Confession of the Faith Is the Greatest Virtue

Our God-bearing Fathers, who governed all things in the Church of God in a proper and God-pleasing manner, have left to us as a sacred heritage the God-given teaching, just as they themselves had received from the Holy Apostles, that the confession and defense of the True Orthodox Faith is the greatest of virtues. No other virtue, they tell us, is so great before God and so profitable for the Church. For the Truth is God, and love and confession of God’s Truth – that is to say, the True Faith of the Church – frees, enlightens and saves us men. This holy teaching is proclaimed especially by those holy Fathers who spent their entire lives struggling to preserve Christ’s true and saving Faith, by which alone men are saved and enter eternal life. This holy tradition of the Fathers, confirmed, as it is, and testified to by their entire lives, offers the greatest lesson for our own generation, a generation which, lacking zeal “for the love of the Truth,” has grown cold and hardened in its indifference toward the correct Faith.

Translated by Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Studion Publisher