Our Venerable Father Simeon of Persia (341). Venerable Acacius, Bishop of Melitene (431-50).
Acts 8:18-25. John 6:35-39.
Read Acts 8:18-25
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
The buying or selling of church positions, privileges or God’s grace is a serious sin and comes out of a disordered heart and perspective. It receives its name from Simon Magus and is called Simony. It comes out of a wrongful desire to control the Divine for my own purposes and worldly benefits. It is disordered because it is focused and wrongfully gives priority to the temporal as opposed to the eternal. It gives priority to the things that perish over the incorruptible. It is a gross misunderstanding of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not an energy to be manipulated for my own gain, but rather the third person of the Trinity with whom I am to relate with, be directed and empowered by. The Holy Spirit needs to guide me and not I the Holy Spirit. Simony is a total reversal of roles and a setting of one’s self over God. This is why it is a terrible sin that comes out of a disordered heart.
The amazing thing is that Simon Magus was not struck down in his sin, but was offered repentance. St. Ambrose of Milan says,
Then, when Simon, depraved by long practice of magic, had thought he could gain by money the power of conferring the grace of Christ and the infusion of the Holy Spirit, Peter said, “You have no part in this faith, for your heart is not right with God. Repent therefore of your wickedness, and pray to the Lord, if perhaps this thought of your heart may be forgiven, for I see that you are in the bond of iniquity and in the bitterness of gall.” We see that Peter by his apostolic authority condemns him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit through vain magic, and all the more because he had no clear consciousness of faith. And yet he did not exclude him from the hope of forgiveness, for he called him to repentance.
(Concerning Repentance, 2.4.23.17)