Elder Paisios said: Often we see a person and we say a couple spiritual words to him and he converts. Later we say, “Ah, I saved someone.” I believe that the person who has the disposition and goodness within him, if he doesn’t convert from what we say, would convert from the sight of a bear or a fox or from anything else. Let us beware of false evangelization.
(Paisios (also known as Eznepidis) was a twentieth-century monk at Athos, who spent much of his life at the Panagouda hermitage.)
