As I was first approaching Orthodoxy in the early 1980s, I remember that friends were reading a book that advised Christians to stay away from psychology. It was called Psychology as Religion– The Cult of Self-Worship by Paul C. Vitz.1 The title was enough to convince me, and I continued my search for the soul’s healing through strictly Orthodox texts.
Proper Love of Self
In the Gospel of St. Matthew, 22: 36-40 we read, “‘Master, which is the great commandment of the Law?’ Jesus said unto him, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law of the prophets.’”
By Fr. Paisius Altschul
“…If our dead ones who are dear to us have been vouchsafed the Kingdom of Heaven, they reply to prayer for them with an answering prayer for us….” - Fr. Michael Pomazansky
The children of Africa have kept a deep sense of honoring the ancestors since the earliest times. Appreciation for, respect, veneration, and seeing oneself at the end of a long line of all those that came before are principles that native cultures have shared in common throughout all of Africa.
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