In olden days in Rus’, the Philokalia, the Ladder of St. John Climacus, and other soul-profiting books were always the favorite reading. Unfortunately, modern Orthodox Christians rarely take up these great books. What a pity! After all, they contain answers to questions that are still asked quite often in Confession today: “Father, how can I keep from getting annoyed?” “Father, how can I fight against despondency and laziness?” “How can we live in peace with our loved ones?” “Why do we always return to the same sins?” Every priest hears these and other questions. The questions are answered by the theological science called asceticism. It talks about what passions and sins are, how to fight them, how to acquire spiritual peace, and how to acquire love for God and others.
The word “asceticism” immediately evokes associations with ancient ascetics, Egyptian hermits, and monasteries. And generally, many consider ascetic experiences and the battle with the passions to be purely monastic matters: “We’re weak people,” they say, “living in the world. We’ll make do as we are.” This, of course, is a profound delusion. Every Orthodox Christian without exception is called to the daily battle, the war with the passions and sinful habits. The Apostle Paul tells us about this: They that are Christ’s (that is, all Christians) have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts (Gal. 5:24). Just as soldiers take an oath and make a solemn vow to defend the homeland and crush its enemies, so the Christian, as a soldier of Christ, swears an oath of allegiance to Christ in the Sacrament of Baptism and “renounces the devil and all his works,” that is, sin. And that means a battle with these fierce enemies of our salvation—fallen angels, passions, and sins—awaits us. A battle not for life, but to the death—a difficult and daily, if not hourly, battle. Therefore, “peace is only in our dreams.”1
I would venture to say that asceticism can, in a sense, be called Christian psychology. After all, the word “psychology” in Greek means the “science of the soul.” It’s a science that studies the mechanisms of human behavior and thinking. Practical psychology helps a man cope with his bad inclinations, overcome depression, and learn to get along with himself and others. As we can see, the subjects of attention in asceticism and psychology are one and the same.
St. Theophan the Recluse said it was necessary to compile a textbook on Christian psychology, and he himself used psychological analogies in his instructions to those who posed questions to him. The trouble is that psychology isn’t a single scientific discipline, like physics, mathematics, chemistry, or biology. There are many schools and fields that call themselves psychology. Psychology includes the psychoanalysis of Freud and Jung, as well as modern trends like neuro-linguistic programming. Some fields of psychology are completely unacceptable for Orthodox Christians. Therefore, we need to collect some knowledge bit by bit, separating the wheat from the chaff.
Using some knowledge from practical, applied psychology, I’ll try to rethink it in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Fathers about the struggle against the passions.
Before we begin speaking about the main passions and methods of battling with them, let’s ask ourselves: “Why do we struggle with our sins and passions?” I recently heard one well-known Orthodox theologian, a professor of the Moscow Theological Academy (I won’t say his name, because I really respect him—he was my teacher, but in this case, I fundamentally disagree with him) say: “Worship, prayer, and fasting are, so to speak, scaffolding, braces for erecting the edifice of salvation, but not the goal of salvation, not the meaning of the Christian life. The goal is to be delivered from the passions.” I can’t agree with this, because being delivered from the passions is also not an end in itself. St. Seraphim of Sarov speaks about the true goal: “Acquire a spirit of peace and thousands around you will be saved.” That is, the goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of love for God and others. The Lord Himself speaks of only two commandments, upon which hang all the Law and the Prophets. These are: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Matt. 22:37, 39). Christ didn’t say these are just two of ten or twenty other commandments, but rather: On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets (Mt. 22:40). These are the main commandments, and their fulfillment is the meaning and purpose of the Christian life. And being delivered from the passions is but a means, like prayer, worship, and fasting. If getting rid of the passions were the goal of a Christian, then we would not be too far from Buddhists, who also seek dispassion—nirvana.
It’s impossible for a man to fulfill the two main commandments as long as the passions rule over him. A man who’s subject to passions and sins loves himself and his passion. Can a vainglorious, proud man really love God and others? Or a man who’s in despondency or anger or who serves avarice? These are rhetorical questions.
Serving the passions and sins keeps a Christian from fulfilling the main, key commandment of the New Testament—the commandment of love.
Passions and sufferings
The Church Slavonic word for “passion [strast, страсть]” is translated as “suffering.” From this comes, for example, the word “passion-bearer [strastoterpets, страстотерпец],” that is, one who endures suffering, torment. And indeed, nothing so torments men—neither sickness nor anything else—like their own passions and deep-rooted sins.
First, passions serve to satisfy men’s sinful needs, and then they themselves begin to serve them: Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin (Jn. 8:34).
Of course, every passion has an element of sinful pleasure, but nevertheless, the passions torment, torture, and enslave the sinner.
The most striking examples of passionate addiction are alcoholism and drug addiction. The need for alcohol or drugs not only enslaves the soul of man, but alcohol and drugs become a necessary part of his metabolism, part of the biochemical processes in his body. Alcohol or drug addiction is a spiritual and physical addiction, and it must be treated in two ways, that is, by treating both the soul and body. But at the core lies sin, passion. An alcoholic or drug addict’s family falls apart, he gets kicked out of work, he loses friends, but he sacrifices all this to his passion. An addict is ready to commit any crime to satisfy his passion. It’s no surprise that 90% of crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol and narcotics. That’s how powerful the demon of drunkenness is!
Other passions can enslave the soul no less. But with alcoholism and drug addiction, the enslavement of the soul is further intensified by bodily dependence.
People who are far from the Church and the spiritual life often see nothing but prohibitions in Christianity. They say we’ve invented some kind of taboos, limitations, to make people’s lives more difficult. But there’s nothing random or superfluous in Orthodoxy; everything is quite harmonious and natural. The spiritual world, like the physical world, has its own laws that, like the laws of nature, mustn’t be violated, otherwise it causes damage or even a catastrophe. Some of these laws are expressed in the commandments that protect us from harm. These commandments, moral precepts, can be compared with warning signs: “Caution, high voltage!” “Mortal danger!” “Stop! Radiation contamination zone” and the like, or with labels on containers with poisonous liquids: “Poisonous,” “Toxic,” and so on. We’re given free choice, of course, but if we don’t pay attention to the warning signs, we’ll only have ourselves to blame. Sin is a violation of very subtle and strict laws of a spiritual nature, and it causes harm—to the sinner himself first of all. And in the case of the passions, the harm from sin is multiplied many times over, because the sin becomes constant and acquires the character of a chronic disease.
The word “passion” has two meanings.
First, as St. John Climacus says: “Passion is the name given to the very vice which, having long nested in the soul, has through habit become as if a natural property of it, so that the soul voluntarily and of itself strives toward it” (The Ladder 15:75).2 That is, a passion is something more than a sin; it’s a sinful dependence, slavery to a particular kind of vice.
Second, the word “passion” is a name that unites a whole group of sins. For example, the book, The Eight Main Passions with Their Divisions and Branches, compiled by St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), lists eight passions, and after every one there’s a whole list of sins that are united by this passion. For example, anger: irascibility, acceptance of angry thoughts, fantasizing about anger and revenge, agitation of the heart with fury, darkening of the mind, incessant shouting, arguing, abusive words, hitting, pushing, murder, holding grudges, hatred, enmity, revenge, slander, condemnation, causing disturbance and offense to others.
The majority of the Holy Fathers speak of eight passions:
1. gluttony
2. fornication
3. avarice
4. anger
5. sadness
6. despondency
7. vainglory
8. pride
Some, speaking of the passions, combine sadness and despondency. Actually, these are slightly different passions, but we’ll talk about that later.
Sometimes the eight passions are called mortal sins. They are called this because if they completely take over a man, they can destroy his spiritual life, deprive him of salvation, and lead him to eternal death. According to the Holy Fathers, behind every passion stands a certain demon, and dependence upon it makes a man a prisoner to a certain vice. This teaching is rooted in the Gospel: When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first (Lk. 11:24–26).
Western theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, typically write about seven passions. The number seven has a special meaning in the West in general.
The passions are a perversion of natural human qualities and needs. Human nature has a need for food and drink and a desire to continue the race. Anger can be righteous (for example, towards enemies of the faith), and it can lead to murder. Frugality can turn into avarice. We mourn the loss of loved ones, but it shouldn’t escalate into despair. Determination and perseverance shouldn’t lead to pride.
One Western theologian has a very good example. He compares a passion to a dog. It’s very good when a dog is chained up and guarding our house, but it’s trouble when he gets his paws on the table and devours our lunch.
St. John Cassian the Roman says that the passions are divided into spiritual ones, that is, those that arise from spiritual inclinations, for example anger, despondency, pride, and so on. They feed upon the soul. And the bodily, which originate in the body and feed upon the body. But since man is both physical and spiritual, the passions destroy both the body and the soul.
The same saint writes that the first six passions seem to originate one from another, and “the excess of the previous one gives rise to the next.” For example, from excessive gluttony comes the passion of fornication. From fornication comes avarice, from avarice—anger, from anger—sadness, from sadness—despondency. And each of them is treated by driving out the preceding one. For example, to defeat the passion of lust, you must bind gluttony. To defeat sadness, you must suppress anger, and so on.
Vanity and pride stand apart, but they’re also interconnected. Vainglory gives rise to pride, and we must battle with pride by defeating vainglory. The Holy Fathers say that some passions are committed with the body, but they all originate in the soul, coming from the heart of man, as the Gospel tells us: For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man (Matt. 15:19–20). The most terrible thing is that the passions don’t disappear with the death of the body. But the body, as the instrument with which a man most often commits sin, dies and disappears. And the inability to satisfy the passions is what will torment and burn a man after death.
The Holy Fathers say that the passions will torment a man more intensely there than on earth—burning like fire without sleep or rest. And not only the physical passions will burn men, finding no satisfaction, like lust or drunkenness, but also the spiritual passions: pride, vainglory, anger; after all, it won’t be possible to satisfy them there either. And the main thing is that a man won’t be able to battle with the passions either; it’s possible only on earth, as earthly life is given us for repentance and amendment.
Indeed, what and whom man served in this earthly life is who he’ll be with in eternity. If we serve our passions and the devil, we’ll remain with them. For example, for a drug addict, hell will be an endless, never-ending withdrawal; for an alcoholic—an eternal hangover, and so on. But if a man served God and was with Him on. earth, he can have hope that he’ll be with Him there.
Earthly life is given to us as preparation for eternity, and here on earth we determine what’s more important for us, what constitutes the meaning and pride of our life—the satisfaction of the passions or life with God. Paradise is a place of the special presence of God, the eternal sense of God, and God doesn’t force anyone to be there.
Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin gives an example, an analogy that helps us understand this: “On the second day of Pascha in 1990, Vladyka Alexander of Kostroma celebrated the first service in the Ipatiev Monastery since the time of persecution. It wasn’t clear up until the very last moment whether the service would happen or not—such was the resistance of the museum workers… When Vladyka entered the church, the museum workers, led by the directress, stood in the narthex with angry faces, some with tears in their eyes. ‘Priests,’3 they said, ‘are desecrating the temple of art…’ During the procession, I was holding a bowl of holy water. Then Vladyka said to me: ‘Let’s go to the museum, to their offices!’ So we went. Vladyka loudly said: ‘Christ is Risen!’ and sprinkled the museum workers with holy water. In response, they contorted their faces with anger. Such God-fighters, in crossing the threshold of eternity, will probably refuse to enter into Paradise—it would be unbearably bad for them there.”
