Guard sacredly and strictly our Orthodox Faith, both in its canons and in its dogmas. Do not adapt your faith to your life, but your life to the faith. Draw all your happiness from the True Orthodox Faith. Then you will be true sons of the Orthodox Church, and the Lord will pour out on you even here His boundless mercy.

Let us remember, my beloved children in Christ, that without faith it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6), that without the Orthodox Faith there is no grace, that there is no true love for one another, there is only fatal egoism or only empty words about love, such as is the case among heretics and sectarians. Therefore, let us make an effort sacredly and strictly to guard the Orthodox Faith, and along with it always to have a grace-filled, true love for others.

Read the Lives of Saints. In them you will find everything; they will teach you everything. Compare yourself not with people around you, but with the saints – such a comparison reveals to us how great sinners we are.

One always needs to repent of one’s sins. It is especially important every evening, before sleep, to repent to God for the sins that we have committed over the course of the day.

Self-accusation is the beginning of salvation, while self-justification is perdition for man.

St Seraphim (Sobolev)