“Here we can remember the words of Saint Ephraim the Syrian: “Do not call God righteous. If God were just, you would have been in hell a long time ago.” Forgiveness is not the restoration of justice, that is what jurisprudence does. It is the presence in your soul of something that will enable you to act as Christ acts toward people and how he wants, so that people act: not with justice, but with love and mercy.Forgiveness is the overcoming of the natural law “as you treat me, so I treat you”, where there are friends and enemies, measure and retribution, “RIA Novosti quotes the priest.
He also explained how to combine nurturing and forgiveness. “We start from the fact that human nature is fallen, even in children: we are all heirs to the fall of Adam. Sometimes children behave cruelly. Any upbringing involves punishment. But there is an important rule: you cannot punish in a state of anger, irritation, when “he knocked me down, so I scream” or when “he did not listen to me, I am stronger, I can twist him , then it will be worse for him later, when the child grows up “- said the archpriest.
