September: Day 11: Teaching 1: Venerable Theodora of Alexandria
(Unlawful Carnal Love is not Love, but Hatred of Man)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
(Unlawful Carnal Love is not Love, but Hatred of Man)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. Saint Theodora, whose memory is celebrated today, lived in the 5th century. Having committed a sin against the 7th commandment of the law of God and her husband due to inexperience and youth, blessed Theodora decided to devote her whole life to repentance. “If there is repentance for me,” she said to herself, “then I will break my connection with the world and will pray to God for mercy.” Out of fear that she would be found in a women’s monastery and prevented from performing the feats of repentance, Theodora secretly left her husband’s house and hid in a men’s monastery (Octodekatos), where the relics of Saint Thomais, an ascetic of chastity, were located. For many years she endured all the monastic labors, never revealing her feminine weakness, but voluntarily increasing her labors, which, it seemed to her, were too easy and insufficient to cover the sin of her youth. Her whole life was spent in struggle, and in exerting all her strength, and in deprivation of any rest or peace. She did not even allow herself to eat more than once a week. And her tearful prayer day and night with humility rose to the merciful God and attracted upon her complete forgiveness and abundant grace. Thus she lived for 8 years.
With great humility Theodora endured a great trial: human slander. Once the daughter of the owner of the inn in Alexandria, where Saint Theodora had to stay on monastery business, was tempted by her beauty, whom she recognized to be a young monk, and inclined her to sin. But having been refused her advances, and having given birth to an illegitimate child by another person, she slandered Saint Theodora for her sin. The abbot and the brethren were angry with her, as having dishonored the monastery, and expelled her from the monastery. But Saint Theodora did not want to reveal her secret, seeing in the sent trial a punishment for her sins; she took the child and settled in a hut not far from the monastery. Shepherds, out of pity, gave her milk to feed the child. And how much mockery she had to endure! She also suffered from the heat and cold. Finally, she was again accepted into the monastery, where, having lived for two years, she died. The abbot was told of Theodora's holiness and that she was not a man. The abbot told this to the brethren, and then all who had insulted the Saint were horrified and bitterly repented of having sinned gravely against her. It pleased God to bring Saint Theodora's husband to the monastery on the day of her death, and he, struck by her holiness, left the world and entered the monastery.
II. Saint Theodora, by her great repentance after the sin of impure carnal love she had once committed, tells us, brethren, of the very important truth that impure and unlawful carnal love is not love, but misanthropy, which can cast a person who has given himself over to it into the depths of hell. Great repentant labors, strong tears, exhausting fasting, enduring dishonor and various kinds of moral and physical suffering were needed, as we see in the life of Saint Theodora, in order to atone for the sin of impure love once committed. It is clear that carnal, unlawful love is not love in the proper sense.
But nevertheless the world loves this love, understands it more clearly than spiritual love, values it, is carried away by it more than by Christian love, and has always called it and calls it love.
But in reality this is not love, this is misanthropy.
Where there is true Christian love, there is a strong desire for the good of one's neighbor; there is a readiness to do only that which is truly useful to one's neighbor, which relates to the temporal and eternal good of one's neighbor, which preserves one's conscience in peace and joy; in a word: which constitutes one's neighbor's true happiness. This is evident from the love of parents for their children. What parent does not want to see their children happy in time and in eternity? What parent does not take measures to ensure that their children are innocent before people and before God, happy both in this life and in the next? This is how love acts, worthy of the name of love.
After this take a look at unlawful carnal love: does it do anything to promote the happiness of one's neighbors? Such love strives to defile both the body and soul of one's neighbor. What happiness is there? There is sin, the violation of God's law, the insult to God, the death of honor, the death of a good name - the death of the soul. From there, where there are unlawful carnal connections, the grace of God departs; from there, the peace of conscience flees, where carnal unclean lust is satisfied; there is hell, where the shameful desires of flesh and blood triumph.
What kind of love is there, where they not only think evil, but also commit lawlessness, which has the most harmful consequences? "Love," as the Apostle Paul noted, "does not think evil" (1 Cor. 13:6). Consequently, unlawful carnal love, as not only thinking evil, but also doing evil, is not love. It is malice, it is misanthropy, hiding under the guise of love, it is a serpent mortally wounding a person, it is a deadly poison, sweetened by the charming intoxication of feelings. Look at Sampson, once God-bearing and mighty. He is naked of the grace of the All-Holy Spirit, deprived of his gigantic strength, he is mocked by his enemies, he is without eyes, without honor, without life, on the bed of premature death. And from what? From carnal love. And shall we still call such malignant love to be love? No! It is evil, it is fratricide. This is known, this is felt even by the slaves of carnal lust, but they feel it too late, when the heat of passions passes, when reason returns, when conscience comes into its own, when evil has already been done and one’s neighbor has been killed.
III. May the Lord God protect all Orthodox Christians from unlawful carnal love! This is the scourge of humanity, with which people kill themselves because they have neither love for the Creator nor true love for their neighbors. May the example of Saint Theodora, who fell and rose again with a hopeful rebellion, encourage us to resort to heartfelt repentance in the case of impure love not only in deed, but also in thoughts and words.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.