“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour”, this is God’s ninth Commandment. This is also the title of a story written by journalist and writer Natalia Sukhinina we offer you. Her books are bestsellers among Orthodox believers in Russia. Mikhail Dunayev, Professor at the Moscow Theological Academy wrote in the introduction to one of her books, “Sukhinina teaches Orthodoxy. Not dogmatics, of course, and not church canons, for there are special books for that. She teaches the Orthodox perspective on life using simple examples taken from life…”
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A wonderful Sunday precedes Lent. Orthodox believers call it Forgiveness Sunday. It is when we ask one another’s forgiveness, so that on the following day we might enter the pure waters of Lent cleansed by our own penitence. On that day, I particularly enjoy being in church. People bow before the Lord with a simple and brief “forgive me” on their lips… The clergy address their flock with the word “Forgive”… On that Sunday, the following words of the Saviour are heard in church, But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses…
The ninth Commandment of the Gospel says, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour”. We also like to repeat the words of the Bible, Judge not, that ye be not judged. However, we are often fearful of seriously pondering these words. We are terrified we might see a black void in our hearts… In this respect, I recall one very enlightening story that happened long ago…
The man in this story was a colleague of mine, a very attractive, talented, and wealthy man, who could afford to select his women. He chose another man’s wife, a young trainee, just out of the Philology department, who had married a fellow-student just a year ago. The girl was unable to resist the older man’s attractions and his persistence. Their affair blossomed at their workplace, right before our eyes.
In the summer, they went for a week to the Caucasus, to Abkhazia. Of course, she told her husband that it was an emergency business trip. We could not help gossiping behind her back, and mocking her cuckolded husband. We imagined how the lovers would put on a show for us when they got back. First, she would come into the office, as if nothing had happened. Then, he would follow. They would off-handedly greet each other and get on with their work. So, we chatted thus for quite a while, until one of my male colleagues suddenly got up and said indignantly, “This cannot go on! It is disgusting… This is not just idle gossip! We are accomplices in this lie!”
After that, he went to the phone and dialled the husband’s number. Their conversation was brief. Then, he laid down the receiver and said apologetically, “I cannot stand falsehood. I opt for Truth, even if it pains someone”. This Truth suddenly made us all feel ill at ease…
Today, looking back after all these years, I still cannot explain why I did not rush to the phone and stop my colleague from calling the poor cheated husband. Why did I silently agree to the Truth that he sprang upon him…? Outwardly, it would seem that he had done the right thing… He did not “bear false witness against his friend”… Quite the opposite. He had told him the truth… So, did he please God in doing that? No, he did not. For it was censure that motivated his disclosure of the sad Truth. While he would have done much better to cast his glance deeper into his own self, to see if his own life was up to par.
The sin of that disclosed Truth lies on me, too. Perhaps, it was not I who phoned the cheated husband, not I who spilled the truth about his deceitful wife, but still… I had been a silent and willing witness and accomplice to so much idle gossip and hateful words. Not once had I felt revulsion… Overall, there had been Truth, but no Goodness. There was a condemnation of our neighbour, and my conscience has known no peace for many years, despite attempts to shield myself behind the broad back of that “truth-teller”.
You can never trick your conscience. I had sinned, violating the ninth commandment. Even if I had not made false testimony against my neighbour in the direct sense of the word, my silence at the time, to be perfectly honest, was a form of betrayal…
Another story, involving a woman by the name of Tatiana…
Tatiana was a beautiful, exuberant woman, confident and proud. She was not a close friend of mine, yet phoned me quite often, telling me about her life, and she invariably complained about her health. I was irritated by her complaints. “Blooming with health, yet, all she does is moan and groan about her aches and pains”, I would say to my friends about her. While Tatiana continued to call and invite me over, always according me a cordial greeting, telling me about her admirers, and in the end, at the door when we parted, inserting the invariable, “You know, I feel worse every day… I am getting so weak…”
“That’s because you’re in love!” I joked, thus escaping the need for a false show of compassion on my part. Then she would call again, and if her call caught me at a moment when I was busy with household chores or greeting guests, I would wince and think with irritation, “Here she goes again! Spouting forth about her ill health… What does she think I am, her confessor? She is so used to commanding everyone’s attention, accustomed to being pampered…”
Not once did I feel compassion for her, for I never believed her. I was sure she was just being temperamental. A month after our last talk with her, her daughter called me to say, “Mother died… Of cancer… The funeral is on Thursday…”
The burial service was in church, and the priest spoke in his sermon of how we all had something to ask others’ forgiveness for. I had the feeling he was looking straight at me, and my cheeks flamed from embarrassment, while the floor beneath my feet felt like burning coal. I had never offered her my compassion, never prayed for her as for the sick, I had disbelieved her every word and censured her… No matter how many times I might say, “forgive me” in my mind. It did not ease the burden of sin weighing heavily on me. Soon after the funeral, while reading Dostoyevsky I came across words that blazed a trail in my soul, “Each one of us is to blame before everyone else”.
The sorrow of that story is ever with me… Of course, it taught me to look closely at people, try to go deeper, beyond their smiles and joking faces, lavish make-up, and prosperous looks… On several occasions, I subjected myself to the following experiment. I would time myself, and say, as of now; I shall try not to censure anyone for 30 minutes!
Well, I could manage no more than seven minutes. After that, if not my tongue, then my thoughts would begin to formulate something contemptible. I would be forced to curtail the experiment, aghast at the deplorable sinfulness of my corroded heart. We read in Orthodox literature about the peace in the hearts of the Holy Fathers, the Recluses, and Elders who lived in Solitude. We do not have this peace in our hearts. As to why… In inhaling the noxious air of sin, clouding our daily existence, we poison our flesh and blood, and sow discord in our souls. Where there is discord, there can be no peace…”
17 February 2007
Tatiana Shvetsova
Voice of Russia World Service
The Christian Message from Moscow
