Fr Symeon of Essex: What does it mean to be sinful?

To be Christian does not mean to be good, but to be united to God. And, of course, being united to God is good, but in another way. Sin expresses our separation from God.

I don’t think you need a special preparation to begin practicing the Jesus Prayer. You must simply begin praying and prayer itself will teach you how to pray. Of course, you must have the Christian faith in your soul and not try to practice the Jesus Prayer in a way that is similar to yoga. Thus, you must be rooted in the Church’s tradition, have a sacramental life, and if possible, a spiritual father. And I’d like to highlight that you must know whom you are invoking. Because when we pray with the Jesus Prayer we invoke the name of God Himself, and God is present in His name. It is a kind of sacrament…I said that you don’t need [special] preparation to begin practicing the Jesus Prayer, but we must progressively grow our faith in the Person Whom we invoke. On the other hand, when we say “have mercy on me,” we add: “on me, a sinner.” Thus, we must invoke the Name of God with the awareness that we are sinful.

But what does it mean to be sinful? It’s not a moral category. For example, people come to the monastery for confession and regret the fact that they are not good and they’d like to make an effort to become better. Then, I tell them that to be Christian does not mean to be good, but to be united to God. And, of course, being united to God is good, but in another way. Sin expresses our separation from God. In the New Testament and Church Fathers, the word “sin” is nearly equivalent to “death” and “devil.” We are slaves to sin, just as we are slaves to the devil and subject to death. That is why this request is addressed to God, our Creator and Savior, to have mercy on us (“have mercy on me, O God”) and to free us from this state of sin and death. 

From a conference given in Romania in 1993 with Fr. Rafail Noica, organized by Met. Serafim Joantă.

Fr Symeon Brüschweiler was born in the Netherlands on January 9, 1928. After converting to Orthodoxy, he joined Saint Sophrony’s monastic community in Essex and became one of the Monastery’s most well-known elders. He fell asleep in the Lord on August 20, 2009.