Unfortunately, there are distinctions being made that really are not part of our Tradition. We shudder at the idea of obedience...just read the comments preceeding this and you\'ll see. We want to be our own boss, and have a priest as a confessor and \"guide\" that we can talk to when we want something from them. This is not Orthodox! All Christians are called to obedience, the only difference is in degrees. And for most of us, the degree is determined by our spiritual father. Certainly, there can be abuses, but the literature of the Church also defines these abuses and tells us what to do if they do occur. We shy away from spiritual fatherhood in America, but when we define it we really talk about gurus, and not true spiritual fathers in the Orthodox Christian Tradition.
It\'s just a bad idea to start rationalizing what we want, what we can deal with, and then trying to figure out a way to fit this idea of ours into the Church. We take the deposit of the Faith, and struggle to fit into it.
St. Silouan, a very important modern day Saint from Mt. Athos, has some very pertinant things to say on our topic. So here are some sources, if you might be interested.
\"St. Silouan the Athonite,\" by Archimandrite Sophrony, see expecially pages 77-87 (the topics are discovering God\'s will and obedience, very good distillation of the Church\'s Tradition here)
\"The Monk of Mount Athos,\" by Archimandrite Sophrony (the info here is exactly the same as the above, but the above source is much more detailed) pages 51-54
\"The Enlargement of the Heart: Be ye also enlarged in the Theology of St. Silouan the Athonite and Elder Sophrony of Essex,\" by Archimandrite Zacharias, available at Thaborian.org...all of this book is amazing, but there is a chapter entitled \"Spiritual Fatherhood as a Ministry of Reconcilliation between Man and God\" (this chapter is also in the book \"Christ, Our Way and Our Life\")
I pray this offers some help for you in discerning the path of our Lord.
God bless,
Priest Matthew
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