Sin, to one who loves God, is nothing other than an arrow from the enemy in battle. The true Christian is a warrior fighting his way through the regiments of the unseen enemy to his heavenly homeland. According to the word of the Apostle, our homeland is in heaven; and about the warrior he says: ‘our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers.’
– St. Seraphim of Sarov, Letters, Little Russian Philokalia, V. III
Featured image: Wooden church in Northern Russia. Photograph by Richard Davies.