Father Andreas is already known to us, and without saying too much, I simply want to thank him warmly.

By being here and giving the talk we are about to hear, he shows his support for our efforts and our work. We pray that the Lord will strengthen, enlighten, and sustain him in his own pastoral work. His work, like ours and all the pastoral work of our Church, is part of the Church’s wider mission to help people find salvation. As you saw in the program and heard on the radio station, his subject is judging others and our troubled heart.

This is a very important subject. I think it touches those of us who live within the Church especially, and it will be edifying for us all. I also wanted to let you know that all three programs have returned to the Church’s radio station, at new times. This seminar is broadcast every Saturday from three to four in the afternoon. So you can hear these talks again then, and those who cannot come can hear them on the radio. The program “Church, Heresies, and Alternative Religions” airs every Monday from three thirty to four. My program, “Orthodox Witness and Life,” airs every Tuesday at five thirty. Father Daniel Gouvalis also has a program on

Friday, at eight o’clock, I think. We have written it in Dialogos, anyway, and you can read it there. I cannot remember the time exactly. Father Andreas, thank you. Please, the floor is yours. Good morning. Today I feel joy within me, but also sadness in the midst of that joy. The joy is this: the Saints of our Church say that when you speak on a subject, you should not speak about it if you yourself do not live it first. Do not speak of things you have not experienced; do not set yourself up as a teacher of things you have not practiced yourself and know nothing about. Sadly, the subject of judging others touches me too and weighs heavily on me. I too

have judged others in my life, and even now I often give in to it. That is the source of my joy today: I will speak to you about something I know from experience. I will tell you about things I have not experienced. But then I pause and think: did I really need to know this passion in order to speak about it? I would rather have been free of it and spoken about some other, more positive spiritual subject. Thank you. Lately I have come to understand that, whatever subject we want to speak about, it helps greatly to go back to the first days in Paradise, when human life began close to God. All that is good in our lives began there, and it was from there that all the bad entered too. If you want to speak about fasting, go back to Paradise: God’s first command was a command to fast, not to eat one particular fruit. If you want to speak about family, go back to Paradise and look at Adam and Eve and how they lived. If you want to speak about prayer, go back there again. And for judging others, we will find our first insights there as well.

This poison entered the human soul and human life. It poisoned our relationship with God, with ourselves, with one another, and with the whole world. But the first to condemn someone was not a human being. It was the devil. He was the first to condemn. And whom did he condemn? God himself. When the devil came to our first parents, he asked Eve, “What did God tell you? Not to eat any of the fruit in Paradise?” Eve answered, “No, he did not say that. He told us we could touch everything and eat whatever we wanted, except for one fruit, which we must not go near.” At that moment, the devil condemned God for the first time in human history. He said, in effect, “God knows why he said that. He did not want you to reach him. He did not want you to be glorified. He wanted to keep things as they were, with you far from him. That is why he gave the command.”

So judging others entered human life. Pride entered, along with all the passions that followed, and the human soul was darkened. Ever since then, instead of turning inward to look at our own soul and ask how we stand with God, we have tended to busy ourselves with other people’s lives. We look outward, judge, comment, pry, and concern ourselves with what this person or that person does: how they live, behave, speak, dress, or even sit. At the root of every passion lies some good human desire that has been turned in the wrong direction. What do I mean? Beneath our habit of judging others lies a desire to defend what is right.

I judge someone because I dislike what they have done and want to defend the truth. I tell myself I must say what is right. If we look deeply at any passion, we find a good impulse that has gone astray. But this does not solve the problem. When something troubles you, the remedy is not to condemn the person. You must address the evil at its root, beyond its outward appearance. Once, some monks asked Saint Anthony the Great to come to a monastery and give his judgment about a monk who had left, gone to the city, and fallen into a grave sin.

The monk had returned in repentance, but the fathers of the monastery were very harsh with him. They said, “We cannot receive you. We condemn you for what you have done, and you must leave us. And to convince you, we will bring Saint Anthony, the teacher of the desert. If he says it too...”

“...then surely we are right.” Saint Anthony did not want to go, but they pressed him, and he went. He told them, “Before I give you my view of the brother you want me to condemn, let me tell you a little parable. A small boat set out on a long voyage. Waves and storms struck it, and it nearly sank. It suffered damage, but at last it made it back to harbor. Then some people there set about sinking it in the harbor. That is what you are doing now. This brother did what he did. He was led astray; he is human and has weaknesses. He repented and came back. Instead of helping him and welcoming him into harbor, you are rejecting, insulting, and disheartening him. That will not heal the harm.” He also said, “You are like someone who sees his brother sinking in the mud and says, ‘Wait, I’ll come and help you.’”

But with his clumsy, careless movements, he pushes the man deeper into the mud and makes things harder for him. We too often say, “I am commenting on what someone did to help the situation.” In reality, hostility and a desire to condemn may be hidden within us, creating greater problems and more tension with our brothers and sisters. The devil knows this. He takes natural human needs and good impulses, twists them, and directs them where he wants. He did this even with the Lord. After the Lord had fasted for forty days in the wilderness, the devil seized upon his natural hunger and said, “Tell these stones to become bread.” The suggestion was not strange in itself: the Lord really was hungry.

The devil wanted to use that natural hunger to draw the Lord into worshiping and obeying him. He does the same with us. He leads us to condemn others while we justify the passion to ourselves by giving it a different name. Our love of justice, truth, and Christ is twisted into the great passion of judging others. It takes the forms of speaking against someone, condemning them, and despising them. Saint Dorotheos makes this distinction: “Speaking against someone is one thing, condemning them is another, and despising them is another.” Speaking against a brother means reporting what he did, without passing judgment on his whole life or character. You might say, “Dimitris told a lie,” “John stole something,” or “My brother made this mistake.”

Say a husband and wife are arguing, and one says to the other, “You are lying right now.” If that person goes and tells others that the spouse lied, Saint Dorotheos calls it speaking against someone. But if you take your brother’s fault and identify him with it, saying, “John is a liar” or “John is a thief,” instead of “John lied” or “John stole,” you have gone further: you are condemning him. You have made one fault stand for his entire character. You leave him no room to change or make amends; you brand him as though his condition were settled forever. And beyond these two is something still more serious: despising him. That means rejecting him completely in your heart and wanting nothing more to do with him. It is the furthest point to which condemnation can go. By then the soul is heavily burdened, and the person’s relationship with God and with others becomes much more difficult.

All three are, of course, condemned. My brothers and sisters, when someone struggles with themselves, gains even a little self-knowledge of their passions, and looks honestly at themselves, they judge others with much more mercy. Think of someone who used to smoke and fought hard to stop or cut back, or managed to quit. When that person sees someone else smoking, they respond with understanding, because they know how hard it is to give up that habit. The person who quickly draws disapproving and condemnatory conclusions about others has not struggled with themselves and has not come to know their own weaknesses. Once you see how hard it is to struggle, you become kinder to others. Spiritual fathers, confessors, and priests sometimes show this kindness and mercy precisely because they see the struggle of the person who confesses and how difficult it is to overcome their condition.

That is why they show kindness and mercy. We should be careful, then, not to judge the guidance a person receives in Holy Confession. Their spiritual father sees them in their moment of repentance and sees how hard they are struggling. Often he understands and makes a compassionate allowance for them, because he knows what that particular situation calls for. The Saints say that if you condemn others, you are probably talking too much as well. Even the ancient Greeks said this, and Holy Scripture says it too: “Where words are many, sin is not absent.” When you talk at length, sooner or later you begin to judge others. Once we have spent five or ten minutes saying what needs to be said, we may drift into idle talk. From there, we sink lower and begin discussing one another, supposedly out of concern.

“Did you hear about so-and-so? I heard they separated. What happened? What will they do now?” And the conversation goes on and on. Those who talk a lot are more likely to fall into judging others. Those who speak less have a better chance of avoiding it. Judging others is also connected with idleness. If you have nothing worthwhile to do, you begin to pry into other people’s lives. Think about times when you have a great deal to do: holidays are coming, the children’s schoolwork is demanding, and you are rushing to clean, cook, and work. A person occupied with useful work has little time to concern themselves with others. But on summer evenings, when life feels more relaxed and our spiritual discipline slackens, we can get carried away.

We settle into a pleasant mood and start talking about other people’s lives, judging and criticizing them. Judging others is also associated with coffeehouses. What do people do there? They may spend their time on something that has little meaning in their lives, or start talking about others. In the past, this was associated more with women, but now it is not only women; men too often fall into this sin. It is associated with people who take things lightly and do not have a regular spiritual life. That is why the saint tells us that, if we want to help ourselves, we should watch our thoughts. Everything begins with how we think. If you watch your thoughts and cultivate good ones, you will also avoid judging others. What does that mean? Father Paisios gives an example you may have read or heard. Three people were sitting on a bench in a square when a young man ran past them.

He was running across the square. The first person said, “He must have stolen something and is hurrying to hide.” The second said, “No, I think his father is coming home from work about now, and he wants to meet him at home.” The third said, “The bell rang a little while ago. I think he is going to light a candle.” Perhaps none of them was right; the young man could have been running for any number of reasons. But the one who offered the kindest interpretation, thinking that he was going to light a candle in the Church, avoided what the first person did: condemning him as a thief without knowing anything about him. If you cultivate good thoughts and try to interpret another person’s behavior kindly, instead of always suspecting the worst, you will often avoid judging them. We face this sort of thing all the time. I remember a woman at the supermarket who was very involved in the Church.

She fasted strictly. One day someone saw meat in her shopping cart and was scandalized. He condemned her inwardly, thinking, “She acts as though she is devoted to the Church, yet she has meat during Lent.” Later it became known that someone in her home was ill and needed to eat meat. That was why she had bought it. We must not immediately assume the worst. We do not know why people do what they do. Take something that happens to me: I do not drink soft drinks myself, but I buy them when I know my parents, relatives, or other people I know are coming to the house. Once, while I was standing in line at the supermarket, I heard someone behind me say:

“Those gentlemen have it easy, buying themselves all sorts of things.” It does not matter to me personally, but it made me think how easily we can condemn someone, whether a priest or a layperson, without knowing the truth. It burdens our soul.

And you lead someone into error. Drawing hasty conclusions does not help. Saint John Climacus says in The Ladder that a little child never lies. We might add that a little child never judges others, either. When your thoughts and your soul are simple, your mind does not turn toward evil. Even if you see something bad, you will try to understand it kindly. Some of us do the opposite: even when we see something good, we suspect something bad and draw ugly conclusions. We lack that simplicity of thought, that childlike spirit. The Lord said that unless we become like children in our souls, we will not enter Paradise. His words are clear. Yet instead of becoming simpler in our thoughts, we become more complicated and confused. Does that mean we should never speak about anyone or care about them? Does the Church want us to be detached and indifferent, as people say

in Buddhism and other religions, that nothing in this world should concern us? Our brother’s life should concern us, every part of it. But that concern should lead us to prayer and heartfelt sorrow. Saint Nektarios of Aegina had difficulties when he was at the Rizarios School in Athens. Some of the children were difficult, but he did not condemn them. He prayed and took their troubles upon himself. It is said that he spent whole nights awake, with tears in his eyes, praying to the Most Holy Theotokos (All-Holy) for someone who was struggling. He did not shame the person publicly or talk about him. If Saint Nektarios heard, for example, that someone was getting divorced, which was unusual then, he would not ask for details or take pleasure in discussing the matter. He would pray with pain in his heart and tears in his eyes. How many of us take an interest in other people’s lives with that kind of care? How many of us pray for the people we talk about? We find it easy to comment.

We condemn others, but words will not set things right. Prayer will, and we avoid it because it takes effort. Then God will shelter us too, my brothers and sisters. When you do not condemn others, God will protect you from many falls of your own. Often we fall into sins, some lesser and some more serious, and look everywhere for the cause. We do not suspect that judging others may be the cause. Sometimes, when someone comes to confession with various sins and we cannot get to the root of the trouble, I ask, ‘Do you ever judge others?’ ‘What do you mean?’ I mean talking about them, condemning them in your heart, telling others what they do, prying into their lives. ‘Yes, sometimes I do. Everyone at work, everyone in the office, talks about these things.’ I say, ‘Try stopping that for a while, and let us see whether God frees you from the other struggle you are facing.’ Why?

The pride hidden in judging others is hard to see. So God lets us fall into something more serious, something that shakes us enough to realize that something is wrong. When we stop condemning others, God shelters us from many of our own falls. A saint says, ‘Cover your brother’s weakness. Do not talk about it, so that God may cover your weaknesses too.’ If you refuse to cover your brother, how can you expect God to cover you? And, as I said earlier, speaking too much leads to judging others. Let us learn to say less and keep our replies brief. There are ways to bring such a conversation to an end. I have a friend I have known since our second year of secondary school, about twenty years now. Truly, I have never heard him condemn anyone or speak critically of anyone.

When we are with a group and people start talking about someone else, he does not join in. He finds a gracious way to change the subject without embarrassing the people who were criticizing, and leads the conversation elsewhere. Never, not once, have I heard him condemn anyone. He chooses his words carefully and keeps them brief. If someone asks him about a particular person, he does not go into details. He finds a word or phrase that closes the subject. We know how to end a subject when we want to, just as we know how to keep it going. On the phone, if you say very little and then fall silent, the other person will stop speaking out of awkwardness. But if you say, ‘Go on,’ or ‘What do you mean?’ or ‘What do you think?’ or ‘I don’t quite understand; explain it to me,’ you have given that person an opening to say another whole paragraph. So let us be sparing with our words and give short answers.

Let us remember what Saint Dorotheos says. When people speak against others in front of us, there is nothing wrong or rude about saying this, and we need not be embarrassed: ‘My brother, may I say something? Perhaps that person is as you say. Perhaps you are right. But I am worse. I have so much pride and stubbornness in me that I had better not speak about him. I have plenty of faults of my own.’

Why should we not say that? It can stop the conversation. Otherwise we keep giving it fuel, the fire grows, and the harm spreads. There was once an ascetic who prayed to God for a gift. He said, ‘Lord, I ask You for a gift. When I pray, when people speak about You, when I read the New Testament, and when I go to church, let me never grow sleepy. Let me stay wide awake, with my eyes open, and never want to stop praying.’

‘But when people around me begin accusing others and talking about them, wherever I may be, please, my God, make me sleepy.’

‘Make me want to doze off.’ He asked for this as a gift, and the Lord heard him. In church he stood and prayed, his soul alive to God. But when people began chatting idly, accusing and discussing others, he yawned and grew sleepy. That is the opposite of what happens to us. Once, this ascetic was speaking to some of the fathers about prayer. Some began to yawn; others grew drowsy, and some were nearly asleep. He tried to make his talk livelier, but a few had already fallen asleep. ‘I must wake them,’ he thought. So he said, ‘Let me tell you about an ascetic who went to a village and was about to fall into sin.’

At once they all opened their eyes. He said, ‘My brothers, I was not going to tell you that story. I said it deliberately. Did you see how everyone woke up? Do you see how a passion and a demon can make us lose interest in what is good and delight in what is bad? When I spoke about prayer, you were falling asleep. At the hint of a story about a brother’s sin, you all woke up.’ I once saw something like this myself, five years ago at Petraki Monastery. The brother of a Greek acquaintance had come from America, and he had this very habit. Someone showed us around the monastery and its holy relics. Then we sat on a bench outside while he spoke to us about spiritual matters. The man beside me said, ‘Just watch how my brother will fall asleep.’ I said, ‘Come on, let us listen.’ It made me laugh to hear him say it. But literally two minutes later, his brother had closed his eyes, turned to the side, and fallen asleep. A little later, when the speaker said, ‘I will say goodbye now so you can go for a walk,’ the man opened his eyes at once. It was remarkable. His brother told me, ‘Whenever we talk about spiritual things, he gets sleepy. Whenever we start discussing other people’s family affairs—gossip, in plain language—he is wide awake.’

That is no gift from God. It is a passion we have. May God grant us what He granted that ascetic, if only we ask Him. Do you know another reason we often judge others? I think it is because we expect perfection. You go somewhere expecting everything to be perfect, and when it is not, you begin to complain. But if you are realistic and say, ‘I will go and accept what I find,’ it is different. Take a husband coming home. If he does not expect a perfect meal and a perfectly tidy, spotless house, he will not start blaming his wife when he finds something amiss. He will accept the home as he finds it.

You might go to a celebration. Or let me give a more specific example of something that, sadly, happens in Church circles. A family I know recently told me about a pilgrimage to Italy with a group from outside Athens.

What happened? Some of the Christians traveling with them complained about everything. They disliked the bus, the driver, the guide, and the food at the hotel. They grumbled about the prices, the weather, the traffic—nothing pleased them. Why? Because they expected everything to be perfect.

They could have gone with simple hearts, saying, ‘We will make a pilgrimage to the catacombs, go to Rome, and see the places where the saints once walked. Whatever we receive from it, may we be edified.’ Instead, they expected perfection. When they did not find it, they began commenting, complaining, and blaming. You have come here to hear a talk. If someone expected something extraordinary, they may be disappointed and start criticizing. But if you say, ‘If I hear even one good thing, that will be enough,’ then you will be edified, and so will I.

There is something else we need to watch in our lives: complaining.

Some people are always dissatisfied and always grumbling. That too is a subtle form of condemnation, directed toward God. If everything in life seems wrong to you—if you get on the metro, encounter delays, and start blaming this and that, politics and the weather—and you are generally discontented, then in an indirect way you are judging God Himself. Why? Because God governs the world. He sees a difficult situation, allows it, and wants to work in our lives through it. Do we think He does not know what He is doing? Instead of praying, we sit and complain. The strange thing is that, through the Church, from the earliest Christian days, we have had so much reason to be grateful to God in our lives.

What should our outlook be? We should feel that nothing in this world troubles us. Before God, we feel so full of the gifts He has given us that we only want to thank Him. And we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. That is why it is called the Holy Eucharist: because we give thanks to God. We offer Him the greatest gift He has given us, the Lord Himself. We offer back what is His: ‘Your own of Your own.’ And yet, although we go to Church for the Holy Eucharist, pray, receive Communion, and hear so many sermons, we are not content. We constantly find fault with people, things, circumstances, the weather, or anything else. And He who sees us and is, of course, beside us senses that we find rest neither in His presence nor in His help. That is ingratitude. Once, an ascetic who had charitable thoughts about others, as I said at the beginning, went into a monk’s cell and found it untidy—very untidy.

Things were scattered everywhere: the blankets in one place, the books in another. But because he never judged anyone, he looked for something good to say. ‘Father, I understand,’ he said. ‘You spend all day in prayer. How could you find time to tidy your little room? It is untidy, but I understand, and I admire your devotion to prayer, even though it leaves you no time to put things in order.’

‘I am sure that is why things are like this,’ he said. The other monk replied, ‘No, Father. Sometimes I am idle, and I am rather untidy.’ ‘No, Father,’ the ascetic said, ‘I think it is because you are praying.’

Because he was spiritually minded, the father saw that the cell reflected the other monk’s soul. Whether he saw disorder or something well cared for, he made a charitable interpretation and avoided both condemning and praising the other man; either could do harm. But sometimes someone will say, ‘We have to speak up. We cannot always stay silent.’ Suppose someone is treated unjustly at work. Perhaps a person loses his position because others take advantage of his vulnerability, his conscientiousness, or his gentle nature. Perhaps someone with connections takes advantage of you and tramples over others. You must speak up, and that is right. Someone might ask, ‘Does our faith expect us to accept every situation passively? Surely we must say something.’ Yes. But we must take care how we do it. During the Cherubic Hymn, a church caretaker went into the sanctuary to help with something. He opened the sanctuary door a little and saw a candle by the stand near the entrance. It had bent over, and wax was dripping from it.

The church attendant panicked. “That candle is dripping, and I’ll have to clean it up later!” He rushed out in his apron. Hurrying toward the candle, he bumped a little child, jostled an elderly woman, and knocked over a chair. A woman who had been praying looked up, bewildered. The whole congregation turned to see what was happening. Then they saw him reach the candle and put it out. Someone said, “My dear man, you interrupted the Cherubic Hymn and disturbed the whole congregation.” “But the candle was dripping. I had to fix it!” “Was one little candle worth throwing everyone into an uproar?”

Sometimes the thing we set out to correct, or the thing we feel we must say, is like that little candle. The way we go about it causes more problems than it solves. He needed to put out the candle, but not like that. We may need to speak up, defend ourselves, and seek justice, but we must take care how we do it.

The Saints give this advice: when you are about to defend yourself, do not issue yourself a certificate of innocence or declare yourself free of judgment toward others. Let your spiritual father help you discern that. You might say, “Father, I feel I’m being treated unjustly at work. I need to speak to my supervisor about things that are happening there. Can you see whether I am acting out of resentment? Am I hiding pride, seeking revenge, or taking pleasure in someone else’s downfall?” Together, you can discern how to speak, when to speak, and whom to speak to. Sometimes we tell people who have no responsibility for the matter. If something is wrong, tell someone who does. A Saint also says that we should look beyond our motive at that moment and consider the whole history of our attitude toward the person.

That includes the history of how we have behaved toward the person we want to criticize. What does “the history” mean? Our past with that person. Let me give you an example. As a child, I may have quarreled with someone, and we may have held a deep grudge against each other. The years passed, we grew up, and everyone else forgot what happened. But I still remember it, and the bitterness remains in me.

Now something happens and I want to speak up, supposedly to defend what is right. But that old bitterness comes out too. I speak not only because I am being wronged now, but because I still want revenge for what happened back then. No one else knows I have kept this inside me, but God knows. That is why the Lord says, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with righteous judgment.” We can tell people, even in court or among our relatives, “I spoke only for the sake of justice.” But God sees the old grievance we are hiding, the history we leave untold. Let that call us to examine ourselves, because we can deceive other people.

Sometimes one family talks about another, or one couple talks about another couple, supposedly to keep someone informed. Deep down, though, there may be a troubled history between them. Perhaps they would even take some pleasure in causing the other couple to quarrel. They may feel a strange urge to unsettle them, though they never say so plainly. Instead they say, “I only told you so you would know. I wanted you to keep your eyes open.” Perhaps so. But perhaps someone better placed to speak should have told them. Saint Dorotheos tells of a ship that arrived in port selling little children as slaves. An abbess sent a nun down from the monastery. “Buy one of the children,” she said, “so we can raise the child in freedom. We will teach the child to pray, to read, to go to Church, and to learn a trade. When the child grows up, it will be free to stay or leave.”

That same day, a woman of the theater, deeply involved in sin, also came down to the slave market at the port. She too had come to buy a child. “I will buy a child as well,” she said, “because I want to raise her in the theater”—which in those days was associated with other sins too—“and lead her into the life I live.” The people bringing the innocent, unsuspecting children ashore to sell them would take them by the hand. Both children were girls. The nun happened to choose one girl, and God allowed the woman of the theater to take the other. One went to the monastery, the other to the theater. As the years passed, the little girl at the monastery grew into a young woman. She learned embroidery, weaving, washing, and prayer, and everyone admired her. “What a good child,” they would say. “Well done, very good.” But other people who considered themselves good or devout did not want to see the girl who had grown up in the theater, in a life of sin. They would say, “Just think—no, don’t even think about it—what shameful things this child says, thinks, and does.”

People judged and condemned that child. But God remembers, Saint Dorotheos says, the morning years earlier when the ship came into port and the children were brought ashore. Both were innocent then. The nun could just as easily have chosen the girl who was taken to the theater. We do not know these things, yet we are so quick to draw conclusions and judge our brothers and sisters.

Saint Paisios of the Holy Mountain asks, “Which is worse: to kill one person or ten?” We would say ten; surely the person who killed ten bears greater guilt. But Saint Paisios says, “You cannot be certain of that. God sees other things too.” Perhaps the person who killed ten had such malice within him that he wanted to kill a hundred, but held himself back. Killing even one person is terrible to us, as it should be. Yet God also sees the struggle of someone who wanted to kill a hundred and stopped at ten. Another person may have killed only one, though he grew up in a devout home, had every opportunity to become faithful, and was led astray by no one. He chose that path himself. In God’s judgment, that one killing may weigh more heavily than the ten. God sees things differently from us. We see a person’s fall, but we do not see their repentance.

We do not know what happens afterward or how that person repents. Perhaps that very night, at home, they weep for what they have done. Whatever the sin, you do not see what happens there. There are people who go home, repent of what they have done, and admit it. But we have not left them alone all day, and in our hearts we have already condemned them.

Saint John Chrysostom says that we are seizing a right that belongs to God alone. To judge another person is a grave insult, an act of terrible presumption, because that right belongs to God. The Lord Himself knew every human soul and had every right to judge, yet He said, “I judge no one.” He said, “I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.” Who are we, then, to judge?

Is this not what the Saints and the letters of the holy Apostle Paul tell us? “Brothers and sisters, judge no one before the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in people’s hearts, and everything will be revealed.” Judgment will come then. Its time has not yet arrived, and no one’s life is finished. How can we draw final conclusions about anyone?

And, my brothers and sisters, we must be especially careful about accusing clergy. If it is grave to accuse anyone, it is graver still to accuse a member of the clergy. I do not say this because I am a clergyman myself. People may have plenty to say about me, and perhaps about others too. We are guilty and sinful, and we are at fault in many things. But the person who judges and comments on others also makes a serious mistake. Three years ago, a woman from another part of Greece came to Athens and said to me, “I want you to recommend a good spiritual father.” I asked, “Don’t you have one?” “No,” she said, “I want you to recommend someone good, someone you yourself would choose.” “I won’t recommend anyone to you.” I went in to see a spiritual father, and in my presence she said to him, “Father, I am attached to you, but I have a complaint. You hardly speak to me. You give me little advice. You say one word, and then I leave. That doesn’t work for me.” He replied with an unclear question about why he did not speak to her.

And the observer goes there. “The observer should not go there,” she says, “because they hold memorial services there and collect money.” She kept commenting on one thing after another about them. And the president goes there too. “I’m not speaking to her,” she says. “Wait, I’ll speak to you,” she says. “Wait a little.” “But wait, he should not do that.”

This charcoal, he says, is the priest. If the priest is like extinguished charcoal, does not believe in God as he should, and is not as he should be, touching him soils you. But if his heart is aflame for God and he is as he should be, accusing him unjustly burns you. Either way, how does it benefit you to comment on priests, to touch them and touch them, and to accuse them? If something is wrong—and sometimes something may indeed be wrong—there are responsible people one can speak to, rather than Vitonas, Vitonis, or just anyone else in the world. In our Church there is the Synod, the chancellor, Saphikis Vrestinos, and the priest in charge of the church. We should speak directly to someone. Unfortunately, this happens very often in Church circles.

This is a serious sin. We talk about other spiritual fathers: what guidance one gives, what another gives, whether we like one or dislike another. We imagine that our own spiritual father is the best and that others are not as good. Without admitting it, we judge and condemn them indirectly. We lose love, and we speak carelessly of priests by name. This is a very grave matter, and we do not even confess it.

You can speak afterward. Yes, afterward. Saint Theophan the Recluse lived in Russia. You may have read the little collection of his letters published by the Monastery of the Paraclete. A woman wrote to him: “Father, I am very upset. A very good priest left our parish, and another has come. He rushes, he does not say the prayers properly, and we do not like his voice.” Everything about him bothered her.

Saint Theophan answered in three lines, and his words were sharp: “You are to blame. You are to blame that the good priest left. If you had been worthy for him to stay, he would have stayed. If your soul had been as it should be, and God had seen no reason for him to leave, He would not have taken him from you. You were not worthy to have him. And you will suffer the same loss again, because you have learned nothing. Instead of making good use of this opportunity and refraining from criticizing the priest who has come, you repeat the same mistakes. You judge him too, and again you will suffer harm from God.” God does not punish; He urges you to understand the gravity of this deed and action of His. So let us be very careful about this. I repeat, this does not mean priests are without fault. We too go to confession, and there are people who correct us.

During Lent, how often do we say, “Yes, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brother, for blessed are You unto the ages of ages”? We say it constantly. My brothers and sisters, if we want material to judge, there is plenty: our own soul, our own self. Do you want to find fault? Look at yourself and find as much fault as you wish. This is what the Saints call self-reproach. Call yourself to account. Look at your faults, grieve over them, and weep for what you have become. Spend as long as you need examining yourself. That does us good. Finding fault with others does not. The Church calls us to see our own inner life, which, sadly, we hardly know. If we saw what we carry within us, we would have neither the time nor the desire to talk about others. As a Saint says, when there is a death in your own home, you do not go next door to mourn the neighbor’s dead.

Because your own trouble weighs on you. We have not wept for our own lifeless soul, which is more lifeless than the widow of Nain’s son, whom the Lord raised today. Yet we go on to talk about and condemn other people’s souls. The Lord is the perfect example for our lives, and He showed this throughout His life. He never condemned anyone. When the holy Apostles went to a town that would not receive them, they said to the Lord, “Lord, shall we call down fire from heaven?” They had condemned the people in their hearts. What did the Lord say to them? “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.” You still do not understand the spirit I bring. You still do not understand that I do not want to condemn, but to save; that I bring love. And when the sinful woman was brought before Him, with everyone gathered with stones to stone her, and when the Lord said this...

When He made this statement and set before her the dilemma that whoever was without sin should be the first to act, they all left. The Lord asked the woman, who stood there frightened and amazed that no one had struck or hurt her, “Has no one condemned you?” “No one,” she said. “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.” He did not excuse her sin, but neither did He condemn her. And when the Lord was on the Cross—slandered, persecuted, spat upon and struck, suffering terrible pain and torment, bathed in blood—He saw everyone below shouting, “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!” Do you know what people crucified in those days would naturally do? They shouted, cursed, and blasphemed their crucifiers, the crowd, their own lives, and God. Outraged at that moment, they lashed out at everyone.

Think of that, so we can understand the Lord’s refusal to bear resentment, and how He condemned no one even in that terrible hour. Then, at the Mystical Supper, Judas had the audacity to ask the Lord, along with the others, “Is it I, Lord? Am I the one who will betray You?” Saint John Chrysostom says that none of the holy Apostles suspected Judas. Not one of them thought, “How dare he ask that when he is the one?” Why do you think that was? Because throughout those three years the Lord had never given them any reason to suspect Judas. He had known from the beginning, yet He never condemned him and always shielded him. Saint John Chrysostom says you would need the heart of an innocent child to have Judas before you for three years and still not realize he was the guilty one.

Yet none of the holy Apostles condemned or judged him. That is how the Lord had formed their hearts over those three years: childlike and simple, full of love and free of resentment. Even when Judas asked that question, they took him at his word. Christ must make us like that too—gods by grace. We should look at others this way and create an atmosphere around us free from condemnation. What a great gift that would be, and how blessed our lives would be even now. Before this talk, I found myself thinking, “What will come of saying all this? Will we stop judging others?” After all, don’t we already know we must not judge? The Lord put it very simply: “Do not judge, so that you will not be judged.”

We preach for an hour, talk and talk, read books and accounts of what has happened, and still we judge others. It is as though, in the end, we need a miracle. We do not lack words; something has to happen in our souls. Something has to happen in our souls. Think of the ascetic who died so peacefully and went to God. While he was alive, he sometimes drank a little, and sometimes more than he should. He was often late for the services, and at times he was a little lazy. Yet he was very calm when he died. A few people gathered around him and asked, “How can you be so good and depart so peacefully, when we have not known you to be especially spiritual?” He replied, “You’re right. And you don’t even know the half of it—I’m worse than that. But there is one thing I kept throughout my life. The Lord said one simple word…”

“…and a secret for not being judged, for reaching Paradise easily: ‘Do not judge, so that you will not be judged.’ I may have drunk. I may not have attended the services very often. I may not have been very good at that sort of thing. But I never condemned anyone. Whatever I saw, I did not comment on it. That was what I held to. And since the Lord said it, I hope I can tell Him: ‘Lord, You said, “Do not judge, so that you will not be judged.” I will tell You: I did not judge.’”

The others marveled. Despite all his faults, he had found a secret. It seems there are a few secrets to being saved, and this is one way. It is simple, yet difficult. My brothers and sisters, unless Christ becomes the first concern of our lives—unless

our salvation and our souls become our chief concern—we will keep occupying ourselves with all sorts of other things. Think of Great Thursday, when prayer is strongly on our minds: we go to church, and something of this shows. When the Crucified Lord is brought out, who would think of condemning someone at that moment? No one; nothing else would occupy us. We have left this world behind. If we leave this world for a little while and enter another, love God, and make the Lord our first concern, our first love, the foremost thing in our lives, the one who captivates our whole being, then other people will no longer trouble us. We will love them and overlook their faults, even while seeing those faults very clearly.

For the Apostle Paul says that an illuminated person discerns everyone and understands everything. Such a person is not foolish, but does not stop there: he goes on to help heal evil with good, rather than with condemnation. I am sure you will not condemn me today, because what we have said must not be turned against me. Instead, pray that this miracle may happen in all our souls, and that little by little we may do something to change our lives. May we cease causing the Lord pain and bitterness and bring Him joy, as He sees us living with love, forgiveness and kindness rather than condemnation, which has done us so much harm until now. And may this day be one of the last days when we cause such harm.

Thank you. Thank you.