On the Love of God and Neighbour

The radii of a circle are joined to the centre, and the nearer they are to the centre, the nearer they come to one another. But if they move away from the centre, they move away from one another too. So it is with people. The farther they are from God, the farther they move from one another. Love the one God, and you will love all His children. God always takes care of you — do not you cease to take care of your neighbour. If your neighbour, in your opinion, is not worthy of love, God is worthy of love, whose servant and image he is: Christ is worthy of love, who shed His blood for him.

How should we comfort those who mourn? By weeping with them.

If you live with others, serve them as you would God Himself, and do not demand love for love, praise for humility, gratitude for service. S. A. Nilus

They (the preachers of the cosmopolitan ideas of recent times) talk endlessly about love for mankind but pay little attention to the one beside them. Yet love of one’s neighbour is exactly what implies love for all. The Saviour called us to love our neighbour, not to express general feelings toward the world. And the neighbour includes everyone with whom a person may have any contact. For a child the neighbour means the members of the family and a narrow circle of those close to him. For a grown person his country and people fill the space of the “neighbour”. He is bound to it by the obligations of the state and of civic and political life. The culture, way of life and tradition of his people are native and dear to him. And for a fully developed person of high moral character anyone at all is a neighbour. It must be said too that the third stage of growth presupposes the necessary existence of the first and second, just as the second presupposes the existence of the first. This is where the cosmopolitans make their mistake. They conceive of the third stage without the second, and push people toward creating an unhealthy, empty, soulless society. Ilia II, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia

For one who serves his neighbour with sincere love, even weariness is rest; while one who loves only himself and is lazy is wearied even by idleness. Schemamonk Paisios the Athonite

As a stove cannot be warm without fire, so a man who has turned away from God, in whose heart God does not dwell, cannot have love for his neighbour. James, Archbishop of Nizhny Novgorod

The Lord loves all of us, and we must love everyone. Someone may live in a poor hut, but his soul may be a dwelling of the God in three Persons. Whoever sincerely loves God cannot fail to love his neighbour. Philaret, Archbishop of Chernigov

It is impossible for a man to harm his neighbour without harming himself.

Egoism is the first link in a long chain of passions.

There is no way of life more saving than bearing one another’s burdens.

Love is love only when it is toward everyone, without exception. So long as it is directed only toward those whom “I” love, it is not love but egoism.

Love unites us in spirit even with those from whom we are parted by time and space.

It cannot be said that we love God but do not love man… It is impossible to live without love; we must love one another. Love our neighbour; love, if we want to find the road that leads to God… if we want to be happy. Only when a man grows strong and rises up spiritually does he gain the grace of God. Ilia II, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia

God gave people the word “love” so that they should call their relationship to the Lord by it. When people misuse this word and use it for earthly relationships, it loses its meaning. Words lose their holy and divine power and seem to die — just as a southern tree transplanted to the north withers and dies.