Many Orthodox Christians who have strayed from the saints' teachings often praise indifference as holy. They say, “Don't worry about the evil going on, just pray.” This masks passivity and cowardice, leading to a destructive peace and a love born from our fallen nature.
Orthodox Christians dare to call their willful blindness to evil and their indifference something grounded in love and piety. Do our saints agree with this?
Saint Paisios the Athonite, St. Theophan the Recluse, St. Philip of Moscow, St. John Climacus, St. Theodore the Studite, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop Averky, Fr. Seraphim Rose, Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos,
Our saints, far from being passive observers, were spiritual warriors who actively fought against lukewarm faith and false piety. They offer no comfortable platitudes, but instead call us to spiritual battle, to feel pain in the face of evil, and to maintain ceaseless vigilance against the creeping poison of indifference. Through their teachings and intercessions, may we be roused from our slumber and set ablaze with zeal for Christ.
Quick note on forgiveness
Many people call for forgiveness, not realizing what they're really calling for, is indifference towards evil, described in this article. For more on forgiveness itself, please read: When Are We Allowed to Forgive Others?
What is indifference, exactly?
There is a general lack of catechism and deference to the saints in our times. Without first defining these words, people will apply their own understandings of them.
Because of this, we must start by defining words and terms the saints use, in the way they define them:
Meekness is an immovable state of soul which remains unaffected whether in evil report or in good report, in dishonour or in praise.
— St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 8: On freedom from anger and on meekness.
Spiritual meekness and meekness out of indifference are two different things.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, The Presence of a Christian Is a Confession of Faith
Indifference is not meekness, as implied by many. Meekness is a godly virtue. Indifference is not. Meekness is being unaffected by praise, insults or slander. Indifference is when we are calm in the presence of evil, and are indifferent to the evils that go on around us, rather than being in pain:
Some people say, “I must be cheerful because I am a Christian. I must be calm because I am a Christian.” Such people are not Christians. Do you understand? That is indifference, it is worldly joy. One who has these worldly elements is not a spiritual person. A spiritual person is a mass of pain.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, The Presence of a Christian Is a Confession of Faith
Many unfortunately mistake indifference and lack of concern as meekness. Many don't seem to be in pain due to the suffering and widespread faithlessness. Their lack of concern and pain is not godly.
We must make sure to acquire a basic understanding of key words in Orthodoxy, as defined by our holy fathers, not our own secular understanding of these words. As long as we continue to apply our own understandings, we start to manifest an Orthodoxy of our own creation.
Widespread indifference reigns, even amongst Orthodox
Many of us in these times suffer from false piety. This manifests in the following confession: “who am I to talk in these matters”?
...indifference has overtaken so many people, people who used to have something in them, but who now just say, 'Who am I to solve the situation?'
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, The Indifferent Generation
This mindset is not an act of piety, but an act of disobedience and pride. Our saints command us to speak, out of love in the face of evil, and in matters of faith. This is commanded even of the simple farmer. Who are we then, to disagree?
It is a commandment of the Lord that we should not be silent when the Faith is in peril. So, when it is a matter of the Faith, one cannot say, 'Who am I? A priest, a ruler, a soldier, a farmer, a poor man? I have no say or concern in this matter.' Alas! The stones shall cry out, and you remain silent and unconcerned?
— St. Theodore the Studite
— Geronda, is the silence of the Church an indication of approval?
— Yes. Someone wrote some blasphemous things about Panaghia and no one spoke up. Then I told someone, “Did you see what so-and-so has written?” And he told me, “Well, what can you do with those people? You'll get soiled if you try to deal with them.” They're afraid to speak up.
— What did he have to fear, Geronda?
— That people might write something about him and ridicule him in the press. And so he tolerates blasphemous things about Panaghia! We want others to pull the chestnuts out of the fire so that we can have our peace of mind. This indicates a lack of love. Then man begins to act out of self-interest. This is why we see an all-too-familiar spirit today: "Get to know so-and-so because he will then speak well of you. Be on good terms with so-and-so and he will not speak badly of you, and so forth.
After all, we must not be taken for fools, we must not become victims.“ Another person remains indifferent and does not speak up. ”I do not speak out,“ he says, ”so that I won't be written up in the newspapers." In other words, most people are completely indifferent.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, The Indifferent Generation
In our pride, we often assume this indifference applies only to non-Orthodox Christians. This is false.
Even among the spiritual people, there is a contrary spirit, a spirit of indifference.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, Sacrifice Brings Joy
Many of us Orthodox Christians overly focus on heretics, believing that the saints are not addressing us.
Giving the good uneasiness
We ourselves must not be indifferent, and we must give the good uneasiness to those who are indifferent.
Geronda, how can we help a person who is indifferent?
We need to instill in him the good concern, the good restlessness, perturb him so that he'll want to do something to help himself. It cannot be done by force. A person must be thirsty before you can give him water. Try giving food to someone who isn't hungry; he will throw up. When the other person does not want something, I cannot deprive him of his freedom, his free will.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, The Indifferent Generation
You can't possibly force someone to go fight in a war! He'll be looking for ways to run rather than fight. But once he understands what harm the enemy can do, then he'll volunteer to go.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, The Indifferent Generation
St. Paisios doesn't limit the giving of this 'good uneasiness' to priests alone. It's appropriate for anyone who has made spiritual progress in self-purification and illumination to practice this, with discernment.
We don't need to tell others what to do. We simply need to help them understand the danger of the situation.
Without unceasing prayer, indifference is inevitable.
People do not think of others, they don't go beyond themselves; their thoughts constantly revolve around themselves. But when they revolve around themselves, they have themselves at the centre, not Christ. They function outside the axis which is Christ. In order to be able to think of others, the mind must first be with Christ. Then one can also consider the neighbour, the animals and all of nature. His radio station is working and, as soon as a message is received, he runs to help. If our mind is not on Christ, the heart is not working, and, as such, we love neither Christ nor our fellow human beings, not to mention nature, the animals, the trees, the plants.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, The Indifferent Generation
If our mind isn't focused on Christ, we can't truly love others. The saints teach that keeping our mind on Christ means remembering Him constantly, which is done through unceasing prayer.
“Remembrance is God,” according to the Holy Fathers, is a short prayer or even a short spiritual thought to which they have accustomed themselves and to which they try to train their mind, so that it constantly remembers it instead of random thoughts.
St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, The Refuge, Remembrance of God
Who can say their mind is with Christ 24/7? What does St. Paisios say happens to us, when our mind isn't with Christ in those moments?
Is it any wonder why many Orthodox Christians, who don't practice ceaseless prayer, are indifferent?
Another sick state of the nous is callousness, insensibility, indifference: “To have an insensitive heart is to have dulled the nous,” says St. John of the Ladder.
— Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, Orthodox Psychotherapy.
Is “Indifferentism” being loving?
Some others again, out of supposed “kindness”, give the following advice: “Don't tell the heretics that they are in error, to show them love.” So, everything is leveled. If these people had lived during the early years of Christianity, we wouldn't have had a single Saint. In those years Christians were told, “Just throw some incense in the fire for the emperor and do not deny Christ.” And they would not accept this. “Just pretend you're throwing incense.” Again, they refused. “Don't talk about Christ and go quietly to some other area.” Again, they did not accept any compromise. But today one sees so many lukewarm people.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, The Presence of a Christian Is a Confession of Faith
There are many “indifferentists” who claim that they are really being loving by their desire to not rock the boat. They blaspheme our saints who do not accept ANY compromise.
Some may say: “Look, you're over exaggerating. Creating such words like indifferentism to paint your brothers and sisters in a bad light. This is caustic, severe, and not how the saints spoke”.
These people might be surprised to realize that this word itself comes from St. Theophan the Recluse, who spoke on the same subject:
In the subject of love St. John is especially well known, and no matter who would begin to muse, about love he would immediately bring to mind St. John as the model of love and turn to him as to a teacher of love. Now let us examine how contemporary wise men have made use of this teaching. They possess a special kind of vain wisdom called “Indifferentism” by which they reason say: "believe as you like, it makes no difference—just love everyone like brothers, be charitable to them, and have a good influence on them.
— St. Theophan the Recluse, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIOg5LTU-p4
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Even St. Theophan the Recluse lamented the indifferentists in his time, and how they simply spread lies, without actually reading the teachings from the saints.
These excerpts should be enough, I suppose, in order to show the indifferentist, that in vain they seek to find support for their lie in the teaching of Saint John the theologian. It is more than likely that they make such claims without having ever read Saint John's holy and divinely inspired writings, but rather quote him based on rumors about his overflowing love.
Let them even now find something else besides the above argument to defend their teachings to us believers.
— St. Theophan the Recluse, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIOg5LTU-p4
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The wisdom of the indifferentists is vain wisdom and false teachings, used to justify whatever we'd like to believe.
Thus, he so valued love, they tell us, that we also should love like that and Only Love, believing any way we wish.
I myself have had to listen to such wisdom. Perhaps you have also had to listen to it or will hear something similar to this. Let us contrast their false teaching with the true teaching of Saint John the Theologian and then protect our thoughts from wavering from the fundamentals of Christian good sense into the vain wisdom of the indifferent ones.
— St. Theophan the Recluse, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIOg5LTU-p4
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Those who are indifferent are by definition, not loving. And in their indifference and desire to keep the peace, they violate one of the key commandments they sought to uphold: love of neighbor.
When a gentle word of persuasion has no effect, When people are so steeped in evil that they do not yield to any admonishment and continue doing evil, a Christian cannot and should not take refuge in this teaching of the forgiveness of all, sit indifferently with his arms crossed, and apathetically watch evil abuse good, as it increases and destroys people, his close ones. To indifferently watch the ruin of a close one by one who has lost his senses and become a bearer of evil is nothing other than the breaking of the commandment of love for one's neighbor.
— Archbishop Averky, The Struggle for Virtue (Chapter 8: Resisting Evil)
This a very clear witness. Notice also what he says here about being gentle, which is very easy to overlook and miss:
And when a gentle word of admonition for the correction of an evildoer does not bring him to his senses, then decisive and strict measures must be taken for the suppression of evil.
— Archbishop Averky, The Struggle for Virtue (Chapter 8: Resisting Evil)
When people don't take the correction gently, if it means protecting others, then the gloves come off. We are then “commanded” to be more strict. This idea that we must ALWAYS be gentle in the face of such evil, is simply not the witness of the saints.
Upholding tradition means rocking the boat
There are many who would desire to uphold tradition, if it didn't mean rocking the boat. But it's not about what we desire. The only question is this: do we have a responsibility?
...we have a responsibility to maintain all of these traditions and not allow the enemies of the Church to abolish them. I have even heard Spiritual Fathers advising their spiritual children, 'Don't get involved in affairs of the State!' Now if they had attained such a high level of sanctity through prayer that they didn't care about anything worldly, then I would be the first to kiss their feet. But they're only indifferent, they don't want to rock the boat.
— St. Paisios the Athonite, Spiritual Awakening, The Indifferent Generation
And again, St. Paisios essentially mocks these people for their supposed “sanctity”, while many of them, by their own admission, have not acquired ceaseless prayer, which we are commanded to practice as laymen by our saints.
Reproving others in matters of faith is a commandment
We must correct others. To not correct others when they do evil, showing “benevolence” to them, is also showing indifference:
Benevolence to such persons is like that mistaken kindness of Heli which he was accused of showing his sons, contrary to the good pleasure of God (1 Sam. 3.13)
A feigned kindness to the wicked is a betrayal of the truth, an act of treachery to the community, and a means of habituating oneself to indifference to evil, since that saying is not fulfilled: 'Why have ye not rather mourned that he might be taken away from you that hath done this deed (1 Cor. 5.2). On the other hand, the saying which follows necessarily comes to pass: 'A little leaven corrupteth the whole lump (1 Cor. 5.6.) 'Them that sin, reprove before all,' says the Apostle, and he immediately adds the reason, saying: 'that the rest also may have fear. (1 Timothy 5:20)
— St. Basil the Great, Ascetical Works, The Long Rules, Question 28
Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.
— 1 Timothy 5:20 (KJV)
Genuine love is shown not by the sharing of a common table, neither with lofty words, nor flattery, but by the correction and the seeking of the good of one’s neighbor...
— St. John Chrysostom, PG 54, 623.
Don't be indifferent, just don't make it personal
There's only one caveat. We must never be indifferent. But we shouldn't make it personal.
We Christians can never remain indifferent to evil wherever and in whatever form it appears. It is necessary only that the battle with evil be free from a personal component.
— Archbishop Averky, The Struggle for Virtue (Chapter 8: Resisting Evil)
This means we don't hold grudges against particular people, or hate particular people. Those who do exhibit these symptoms, we must correct, give the good uneasiness, but ultimately, we must recognize our own sins.
Common confusions
The most common confusions people have with this is when the saints talk about indifference towards things “other” than evil. Simply reading what they say very closely, in context, brings this to light. Here are some examples.
Show indifference outwardly, but be praying inwardly. Be prepared, know what you are talking about and speak boldly and to the point, but with saintliness, meekness and prayer. But in order to be able to do this you must become saints.
— St. Porphyrios, Wounded by Love (Part Two - Love for One's Neighbor)
When the saints say to show outward indifference, they simply mean that when people offend us, we shouldn't show that we are perturbed, or angry, or happy. We should be as a dead man. This is very different from being generally indifferent in matters of faith, and being indifferent to evil in the world. We have to examine the context in which the saints say things. Because then he goes on to agree with the witness of all the other saints:
Our wicked self desires laziness and indifference.
— St. Porphyrios, Wounded by Love (Part Two - On The Upbringing of Children)
Such is our impiety, pitting the saints against each other, when they are in full agreement.
You need to remove all those things which fill up your life: distractions, desires, and all the clamorings of the world. Leave them all outside the door. Be solely with God for a few moments. You have all day to be caught up in those other things. During these moments, you should be alone with the only God.
Be solely with God for a few moments. You have all day to be caught up in those other things. During these moments, you should be alone with the only God. In this space which you've now created, in this place of indifference, in this place of the heart's abandonment of the world, in the space opened up by your distance from al things— precisely there you will find your desire for Christ.
— Elder Aimilianos of Siminopetra, The Church at Prayer, Spiritual Study
It's very clear that he's talking about indifference to our own distraction and desires.
Another important point: Dispassion is also not indifference.
Dispassion (ἀπάθεια)
Dispassion is achieved when all three aspects of the soul (i.e., the intelligent, appetitive, and incensive aspects) are directed towards God. It is the transfiguration of the passionate aspect of the soul (i.e., the aspect of the soul which is more vulnerable to passion, namely, the appetitive and incensive aspects), rather than its mortification. Thus, dispassion in this context does not signify a stoic indifference, but rather a transfiguration and sanctification of the powers of the soul and eventually of the body also.
— My Elder Joseph the Hesychast, Glossary
We must be very careful pitting the saints against one another, simply because we misconstrue and don't understand the overwhelming consonance between them.
Conclusion
We are not called to passivity, but to spiritual warfare. Indifference is not a virtue, but a spiritual poison that masquerades as peace and love. It is a betrayal of our faith and a denial of Christ's teachings. We must root out this indifference from our hearts and our communities. Let us heed the words of our saints, from St. Paisios to Archbishop Averky, who warn us against this spiritual lethargy.
We are commanded to battle evil, both within ourselves and in the world around us, always with discernment and without personal malice. May we cultivate true meekness while maintaining our sacred duty to actively resist evil in all its forms. Let us be a “mass of pain” in the face of evil, rather than indifferent bystanders. Anything less is not Orthodox Christianity, but a pale, lifeless imitation that our spiritual forebears would scarcely recognize.
And would it really be love for man if she regarded the actions of such people with indifference and left them at liberty to destroy everyone else? Would a mother permit a snake to freely crawl up to and bite her little child, who does not understand the danger? If some immoral person were to gain access to your family and begin tempting your daughter, or your son -- would you be able to regard their actions and their speeches with indifference? Fearing to gain a reputation for being inhumane and old- fashioned, would you tie your own hands? Would you not push such a person out the door and close it against them forever?! You should view the actions of the holy Church in the same way. She sees that individuals of corrupt mind appear, and corrupt others -- and she rises up against them, drives them away, and calls out to all those who are her own: Beware -- so-and-so and such-and-such people wish to destroy your souls. Do not listen to them; flee from them. Thus she fulfills the duty of motherly love, and therefore acts lovingly -- or as you put it, humanely.
St. Theophan the Recluse, What Is an Anathema?, Pravoslavnaya Rus, #4, 1974.
The Liberal is indifferent to absolute truth, an attitude resulting from excessive attachment to this world; with the Realist, on the other hand, indifference to truth becomes hostility, and mere attachment to the world becomes fanatical devotion to it. Those extreme consequences must have a more acute cause.
— Fr. Seraphim Rose, Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age, The Stages of the Nihilist Dialectic
This holy man could not endure with indifference the awful atrocities of the terrible tsar and, therefore, counseled him and rebuked him without fear. The tsar found some false witnesses against Philip, ousted him from office, and ordered that he be dressed in a simple and tattered monastic cassock and imprisoned him in Tver on December 23, 1569 A.D. Malyuta Skuratov, one of the tsar's confidants, came to Philip's cell and suffocated him with a pillow. Shortly afterwards, all those who were opposed to Philip died evil deaths. After several years, the body of the saint discovered whole, incorrupt, and fragrant, was translated to the Monastery of Solovetsk.
— Saint Philip Metropolitan of Moscow, The Prologue (January 9th)
Though the prayers of Saint Paisios, St. Theophan the Recluse, St. Philip, St. Joseph the Hesychast, St. John Climacus, St. Theodore the Studite, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, Saint Philip, and all our saints, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.