ΤΗΕ ROLE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
What
are the sinful passions, after all?
They
are sins, e.g. acts of disobedience against God, many
times repeated!
This is how we gradually let something become a bad habitude, a bad
habit, and then we commit any particular sin very easily. We then
acquire, as we say, the passion that is connected with this sin
(hence the expression: sinful
passion).
For
example, if we do not control the way we eat, both in terms of
quantity and quality, in other words, if we have no self-discipline
and do not abstain either from eating more or from eating a
necessarily tasty food, we gradually either acquire the passion of
gluttony and become gluttonous (a belly-worshiper) or we acquire the
passion of lickerishness and become worshipers of the palate, or even
both. Consequently, these two sinful passions have been grown inside
us, because we did not control this particular sin right from the
start. In other words, we did not give in only once, but twice,
thrice etc. and, finally, we became a belly-worshiper, gluttonous,
lickerish.
In this case, we talk about an established (sinful)
passion or habit. This passion did not always exist. It started out
with individual acts of giving in to sin. We ate without needing to
eat; in fact, we ate more than we should, etc. etc. and finally
became lickerish and gluttonous.
These
are the sinful passions we should be purified from, according to our
Holy Fathers.
But,
one might ask “Is eating really a sin?
No,
it is not a sin. It becomes a sin though, as soon as we over-satisfy
this need (the need for food to survive), as soon as we satisfy it
more than necessary.
Hunger,
a blameless (innocent) passion, can indeed become blamable (guilty),
when we over-satisfy it, when we satisfy it more than our physical
needs suggest.
f. Savvas Agioreitis
To be continued...
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