Mikhail Nesterov’s Visiting a Sorcerer for a Love Potion (1888).
“Because the love of iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Mt. 24:12). Love is destroyed by transgressions: the more sins there are, the less love there is. Where all is sin, do not look for love. Therefore, he who seeks the spread of love and the diminishing of the lack of love ought to be concerned with decreasing sin and curtailing the love of sin…. Having taken up this work, one must use all means to oppose sin. Outward sins are the fruit of inner sinfulness. Inner sinfulness is rooted in egoism and its offspring.
~Saint Theophan the Recluse
