PHILOKALIA MINISTRIES

Where the Religious Self Dies and Christ Becomes Life “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” Galatians 2:20 There was a time when I believed that if one went deeply enough into the self, if one endured the long work of analysis with honesty and courage, then something essential would be uncovered and healed. And to a certain extent, this is true. Analysis demands a kind of truthfulness that many never approach. It exposes the hidden movements of the heart. It reveals th

On the Difference Between the Loss of Self and the Loss of Illusion “I sat alone because Thou hadst filled me with indignation.” — Book of Jeremiah 15:17 There is a way of speaking about “disappearing” that is dangerous, because it easily collapses into something else entirely. One imagines silence, withdrawal, the refusal to assert oneself, and assumes this is the same as vanishing. But the Fathers, and even the deeper currents of psychoanalytic thought, would resist such a