Let us explain what has been said here about faith by a parable. For example, you may have heard that in a certain place near you there is a colossal, wonderful building. Its height reaches to heaven itself. The entrance to it is somewhat hidden, and without guidance not everyone can find it. There are many attendants standing by to direct you and guide you further. These attendants are at the same time physicians for the sick and crippled, and dispensers of the food needed for the journey. There are so many stairwells to ascend that nearly everyone has his own. But all the stairs are steep, narrow and poorly lighted so that without a guide and outside help it is impossible to take a single step, especially at the beginning. This building was the work of the wisest architect, and it was made just for the purpose of enabling people to ascend to heaven, to paradise itself.

After hearing all this, no doubt you would like to be in that place where this building leads. If this is the case, how are you going to respond? First of all you must go to the building, examine it carefully, ask the attendants about all the details concerning the building itself, its purpose, how to enter it, and so on. The attendants will gladly tell you all that is necessary. If you are an educated person, go up to the building itself, look at it from all sides and see whether it is built on a strong foundation and whether it can bear the actual weight of the building as well as the people who enter it. If you are very learned, then examine the materials of which it is made, find out about and investigate all that your eyes can see, and for that purpose you may even use the necessary instruments. When you are certain that the building is sound, strong and can serve its purpose completely, give up all further search and leave behind all instruments with which you have made your investigations, because from this point on they will only hinder and not help. Without doubt or hesitation enter the building itself, and go without stopping and without fearing the difficulty of the ascent, which really is difficult, especially at the beginning. The ascent to heaven is difficult, but on the other hand it leads straight to the object of our aspirations, which everyone should seek all their life. Inside this building you will meet fellow travelers with whom you will go hand in hand, and doctors if you happen to fall and be bruised; and you will find dispensers of food you will need for the journey; you will also find guides and directors and teachers who will tell you all that is necessary, and whom you will find and meet until you meet the Lord and Creator of the building Himself. But in order to reach the end of the journey more quickly and more surely, the best and most hopeful thing to do is to surrender oneself completely to the will of the Builder and Lord.

Would it not be most unreasonable if, on the other hand, instead of examining the building from its foundation, out of pride, self-confidence or obstinacy, you desired to examine only the very top of the building? Would it not be foolish for a person who had seen only certain parts of the building but had been unable to examine them properly to presume to judge them and to draw conclusions about the whole building from them? Would it not be unreasonable and ridiculous on his part if, without examining it at all, scarcely entering the enclosure of the building, he were suddenly to begin to criticize various things in it, and to convince others that the building was unsound and unnecessary; or instead of the laws and teaching of the Architect and Master of the house, he were to put forward his own ideas and teaching? Perhaps most foolish of all would be the man who, when he had hardly entered the enclosure, abandoned all desire to enter the building and refused even to look at it.

For anyone who has a sincere desire to be where the building leads it is sufficient if he is convinced that it is sound and established on a firm foundation, and built not by the hands of ordinary artists and workmen, but by the hands of the great artist who opened the way into it and cleansed it by His blood and went by it Himself first. It is sufficient to be convinced of this; and all the rest, that is, why it is built as it is and not otherwise, or why it is there and not in another place; these matters are not important to you. What is needful for you is to surrender yourself to the will of the Master of the house, and with trust in His help and love for Him in your heart to go to Him and follow Him in the manner that He has instructed you.

Let us apply this parable to Orthodoxy. The building built on earth and reaching to Heaven is our Orthodox Christian faith; the Architect and Master of the house is Jesus Christ; the attendants are the shepherds and teachers of the Church, and so on.

~ St. Innocent, An Indication of the Way Into the Heavenly Kingdom, from ch. 3