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March 19, 2012

Elder Porphyrios On Unhealthy Religiosity


By Elder Porphyrios

A Christian should avoid unhealthy religiosity: both the feeling of superiority due to virtue, and the feeling of inferiority due to sinfulness. One thing is it to have a complex and another humility; one thing depression and another repentance.

One day a secular psychiatrist visited me and accused Christianity because, as he said, it creates guilt and depression. I replied: I admit that some Christians, from their own errors or otherwise, are trapped in the illness of guilt, but even you must admit that secularists are trapped in a worse illness, pride. And while those with religious illnesses, when they come close to Christ, flee to confession and repentance, the pride of secularists, living away from Christ, does not leave.

Excerpt from the book "Anthology of Advice" (Gr.) translated by John Sanidopoulos.