One can only die a Christian

​"Man cannot live a Christian. He can only die a daily death...

Christ is perfect God and perfect man-perfect man in the sense of ultimate perfection, of real, genuine man. Only he, the all-perfect man, drained to the depths all the fullness of human experience, while those who follow after him, led by his commandment and his Spirit, only approach this fullness, without arriving at its totality, at least in the confines of this earthly life.

In writing of the fullness of universal human experience I feel convinced that it is obtainable in all circumstances, so that in this respect monasticism is not an exception to the rule. Each of us is given the same commandment - in other words, none of us is belittled in the sight of God, God has a like measure of regard for each of us. Each of us is provided with the same sum- if I may put it that way - sufficient to acquire the ultimate perfection attainable by man, the price of which is one and the same for all - to be utterly unsparing of self. Being completely unsparing of oneself does not mean just "bestowing all one's goods to feed the poor, or giving one's body to be burned, " but forsaking all that one has in the sphere of one's created being in its separateness from God, in selfish individualism and opposition to one's fellow man.

This is only fully to be attained in death, and so to live as a Christian in effect is impossible - one can only die a Christian."

+ St Sophrony of Essex, "The Staretz' Demise" in St Silouan the Athonite, (Yonkers, NY: SVS Press, 2021) p. 215-217