Being Wronged Does Not Excuse Our Own Anger: A Lesson from Abba Dorotheus

The speaker reflects on a teaching attributed to Abba Dorotheus about anger and blame, arguing that being sinned against does not give us permission to stop examining ourselves. Someone may have genuinely wronged you through cruelty, dishonesty, insult, or betrayal, and their sin does not become acceptable because God can use the experience for your repentance.

But their wrongdoing also does not make every response that follows from us righteous. Orthodoxy, the speaker says, gives room to condemn what was actually wrong without using another person's sin as an excuse to ignore what our own anger, resentment, pride, or loss of self-control may have exposed. The speaker warns against fooling yourself into believing another person created the passion inside you.

The one who spoke did not put him in a bad mood; he only showed that the passion already existed in him, and the speaker admits it is a brutal one. He says he cannot blame the other person for the fact that he lost his mind. He stresses the distinction: Abba Dorotheus is not saying the other person was right to offend you, and what they did may have been wrong, possibly probably so.

The question is what his own response revealed about him. The post asks two questions: not merely, "What did they do to me?" but also, "What did this reveal in me that still needs healing?" That second question does not absolve the offender. It refuses to let their sin become an excuse for ours. The post promotes Episode 80 of the Orthodox Health Podcast, titled "Why You Need to Be Bad at Something: The Humility of Being a Beginner," and invites readers to comment to receive the full episode.