Love and Hate in Orthodox Spiritual Life

By Paul Rosenboom

The most essential characteristic of Christian life is loving sacrifice for one another, the self-emptying love which Christ manifested by offering himself a willing victim upon the Cross in behalf of our life and salvation. We accomplish this by loving Christ first and then loving our Orthodox brothers and sisters in whom we see Christ. The heart of all Christians, especially the bishop, must be full of this love for Christ and it must be manifested outwardly by works, for the first great commandment is to love God with all of one’s heart and one’s neighbor like oneself. This ardent love is a sacred fire within our hearts by means of which we live a Godly life. Therefore, it is necessary to continually maintain this vibrant flame through works of Christian love and by no means permit it to die as a result of sluggishness or negligence. Love is born in our hearts and, when nourished by the Holy Eucharist, flows out in the living of the Gospel law (Mt 5,6,7).   “...Love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”  The keeping of this commandment of love is the basis of the entire law of Christ. By this perfect love, the saints transfigured the world around them and attained the Kingdom of Heaven.

We can acquire this divine love by concentrating our attention on our Lord, Who loved us and washed us of our sins in His blood, as well as by readily fulfilling His commandments. If we continually contemplate the love which the Lord manifested toward us, we too shall receive this fervent and motivating love in our own hearts. Once the soul has developed the habit of daily giving thanks to Christ, and has been wounded by His love and become enamored of His virtue, it will hasten to become like Him whom it loves. Thereby we invite into our hearts an ever greater measure of the Spirit of Love and Truth. But when we are attracted by vain things and stand aloof from God, losing sight of all His blessings, sadly, we then expel this feeling of impassioned  love.

The Fathers speak with clarity on this love:

St. Porphyrios says: “Everything is for man to love Christ, and all the other problems are taken care of.”  St. Justin Popovich  affirms: “And this is love, that we walk after His commandments… Divine truth is contained and found in the commandments of the Gospel.  Divine love gives us will, strength and perseverance, for we walk after the Divine commandments.…We now know that the entire Gospel of Christ is contained in the single commandment to love.”  St. Maximos the Confessor writes: “A pure soul is one freed from passions and constantly delighted by Divine love.”  St. Gregory Palamas states: …without love, the works of virtue are not praiseworthy or profitable to the man who practices them, and the same is true of love without works. St. Paul makes this fully clear with reference to works when he writes to the Corinthians, ‘If I do this and that, but have no love, it profits me nothing’; and with reference to love the disciple especially beloved by Christ writes, ‘Let us not love in word or tongue but in action and truth.”

And fervent love for Christ possesses a sweetness which rewards the one toiling for it. St. Symeon the New Theologian writes: “Allow me, O Christ, to kiss Your feet. Allow me to kiss Your hands - these hands that created me by Your word, the hands that fashioned everything without effort. Let me be filled with these (graces) without being satiated. Grant me the sunlight of Your face, O Word, and the enjoyment of Your ineffable beauty. Let me contemplate and delight in Your vision- the vision unutterable, the vision invisible, the awesome vision.”  He also says: “Yes, the one who has been deemed worthy to see and contemplate Him has no other desire; nor can the one who has once been filled with the love of God have more love for anyone on earth.”

The works of Christ are well and accurately accomplished by the power of the Spirit. Love of Godly work is called zeal and fervor, while the absence of it is called coldness. Worst of all is to be uncommitted or half-hearted. Thou must either love Me perfectly, says the Lord, or not at all; and “so then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” (Rev.3:16)

Perfection of heart consists not only of love for God, but also of hatred for the works of the evil one; the hatred of sin must be commensurate with the love of God. The more we love God and keep His commandments, the more we should hate the evil one and the more we should avoid his works.  “Ye who love the Lord, hate evil. “ (Ps. 97:10 KJV)

The writers collected in the Philokalia attest to this fundamental truth regarding spiritual struggle and unseen warfare. St. Isaiah the Solitary states:  “Without anger, a man cannot attain purity: he has to feel angry with all that is sown in him by the enemy. If your heart comes to feel a natural hatred for sin, it has defeated the causes of sin and freed itself from them.”  Evagrios the Solitary writes: “Hatred against the demons contributes exceedingly to our salvation and is useful for cultivating virtue…  For that individual hates his enemies with perfect hatred when he sins neither overtly nor mentally - which is a sign of the greatest and first grade passionlessness.”  St. Mark the Ascetic, a disciple of Chrysostom, writes: “Thus it is necessary to hate the love of money, vainglory and pleasure, as mothers of evils and stepmothers of  virtues.”  St. Diadochos of Photiki states: A person who is not detached from worldly cares can neither love God truly nor hate the devil as he should…

Lack of hatred causes tolerance of sin and error which endangers the soul and the larger flock of Christ. In the Book of Revelation, the bishops of the Churches of Asia Minor are commended by the Lord for their vigilance with respect to morality and the true faith.  “But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolatians, which I also hate”(Rev.2:6).  Sadly, several of our bishops today along with many faithful not only tolerate sin and heresy but even promote it. For this reason, Orthodox Christians must cling to Tradition, decry the innovators and seek genuine bishops fashioned after the manner of the seven stars held in the right hand of Christ.(Rev.1:16)

May we all repent from the depths of our hearts and strive to love Christ and hate sin and heresy and the devil so that the Lord may grant us abundant Grace and, in turn, replace the present ecclesiastical confusion with good order in accordance with the teachings of Christ. Only then will heresy and error be replaced by Orthodoxy and Truth and the growing impiety, egoism, materialism and avarice be replaced by Godliness, self-denial, wisdom, and Divine love.