{"id":8140,"date":"2020-04-17T12:33:58","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T16:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=8140"},"modified":"2020-04-05T20:34:54","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T00:34:54","slug":"hieroschemamonk-stefan-on-keeping-ourselves-pure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=8140","title":{"rendered":"Hieroschemamonk Stefan on Keeping Ourselves Pure"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the Sacraments of the Church, especially confession and Communion, and, of course, the asceticism that everyone should bear\u2014fasting, prayer, and most of all, the guarding of the senses. In many cases, the guarding of the senses is more effective than fasting and other podvigs\u2014continuous guarding.<\/p>\n

The five senses\u2014the Holy Fathers call them windows through which sin enters the heart of man. Sin enters through the eyes, through the ears, through taste, through smell, and through touch. Above all, it comes through the eyes, through obscene gazing. According to the Holy Fathers, simple gazing is innocent, but gazing with obscene perseverance is already passionate. Therefore, it\u2019s very important to protect the eyes, and people should be careful not to look at anything promiscuously. Because when you open the shutters of the windows and allow sin to enter within, the mind is damaged.<\/p>\n

Do you see? God has ordained that sin by deed cannot be so easily carried out\u2014it requires certain conditions; but sin of the mind is accomplished immediately. Therefore, the Savior, comparing the precepts of the Old and New Testaments, says in the Gospel: \u201cThe Old Testament said this,\u201d but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart (Mt. 5:27-28).\u201d<\/p>\n

– Interview in pravoslavie.ru<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

– ***Now and then we include a particularly thought provoking or inspiring excerpt not from one of our regular \u2018Elders\u2019***<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the Sacraments of the Church, especially confession and Communion, and, of course, the asceticism that everyone should bear\u2014fasting, prayer, and most of all, the guarding of the senses. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8142,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8140\/revisions\/8142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}