By Metropolitan Seraphim
of Kastoria
In Matins of Holy and
Great Tuesday, which is chanted by custom in the evening of Holy and Great
Monday, there will parade before us hypocrisy and the hypocrites, the theater
and actors, and will feature the terrible "woe" which our Lord sent to
the exponents of hypocrisy.
"Woe to you,
scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven
in people’s faces... You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin...
You are like whitewashed tombs..." (Matthew 23:13-29).
What is hypocrisy? It is
the pretense of friendship, the God-bearing Fathers of the Church will answer.
Hatred hidden under the schema of friendship. Hatred manifested as friendship.
Envy characterized as love. Hypocrisy is fictional and not real life virtue. It
is the pretense of justice. It is fraud which has the form of truth, according
to Maximus the Confessor.
A hypocrite is a man who
from a person becomes a mask. A hypocrite is one who puts forward his ego, and
idolizes his own self. A hypocrite is one who plays the actor.
Hypocrisy is when one
supposedly cares and sacrifices for others while exploiting them. It is one who
pretends to be unhappy, sad, persecuted and complains in order to create
impressions and distract the attention of others.
A hypocrite is one who
uses various disguises, masks, to reveal the frustrations of his experiences,
to externalize the passions which exist in the soul.
This is why it is
observed that this phenomenon is not given much importance to what the Church
calls a sin, rather considering it as a natural state, and others as a catapult
to punish our ruthless fellows.
For those ears that can
endure the words of my revered Elder, the Metropolitan of Katerini Agathonikos,
he said: "When you see these situations know that there is a problem there
and even a schizophrenic situation, and you are to supplicate God for the
healing of this man."
The hypocrite constantly
wants to show himself off so people can talk about him, to praise him and
receive honors from everyone else. This situation makes him anxious, nervous,
and it gets even worse when it is perceived by people. This occurs especially
in our era and in the lifestyle we choose that moves away from our tradition.
And unfortunately we
all, more or less, are possessed by this passion. Clergy and laity are under
the cloak of hypocrisy.
We have been altered
from persons to masks and from people who had upon us the grace of God to
secularized beings, as has been observed by Metropolitan Hierotheos of
Nafpaktos.
How correct was the
Elder of Chalcedon Meliton when he said on Cheesefare Sunday in the
Metropolitan Church of Athens, "I criticize hypocrisy", stressing
that all of us "pretend that yesterday is today and tomorrow comes without
us."
Let us supplicate fervently
with tears of repentance and kneeling to come to the Passion of the Savior and
Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ to rid us of the terrible passion of hypocrisy.
May He cleanse us from
the passions that we may discard the masks of hypocrisy and become real people.
"O Lord, deliver us from all deceit and hypocrisy" (1 Peter 2:1).
Source:
Translated by John Sanidopoulos
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