Many Passions War Against Me

V.V. Kashirina | March 6, 2025

 

During the days of the Great Fast, we strive to be more attentive to our inner life, to be in church more often, sanctifying our life with communal and private prayer, asking for God's help in the struggle with sins and passions.

The word “страсть” (passion) etymologically goes back to the Greek πάθος, πάσχω – “to suffer, to experience,” and is used in this meaning when speaking of the Passion of Jesus Christ. Modern dictionaries define the word “страсть” as “a strong feeling that is difficult to control with reason”; this meaning is used to denote sinful states of a person, sinful dispositions and habits that draw him to violate the commandments of God, often even against his will.

Among the main passions are: gluttony, fornication, love of money, anger, sorrow, despondency, vainglory, pride.

Passions, according to the words of the hymns, war against a person throughout their entire life. Venerable Hilarion of Optina wrote to his spiritual child: “You asked me to explain why it is difficult for you because of the constant attacks of the passions: the more you wish to resist them, the more they rise up. There is a story in patristic tradition, how a demon said to an ascetic who rose for prayer: ‘Lie down and sleep, we do not war with the lazy’—so here too, resistance provokes struggle. In the struggle with thoughts, one should not be troubled, and without being troubled, one must call upon the Lord. Where there is trouble, there the spirit of enmity is at work.”

Concerning how to wage spiritual struggle against the passions, much is said in the letters of the Optina Elders.

Venerable Macarius of Optina compared the soul, troubled by passions, to a field overgrown with weeds: “...Can land that is overgrown with thorns and various weeds bring forth any fruit? But when labor is applied, when it is plowed or dug well, and the bad roots are cleared out, then it becomes suitable for receiving good seeds and brings forth fruit; and when weeds grow again, they are not ceased to be destroyed. So also the soil of our heart, neglected because of our carelessness, produces thorns and thistles of passions: if we gradually uproot them, they will be destroyed, and the soil of our heart can receive the seeds of virtues and bring forth fruit—the fulfillment of the commandments of God, which command not only to endure offenses and to pray for those who offend, but even to love enemies.”

According to the word of Elder Macarius, “we cannot be free from the passions, but must always oppose them and not be idle...”; passions must be fought against as against wild beasts, imitating the example of the ascetics: “Our passions are for us merciless tormentors; and they torment and punish a person who is given over to them or was under their power, but who has come to know their darkness and is abandoning them, until their memory is entirely erased from the heart by repentance and resistance. If you have not read the life of Venerable Mary of Egypt, then read how, after her conversion, while in the desert for seventeen years, she fought with the passions as with beasts, until by the grace of God their memory was erased from her heart.”

Concerning how to oppose the passions, Elder Macarius writes that “against each passion one must struggle and oppose to it a virtue: against pride – humility, against gluttony – abstinence, and against envy and remembrance of wrongs – love.”

For the struggle with the passions, inner disposition is of great importance, as Venerable Joseph of Optina writes: “May the Lord help you to struggle with the passions and cleanse your heart from them. One must humble oneself more, acknowledge one's weakness, and ask the Lord for help. One must also, with all one's strength, resist the passion itself and avoid that which arouses the passion. One must have the fear of God and remember that not a single thought is hidden from God, and one must compel oneself to more frequently say the Jesus Prayer.”

In another letter, Elder Joseph remarked: “That the passions do not depart is according to God’s providence. The Holy Fathers write that passions and falls humble a person, bring him to contrition of heart, and thereby attract God’s mercy to him. Of course, one must flee and avoid sin with all one’s strength, for if we fall into sins through our own negligence, we will only deserve greater condemnation; but in cases that happen involuntarily or because of our weakness, let us cleanse them with repentance.”

In the counsels and instructions of the Optina Elders on the struggle with the passions, we observe a wondrous unanimity and rootedness in patristic tradition.

Let us compare, for example, the counsels concerning the struggle with a dominant passion. Venerable John of the Ladder writes: “He who sees in himself any dominant passion must first of all arm himself against it... for if we do not overcome this passion, then victory over the others will be of no benefit to us.”

Venerable Confessor Nikon of Optina: “One must know which passion troubles one the most; that is the one with which it is especially necessary to struggle. For this, one must examine one’s conscience daily...”

In this unceasing struggle with the passions, it is necessary to seek intercession from the Lord Almighty: “From my youth many passions war against me, but do Thou Thyself defend and save me, O my Savior!”

 

Russian source: https://www.optina.ru/25_mnozi_borjut_mja_strasti/