Română
In this recording, Archimandrite Athanasios Mytilinaios (1927-2006), answers the question: “Is honesty always beneficial?” He talks about virtue of honesty and its limits, emphasizing that honesty—while essential—can sometimes lead to rudeness or harm if not tempered by discernment. Fr. Athanasios sees discernment as the “royal virtue” that safeguards and gives true value to every other virtue, urging the faithful to cultivate both honesty and discernment in their spiritual lives.
Audio source: “Answers to Catechism questions“, no. 115 (in Greek), February 22, 1987
Fr. Athanasios:
Let’s focus on another issue. Is honesty always beneficial? No, it does not always lead to positive outcomes. This is the important part. Honesty is a virtue and it should apply everywhere and at all times. Yes, indeed. Can we claim that at certain occasions we have the right to lie? Or to be dishonest in our words and actions? No. We need to be honest in every place and at all times, but also straightforward and to match the content of our character with our behavior. Take my words literally. Be on the outside how we are on the inside. Do you know what that means? Ιf we are not careful and our inside does not match how we are on the outside, honesty can turn into rudeness or arrogance.
For example, if guests visit our home and we are busy or tired, and being honest we tell them: “Why did you come now gentlemen? I’m sleepy; you need to leave.” That would be honest, but also impolite and arrogant. Or if they come to eat, even if we do not have voluptuous foods, we impolitely tell them: “you came to eat our food”. Isn’t this honesty? No, it is not, it is audacity, rudeness, lack of discretion. Another example is sharing all the private matters of our home; whatever we say inside our house, at the first opportunity some stranger ask us, I tell him everything we do: our finances, our relationships, or personal secrets, I tell him everything. Why? In order to be honest, since not revealing them would be dishonest. What does this mean? It means that this person cannot contain his mouth and his brain and is an irresponsible person. However, these things can happen in the name of honesty. There is also another bad example. Do you know what certain rude people say? “I told him the truth in his face because I am an honest person” How about that! What a nice example of honesty! This type of honesty must be contained in order not to fall into these types of bad situations
You see that the dividing line between honesty, that is virtue, and sin is clear but very thin. As a result, we must also possess another trait. I want you to focus on this. There is another virtue I told you about in the first query that is called discernment. Discernment allows us to know when to speak, what to say, and how to say it, and does not allow for a virtue to be compromised. You should understand that all virtues, not just honesty, even love the queen of all virtues, can become harmful without discernment and from a virtue it can become a vice, that is doing things in the name of love that turn into wickedness, into sin because discernment is lacking.
I will tell you a nice example stressed by the Church Fathers: spiritual life is like a house that uses virtues as building blocks. So, we take the virtues and build, but for all virtues to make sense and have value, they must include the virtue of love. So, we build the walls of our house with the stones of virtues, and we put a roof called love. Indeed, but now our building is endangered by the passers-by, who may damage our structure. We must erect a fence. This fence is the virtue of discernment, which regulates how virtues will pass; it is like the virtue of justice that was mentioned in the texts of the ancient Greeks.
Sometimes, out of love, we must refuse to give someone what they ask for. Namely, I will tell him that I won’t give you what you ask because I care about you, since giving it to you will lead you to sinful behavior. For example, when you are in the army and a fellow soldier asks: “- please mate, do you have some money to spare? – Where will you go? – To have fun”. This can mean many things. Reply: “I can give you but I won’t because I care about you, since giving you money will lead you to sin; I won’t.” Is this lack of love? If I give him what he wants, it will lead him to sin so this is not love.
Discernment, then, is the royal virtue, not love. Once there was a big discussion mentioned by Saint Cassian the Roman, who is commemorated on February 29. If February has 28 days, his feast is celebrated on the 28th. Note that he cites the following discussion in the first volume of Philokalia: several Fathers went to St. Anthony to have a conversation with him about the greatest virtue that governs all others; one said this, another said that, no one was able to give a correct answer. Every time a virtue was mentioned, St. Anthony rejected it claiming that it could be in danger of being compromised. In the end, he told them that the virtue that governs all others, the one that makes people righteous and safeguards the treasure of their holiness is discernment. And the Bible says this: do not deviate neither left nor right; the right is the way of transcendence and the left is the way of transgression. Instead, you must choose the middle, the royal way to proceed that is the way of discernment. So much for this question.
