The thief on the left

Today’s iconoclasts...reject the Cross of the Lord. They allow pretty pictures of various biblical events to hang in their homes, but they repudiate the veneration of icons, which remind us that salvation is attained by following a difficult path, a narrow path, such as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself followed, a path of battling one’s sins and vices, a path of fasting and prayer. Those who want to see Christianity only as something rosy and attractive—who think it possible to enter the blessedness of eternity without any particular effort, without forcing themselves, without warring with their passions—they deny all this. They follow the path taken by the thief who hung on the left; they reject all the laws which the Lord Himself delivered and which He sent the Apostles to preach throughout the world; they reject those statues and writings which are sacredly preserved by the holy Orthodox Church.
St. John (Maximovich)