Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church

1. The Difficult War

It has been stated many times that prayer is a powerful activity, which benefits the person who offers the prayer, and is also pleasing to God. The fact that both of these statements are true, irritates the devil, and causes him to fight against the person who engages in prayer. Therefore, the faithful person who desires to unite himself to God through prayer, faces many obstacles placed by demons. These demons place barriers that are systematically organized and planned, in order that their attacks might be successful.

Due to this inevitable attack, prayer becomes an act of labour, requiring much toil. In fact, it requires more effort than any other kind of work. That is why one of the "Desert Fathers" emphasizes that "there is no greater fatigue than for someone to pray to God". In order for one to pray until his last breath, he must necessarily struggle. It is not simply the praying which is so tiring, but primarily it is the implacable warfare of the demons making the prayer so fatiguing. Therefore, the hatred, which the demons have for those who pray, is real.

The war between the person who prays, and the demons, has two aspects to it: 1) The visible aspect (mostly concerning beginners), and 2) The invisible aspect (primarily involving the more advanced). Demons might employ sights, sounds, objects, anything to draw attention away from prayer. In any case, whether the person praying is a beginner or advanced, the demons most often utilize the weapon of thoughts.

It is a truly difficult contest one faces, when choosing to begin the battle against thoughts. Thoughts, and their offspring "reasonings", are the greatest barrier man faces in his quest for spiritual education and perfection. And this perfection cannot be achieved by any other means than by the continuous invocation of the Name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. In fact, the invocation of this Name must be done with such frequency, that, as St. Gregory the Theologian says, "It is more desirable for one to commemorate God, than it is to breathe".

There exists, however, a purely interior war. There is no war more fierce than an irrational thought which is allowed to nest in our soul. Everything which originates from inside us, is more intense than that which assaults us from the outside. The illnesses which are borne inside us, are sly and treacherous, causing even greater damage than an external wound. Many nations in history have suffered greater damage from internal foes than invaders from the outside.

Because of this, then, the soul cannot be destroyed as much by the machinations that come from the outside, as by the diseases which grow inside: loathsome, obscene and blasphemous thoughts.

to be continued