The gospel tells us that Christ often addressed the people with parables. They were supposed to arouse certain moral feelings in a person. Christ used parables as images for a clearer understanding of the basic moral truths of Christianity.
The parable of the publican and the Pharisee is set forth in the Gospel of Luke. Thus, the Holy Scriptures tells of two people who went into the temple to pray. One of them was a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisees in the Jewish people were called people who had the status of experts on the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament. The Pharisees were respected by the people, they could be religious law teachers of the Jews. Tax collectors were called tax collectors. People treated such people with contempt.
Christ tells us that the Pharisee, entering the temple, stood in the middle and proudly began to pray. The Jewish law teacher thanked God for not being as sinful as everyone else. The Pharisee referred to obligatory fasting, prayers, which he performed in the glory of the Lord. At the same time, it was said with a sense of vanity. Unlike the Pharisee, the publican modestly stood at the end of the temple and beat himself in the chest with humble words that the Lord be merciful to him a sinner.
Christ, having finished his story, announced to people that it was the publican who came out of the temple justified by God.
This narrative means that a person should not have pride, vanity and complacency. The publican was a madman before God, as he praised himself more, forgetting that every person has certain sins. The publican showed humility. He experienced a deep sense of repentance before God for his life. That is why the publican modestly stood apart and prayed for forgiveness.
The Orthodox Church says that humility and the understanding of one's sins, together with a repentant feeling, exalts a person before God. It is an objective view of one’s sinfulness that opens a person to the path to the Creator and the possibility of moral perfection. No knowledge of God can be useful if a person is proud of them and puts himself above other people.
