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A Short Guidance on "Spiritual Debts" by Elder Joseph of Vatopedi



Being Christians, every day we try to fulfill our Christian duties. However, despite all our efforts, we still make wrong steps because there is no faultless way for us… Usually our repentance is not full, it is just not enough to make amends. This means we still have some unpaid debts… They exist being unknown to our personal conscience, but God’s justice knows them all perfectly well.

What should we do then?

If we cannot repent fully in this life, we are doomed to condemnation and death in the future life, we are losing our salvation.

To avoid this, the Divine Will providently sends us a punishment, a so-called “conciliative sorrow”, an accident that is supposed to cause a spiritual pain, which will be comparable by its severity with the amount of your mistakes. This is how the debt is settled.

So, a person suffering from temptations must not despair and mourn because this is how he pays for the debts of his personal negligence and spite.



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