Română
The former abbot of the Skete of the Forerunner [Mount Athos], Fr. Petroniu Tanase, talks about the marks and impressions that harm people living in the cities…
He uses the teaching of St. Maximus the Confessor and also shows how a priest should respond to all kind of questions (regarding the news and political events) brought to him by the faithful…
Fr. Petroniu:
“Everything we receive, we see, we hear leaves some marks…
Why do monks run from the world into a monastery? Lest they see and hear…Because you go on the road and see a filthiness [dirtiness]… and without your will, you do not think about it… but the dirt left a stain on you…
Farther on, someone is quarreling, you hear some bad words, dirty, swear words… You do not agree with them, but they remained in your soul…To remove them, that means apatheia [absence of passions], to be without passion, that is the evil no longer impress you…
Mary of Egypt struggled in the desert for 17 years, where there was nothing, in order to remove the sinful impressions from her soul…Why should it interest me that the one said something in politics, another one did this, another one killed himself in America? All the news…
What benefit do I get?”
