3. The moral dignity of man is also one of the problems of Christian anthropology, which is not subject to any simplification, however tempting these simplifications may be for many. In man, as in the image and likeness of God, there is a striving for holiness and purity, but at the same time all life experience teaches us that it is impossible to attain this ideal. There is a longing for our heavenly homeland, a longing for a lost paradise, but at the same time there is a heavy burden in us that drags us to the valley. Nobody is better than ap. Paul, in Romans 7, did not express this in his teaching on the two laws, the law of the mind and the law of the flesh in us. His words, which constantly rebuke us, are the experience of life, not only of himself, but of all mankind, striving for the realization of the law of the mind: "I do not what I will, but what I hate, I do."

It is to the overcoming of this antinomy of the two laws and to the realization of the ideal of moral purity that all Christian asceticism strives. But here both the ordinary layman or monk and the pastor, their leader, are faced with the same dangerous pitfalls. Asceticism should not be reduced to something only negative. This means that if monasticism can be recognized as the highest moral aspiration of the Christian spirit (which does not at all mean that monks are always ideal Christians), then this aspiration has protected itself with three well-known precepts of monastic life: non-acquisitiveness, obedience, and abstinence. This means not to have one's own property, not to marry, and not to indulge in the pleasures of the body at all, and not to have a will of one's own. But these three "don'ts" cannot really be regarded as the ideal for all Christians of spiritual activity, since they in themselves require only not-doing. This applies only to the first part of the psalm, "Turn away from evil," but ignores the second, "And do good." Man is called to do good, and this good is not only the creation of moral values alone. Man is commanded to be a creator who bears the image of the Creator who created him. And so, this Creator must here on earth, in obedience to his Creator and Creator, produce and create all kinds of good, both in the realm of moral virtues and in the spiritual, intellectual, artistic, scientific, etc. This is how the most thoughtful theologians among the writers of antiquity looked at the words of the Bible "in the image and likeness": St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Ny Theodorite, Basil of Seleucia, venerable Anastasius of Sinai, St. Photius of Constantinople, St. John of Damascus, Venerable Gregory Palamas.

Man must do good, not just refrain from not doing evil. In his activity, man rises above ordinary imitation. In the field of this creativity, the pastor must be especially wise and thoughtful, since in this he has the richest educational and healing means in his pastoral nourishment of souls.

In the creative instinct inherent in man, a sure weapon can be found in the struggle against many temptations. Man's innate powers of creativity can be used for evil and lead him to misuse them, but they can also prove to be a salutary means for transfiguring one's bad instincts and impulses aimed at the base. The "sublimation" of the forces resting within us, of which modern psychoanalysis is aware, is particularly applicable here. And here the pastor can awaken the spirit of the creator and artist in a person, a slave of passions and vices, and save him from despondency and hopelessness.

Plotinus said in antiquity: "But man is not really harmony," and this must be understood first of all by the shepherd who wishes to shepherd his flock wisely and save it from all modern dangers and paradoxes. Man cannot be defined as a sinner or a righteous person, since there is much in this mysterious hieroglyph that goes beyond the boundaries of moral theology, but requires thoughtful Christian moral psychoanalysis.

On Pastoral Ministry in General

What has been rendered in the previous chapter is the ideological justification for pastoral ministry. Let us briefly recall these prerequisites for pastoral care, which does not take place in the wilderness, but in the world and among people.

The world, as the totality of that which is hostile to God and good, is the realm of that which lies in evil, but the world as an empirical creature is not in itself in the least evil. Man, though fallen, is still the image of God: "The image is of Thy ineffable glory, though I bear the wounds of sins." In the depths of the human soul there may be whirlpools of sin, but man nevertheless remains a beloved creature of God, whom the shepherd cannot help but love, just as he cannot help but love the world, the empirical creation.

Pastoral work, shepherding (which philologically approaches salvation), is the work of the inner building up of the Kingdom of God in man. This building up of the Kingdom of Christ, the new creation in Christ, is, of course, at the same time a struggle against the kingdom of evil, against the forces of evil in us. But good and evil are incomprehensible without the freedom mentioned above. The good to which the shepherd calls is only free good. Forced good is no longer good. Only that good is good that is not distorted by evil, violence, coercion, threats of hellish torments. Behind such goodness, imposed out of a sense of fear, one can easily see the glow of the fires of the Inquisition.

These are the ideological prerequisites of pastoral ministry. In terms of its inner content, this service requires a very attentive attitude. Historically, it is clear that Orthodox Christian pastoral care differs qualitatively from non-Christian types of priestly ministry. In paganism, the type of priestly priesthood predominates. The priest, the shaman, the hierophant was primarily an intermediary between man and the deity. He makes sacrifices, conjures, propitiates the angry god, he conjures up human diseases, he protects man from evil fate. At the highest points of pagan religious consciousness, where man rises above the level of primitive religious experience, the mystical religious feeling is awakened. Here the priest is more strongly revealed as a guide of man in the field of mysterious revelations, in the communication to him of religious knowledge, which is inaccessible to all people. A myst, a hierophant, a mystery penetrates into areas where an ordinary person and an ordinary priest have no access. In the mysteries, on these heights of pre-Christian religious consciousness, there is found a longing for a genuine spirituality which the religion of the masses cannot communicate. Exotericism and esotericism are typical of paganism. In the mystic cults, both the priesthood and the initiates feel more and more keenly the approach of true Revelation and thirst for it. But the priest is still subject to very little of the requirements of spiritual guidance. The concept of pastoral care had not yet matured in paganism.

The priestly ministry is understood much higher in the Old Testament. Along with the priestly code, especially after the captivity of Israel, the priesthood is associated with a number of duties unknown to paganism, or only partially peculiar to its class of priests. The Old Testament priest is not only a sacrificer, he is also a judge, a teacher, and sometimes a steward. The Old Testament is characterized by a much more elaborate ethical norms. The most perfect moral code before the coming of Christ was known to the priest of the Bible. The Old Testament elaborates on a concept of holiness that was absent in other religions of the ancient world. The biblical religious ideal gave a certain concept of righteousness, which is expressed in the fulfillment of the precepts of the law. The ethics of the law, the ethics of the norm, prevailed in the Old Testament consciousness. It towered above the other ethical conceptions of antiquity, but it also carried within itself its own weakness. The law, as the sum total of the commandments that must be fulfilled in order to be justified, did not in itself give the strength to fulfill these commandments. Moreover, the law discouraged man by constantly pointing out to him his weakness, imperfection, and unrighteousness. "The weakness of the law" is the theme of the sermon of Ap. Paul. Man's weakness could not be made up for by the weakness of the law. Even in the presence of an ideal moral law, man remained just as far from God, a non-righteous man. The law did not provide the power for the sanctification of the human spirit, nor did it provide the means for the attainment of that holiness which it so clearly indicated.

The law taught the good, the law rebuked the lack of the good, but it also discouraged the man who sought this good, but was exhausted under the burden of the precepts of the same law.

Israel did not know compassion for the sinner. The prophet Elijah, who is zealous for God with perfect zeal, not only hates sin, but also hates the sinner. He burns the prophets of Jezebel, he has no mercy on creatures and men, he commands the elements and even death, but he has no mercy on the fallen.

The priesthood of the Old Testament is weak before God and brings no comfort to the sinful man. The mass of rabbinic prescriptions about the impurity of animals, of man in various cases of his life, give rise to a detailed code of various ablutions, purifications, propitiatory sacrifices, burnt offerings, etc., but they are not able to bring man closer to God or God to people. The strict concept of chosenness, circumcision as a sign of the covenant with God, alienation from other peoples – this is the sphere of religious and moral concepts in which the priest of the Old Testament acts. All Israel are the people and sons of God, but the concept of the adoption of man as a creature of God did not exist in the religion of the ancient Jews. Only the gospel of the New Testament brought people a new revelation about the priesthood and real shepherding. The gospel of Christ the Savior brought a new teaching about the adoption of God. Every man is a son of God and can say "Father" to God. The preaching of the Apostles gave man the hope of becoming a partaker of the Divine nature, which later in the theology of Sts. Athanasius, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, Symeon the Theologian, and Palamas will develop into a complete doctrine of deification, the beginnings and roots of which go back to Plato and Plotinus. The Gospel gave us faith that in Christ we are a new creature. The act of God-manhood and the ascension of our nature above the angelic hierarchy gives wings to man in his Christian self-consciousness. Christian humanism, in contrast to pagan and revolutionary humanism, ennobles the concept of man in comparison with the pagan consciousness and the consciousness of Old Testament Israel. In Christ, the boundaries that are insurmountable for Gentiles and Jews are smoothed out. In the Kingdom of the Gospel there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither male nor female, neither barbarian nor Scythian (Galatians 3:26-28). Christianity brings with it a joyful cosmism, i.e. a full-blooded concept of the world, of creation, of nature, and, of course, of man, this best creature of God, the Creator.