But heed, I beseech you, be wise in heaven, seek the divine, strive for the things above, and take no trouble to acquire anything else besides that. To Her, I beseech you, let us despise all that is visible, let us renounce all that is human, let us renounce all that is passionate, that we may receive present and future blessings through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom belongeth all glory, honor, and worship, together with His Father without beginning, and with His All-Holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Homilies of St. Symeon the New Theologian. Part 2. - Moscow: Pravila very, 2001, pp. 53-75.

Homily Sixty-Four. 1. On blasphemy. Whoever says that in these times it is impossible to receive the Holy Spirit, and whoever blasphemes the actions of the Holy Spirit, saying that such actions are from the devil, introduces a new heresy into the Church of God.

For our Lord Jesus Christ says in the Holy Gospel: "All sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven by man; but whosoever blasphemes against the Spirit, shall not be let go by man... neither in this world nor in the world to come (Matt. 12:31-32), then we must examine and know what kind of blasphemy is this, which happens against the Holy Spirit. There is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit when someone attributes the actions of the Holy Spirit to the devil, as Basil the Great says (Rules summarized in Questions and Answers, 273). When someone sees that a Christian brother performs miracles or has any gift of the Holy Spirit, such as contrition of heart, or tears, or humility, or understanding of divine things, or anything else that the Holy Spirit gives to those who love God, and says that this is the delusion of the devil, he blasphemes the Holy Spirit. Likewise, he who says that those who are vouchsafed the influence of the Divine Spirit, as sons of God, and who fulfill the commandments of God and their Father, are deceived by the devil, blasphemes the Holy Spirit working in them, just as the Jews blasphemed the Son of God, when, seeing how the demons were cast out by Christ, they blasphemously said with great audacity that He casts out demons about Beelzebub, the prince of demons. But others, hearing this, do not hear, and seeing this, do not see, and about all that concerning which the Divine Scripture testifies and confirms that it comes from the Holy Spirit and from the divine influence, as those who have gone out of themselves and rejected all the Divine Scripture, and all the knowledge given by this Scripture, who have thrown out of their minds, do not tremble to say, accursed, that such actions are due to drunkenness and demons.

Moreover, they do not hesitate to assert, impudent, that in the present times nothing of the kind happens from God in any of the believers, and this is extreme impiety, more than heresy.

By renewal I mean the recreation of our nature, which Christ the Lord accomplished, changing it from corruption to incorruption, and from mortality to immortality.

We confess that just as it is impossible for anyone to be saved who is not baptized with water and the Spirit, so it is impossible for anyone who sins after Baptism, if he does not repent and receive again the grace of the Holy Spirit and is not recreated and renewed from above, it is impossible to be saved, as the Lord affirms, saying to Nicodemus: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). and again, to the Apostles: "For John baptized with water, but ye are baptized with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5). So, who has not known (tangibly)

Wherefore I say unto you, and I shall never cease to say this: Those who defiled the first Baptism by transgressing the commandments of God, imitate the repentance of David and all the saints, and show true repentance with all diligence and all good works, that the grace of the Holy Spirit may come again into your soul.

I say this for no other reason than in order to preach the goodness of God, which is ready for all of you, and to dispose you to strive to receive the same good. For the sign of love according to God is not to conceal the good, but to declare it to one's brethren and to move them to seek the same, to gain and to acquire. Wherefore, as you see, I cry out to you, crying out in the words of the Prophet David: "Come unto Him, and be enlightened, and the faces of your conscience shall not be ashamed" (Psalm 33:6). Why, my beloved brethren, have you completely descended into negligence and sloth, into the sweetness and lusts of the flesh, and say that you cannot be cleansed from sins by repentance, draw near to God, receive the grace of the Holy Spirit and through it be reborn, become God-like and sons of God by grace? No, this is not impossible. This was impossible before the incarnate dispensation of Christ, but after the Lord of all and God had pleased to be made man, like us in all things, except sin, He made all this possible and convenient for us, and gave us the power to be sons of God and joint-heirs with Him, to Whom all glory, honor and worship are due forever. Amen.

Homilies of St. Symeon the New Theologian. Part 2. - Moscow: Pravila very, 2001, pp. 76-81.

Homily Sixty-Five. 1. About repentance, and that when one does all the commandments of God, he increases in virtue and becomes perfect.

I said that he must have fear and trembling: this is in order that he may not be deprived of the great blessing that he has received from him, and not be condemned to the eternal fire of hell, as an unsuccessful and unskilled doer of God's commandments. For if he accepts the words of his spiritual father as if they came from the mouth of God Himself, with the assurance that from them comes life, if he fulfills them, and death, if he transgresses, then he will observe them with precision and great attention. If he begins his work and has undoubted faith in the promises given to us by God, then he will prosper in God day by day, and, following the path of the commandments, grow in spiritual life, and, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, will finally become a perfect man.

Listen attentively to the promises that our Lord Jesus Christ has given us. - There is joy in heaven, He says, for one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10), and again: He who comes to me - by this, of course, by repentance, I will not cast out (John 6:37); again: "If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink" (John 7:37); and in another place He says: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28); also: If you have My commandments and keep them, you will love Me: but if you love Me, you will be loved by My Father... and to him - I and the Father through the Spirit - we will come, and make our abode with him (John 14:21,23); and again: if you are evil, you know how to give good things to your children; how much more will the Father, who is from heaven, give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:13). It is in these promises of Christ that we must hope, as we have said, with undoubted faith, and fulfill all the commandments of Christ with great and warm zeal. The first commandment of the Gospel is the following: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven draws nigh" (Matt. 4:17). Again: ask, and it will be given you; seek, and ye shall find; push, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who interprets it will be opened (Matt. 7:7-8). Wishing to show us how and by what deeds we ought to seek, that we may find, Christ said to us: "Whosoever willeth to be first in you, let him be the servant of all, the servant of all, and the least of all... For whoever is exalted, he will humble himself; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted (Mark 9:35; Matt. 23:12).

When the practice of weeping is combined with the fulfillment of God's commandments, then it washes away – oh miracle! - and cleanses the soul from all defilement and expels from it every passion and every lust, carnal and worldly. In this way, at last, man becomes free from all worldly unwillingness and from all passions, both bodily and mental. As a man, having thrown off his garments, becomes completely naked, so the soul throws off, as if it were some kind of garment, first of all insensibility, which the divine Paul calls a veil, which veil of insensibility lies not only on the hearts of unfaithful Jews, but also in every person who with all diligence and with all his strength does not do the commandments of the Gospel, this veil (that is, insensibility) is found and covers his mind, so that he cannot rise from the earthly and know as he ought to know the Son and the Word of God, that is, Christ. Further, just as he who is naked bodily sees the wounds, if there are any on the body, so this one then sees purely the passions of his soul, such as: love of glory, love of money, rancor, brotherly hatred, envy, envy, covetousness, self-conceit and all other passions - and on all these passions of the soul he imposes the commandments of Christ, as medicinal substances, and as cauterizations that burn out, he imposes temptations and sorrows. And in this way he humbles himself, weeps, seeks God's help with great zeal; and then he clearly sees how the grace of the All-Holy Spirit comes into him, and eradicates and destroys the passions one by one, until He frees the soul from all of them, for the grace of the Holy Spirit does not free the soul from one or two passions, but completely from all, purely. Together with the passions, of which we have spoken, it drives away all laziness, negligence and carelessness, all ignorance, forgetfulness and gluttony, all voluptuousness and evil lust. And in this way He renews man both in soul and body, so that he thinks that he no longer wears a mortal and debilitating body, but a spiritual and immaterial one, capable of being raptured into heaven, like St. Paul. And it is not only this that the grace of the All-Holy Spirit accomplishes in him, but it no longer allows him to listen to anything sensual and worldly, and makes it so that he sees all this as if he had not seen it, for then the mind will unite with the mental and the divine, and proceed completely outside of all that is sensual, despite everything that seems to be looking at it.