List of mortal sins in Orthodoxy and their description. Classification of other terrible sins often committed by man

Contrary to popular belief, the expression “seven deadly sins” does not at all indicate certain seven actions that would be the most serious sins. In reality, the list of such actions can be much longer. And the number “seven” here indicates only the conditional grouping of these sins into seven main groups.

For the first time such a classification was proposed by St. Gregory the Great in 590. Although, along with it, there has always been another classification in the Church, numbering not seven, but. Passion is a skill of the soul that was formed in it from repeated repetition of the same sins and became, as it were, its natural quality - so that a person cannot get rid of passion even when he understands that it no longer brings him pleasure, but torment. Actually, the word “passion” in Church Slavonic language This is precisely what suffering means.

Material on the topic

Today there is talk about the future interesting feature- while we are discussing how this or that innovation will affect our lives, this innovation is already entering life and taking over it. And we are left to think not about what will happen, but what to do with what has already happened. In the age of progress, the future manages to become the past while we drink our morning coffee.

St. Theophan the Recluse writes about the difference between mortal sin and less grave sin: “ Deadly sin there is one who robs a person of his moral and Christian life. If we know what moral life is, then defining mortal sin is not difficult. Christian life is zeal and strength to remain in communion with God by fulfilling His holy law. Therefore, every sin that extinguishes jealousy, takes away strength and relaxes, distances one from God and deprives Him of grace, so that after it a person cannot look at God, but feels himself separated from Him; every such sin is a mortal sin. ...Such a sin deprives a person of the grace received in baptism, takes away the Kingdom of Heaven and delivers it to judgment. And all this is confirmed in the hour of sin, although it is not accomplished visibly. Sins of this kind change the entire direction of a person’s activity and his very state and heart, forming, as it were, a new source in moral life; why do others determine that mortal sin is the one that changes the center of human activity.”

These sins are called mortal because the falling away human soul from God is the death of the soul. Without a grace-filled connection with its Creator, the soul dies and becomes incapable of experiencing spiritual joy either in a person’s earthly life or in its posthumous existence.

And it doesn’t really matter how many categories these sins are divided into - seven or seven. It is much more important to remember the terrible danger that any such sin poses, and to try in every possible way to avoid these deadly traps. And also - to know that even for those who have sinned such a sin there remains the possibility of salvation. Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) says: “Let him who has fallen into mortal sin not fall into despair! Let him resort to the medicine of repentance, to which he is called until the last minute of his life by the Savior, who proclaimed in the Holy Gospel: He who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live(In 11 :25). But it’s disastrous to remain in mortal sin, it’s disastrous when mortal sin turns into a habit!”

And the Monk Isaac the Syrian said even more definitely: “There is no unforgivable sin except unrepentant sin.”

Seven deadly sins

1. Pride

“The beginning of pride is usually contempt. The one who despises and considers others to be nothing - some are poor, others are people of low birth, others are ignorant, as a result of such contempt he comes to the point that he considers himself alone to be wise, prudent, rich, noble and strong.

...How is a proud person recognized and how is he healed? Recognized because it seeks preference. And he will be healed if he believes in the judgment of Him who said: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble(James 4 :6). However, you need to know that, although he will fear the judgment pronounced for pride, he cannot be healed of this passion unless he abandons all thoughts of his own preference.”

St. Basil the Great

Having taken possession of a person, she cuts him off first from people he doesn’t know well, then from his family and friends. And finally - from God himself. The proud man does not need anyone, he is not even interested in the admiration of those around him, and only in himself does he see the source of his own happiness. But like any sin, pride does not bring true joy. Internal opposition to everything and everyone dries up the soul of a proud person; complacency, like a scab, covers it with a rough shell, under which it dies and becomes incapable of love, friendship and even simple sincere communication.

2 Envy

“Envy is sadness due to the well-being of one’s neighbor, which<…>seeks not good for himself, but evil for his neighbor. The envious would like to see the glorious dishonest, the rich poor, the happy unhappy. This is the purpose of envy - to see how the envied person falls from happiness into disaster.”

Saint Elias Minyatiy

This arrangement human heart becomes a launching pad for the most terrible crimes. And also countless large and small dirty tricks that people do just to make another person feel bad or at least stop feeling good.

But even if this beast does not break out in the form of a crime or a specific act, will it really be easier for the envious person? After all, in the end, such a terrible worldview will simply drive him into a premature grave, but even death will not stop his suffering. Because after death, envy will torment his soul with even greater force, but without the slightest hope of quenching it.

3 Gluttony

“Gluttony is divided into three types: one type encourages eating before a certain hour; another loves only to be satiated with any kind of food; the third wants tasty food. Against this, a Christian must have threefold caution: wait for a certain time for eating; don't get fed up; be content with all the most modest food."

Venerable John Cassian the Roman

Gluttony is slavery to one's own stomach. It can manifest itself not only in insane gluttony for festive table, but also in culinary intelligibility, in subtle discrimination of shades of taste, in preference gourmet dishes simple food. From a cultural point of view, there is a gulf between the crude glutton and the refined gourmet. But both of them are slaves of their own eating behavior. For both, food has ceased to be a means of maintaining the life of the body, turning into the desired goal of the life of the soul.

4 Fornication

“... consciousness is more and more filled with pictures of voluptuousness, dirty, burning and seductive.

Material on the topic

From his diary we see not the blissful textbook image of a saint of God, but a living person who knows in his own skin what sin is, what passion is, who is irritated, angry, offended, tempted - but also finds the strength in himself for true repentance, overcomes it's all in itself. This is a very useful read for those who have not yet made their religious choice: look, this is how the road to holiness runs.

The power and poisonous poison of these images, enchanting and shameful, are such that they crowd out from the soul all the sublime thoughts and desires that captivated ( young man) earlier. It often happens that a person is unable to think about anything else: he is completely possessed by the demon of passion. He cannot look at every woman as anything other than a female. Thoughts, one dirtier than the other, crawl in his foggy brain, and in his heart there is only one desire - to satisfy his lust. This is already the state of an animal, or rather, worse than an animal, because animals do not reach the level of depravity that humans reach.”

Hieromartyr Vasily of Kineshemsky

The sin of fornication includes all manifestations of human sexual activity contrary to natural way their implementation in marriage. Messy sex life, adultery, all kinds of perversions - all this different kinds manifestations of prodigal passion in a person. But although this is a bodily passion, its origins lie in the realm of the mind and imagination. Therefore, the Church also classifies as fornication obscene dreams, viewing pornographic and erotic materials, telling and listening to obscene anecdotes and jokes - everything that can arouse in a person fantasies on a sexual theme, from which the bodily sins of fornication then grow.

5 Anger

“Look at anger, what signs of its torment it leaves. Look what a man does in anger: how he becomes indignant and makes noise, curses and scolds himself, torments and beats, hits his head and face, and shakes all over, as if in a fever, in a word, he looks like a demoniac. If appearance he is so unpleasant, what is going on in his poor soul? ...You see what a terrible poison is hidden in the soul, and how bitterly it torments a person! His cruel and pernicious manifestations speak of him.”

Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk

An angry person is scary. Meanwhile, it was put into it by God to reject everything sinful and inappropriate. This useful anger was perverted in man by sin and turned into anger at his neighbors, sometimes for the most insignificant reasons. Offenses to other people, swearing, insults, shouting, fights, murders - all these are acts of unrighteous anger.

6 Greed (selfishness)

“Care is an insatiable desire to have, or the search and acquisition of things under the guise of benefit, then only to say about them: mine. There are many objects of this passion: the house with all its parts, fields, servants, and most importantly - money, because you can get everything with it.”

Saint Theophan the Recluse

It is sometimes believed that only rich people who already have wealth and strive to increase it can suffer from this spiritual illness. However, a person of average income, a low-income person, and a completely beggar are all subject to this passion, since it does not consist in the possession of things, material goods and wealth, but in a painful, irresistible desire to possess them.

7 Despondency (laziness)

“Despondency is a continuous and simultaneous movement of the furious and lustful part of the soul. The first is furious over what is at its disposal, the second, on the contrary, yearns for what it lacks.”

Evagrius of Pontus

But it is important to understand that despondency occurs in a person as a result of a deep mismatch between the abilities of his soul, zeal (an emotionally charged desire for action) and will.

In the normal state, will determines for a person the goal of his aspirations, and zeal is the “engine” that allows him to move towards it, overcoming difficulties. When despondent, a person directs zeal at his current state, which is far from his goal, and the will, left without an “engine,” turns into a constant source of melancholy about unfulfilled plans. These two forces of a despondent person, instead of moving towards the goal, seem to “pull” his soul into different sides, bringing her to complete exhaustion.

Such a discrepancy is the result of man’s falling away from God, the tragic consequence of an attempt to direct all the forces of his soul towards earthly things and joys, while they were given to us to strive for heavenly joys.

5897 views

Sin translated from Greek means “missing, missing the target.” But a person has one goal - the path to spiritual growth and insight, to higher spiritual values, the desire for God's perfection. What is sin in Orthodoxy? We are all sinners, we already appear like that to the world, only because our forefathers were sinners, accepting the sin of our relatives, we add our own and pass them on to our descendants. It is difficult to live a day without sin; we are all weak creatures, with our thoughts, words, and actions we move away from God’s essence.

What is sin in general, which of them are stronger, which are forgiven and which are considered mortal sins?

« Sin is a voluntary deviation from what is in accordance with nature into what is unnatural (against nature)"(John of Damascus).

Everything that is a deviation from is a sin.

Seven deadly sins in Orthodoxy

In general, there is no strict hierarchy of sins in Orthodoxy; it is impossible to say which sin is worse, which is simpler, which is at the beginning of the list, which is at the end. Only the most basic ones, often inherent in all of us, are highlighted.

Anger, anger, revenge. This group includes actions that, as opposed to love, bring destruction.
Lust b, debauchery, fornication. This category includes actions that lead to an excessive desire for pleasure.
Laziness, idleness, despondency. This includes a reluctance to do both spiritual and physical work.
Pride, vanity, arrogance. Unbelief in the divine is considered arrogance, boasting, excessive self-confidence, which turns into boasting.
Envy, jealousy. This group includes dissatisfaction with what they have, confidence in the injustice of the world, desire for someone else's status, property, and qualities.
Gluttony, gluttony. The need to consume more than necessary is also considered a passion. We are all mired in this sin. Fasting is a great salvation!
Love of money, greed, greed, stinginess. This does not mean that it is bad to strive for material wealth, it is important that the material does not overshadow the spiritual...

As we see from the diagram, (click on the picture to enlarge) all feelings that we show in excess are sin. And there is never too much love for your neighbor and your enemy, and only kindness, light and warmth. It is difficult to say which of all sins is the most terrible; it all depends on the circumstances.

The worst sin in Orthodoxy is suicide

Orthodoxy is strict for its pastors, calling them to strict obedience, observing not only the ten basic God's commandments, do not allow excesses in worldly life. All sins can be forgiven if a person realizes them and begs for forgiveness through communion, confession and prayer.

It is not a sin to be a sinner, but a sin not to repent - this is how the people interpret all their earthly life. God will forgive everyone who comes to him with repentance!

What sin is considered the most terrible? There is only one sin that is not forgiven to a person - this is sin suicide. Why exactly this?

By killing himself, a person violates the biblical commandment: Thou shalt not kill!
A person cannot atone for his sins by voluntarily leaving life.

It is known that each of us has our own purpose on earth. With this we come into this world. After birth we acquire the nature of the Spirit of Christ in which we are to live. The one who voluntarily breaks this thread spits in the face of the Almighty. The worst sin is to voluntarily die.

Jesus gave his life for our salvation, which is why the whole life of any person is a priceless gift. We must appreciate it, take care of it, and no matter how difficult it is, bear our cross until the end of our days.

Why can the sin of murder be forgiven by God, but suicide cannot? Is the life of one person more valuable to God than the life of another? No, this needs to be understood a little differently. A murderer who interrupts the life of another, often innocent person, can repent and do good, but a suicide who takes his own life cannot.

After death, a person no longer has the opportunity to do good, bright, trustworthy deeds in this world. It turns out that the whole life of such a person who committed suicide was meaningless, just as God’s great plan was meaningless.

All sins are forgiven by God through repentance, communion, in the hope of purification and salvation of the soul.

That is why in the old days suicides were not only not buried in church, but were even buried outside the cemetery fence. No rituals or commemorations were carried out and to this day are not carried out in the church for the deceased. This alone and how difficult it will be for loved ones should stop the suicide. But, unfortunately, this is not the case and the number of victims—suicides—is not decreasing.

Russia occupies fourth place in the world In this sad statistics, after India, China and the USA, the number of voluntary deaths per year is more than 25,000 people. Millions of people around the world voluntarily take their own lives. Scary!!!

Our God will forgive us all other sins, provided that we not only repented of them, but also corrected them with our good deeds.

And remember that there are no small or large sins, even the smallest sin can kill our soul, it is like a tiny cut on the body that can cause gangrene and lead to death.

If a believer has repented of sin, realized it, and gone through confession, one can hope that the sin is forgiven. So he sees Orthodox Church, so the Bible teaches. But it is important to understand that our every action, our words, thoughts, everything has its own weight and is deposited in our karma. So let’s live now, every day, so that we don’t have to beg for them when the time of reckoning comes...

Prayers for those who committed suicide

Is it possible to pray for people who have committed suicide? Yes, there are prayers that allow you to do this.

Master, Lord, Merciful and Lover of Mankind, we cry to You: we have sinned and committed lawlessness before You, we have transgressed Your saving commandments and the love of the Gospel has not been revealed to our despairing brother (our despairing sister). But do not reprove us with Your wrath, punish us with Your wrath, O Lord of humanity, weaken, heal our heartfelt sorrow, may the multitude of Your bounties overcome the abyss of our sins, and may Your countless goodness cover the abyss of our bitter tears.

To her, Sweetest Jesus, we still pray, grant to Your servant, your relative who died without permission, consolation in their sorrow and firm hope in Your mercy.

For You are a Merciful and Lover of Mankind, and we send glory to You with Your Beginningless Father and Your Most Holy and Good and Life-Giving Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen

Prayer for those who have committed the most terrible sin (suicides)

Granted by the Optina Elder Leo Optina

“Seek, Lord, the lost soul (name); If possible, have mercy! Your destinies are unsearchable. Do not make this my prayer a sin for me. But Thy holy will be done!”

Take care of yourself and your loved ones!

If you ask a person: “What do you think is the worst sin?” – one will call murder, another – theft, a third – meanness, a fourth – betrayal. In fact, the most terrible sin is unbelief, and it gives rise to meanness, betrayal, adultery, theft, murder, and anything else.

Sin is not a transgression; a transgression is a consequence of sin, just as a cough is not a disease, but its consequence. It very often happens that a person has not killed anyone, has not robbed, has not committed any meanness and therefore thinks well of himself, but he does not know that his sin is worse than murder and worse than theft, because he is in his life passes by the most important thing.

Unbelief is a state of mind when a person does not feel God. It is associated with ingratitude to God, and it affects not only people who completely deny the existence of God, but also each of us. Like any mortal sin, unbelief blinds a person. If you ask someone, say, about higher mathematics, he will say: “This is not my topic, I don’t understand anything about it.” If you ask about cooking, he will say: “I don’t even know how to cook soup, it’s not in my competence.” But when it comes to faith, everyone has their own opinion.

One states: I think so; another: I think so. One says: there is no need to observe fasts. And another: my grandmother was a believer, and she did this, so we must do it this way. And everyone begins to judge and judge, although in most cases they understand nothing about it.

Why, when questions concern faith, does everyone always want to express their opinion? Why do people suddenly become experts in these matters? Why are they sure that everyone here understands, knows everything? Because everyone believes that he believes to the very degree to which it is necessary. In fact, this is not true at all, and it is very easy to verify. The Gospel says: “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed and say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move.” If this is not observed, then there is no faith even as small as a mustard seed. Since a person is blinded, he believes that he believes enough, but in fact he cannot do even such a trifle as moving a mountain, which can be moved even without faith. And all our troubles occur because of lack of faith.

When the Lord walked on the waters, Peter, who loved no one in the world as much as Christ, wanted to come to Him and said: “Command me, and I will go to You.” The Lord says: “Go.” And Peter also walked on the waters, but for a second he was afraid, doubted and began to drown and exclaimed: “Lord, save me, I am perishing!” First, he gathered all his faith, and as long as it was enough, he went through as much, and then, when the “reserve” ran out, he began to drown.

That's how we are too. Who among us does not know that God exists? Everybody knows. Who doesn't know that God hears our prayers? Everybody knows. God is Omniscient, and wherever we are, He hears all the words we speak. We know that the Lord is good. Even in today's Gospel there is confirmation of this, and our whole life shows how merciful He is to us. The Lord Jesus Christ says that if our child asks for bread, will we really give him a stone, or if he asks for fish, will we give him a snake. Which of us can do this? Nobody. But we are evil people. Can the Lord, Who is good, really do this?

Nevertheless, we grumble all the time, moan all the time, all the time we disagree with one thing or another. The Lord tells us that the path to the Kingdom of Heaven lies through much suffering, but we do not believe. We all want to be healthy, happy, we all want to get along well on earth. The Lord says that only the one who follows Him and takes up his cross will reach the Kingdom of Heaven, but this again does not suit us, we again insist on our own, although we consider ourselves believers. Purely theoretically, we know that the Gospel contains truth, but our whole life goes against it. And often we don’t have the fear of God, because we forget that the Lord is always there, always looking at us. That is why we sin so easily, easily condemn, we can easily wish evil upon a person, easily neglect him, offend him, offend him.

Theoretically, we know that there is an omnipresent God, but our heart is far from Him, we don’t feel Him, it seems to us that God is somewhere out there, in endless space, and He does not see us and does not know us. That’s why we sin, that’s why we don’t agree with His commandments, we claim the freedom of others, we want to redo everything in our own way, we want to change our whole life and make it the way we see fit. But this is completely wrong; we cannot control our lives to such an extent. We can only humble ourselves before what the Lord gives us, and rejoice in the good and the punishments that He sends, because through this He teaches us the Kingdom of Heaven.

But we don’t believe Him - we don’t believe that you can’t be rude, and therefore we are rude; We don’t believe that we shouldn’t be irritated, and we get irritated; We do not believe that we cannot be envious, and we often set our eyes on other people's things and envy other people's well-being. And some dare to envy spiritual gifts from God - this is generally a terrible sin, because everyone receives from God what he can bear.

Unbelief is not only the lot of people who deny God; it penetrates deeply into our lives. Therefore, we are often despondent, in panic, and do not know what to do; we are choked by tears, but these are not tears of repentance, they do not cleanse us from sin - these are tears of despair, because we forget that the Lord sees everything; we are angry, we grumble, we are indignant.

Why do we want to force all our loved ones to go to church, pray, and receive communion? From unbelief, because we forget that God wants the same thing. We forget that God wants every person to be saved and cares about everyone. It seems to us that there is no God, that something depends on us, on some of our efforts - and we begin to convince, tell, explain, but we only make things worse, because we can only be drawn to the Kingdom of Heaven by the Holy Spirit, and We are not there. Therefore, we only irritate people, cling to them, bore them, torment them, and under a good pretext we turn their lives into hell.

We violate the precious gift that is given to man - the gift of freedom. By our claims, by the fact that we want to remake everyone in our own image and likeness, and not in the image of God, we claim the freedom of others and try to force everyone to think the way we think ourselves, but this is impossible. The truth can be revealed to a person if he asks about it, if he wants to know it, but we constantly impose it. There is no humility in this act, and since there is no humility, it means there is no grace of the Holy Spirit. And without the grace of the Holy Spirit there will be no result, or rather, there will be, but the opposite.

And that’s how it is in everything. And the reason is disbelief in God, disbelief in God, in His good Providence, in the fact that God is love, that He wants to save everyone. Because if we believed Him, we would not do this, we would only ask. Why does a person go to some grandmother, to a healer? Because he does not believe in God or the Church, he does not believe in the power of grace. First, he will bypass all the sorcerers, sorcerers, psychics, and if nothing helps, well, then he turns to God: maybe he will help. And the most amazing thing is that it helps.

If some person neglected us all the time, and then began to ask us for something, we would say: you know, this is not good, you treated me so badly all my life, and now you come to ask me? But the Lord is merciful, the Lord is meek, the Lord is humble. Therefore, no matter what paths or roads a person walks, no matter what outrages he does, but if he turns to God from the heart, at the last, as they say, worst end - the Lord helps here too, because He is only waiting for our prayer .

Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov

The Lord said: “Whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you,” but we do not believe. We do not believe in our prayer, nor in the fact that God hears us - we do not believe in anything. That’s why everything is empty for us, that’s why our prayer doesn’t seem to be fulfilled, it can’t not only move a mountain, but it can’t manage anything at all.

If we really believed in God, then we could guide any person to the true path. And it is possible to direct one to the true path precisely through prayer, because it shows love to a person. Prayer before God is a secret, and there is no violence in it, there is only a request: Lord, guide, help, heal, save.

If we acted this way, we would achieve greater success. And we all hope for conversations, for the fact that we will somehow manage it ourselves, and save something like this for some rainy day. Those who wait for a rainy day will definitely have one. Without God, you still won’t achieve anything, so the Lord says: “Seek first of all the Kingdom of God, and everything else will be added to you.” But we don’t believe that either. Our life is not aimed at the Kingdom of God, it is more aimed at people, at human relationships, at how to improve everything here. We want to satisfy our own pride, our own vanity, our own ambition. If we were striving for the Kingdom of Heaven, we would rejoice when we are oppressed, when we are offended, because this contributes to our entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. We would rejoice at illness, but we grumble and are horrified. We are afraid of death, we all try to prolong our existence, but again not for the sake of the Lord, not for the sake of repentance, but out of our own lack of faith, out of fear.

The sin of lack of faith has penetrated very deeply into us, and we must fight it very hard. There is such an expression - “feat of faith”, because only faith can move a person to do something real. And if every time such a situation arises in our lives that we can act in a divine way and we can act in a human way, if every time we courageously act in accordance with our faith, then our faith will grow, it will be strengthened.

Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov

According to Orthodox doctrine, pride is the most terrible sin. It was he who turned the servant of the Lord into a devil. Satan opposed God's plan to serve man. Along with this falling away, evil appears in the world, and then follows the temptation of the first people and the fall of Adam and Eve.

That is, pride can be called the root of all evil. But its cultivation occurs gradually, from the first sprouts of pride to the whole garden, in the thickets of which there is virtually no place for seeing one’s own vices and repentance.

The first shoots of pride

In the book “My Posthumous Adventures,” Yulia Voznesenskaya managed to figuratively show the devil himself and his influence on the main character.

In the description of Satan you will not find stereotypical characteristics (all black, ugliest, with horns and a tail); the author points out that he was characterized by imaginary beauty and even attractiveness. But even an inexperienced reader is struck by his authority and pride.

He has a special approach to each person. The main character, Anya, has always been distinguished by her freedom of judgment, so she became a dissident, served in prison because of her position, and then emigrated from the Soviet Union.

Therefore, at the first meeting, Satan addresses her like this:

I followed your development with love and concern, took care of you, although you could not notice it. It was I who helped you cultivate your most beautiful qualities - pride and self-esteem, independence of judgment and non-recognition of authorities. I admired how boldly you broke any boundaries, if they were imposed on you from the outside, I pushed you to accomplish your most daring actions

The sin of pride drowns out the vision of vices

Pride is a vice that is almost impossible to identify in yourself. A person simply does not see him. Because of the veil before the eyes, it is impossible to see many other sins. The saints also warn about this.

Saint Theophan the Recluse describes how this vice is cultivated in a person:

Please, above all, be careful not to get on the road to pride and get stuck there. The first step on this road is the secret feeling that I am something and not nothing; the second is conceit or well-being - the feeling that I am not only something, but also something important both before people and before God. From these two, a whole bunch of proud thoughts and feelings are then born.

A man grows up, the sin of pride grows

Yulia Voznesenskaya clearly showed how the heroine improved in her vice. Anya thought that all her thoughts were normal statements of an intelligent person.

During the ordeal, the demons did not have to look for hundreds of evidence and resort to cheap methods - intimidation, threats, and inventing various versions.

They simply showed the heroine scenes from her life: first, how she, at the age of 12, says that her parents do not understand anything in life, but she herself is able to figure out what is good and what is bad.

With each episode she matured more and more, and her tone became even more confident. Anya talked about the unlimited nature of the human mind, the importance own principles, self-esteem and pride from belonging to dissidents...

It was interesting for the heroine to observe herself from the outside, how she had grown over all this time. But she did not see the sin of pride in this. Moreover, many of her virtues - honesty, helping others - were associated precisely with integrity and going against the grain.

***

In the behavior of the main character, everyone can see themselves at least a little. We are proud if we do something well; out of vanity we do good. We like it when we stand out from the crowd, when we contrast our own thoughts and reflections with the existence of “ordinary people” who only think about material things.

Everyone should ask themselves the question: “Do I have anything to be proud of?” Appearance, virtues, merits - everything is from God. By our own free will, we earn only the number of vices.

It would be useful for every person to at least sometimes look at himself from the outside, ask about the true motives of noble deeds, and listen to the voice of conscience. If it still sounds, then all is not lost; you have not yet reached the extreme degree of pride - arrogance.

Take it for yourself and tell your friends!