here and now, but I pray to see him in the future life, With sadness, his disciple was telling us: ‘There is no such elder left nowadays. Not long ago, after his death, I was preparing for the Holy Communion and I was saying my prayers with my eyes closed. Suddenly I had this fantasy that I have been a hardworking monk for so long and I didn't see any vision! And then, at one moment, the ‘Mandylion’ appeared before the eyes. Opened eyes and saw the same; before me in the great light there was the icon of the Savior. According to the instructions of the elder, I realized that it was from the devil, closed my eyes and continued to pray, and the demon disappeared!

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/kinds-of-spiritual-delusion/134-false-visions/998-false-vision-of-the-mandylion

A Man who Neglects to Reveal his Thoughts will not Gain Any Benefits

Apophthegmata Patrum translated by St Theophan the Recluse.

40. The same Elder both in order to prove the virtues of the law and to teach us told us this story: two brothers who lived in Lavra in separate cells used to visit each other. Once one of them said to his brother, ‘I would like to visit Abba Zenon to reveal him a thought of mine.’ The latter answered, ‘So would I.’ Therefore, they went together. Each of them confided their thoughts to Abba privately. The first one prostrated before Abba with begging him with tears and Abba told him, ‘Go, do not neglect, do not judge, and do not omit your prayer.’ Then that brother came back to his cell, spiritually healed. The latter, however, did not beg Abba with pain but said only, ‘Pray for me.’ After a certain time two monks got together and one asked another, ‘Did you reveal your thought to Abba you wanted?’ He said, ‘I did.’ The brother asked again, ‘Did you get any benefit revealing it?’ He said again, ‘I did; God has healed me by the prayers of the Elder.’ The latter said, ‘I did reveal my thought; however, I did not get any relief.’ Then the healed one said, ‘How did you ask the Elder?’ The brother told that he asked to pray for him, as he has such and such thoughts. The healed brother answered, ‘I poured my tears on his feet and begged him to pray for me, when revealing him my thoughts, and God healed me by his prayers.’ Therefore, concluded the Elder his story, a brother, who is asking an Abba about his thoughts, has to beg him with all his might and pain, as if he were asking God himself, and he will get help then; the one, however, who reveals neglectfully or even tempting his Abba, not only will get no help whatsoever, but will be condemned.

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/concealment-of-sins-in-confession/997-a-man-who-neglects-to-reveal-his-thoughts-will-not-gain-any-benefits

The Good of our Fallen Nature is Mixed with Evil

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov). "On Prelest". On Guarding Oneself from the Good That Belongs to Fallen Human Nature.

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

Has some good thought come to you? Stop: whatever you do, do not rush to implement it or carry it out overhastily, without thinking. Have you felt some good impulse or inclination in your heart? Stop; do not dare to be drawn by it. Check it with the Gospel. See whether your good thought and your heart's good impulse tally with the Lord's holy teaching. You will soon see that there is no agreement whatever between the good of the Gospel and the good of fallen human nature.

The good of our fallen nature is mixed with evil, and therefore this good has itself became evil, just as delicious and wholesome food becomes poison when it is mixed with poison. Guard yourself from doing the good of fallen nature. By doing this good, you develop your own fall, you develop within you self-opinion and pride, and you will attain the closest conformity with demons. On the other hand, by doing the good of the Gospel as a true and faithful disciple of the God-Man, you will become like the God-Man. “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal” (Joh. 12:25).

“Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.” (Mk 8:34-35)

The Lord orders the complete renunciation of fallen nature, and hatred for its motives and impulses, not only for those which are clearly evil, bur for all without exception, even the apparently good. It is a great disaster to follow the righteousness of fallen nature. This implies and involves rejection of the Gospel, rejection of the Redeemer, rejection of salvation. “If any man come to me, and hate not…. yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luk.24:26), said the Lord.

About Jesus Prayer and Heavenly Guest

Valaam Elder Schema-Hegumen John (Alexeev)

Schema-hegumen John (Alexeev)

4.1956

New Valamo

Letter 158

Honorable in Christ…

I received your letter and you wrote to me that you are getting the habit of Jesus Prayer. I was very scared once, as there was warmth in my heart but not from the blood, a very special one, I cannot explain. This warmth went along all my body and tears steamed; all people became so good, I would prostrate in front of any of them. After that, I became weak, could not stand on my feet and lay down on my bed. I was getting up and walking although but the tears and the warmth in my heart lasted all day. Do not be scared and do not have high thoughts about your condition, do not tell the others about it, for they will not understand, thinking that you are in spiritual deception. St Ignatius Briachaninov called your condition ‘Heavenly guest’. Try to have attentiveness in yourself, for the attentiveness is the soul of the prayer. Do not condemn anyone, do not have neither enmity nor wiliness, nor vainglory, and, which is most important, nor arrogance; otherwise, this heavenly guest will not visit you.

You are also writing me that ‘sometimes the prayer is ceasing’. It cannot be otherwise. Only God is unchangeable and the Angels glorify Him always. St. Makarios the Great said according to his spiritual experience that ‘the change can happen to anyone like it happens in the air’. St. Mark also witnesses this in his writings. St. Isaac the Syrian says in his Word 46 and in the other places in details and at large.

It is no coincidence that the Holy Fathers said that everyone might have variable states; they said that out of their own spiritual experience. Do not fall into despondency[1] but continue to work hard on your prayer, because without prayer your life will be filled with much sighing. Our Lord, too, gave us an example to always pray and not give up  (Lk.18:2)

Should something else happen, write to me.

Elder of Valamo monastery

[1] Archimandrite Lazarus Moore: ‘More exactly, ‘accidie’. It means ‘languor’, ‘torpor’, ‘tedium’, ‘spiritual gloom’, ‘low spirits’, ‘indifference to the work of salvation’, ‘distaste for spiritual things’, ‘spiritual sloth’. (a footnote to the chapter ‘On despondency’ The Ladder of Divine Ascent St. John Climacus Translated by Archimandrite Lazarus Moore, Harper & Brothers, 1959)

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/what-is-spiritual-delusion/988-about-jesus-prayer-and-heavenly-guest

False Visions of Haji-Georgis, the Elder

Lives of Athonite ascetics. Elder Haji-Georgis, a Greek († 1886).

One day Haji-Georgis, upon temptation of demons, has left his elder, the demons began to please him and in the form of angels were going up to the sky and descended; at which Haji-Georgis has noticed in actions of some haste. They forced him to worship them and promised to give him the grace of the Holy Spirit; but when Haji-Georgis called his elder’s prayers, all this disappeared. 

On another occasion, while Haji-Georgis still lived at his elder’s, a demon appeared to him as a young man with a mule, who began to invite him to his home, promising that he and his comrades would make him their elder and he would live well with them; But Haji-Georgis understood the devil’s illusion, and then he saw the demon and the mule going up in the air and disappearing.

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/kinds-of-spiritual-delusion/134-false-visions/986-false-visions-of-haji-georgis-the-elder

Who Truly Repents, Is Never Affected by Spiritual Delusion

Hieroschemamonk Sergius (Vesnin). “Letters of an Athonite”.

Hieroschemamonk Sergius (Vesnin)

Only self-willed people are affected by spiritual delusion

That is what Mr.D writes:

3) No one dares, moved either by love or charity, to break into solitude of Athonite hermits, who, as it is to believe, sometimes end up their long repentance with insanity (p.162)

A truly educated and kind person, it seems, fears the very thought of such a mistreat of repentants leave alone the printed word of this kind. Were there any examples in our Church history, in the books of our Holy Fathers, to our knowledge any hermits of far deserts, absorbed in contemplatives lives of their own, having reached purity and chastity, overcoming their own mortal nature, considering all devil’s tricks and fears of the deserts nothing more than a childish game – were there any among those ascetics who ended up their lives in the desert as insane ones?

Can our God be so strict and unfair to crown with folly and insanity (*) any true repentance, labour and seeds of self-denial committed because of love to Him? Should somebody agree with Mr. D.’s wrong position just tell me – we will discuss this in details, considering history, to give the opinion of Mr. D its true value.

St Antony truly said, “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, 'You are mad; you are not like us.”

How true are these words of this great beacon to the universe regarding modern enlightened people and monks! The former consider the latter louts for they are not competent in politics or other subjects of the distracted great world.

Cruel Death Because of Secret Sin

Hieroschemamonk Mikhail (Pitkevich). "Conversations with S.N.Bolshakov. Second Conversation"

I heard most incredible stories about some people who were repenting their sins. Therefore, I am fully confident that love and compassion can convert the worst sinner into a very pious person; that a human wreck in extreme condition, even at the edge of suicide can be converted into a good man or woman, or even become a saint. Unbelievable but true – there is a multitude of people who are spending their lives in the gloomy shade of a secret sin or crime without having enough courage to confess them to a fellow-man as they do not want to lose his respect. I was called once to hear the confession of a dying monk who was greatly venerated by everyone for his spotless life. His agony was long and painful. He experienced a great fear. Of course, I understood the situation at once. The passing away monk was concealing a sin, unrevealed at the confession. I asked him straightforward, what it was. He committed it thirty years ago but never could confess until he lay on his deathbed. He rested in peace.

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/concealment-of-sins-in-confession/975-cruel-death-because-of-secret-sin

About the Importance of a Pure Confession

New Patericon of Mt Athos. Vol. 2. Stories about asceticism

About elder Isichios of Grigoriou Monastery

A bishop from Romania asked Elder Isichios to say a word to him. ‘Teach your herd to make good confession,’ the elder replied. ‘Let them all confess, without hiding anything. Confession is a great sacrament, as is the Holy Communion. I knew some old fathers in our monastery, who made pure confessions and foresaw their deaths.’

https://oprelesti.ru/index.php/concealment-of-sins-in-confession/974-about-the-importance-of-a-pure-confession

On Reading Spiritual Books

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov). "On Prelest". About Discretion in Reading the Patristic Books on the Monastic Life

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

The books of the Holy Fathers on the monastic life must be read with great caution. It has been noticed that a novice can never adapt books to his condition, but is always drawn by the tendency of the book. If a book gives counsels on silence and shows the abundance of spiritual fruits that are gathered in profound silence, the beginner invariably has the strongest desire to go off into solitude, to an uninhabited desert. If a book speaks of unconditional obedience under the direction of a spirit-bearing father, the beginner will inevitably develop a desire for the strictest life in complete submission to an elder.

God has not given to our time either of these two ways of life. But the books of the Holy Fathers describing these states can influence a beginner so strongly that out of inexperience and ignorance he can easily decide to leave the place where he is living and where he has every convenience to work out his salvation and make spiritual progress by putting into practice the evangelical commandments, for an impossible dream of a perfect life pictured vividly and attractively in his imagination.

St John Climacus says in his chapter about silence: “In the reflectory of a good brotherhood there is always some dog watching to snatch from the table a piece of bread, that is, a soul; and taking it in its mouth, it then runs off and devours it in a lonely spot” (Sermon 27).

The beginning of Prelest is Slothfulness with Regard to the Prayer and the Divine Services

St Isaac of Syria, The Ascetical Homilies, Homily 2.

The beginning of mind derangement (when it becomes visible in the soul) is to be seen, first of all, in slothfulness with regard to the Divine services and prayer. For except the soul first fall away from these, she cannot be led in the way of error; but as soon as she is deprived of God’s help, she easily falls into the hands of her adversaries. And again, whenever the soul becomes heedless of the labours of virtue, she is inevitably drawn to what is opposed to them. A transition, from whichever side it occurs, is the beginning of what belongs to the opposite party. Practice the work of virtue in your soul and do not concern yourself with futile matters. Always lay bare your weakness before God, and you will never be put to the test by aliens when you are found alone, distant from your Helper.

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