“Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers” (Eph. 4:29). Evil-speaking is a form of cursing another person; it is a grave sin that leads a person astray, often making it difficult to return to the right path. The sin of judging and slandering gives rise to hatred and alienates one from love. Hatred is the most tormenting of afflictions—it is a cruel disease of the soul. A person filled with self-love, pride, vanity, and envy instinctively speaks evil of others, judges them, and strives with all his strength to slander and humiliate them, in order to exalt himself and to feed his vanity and pride. The Gospel reminds us of the destructive nature of judgment and slander: “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt. 7:1); “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36); “And whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire” (Matt. 5:22).
The God-bearing Saint John Chrysostom reminds us that fervent prayer for others is the true opposite of slander, gossip, and judgment: “Do not be afraid to pray for the ungodly—for God Himself desires this. Be afraid only of cursing others, for He does not desire that. And if it is necessary to pray for the ungodly, it is certainly permissible to pray for heretics, for we ought to pray for all people and not persecute them. There is also another reason this is fitting—because we share the same nature with them. Moreover, God approves of and graciously receives our mutual love and goodwill” (Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle to Timothy, 2:4).
When our gaze is fixed upon Christ and when the Gospel is the measure of our life, our words will then flow from the heart. On the other hand, when we are distant from the source of grace and from communion with the Lord, then malicious, deceitful, and cunning words become the expression of a corrupted heart—its venom comparable to that of a serpent. The sin of evil-speaking is ruinous and dreadful, for the soul of one who becomes enslaved to it cannot dwell with Christ; it is alien to the Kingdom of God, just as darkness is alien to light, illness to health, malice to contrition. “For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14).
In the lives of many of God’s great saints, we find that they too were slandered. Saint Gregory the Theologian and Saint John Chrysostom were exiled because malicious, prideful, and vain people gossiped about and slandered them. Saint Gregory was accused of unlawfully seizing the see of Constantinople, even though it was precisely through his preaching that the city was returned to Orthodox Christians from the hands of Arian heretics. In the life of Saint Macarius the Great, we find testimony that he too was the victim of jealousy, slander, and lies. This great ascetic was falsely accused of having raped a young girl who, allegedly, became pregnant. Saint Macarius bore this humiliation; he was beaten, slandered throughout the village, rejected, and mocked. He was compelled to provide for the girl until she gave birth. When she fell into severe labour pains, she confessed that the saint was innocent and had been unjustly accused.
Saint Maximus the Confessor taught about the importance of praying for slanderers and for all those who harbour any form of malice, vanity, or jealousy toward another person. This holy father advised: “As much as you pray for those who slander you and seek in every way to defile your name and the purity of your heart, so much will God reveal the truth about you to them.” These Spirit-bearing words show that slander and evil-speaking will eventually reveal their emptiness and baselessness, and that the one who suffers because of slander, lies, judgment, envy—that is, evil-speaking—walks the path of Christ, becomes spiritually strengthened, and receives the crown from the Lord. If we perceive this with spiritual eyes, we will accept and receive it into our hearts as a blessing. But if we view it through the lens of this temporal life, it will appear as foolishness to us.
“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil” (Matt. 12:35)
These words clearly testify that judgment, intrigue, and the deliberate infliction of harm upon another reveal the defilement of the soul in one who is enslaved to such sins. This truth is reinforced by the words of Saint Bishop Nikolaj of Ohrid, Žiča, and Lelić, who, with pastoral insight and fatherly love, instructs: “How can one distinguish a righteous man from a sinner? A righteous man, upon seeing people walking somewhere, thinks in his heart: good Christians are going to the temple of God to pray. But a man who is accustomed to evil-speaking, seeing those same people, thinks: they are probably robbers, going to assault someone.” Sadly, the words of Saint Nikolaj are all too often our reality, as we readily pass judgment and form opinions of others, forgetting that judgment belongs to God alone, while we are called to respond to His commandment to love one another, that we might behold the image of God in the face of our fellow man. A hypocritical person is incapable and unwilling to offer his face and his whole being sincerely and unreservedly to the face of another; instead, he condemns and slanders, inflicting injustice that often leads to another’s crucifixion and suffering.
Abba Dorotheos, a great teacher of spiritual life, teaches that falsehood is not limited to spoken lies, but may also be expressed through thoughts and, even more profoundly, through one’s way of life. From all this, it follows that the tendency to gossip and to bear false witness against one’s neighbour in their absence is the most obvious expression of hypocrisy—not only in our time but in all times. The one who tramples upon the image of God in the person he slanders is always narrow-hearted and anxious, imprisoned in his own small world of self-deception; he is the very person of whom the Apostle Paul writes: “You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections” (2 Cor. 6:12).
Our own time is not spared from hypocrisy, judgment, gossip, and various expressions of malice towards others. Recently, I heard a wise word from a spiritual father: “A person who works and strives may sin due to human weakness, but one who is filled with sloth and indifference becomes possessed by the devil in mind and heart. Such a person, consumed by envy, jealousy, and vanity, does everything in his power to hinder and undermine the one who, with perseverance, labours in word and deed, striving to justify the trust placed in him—being aware that every honest and self-sacrificial labour is equal to prayer.”
A lying mouth and a hypocritical life are a mirror of the inner darkness of a person, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Every Christian, as a member of the Church and as part of the royal priesthood, is called to serve the Church both by the manner of his life and by the particular gifts bestowed upon him. Sadly, we are also witnesses in our own time to instances in which Christians hinder one another, seeking to obstruct a brother who walks steadfastly upon the path of righteousness. If someone is successful and virtuous in a particular endeavour, he often becomes the target of unjust and baseless attacks. He who condemns, gossips, and slanders his brother must understand that one’s identity can never be built upon the humiliation, defamation, or denial of another person—especially not by tarnishing another’s face. The Lord teaches and calls us to see the other—every person—as the foundation upon which we build our true identity.
The human word is sacred, yet it is also a challenge and a responsibility. Does not the Lord warn us that for every word spoken we shall give account on the day of Judgment? “By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt. 12:36–37). When the wise Solomon lists what the Lord hates—what is an abomination to His soul—half of the list concerns the tongue. “A lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood” (Prov. 6:16–17) are equally detestable in the sight of the Lord. The Lord abhors the heart that devises wicked plans, the feet that are swift in running to evil, the false witness who speaks lies, and the one who sows discord among brethren (Prov. 6:16–19).
We are called to remember and to come to our senses, that we may understand that speech can be healing (Prov. 12:10), that “a wholesome tongue is a tree of life” (Prov. 15:4), but also that the tongue may be “a deadly arrow” (Ps. 52:2) and “a sharp sword” (Ps. 64:3–4).
Amid the sinful burden of malice, judgment, slander, gossip, and other poisonous darts aimed at our neighbours, we are called to pray each day that the Lord would preserve us in goodness and virtue, granting us strength to pray for those who harm us in various ways—because, darkened by sin, they know not what they do. Lord, grant us strength to walk the path of love and to uphold, until the end, the words from the Lenten prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian: “O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brother or sister, for You are blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.”
This text was published on the Kinonia portal in the section “From the Editor’s Pen,” on 10 July 2025.
WRITTEN BY: Catechist Branislav Ilić, Editor of the Kinonia Portal
