If there is no fear of God before your eyes, you will think it a trivial matter to officiate unworthily, for you will be deceived by your own self-love into imagining that God will be charitable to you.
Long ago Dathan and Abiram imagined the same thing until the earth opened beneath them and swallowed them up (Num. 16:25-33). Standing with genuine awe and fear before Him who is to be feared, recognize how grave a matter it is to officiate, and either engage in the priesthood worthily and purely – as it were like an angel – or wisely keep away from the dread ministry. Otherwise, slighting your office, and using specious arguments against your conscience when it rebukes you, you will say in your agony as you are condemned on the day that all things are judged and set aright: The fear that I feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has visited me (Job 3:25).
– St. Theognostos, “On the Practice of the Virtues, Contemplation, and the Priesthood.” Philokalia, Vol. 2
Featured image: Phelonion, made 1635. From the Prokudin-Gorskii collection. Photographer: Sergei Mikhailovich, 1863-1944. Library of Congress
