Above All, Hope in Christ ... Talking with Geronta Pavlos of Sinai

Q St. Paul says that having received freedom to find God if we try to, we ought not then to reduce the Divine Nature to an image formed by the 'art and thought of man', as (powerless to help us as) idols of gold or silver or stone.

A To do so is foreign to simplicity, to our faith.

Q The word ‘truth’ has suffered so much abuse that many people are turned away by it – rather than by the abuses.

A We have to answer these people: Come and see for yourself, live inside 

Orthodoxy – because as we said before, truth to us is a living thing, something we experience – and afterwards we’ll talk about it ...(laughs)

Q What can one say about a public mentality that pursues peace by denying the existence of deception? A mentality with such fear of truth that it re-defines it as the sum total of all deceptions? Why does such a mentality refuse to understand that the Truth who is Christ hates no one?

A The New Testament provides all information relative to faith, but its truths must become truth in our own lives, for the eyes of the soul to open.

Students study classical philosophy at university and love it. But they don’t typically follow that up by becoming idol worshippers… However a person cannot say 'I believe in Christ and in His teaching, but I am not a Christian.' To love Christ means we strive to keep our life in agreement with His will.

And when we do, we will live the promises preached by our Christ – peace of soul, hope and joy, every good. Above all, hope, which marks out the Christian who actually lives in Christ, because he never loses his hope.