July 27, 2025

“The criminal in your community may be less guilty for his crime than you, his Christian neighbor,” the Elder Zosima says to Alyosha in Dostoevsky’s book “The Brothers Karamazov. “For you could have been a light to the evil doer, yet you were not, for the man remained beside you in darkness. Had you been the kind of example you ought to have been and allowed your light to shine on that lost man’s path, perhaps he might not have stumbled into his crime. If you had loved your neighbor as yourself and lavished upon him some of the care you generously lavish upon yourself, shared some of the warmth God has privileged you to possess, that criminal might have changed in time.” Read more »