Conscience is contemporary with man and has the purpose of constantly reminding him what man should be on earth and beyond the grave, according to the purpose for which he was created. If the spirit is a necessary, basic part of man, then conscience, according to the words of St. Paul, belongs to every person. But why then does it appear among various peoples at various times and in various degrees of intellectual development in one and the same people, and even in persons of completely different internal and external activity? The answer to this we see in the word of God and in actuality. Some live by the spirit, others by the flesh; the former recognize the demands of conscience as binding for them, the latter do not! A demand of conscience is a demand of man's spiritual nature itself. Fulfilling the demand of conscience, man fulfills his purpose; if he does not fulfill it, if he does not consider himself obliged to follow the inner voice and acts contrary to nature, he rejects his purpose, he does not recognize the goal of his existence. The word of God bear witness of the conscience, as belonging to the spirit, which the first humans had. If the first people had no conscience immediately after the fall, then why would they have been frightened and hidden themselves from God, why would they have covered their nakedness? Shame - the expression of conscience - moved them to this.
Shame, embarrassment, is a felling that belongs to the spirit of man. The meaning of shame is a desire, a striving to cover one's nakedness, one's weakness, disgrace; to cover that which is unnatural to him: vice, passion, in short, his evil.
+Monk Mitrophan, from How Our Departed Ones Live, Fourth Part, Section 2, chapter 9.
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