Nectarios of Aegina

“We renounce the law of the flesh along with the passions and desires.”

“Only through self-denial can we be saved.”

“The divine law was written on the heart of man because God formed his heart to be the seat of the love of the good.”

“The true will is the will of the spirit, which is the desire for the good.”

“In the Kingdom of God the old man who is corrupted by sin cannot enter. For this reason, he must strip himself of the old man along with the passions and desires and be clothed in “the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.””

“The grace of God, despite being infinite, does not save on its own, because He does not wish to violate the free agency of man.”

“It is necessary for us to will our salvation so as to seek it.”

“We should regulate those passions rationally and lead them with authority and hold the reins ... in no way enduring the subjugation of our free agency.”

“We should employ even the irrational passions with rationality.”

“The aesthetic nature is unfree because it is moved by something else and does not move according to its own will.”

“The intellectual nature is self-motivating and thus free.”

“The being who is unfree and dependent, subjected to instinctual drives, is not an intelligent being because the spirit is free and independent by nature and in no way subordinate.”

“Moral freedom makes man a moral being and an image of God.”

“Ignorance of the beautiful, of the good, of the true would make man an amoral being and would make ‘morality’ a word devoid of meaning.”

“Those who sin out of ignorance must recognize that they are hoarding great wrongs in themselves.”

“Woe unto those who request money rather than devotion, contrition, and the satisfaction of the divine through true and virtuous life for the forgiveness of sins.”