Do not leave the Church, do not rip the robe of Christ. Remember that Christ in his prayer at Gethsemane, the hierarchical prayer, begged his Father, saying: "That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me" (John 17: 21). The Lord wants unity of the Church. The dissenters, the schismatics, who find errors in the teaching of the Church, are removed from it and believe they will find salvation in their heretical organizations.
But do you know what the great saints said about people who tear the tunic of Christ? Saint Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, said that people who leave the Church and do not have communion with it even if they become martyrs, even with their blood, will not be cleansed of their sin because this grievous sin of dividing the Church cannot even be cleaned with shedding of blood. And the holy martyr Ignatius the God-bearer said that he who causes schism in the Church will not inherit the kingdom of God.....all heretics, however, are preachers of schism, and all the heretics do not preach what the Orthodox Church, which gave us spiritual birth, preaches. Remember also, the word of our Lord Jesus Christ... "He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me" (Lk. 10:16).
St. Luke of Simferopol and Crimea
I think if church fathers can be dismissed because they supposedly did not agree with each other then we can dismiss the reformers and Protestantism as a whole because they don’t agree with each other.
Secondly, merely reading your Bible isnt going to get you Protestant beliefs (whatever that may mean) without those important pressupositions that mark out Protestantism.
“Sometimes one’s zeal for ‘Orthodoxy’ can be so excessive that it produces a situation similar to that which caused an old Russian woman [babushka] to remark about an enthusiastic American convert: ‘Well, he’s certainly Orthodox, all right—but is he a Christian?’ To be ‘Orthodox’ but not ‘Christian’ is a state that has a particular name in Christian language: it means to be a pharisee, to be so bogged down in the letter of the Church’s laws that one loses the spirit that gives them life, the spirit of true Christianity.” ~ Fr. Seraphim Rose
Good will always be attacked! The dark power cannot tolerate good and tries to steal it from us. We must preserve what is good and resist the dark power immediately. Never judge anyone; always be humble, simple, and compassionate toward those who sin. Do good to those who do evil to you. Evil cannot eradicate evil; you can only conquer evil with good. Good is always stronger than evil and will always triumph. An angry person is spiritually sick and deserves our pity. Generate love! Love will work miracles on its own—it is like a bandage on a wound.
~ Schiigumen Savva Ostapenko
To lose hope is to lose life. Don't lose hope. The world is full of endless possibilities, and with God, all things are possible.“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”~Isaiah 40:31
~Saint Nicholas of Serbia
It is better for my listener to burn temporarily from the burning sharpness of my rebukes than to burn eternally in the fire of hell.
— Saint John Chrysostomos
Freedom From Anger
https://t.co/Sjx7NDO5ZP
“The first step toward freedom from anger is to keep the lips silent when the heart is stirred; the next, to keep thoughts silent when the soul is upset; the last, to be totally calm when unclean winds are blowing.”
Saint John Climacus
If work is preceded by prayer,
sin will find no entrance into the soul.
For when consciousness of God
is firmly established in the heart,
the devil's devices remain sterile.
St Gregory of Nyssa (+395)
We are saved by Grace! We are called in just as many verses if not more to work out our salvation by cooperating with that Grace.
The thief on the cross is not a theological proof of anything other than God’s mercy and that He can and will save who He chooses even if outside the normative path He has established.