Browsing: pastoral ministry

Source: Pastoral Healthcare of the Ecumenical Patriarchate One of the most perplexing aspects of pastoral ministry, as experienced in my personal encounters with my parishioners, surfacing often during confessions or spiritual counselling, has to do with the subject of exorcism, evil eye, and recently, toll booths in afterlife, toll-gates which our departed brethren are compelled to go through as they sojourn to Heaven or to eternal damnation. I have come to the realization that these questions arise as a result of pathological symptoms of fear, propelled by an innate chronic dread of a vengeful God, determined to punish the transgressor of…