Question to the priest.
Why does the church not welcome the presence and development of paranormal abilities in a person (prediction, clairvoyance, etc.)?
Hegumen Nektary (Morozov), rector of the Bishops' Church of the icon of the Mother of God "Satisfy my Sorrows" answers.
Saints of the Orthodox Church performed many amazing miracles, including seeing the future, healing incurable ailments, and resurrecting the dead. But all these miracles were not the work of their hands, a manifestation of their "abilities", but were performed by the action of power, the grace of God, of which the saints were living vessels. The grace of God is not something that can be "developed" in oneself. This is a divine gift given to a person who zealously fulfils Christ's commandments, tirelessly striving to please God, to purify himself from all filthiness, from all passions. However, gifts of grace are by no means a goal, but only a consequence. Many saints of God, having been honored with the gift of miracles, prayed that the Lord would take away this gift from them, because they knew how easy it is to become haughty and fall away from God out of pride.
When a person strives to "develop abilities in himself", then it is quite obvious that he is on a dangerous path. On the dangerous, because in this case these abilities can really be given to him, but not by God (since a person has not reached the measure of saints and has not “deserved” it), but by a serpent who promised our forefathers in paradise that they would be like gods ( Gen. 3:5) and then deprived them of paradise itself.
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