Sin

More Athonite wisdom from the Orthodox blogosphere… After Elder Joseph on joy, here’s Elder Sophrony on sin…

Elder Sophrony (Sakharov) was an Orthodox monk from Mount Athos who founded a monastery in Essex (in England), and who was a disciple and biographer of St Silouan the Athonite (a twentieth century Orthodox saint).

The excellent Milk & Honey blog quotes a wonderful reflection by Elder Sophrony on the subject of sin, which is so good that I have taken the liberty of reproducing the whole (shortish) piece.

Sin is primarily a metaphysical phenomenon whose roots lie in the mystic depths of man’s spiritual nature. The essence of sin consists not in the infringement of ethical standards but in a falling away from the eternal Divine life for which man was created and to which, by his nature, he is called.

Sin is committed first of all in the secret depths of the human spirit but its consequences involve the individual as a whole. A sin will reflect on a man’s psychological and physical condition, on his outward appearance, on his personal destiny.

Sin will, inevitably, pass beyond the boundaries of the sinner’s individual life, to burden all humanity and thus affect the fate of the whole world. The sin of our forefather Adam was not the only sin of cosmic significance. Every sin, manifest or secret, committed by each one of us affects the rest of the universe.

The earthly-minded man when he commits a sin is not conscious of its effect on himself as is the spiritual man. The carnal man does not remark any change in himself after committing a sin because he is always in a state of spiritual death and has never known the eternal life of the spirit.

The spiritual man, on the contrary, does see a change in himself every time his will inclines to sin - he senses a lessening of grace.