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.

Therefore, the priesthood and pastorate of Christ are essentially, qualitatively different from the pagan priesthood and Jewish Levitism. The priest of Christ is the builder of mysteries, the builder of the Body of Christ. He is called to himself, and through him to others, to build a new kingdom of grace.

The priest of Christ is called to preach adoption, to gather together the scattered children of God, to the transfiguration of the world and man. It is clear that it is not the perfection of evangelical morality or the elaboration of dogmatic truths that constitute the most important thing in Christianity. The most important thing is the God-Man Himself. "The great mystery of godliness," the mystery of God-manhood (1 Tim. 3:16) is at the heart of Christian preaching, in our Eucharistic life, in our asceticism of God-likeness or reverence, in our mysticism. God is not only the initial cause of the world and of man, but also his ultimate goal. "The God-Material Process," about which Vladimir Solovyov wrote in his time ("Pravd. 196), and is the preaching of universal perfection, which only He Who is the Creator of this world has dared to teach. This determines the attitude of the Christian pastor to the world and to man, which was mentioned in the previous chapter.

The man in whose company the shepherd is called to shepherd was, is, and will be, in spite of all these sins and falls, a beloved creature of God. For this reason, the Orthodox pastor must be instilled with faith in man, in his predestination in the pre-eternal Council for the communion of the God-man, his kinsman in the flesh, according to the words of Ven. St. Symeon the New Theologian (Hymn 58).

Therefore, the main pastoral remedy should be the good news of salvation, the instillation of faith in this salvation and deification, and not the intimidation of hellish torments. A lesser pastor must in his heart predestinate people to these torments and take upon himself a bold judgment.

Pastoral work should be more characteristic of overcoming evil in the world and in man by goodness and love, rather than by chastisement and condemnation. It should be more concerned with salvation than with the anticipation of the Last Judgment and the condemnation of all "heretics," sinners, and dissidents. He must remember, on the basis of the whole history of the saints, that there is no such thing as a complete type of righteous and sinner: it is possible to fall from the heights of holiness; Repentance and rebirth are always possible even in those depths of the fall that seem hopeless to us. The pastor must especially remember that freedom reigns above the moral destiny of man. In freedom there is always the danger of evil and sin, but in freedom there is also a good that will win. Christianity is the gospel of freedom, which must be essentially distinguished from the preaching of revolutionary, political and rebellious freedom. This is the freedom of the spirit. Therefore, the pastor should be less concerned with the inviolability of his authority and more concerned with the persuasiveness of his truth. The criterion of truth is truth itself. Coercive authorities are not characteristic of Orthodoxy. The pastor must call for the free acceptance of the Truth, for the submission of oneself to the burden and yoke of Christian freedom.

In his "Instructions to Virgins" (par. 53), Evagrius the monk says: "God created the heavens and the earth and provides for them. There is no angel who cannot sin; And there is no demon that is evil by nature. God created both of them with free will" (Dobro., vol. 1, p. 645).

Pastoral Vocation