Grimacing like a martyr, the bishop focused his cold grey eyes on Hryhoriy.
“Very grandiloquent, my good fellow,” he said with restraint. “Your thoughts verge on heresy.” He stopped Skovoroda with his raised hand, for the fellow wanted to contradict him. “Of course, your words bear a scrap of verity, a small truth… However, the great truth in the name of which we live and struggle, tramples the smaller ones, sacrifices them. Together with those who cling to them,” he added forcefully.
“This is hypocrisy!” Skovoroda burst out. “Once a mother kills her children, she is no longer a mother. Having committed maternal filicide, she becomes a putrid corpse!”
Iosaf closed his eyes, as if defending himself, and once Hryhoriy had grown silent, he pronounced: “In our Collegium there is a tradition
