NOTE: - 13 -

[lest any root of bitterness springing up] trouble [you], and thereby many be defiled” (Heb. 12:15). In like manner also the holy apostle Petros admonisheth the faithful to beware of all profligate courses and errors of counsels, and to become fruitful [and] increase in virtue, in the grace and everlasting knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; wherefore he writeth: “Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know [these things] beforehand, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and [in] the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Cathol. 3:17, 18). Ye know, O sons of our holy orthodox Church, my beloved in the Lord, unto whom the apostle-preached vigilance and ever-wakeful watchfulness are most fitting, and which certain [men] are bound thereunto: namely those who are called spiritual Overseers, and are appointed by the grace of the Holy Ghost [as] spiritual Pastors over the rational flock of Christ. As to this, we have [for] a witness the admonitory and hortatory word of the holy apostle Pōghos, who spake thus unto the spiritual orders of the presbyters and leaders of Christ’s own people alone: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. And now, [brethren], I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build [you] up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified” (Acts 20:28–32). This important vigilance, as an indispensable duty of the leaders of the Church, our holy Patriarch and great High Priest, our Illuminator Grigor, canonizeth for them, preaching thus: “For those who are preachers of the truth, the truth itself conformeth them through unerring knowledge (John 8:32); and God glorifieth them when He seeth in them the zeal of good works, so that which...