Is swearing considered a sin?
“What is the sin called when you swear?” Many people are wondering. The Orthodox Church classifies swearing as the sin of foul language. You can read in detail about the 7 deadly sins on the Orthodox website.
The Lord has endowed people with the ability to communicate and express their thoughts in words. Through them we say prayers and turn to God. A person who swears uses this gift to express his angry impulses, thereby desecrating the Temple of God within himself.
Mat, in its essence, is alien to the nature of human nature; it is impossible to utter prayers and curses with the same lips. We are prompted to respond to them by anger, anger, lodged inside us. A believer must steadfastly resist such impulses and understand that swearing is a manifestation of the demonic principle.
The devil, through curses, seeks to eradicate in the believer traits similar to the Lord, leading him astray from the righteous path. The fight against foul language is a fight to preserve spiritual purity and faith.
Getting rid of the habit of foul language is not easy; you need to gather all the spiritual strength within yourself, repent, pray and renounce the harmful habit forever. The word is the main instrument for glorifying the Lord on earth, the main difference between man and animal. By becoming like this sin, a Christian desecrates the gift of God and empties the faith in his soul.
The use of swear words has penetrated into all spheres of human life. Mat can be heard in everyday speech “to connect words.”
This speaks not only about the level of culture of the individual, but about the degree of influence of unclean passions on a person. This is the extreme stage of dependence on sin, which indicates the attenuation of the pure spiritual impulses of the human soul.
Foul language has a detrimental effect not only on the speaker, but on the people listening to it. By insulting himself and those around him, a person unwittingly imposes his vice on others, influencing the person’s soul through words.
It has been scientifically proven that the use of swear words in speech does not carry any semantic meaning, but adds an emotional tone and coloring to the conversation. This circumstance once again emphasizes the harmfulness of swear words, which affect, first of all, the state of mind.
The arrival of the temple in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Tenderness” in the village. fruit
Questions for Confession SINS AGAINST GOD
• Denial of the existence of God (atheism). • Membership in anti-God organizations, even formal, or participation in events held by them. • Lack of faith, doubt about the existence of God, doubt about His omnipotence, mercy and providence for our world. • Denial of the existence of an immortal soul in man. • Denial of the general resurrection of the dead, God's righteous judgment over them and eternal reward for both the righteous and sinners. • Reluctance to have true knowledge of God and the teachings of the Orthodox Church. • Failure to attend church on Sundays and holidays. • Do not begin the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion for a long time. • Disdain for the temple, icons, cross, holy water, prosphora, etc., mentioning the name of God in vain conversation. • Call animals by Orthodox names. • Blasphemy of the sacred, mockery of religious truths, ridicule of believers, etc. Playing cards (blasphemy of the Holy Cross). • Mention of evil spirits (cursing). • Superstition: belief in dreams, attempt to solve dreams, belief in omens, horoscopes, fortune telling. • Practicing false religions. • Seeking help from representatives of other religions, especially pagans (sorcerers, psychics, hypnotists, bioenergetics). • Be interested in magic, read and keep such literature at home. • Strong love for one of the people or passion for a favorite job, overshadowing the love for God. • Be completely immersed in worldly concerns, work on church holidays and Sundays. • Unwedded marriage of spouses baptized in Orthodoxy.
SINS AGAINST YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
• Negligent attitude towards one's duties at work and at home. • Disrespect for parents, refusal to help them. • Insult your neighbor. • Frequent unnecessary reproaches, petty nagging, oppression of one's neighbor. • Battery. • Murder. • Abortion (to persuade to have an abortion). • Disclosure of other people's weaknesses and bad deeds. • Slander. • Seducing your neighbor into sin: wearing immodest, provocative clothing, using cosmetics; pay with vodka, etc.
SINS AGAINST YOURSELF
Gluttony (carnality)
• Overeating (gluttonia). • Treat (larynx). • Drunkenness. • Secret eating. • Failure to fast on Wednesday and Friday, as well as multi-day fasts. • Sleeping a lot. • Excessive concern for the peace of your body and the full satisfaction of its slightest needs - this is the basis of pride, which does not lead to loyalty to God, the Church, virtue and people. • Running away from bodily labor.
Fornication
• Look at the opposite sex with lust. • Failure to preserve the senses, especially vision, hearing, and touch. • Foul language. • Reading voluptuous books. • Prodigal thoughts, dreams, committing sins with thoughts. • Sexual intercourse before marriage. • Violation of marital fidelity. • Failure of spouses to observe abstinence during fasting, on the eve of Sundays and holidays. • Unwedded marriage of spouses baptized in Orthodoxy. • Unnatural fornication (handjob, sodomy, bestiality). • Prodigal night desecration.
Covetousness
• Addiction to money, property. • Desire to get rich. • Stinginess, greed. • Selfishness. • Theft. • Robbery. • Addiction or painful excessive love for various perishable objects, depriving the soul of freedom. • Interest (bribes, deception). • Unmerciful towards the poor and needy. • Lack of faith in God as a Provider, that He cares about us all. • Fears of old age, unexpected poverty, illness, exile.
Anger
• Hot temper, adoption of angry thoughts. • Rage. • A dispute that turns into a quarrel. • Abusive, cruel, caustic words. • Push or hit someone in anger. • Hatred. • Memory malice. • Cruelty to animals. • Breaking things in anger. • Curse someone, wish him death, misfortune. • Condemnation. • Offense to one's neighbor. • Murder.
Sadness
• Sadness, annoyance due to various circumstances of our life. • Impatience in any matter. • Ingratitude to God for everything that happens in our lives (since this shows disbelief in God as a Provider). • Grumbling about your fate, about the unfavorable circumstances of your life. • Blame others and neighbors for your failures. • Constantly express dissatisfaction with everything (grumping at everyone and everything). • Blame God for the misfortunes that have befallen you. • Curse yourself, wish for death, misfortune, i.e. reject your cross.
Dejection
• Laziness towards every good deed, especially prayer. • Abandonment of church and cell rules. • Haste in prayer. • Negligence in reading the Holy Scriptures. • Constantly absent-minded, idle life: idle talk, jokes, sacrilege, gambling, constant presence in front of the TV or computer, an uncontrollable desire to participate in various kinds of entertainment events, etc. • Not seeing one’s sins. • Forgetting the commandments of Christ. • Idleness. • A heart-wrenching feeling of abandonment, loneliness, abandonment by everyone. • Despair (abandonment of hope in God). • Smoking, drinking, drug addiction.
Vanity
• Seeking human glory (respect, praise, honor, fame). • Boasting, lying to show off. • The desire to stand out among others with one’s merits: imaginary or real. • Pretend to be a godly person by doing good deeds for show. • Shame to confess your sins, hiding them in confession. • Cunning. Self-justification. Disclaimer. • Hypocrisy. Lie. Flattery. • People-pleasing. • Envy.
Pride • Contempt for one's neighbor. Preferring yourself to everyone. Narcissism. • Exaggerated assessment of one's abilities. • Confidence in your superiority over others. • Tendency to leadership, desire to command. • The desire to teach others, point out, give advice. • Criticize the actions of your neighbor, speak out what you would do in this case. • Insolence: free, free approach to others, cheeky manner of behavior, calling on “you” (when there is no right to do so), interfering in a conversation when not asked, interrupting the interlocutor. • Stubbornness (unwillingness to give in when possible). • Tendency to humiliate one's neighbor and mock him. • Impatience of reproaches. • Difficulty asking for forgiveness. • Looking for easy ways. • Condemnation. • Rudeness. • Schadenfreude. • Sick curiosity (peeping, eavesdropping, reading other people's letters). • Fearfulness. • Disobedience to authorities. • Hula. Disbelief. Disobedience to the Law of God and the Church. • Loss of love for God and neighbor. • False philosophy. Heresy. Godlessness. Death of the soul.
SINS AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT
1. Excessive reliance on the mercy of God a) Living a sinful life, they expect that God will forgive them everything, and do not try to change their lifestyle. b) They think that God will not condemn them for their sins, attributing them to weaknesses or peculiarities of temperament and character. c) They postpone repentance until the end of life.
2. Despair in God's mercy. a) The reason is earthly troubles. Having been subjected to suffering and various vicissitudes of fate, such a person first grumbles at God, and then begins to think that God has forgotten him, that God cannot or does not want to help him, and thus falls into complete despair, having lost Christian hope. b) The reason is spiritual troubles. A person, having drowned in the abyss of sin and vice, not finding any way out of there, comes to the conviction that the number of his sins is so great that there can be no forgiveness for him. Here faith in God's providence and hope in God's mercy are lost. If such a person admits the thought of forgiveness of sins, but at the same time remains convinced that he will not be able to return to the righteous path. Such a person fell into the sin of arrogance, forgetting that deliverance from vices is a matter of Divine grace, which delivers a person in due time. The consequence of despair is often the sin of suicide.
3) Opposition to the truths of the Christian faith. A person who is well informed in the teachings of the Christian faith does not want to accept the truth and deliberately resists it.
From the works of St. Ephraim the Syrian: Passionate skill is terrible and very bad: it binds thought with insoluble bonds, and these bonds always seem desirable to me, because I myself want to be tied. My skills envelop me in a net, and I rejoice that I am connected. I plunge into the most unbearable depths, and it makes me happy. The enemy daily renews my bonds, because he sees how much I rejoice in the variety of my bonds. My enemy is very skillful: he does not bind me with those bonds that are not pleasing to me, but on the contrary, he always imposes such bonds and snares that I accept with great pleasure, for he knows that my will is stronger than me; and in the twinkling of an eye he imposes whatever bonds he wants. It is worthy of weeping and weeping; This is shame and shame that I am bound by my desires. With one wave I can break the bonds and free myself from all nets, but I don’t want to do this, being overcome by my weaknesses and arbitrarily servile to passions as to customs. It’s even more terrible and brings tears of shame from me that I don’t get out from under the will of my enemy. I am bound by the bonds that he imposes on me; and I mortify myself with those passions that please him. I can break the bonds, but I don’t want to; I can avoid the networks, but I'm in no hurry. What is more sad than this crying and sobbing? What other shame is more painful than this? For I will say affirmatively that it is the most bitter shame when a person fulfills the wishes of the enemy.
WHY DO WE NOT SEE OUR SINS?
Archimandrite Lazar: Most often, a person clearly sees only his obvious sins, committed by deeds; when he stops sinning in practice, he confesses his main sins to the priest, and then no longer understands what else he should repent of. He recognizes himself as a sinner, but in reality he is confident in his sufficient virtue. It turns out that in order to just learn about the secret passions nesting in the soul, it is already necessary to reject the world, move away from its noise, and remain somewhat silent. Only after an internal withdrawal from the vanity of the world, from its chaos and passions, gradually, not suddenly, does the muddy water of our inner self-consciousness settle, the hubbub of worldly, busy thoughts subsides, and only then will the silhouettes of many, many of the most indecent passions and passions begin to be outlined and recognized, skills and lusts, sinful desires and sympathies - all that a person could not even suspect in himself, being carried away by the whirlwind of everyday vanity.
CONFESSION He who approaches the Sacrament of Confession must clearly understand his sins, name specifically his sinful actions, words, thoughts and dispositions of the soul. Sins previously spoken at Confession do not need to be repeated a second time. St. Ignatius Brianchaninov “An Offering to Modern Monasticism” Sinful thoughts and sensations arise from our fallen nature, but when sinful thoughts and sensations begin to constantly and intensely come, this serves as a sign that they are brought by our enemy, a fallen angel, or he forces our fallen nature breed them especially. Such thoughts and feelings should be confessed to the confessor, so often and as long as they bother (that is, annoy, attack), even if the confessor is a simple-hearted man, without the glory of a saint. Your faith in the holy Sacrament of Confession will save you; the grace of God inherent in the Sacrament of Confession will heal you. By constant and intensified attack on us, the fallen spirit tries to sow and grow the seeds of sin in us, to accustom us to some type of sin by frequent reminders of it, to arouse a special attraction to it and to turn this type of sin into a habit, as if into a natural property. A sinful habit is called passion, it deprives a person of freedom, makes him a captive, a slave of sin and a fallen angel. Against the intensified and frequent attack of sinful thoughts and sensations, called abuse in monastic language, there is no better weapon for a novice than confession. Confession is perhaps the only weapon for a beginner during battle. At least it is the strongest and most effective weapon. Run to him as often as possible during a misfortune inflicted by the devil: run to him until the devil and the misfortune inflicted by him leave you. The devil loves to commit evil in secret; loves to be unnoticed, incomprehensible. He “catches in secret, like a lion in his fence: he catches a hedgehog to snatch the poor” (Ps. XI. 30), an inexperienced and weak monk. He does not tolerate being discovered and declared: having been exposed and declared, he throws away his prey and leaves. Thoughts, although sinful, are fleeting, do not become stronger in the soul, and do not need immediate confession. Reject them, do not heed them, drown them out by remembering the Gospel commandments opposite to them; mention them in general terms, without at all taking the senseless concern of counting them, in confession before communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, say that in addition to the significant sins that should be stated accurately, you have sinned in various thoughts, words and deeds, in knowledge and ignorance.
Venerable Ephraim the Syrian "On the Passion"
A person who spends his days in negligence deceives himself, not at all thinking about the blessings that the Lord has prepared for the righteous, and about the punishment prepared for sinners, indulging in amusements without any fear. In such a situation, the evil one sets into action all kinds of carnal lusts, but he is not able to notice this, just as a gate does not notice those entering and exiting through it; because lust, having settled in his mind, darkened his eyes. The enemy fights the ascetics in a different way; and before lawlessness is committed, the enemy always belittles it in their eyes; it especially belittles the lust of voluptuousness, as if doing it is the same as pouring a cup of cold water on the floor. Thus the evil one diminishes sin in the eyes of his brother before committing it; after committing a sin, the evil one increases lawlessness to the extreme in the eyes of the one who fell into it. At the same time, he raises waves of despair against him, and often armed himself with parables, instilling in him the following thoughts: “What have you done, you vain toiler? Now I will explain to you what your work was like. Someone planted grapevines, guarded and protected them until they produced fruit, and, having collected the grapes, he filled the barrels with grape wine; and then suddenly, getting up, he took an ax and broke the barrels; the wine spilled out and died; This is what your work is like.” The evil one suggests this to his brother with the intention of throwing him into the depths of despair. Therefore, beloved, knowing in advance these machinations of the enemy, flee from sin. If you have fallen into some kind of sin, do not become stagnant (i.e., do not stop, do not hesitate) in sin; but arise and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart, so that your soul may be saved. Say to the evil thought: “Although I broke the barrels and destroyed the wine, my vineyard is intact, and the Lord is long-suffering, abounding in mercy, merciful and righteous. And I hope that with His grace assisting me, I will again cultivate and preserve my grapes, and fill my barrels, as before.” For through the prophet Isaiah He says: “Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; but if your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white. And if you are willing and listen to Me, you will destroy the good earth; if you are not willing, you will listen to Me; you will girdle the sword: for the mouth of the Lord speaks this” (Is. I, 18-20).
Preparation for Holy Communion:
Follow the prayer rule: • canon of repentance; • canon to the Most Holy Theotokos; • canon to the Guardian Angel; • rule for Holy Communion.
Observe a 3-day fast: • eat only plant foods; • leave all entertainment and vanity, worldly cares; • spouses sleep separately; • do not drink alcoholic beverages, do not smoke; • stay at home if possible.
It is very important to forgive everyone for the offenses caused; if necessary, ask for forgiveness. It is very useful these days to generously give alms to the poor (preferably with food). For the sick and infirm, the fast can be slightly weakened, with the blessing of the priest. On the eve of Holy Communion, attend the evening service. Be sure to confess. Children under 7 years of age receive communion without confession. From 24.00 before Holy Communion, do not eat or drink anything.
St. Apostle Paul: “Whoever eats this Bread or drinks this Cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord... For this reason many of you are weak and sick, and many are dying” (1 Cor. 11, 27, 30).
The sin of swearing in the speech of modern man
For many, the fact remains unknown that swearing is the sin of foul language. Abusive words are not truly human language; they do not express anything creative and useful, both for man and for God.
It is especially dangerous for children to be around people who use obscene language, who perceive the behavior of adults as an example to follow.
It will be difficult for a child growing up in such a family to find his way and return to his original state of mind. Parents and relatives consciously create obstacles to the full development of their child, both in the spiritual and in the cultural and educational sense.
Learning to use obscene language does not require special skills or effort, and not everyone can develop the ability to speak beautifully.
The divine origin of the term “man” is deciphered as “verbal”, capable of speaking. The word carries not only an informational message, but is also reflected in the earthly affairs of the believer, so do not swear and go to confession in church.
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