Causes of cowardice. Cowardice - what is it? How to overcome cowardice within yourself

Archbishop Averky (Taushev)

The sin of cowardice was considered by many and especially today is considered an unimportant, insignificant, and therefore forgivable sin. In fact, this is not at all the case: cowardice can lead a person to a very serious offense and even to the greatest crime imaginable.

And we will see this now.

On the 3rd week of Easter, St. The Church, continuing to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, especially, in connection with this, celebrates memory of the holy righteous Myrrh-Bearing Women, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, hidden, “fear for the sake of the Jews,” disciples of Christ, for all these persons appeared as witnesses of Christ’s death on the cross, His burial and then His glorious Resurrection from the dead.

In this regard, the entire extremely touching Divine service of this Sunday and the following week reminds us of the Divine service of Great Friday and Great Saturday, since even some hymns are borrowed entirely from the rites of these days, only with additions in which Christ is glorified as already Risen.

The Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women are those women spiritually blessed by the Lord Jesus Christ who were devoted to Him to the point of self-forgetfulness, served Him during His earthly life “from their possessions” (Luke 8:2-3), that is, they supported Him financially and His disciples, caring for their earthly needs, fearlessly followed Him to Golgotha, mourning Him (Luke 23:27), contemplated His suffering on the cross and participated in His burial in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, who asked the Body of Jesus from Pilate and laid it there , together with Nicodemus, who brought a fragrant composition of myrrh and aloes, wrapped in a shroud, in his new tomb (Matt. 28:57-61; John 19:38-42).

All this happened on Friday before evening, when the Jews could no longer do anything until the end of the Sabbath day of rest. Therefore, all this was done hastily, and the women who worshiped the Lord believed that the body of their beloved Teacher was not given enough honor by pouring precious aromas on Him. And so, having bought these aromas and fragrant ointments on the same Friday before darkness set in, they, like true Jewish women, “remained at rest on the Sabbath according to the commandment” (Luke 23:54-56).

“On the very first day of the week, very early, bringing the spices they had prepared, they came to the tomb” (Luke 24:1). Mary Magdalene, who most enthusiastically loved the Lord, was ahead of them all, came before everyone else, “while it was still dark” (John 20:1) and saw “that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb” (John 20:1), about which she ran rather tell the Lord’s disciples Peter and John. For this zeal, she was awarded the first of all the Myrrh-Bearing Women (after the Most Pure Mother of God, as church tradition says) to see the Risen Lord, when she came to the tomb a second time, stood there and cried, wondering how to explain that she did not find the Body of the Lord in open coffin. The Lord honored her with great honor, instructing her to announce to His disciples about His resurrection from the dead (John 20:11-18), and about His upcoming ascension to God the Father.

Since then St. Mary Magdalene took upon herself the apostolic mission - to proclaim everywhere and to everyone about the great event of the Resurrection of Christ, for which she was named St. Church "equal to the apostles". As legend says, with a sermon about Christ Risen from the dead, she reached the very royal city of Rome, appeared before the most formidable and gloomy Caesar of Rome - Emperor Tiberius and presented him with a red egg, greeting him with the words of the Easter greeting of Christians: “Christ is Risen!” »

In response to the bewilderment expressed by Caesar about what all this meant, she preached to him about the Resurrection of Christ, telling in detail the whole story of the unrighteous condemnation of the Lord to death on the cross by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, at the request of the Jewish high priests and elders of the people.

Having heard this, Tiberius, like a true Roman (and the Romans were proud of their exemplary justice!), was inflamed with anger at Pilate, who allowed such an unjust trial, contrary to Roman laws, summoned him to him from Judea, removed him from the high post of procurator and sent him into exile, where In a difficult exile, he sadly ended his days, thus suffering the righteous punishment of God for condemning the Son of God to death: tormented by melancholy and despair, he committed suicide.

How unusually instructive and intelligible all this is for us!

After all, what prompted Pilate to sign the death sentence of the Lord Jesus Christ, without which the Jews did not dare and did not have the right to put Him to death?

Did he really consider the Lord a dangerous state criminal who would deserve such a shameful and painful execution as crucifixion?

Not at all, and quite the opposite!

From all the gospel narratives of all four evangelists, we clearly see that he tried in every possible way to save the Lord from the malice of the Jews who hated Him so fiercely. And not only that: not only did he not find any guilt in Him, as he himself declared this to the Jews (John 18:38), but he even considered Him Righteous and washed his hands before the people, as a sign that he considers himself innocent of His blood (Matthew 27:24). A naive action, for it depended on whether or not to shed the blood of this Righteous One, but it clearly shows that Pilate did not want death of the Lord! And he repeatedly offered to let the Lord go, knowing that, in fact, it was not the people who demanded His death, but the high priests, who “betrayed Him out of envy” (John 15:10).

But having successfully used, through slander, the so-called “herd feeling,” the high priests were so able to arouse and turn the people against the Lord that when asked by Pilate, who was trying to free the Lord: “Which of the two do you want me to release to you, Barabbas or Jesus, who is called Christ ? ", they answered: "Barabbas" and began to shout furiously, demanding the death of the Lord: "Take him, take him, crucify him! "(Matt. 27:17-24 and John 19:15).

By all accounts, this was very unpleasant for Pilate, but he, hearing such a frantic cry of the people, was afraid that popular indignation and even an uprising against the Roman authorities would occur, for which he would then have to answer to the Roman Caesar. And he was especially frightened by those shouting: “If you let Him go, you are not a friend of Caesar; “Everyone who makes himself a king is adversary to Caesar” (John 19:12). It is known from history that Emperor Tiberius was a very suspicious person and willingly accepted all sorts of denunciations, and therefore Pilate was afraid that they might make a denunciation against him, as if he were in a conspiracy with a state criminal-rebel against the imperial power, and then he himself could suffer severely from Tiberius. And this fear decided everything: “Pilate decided to act at their request, and released the robber Barabbas, who had been imprisoned for indignation and murder; but he gave Jesus over to their will” (Luke 23:24-25), condemning Him to be crucified. “And they took Jesus and led him away” (John 19:16).

What, therefore, played the decisive role in condemning the Lord to the blasphemous and painful death on the cross?

Cowardice Pilate, who, fearing for his own fate, bent his soul and acted against his conscience, condemning an innocent person to death, even contrary to Roman state laws, which required a thorough and fair trial.

And what? Did this manifestation of cowardice help Pilate?

We see that it is not! He still suffered from the same Emperor Tiberius whom he feared. God's punishment befell him both for his cowardice and for his unrighteous judgment of the Man whom he recognized as Righteous. But this was not a simple righteous man, but the Incarnate Only Begotten Son of God Himself.

How immeasurably great, therefore, is the crime of Pilate, in which he, only out of his cowardice, participated with the Jews!

Hence the conclusion: this is how dangerous and harmful cowardice is and what disastrous consequences it can lead to a person for whom the first place is not his moral duty, not the voice of conscience, but whatever his purely personal egoistic considerations and interests!

And that is why it is necessary in every possible way to drive away from oneself any manifestation of cowardice, especially for those who occupy any responsible position and must judge according to the truth, always acting in everything only according to their conscience, and for us Christians, also according to the commands of the Word of God, according to the commandments of Christ and according to the teachings of our St. Churches, which were given to us by God, in order to control our conscience, which can sometimes, under the influence of the enemy of God and the enemy of human salvation, become deaf and deviate from the right path and not always accurately guide our actions and behavior.

But what can we say about our truly terrible, almost unscrupulous time, when the majority of people, even those occupying the highest positions and positions in public, state and church life, out of cowardice and pursuing only their own personal interests, are ready to commit any injustice and commit any crime - ready to trample all laws, both Divine and human, just so as not to cause any harm or damage to themselves, but, on the contrary, to gain some benefit for themselves? This is such a common occurrence now!

Let us more often remind ourselves and others of Pilate’s cowardice, which led him to such a terrible crime as Deicide, and did not help him at all, just as it will not help anyone else who acts out of the inspiration of cowardice, and not according to his duty and the suggestions of an enlightened conscience The law of God.

“Lord, deliver me from all ignorance, oblivion, cowardice, and petrified insensibility! “- this is how our Holy Church teaches us to pray to God every day when going to sleep.

Lord, always admonish us and deliver us from this destructive sin of Pilate!

Blessed is the one who has not given himself room for doubt about God, who has not fallen into cowardice at the sight of the present, but awaits what is expected; who did not have an incredulous thought about the Creator of us (St. Basil the Great, 5, 162).

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Do not be faint-hearted, looking at the present, but expect that blissful and endless life, for then you will see that poverty, disgrace, and deprivation of pleasures serve for the good of the righteous (St. Basil the Great, 5, 318).

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Do not be faint-hearted when you see that in this life you are in disgrace, or in illness, or in extreme old age and poverty. He who feeds the birds of the air will not leave you without His provision (St. Ephraim the Syrian, 30, 501).

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Those souls who succumb to timidity and fear, unable to endure sorrows, even reach the point of negligence, impatience and despair, are led astray from the righteous path, and do not fully expect the Lord’s mercy; How can those who have turned out to be unrighteous gain eternal life? For every soul, for the sake of the Lord who died for us, until death is obliged to be generous, endure to the end and maintain trust in Him, in order to thus be worthy of eternal salvation (St. Ephraim the Syrian, 31, 528).

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Do not indulge in laziness because the world hates you; those who hate are very unhappy, but those who are hated for Christ's sake are blessed. For He will come and reward everyone according to their deeds (St. Ephraim the Syrian, 32, 150–151).

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Riches cannot benefit the faint-hearted; poverty will never harm the generous (St. John Chrysostom, 45, 176).

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Let us avoid... cowardice, let us hasten to the haven of long-suffering, so that here too we can find peace for our souls... and achieve future blessings... (St. John Chrysostom, 52, 635).

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...<Малодушие>is the cause of death, like carelessness. He who cannot bear insults is cowardly, he who cannot bear temptations is cowardly... (St. John Chrysostom, 54, 558).

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The husband's anger is tamed by a wise servant: who can endure a cowardly man? (). Says this<царь Соломон>because cowardice is worse than anger. The latter can be calmed even by a slave who does not have the courage of a free man, and<малодушия>not (can destroy). Just as the Lord is called an attacking tiger in relation to sinners and a stone of temptation for unbelievers, so is the cowardly among those who sin (St. John Chrysostom, 55, 1124–1125).

* * *

Arming yourself with the hope that future benefits will be given to those who erected glorious victorious monuments over vice, perfectly protecting yourself from everywhere, and building this strong wall with prayers, repel the attack of cowardice; because it will strongly take possession of a courageous soul if, constantly dreaming of crowns, it does not endure sorrows (St. Isidore Pelusiot, 62, 48).

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There are some people who are so exhausted by the sorrows that occur that they renounce life itself and consider death sweet, just to get rid of sorrows, but this comes from cowardice and a lot of foolishness, for such people do not know the terrible need that meets us upon the departure of the soul from the body (St. Abba Dorotheos, 29, 137).

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Let us not... cry and be faint-hearted, despite the fact that our life saddens and torments our hearts... (St. Theodore the Studite, 92.226).

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Let us not be faint-hearted, considering how little we can do on our own (St. Theodore the Studite, 92, 310).

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Cowardice and confusion are born from unbelief; but as soon as the ascetic resorts to faith, cowardice and confusion disappear, like the darkness of the night from the rising sun (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, 42, 148).

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One righteous desert dweller, noticing that his sick disciple was expressing impatience with frequent sighs, said to him: “Do not be cowardly, my son! Your body, exhausted by illness, can be a saving medicine for your soul. If you are like iron in your deeds, then the fire of suffering will cleanse you of rust; if you are gold, then this fire will add more shine to your virtue” (116, 79).

Conversation with the Chairman of the Synodal Department for Interaction with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Institutions, Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, on the Soyuz TV channel

– Hello, dear TV viewers.

Our guest is Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies.

Father, I would like to raise what seems to me to be a very important topic for every Christian - to talk about the sin of cowardice. Unfortunately, we all suffer from this sin; no one can call himself a soldier of Christ, as the first martyrs of Christianity were. What is cowardice, how does it manifest itself in our lives, what are its causes?

Effeminacy spoils a person

– There are many reasons. These are certain properties of human character, and the results of upbringing; there is also a lack of faith. Let's start with character. There are people who are naturally brave, and there are others who are cowardly. If a cowardly person overcomes his cowardice and accomplishes a feat, then his feat will be more significant in the eyes of God than if a brave person did it. After all, people are divided by strength of mind, strength of soul, and ability to perform feats.

Now about education. Our national tragedy is having few children. Therefore, mothers try to protect their only children from everything. They wrap them up endlessly, which leads to colds - the child sweats and catches a cold. They protect them from communicating with their peers. They always protect the child, regardless of whether he is right or wrong, they are always on his side, and this very often strengthens the young person in a state of impunity. They try to free the child from physical education, they always say that he needs to rest more, they always ask if anything hurts; If a child falls, they immediately run to pick him up.

With such upbringing, a person grows up cowardly. This became a real tragedy - it is difficult to expect heroism, responsibility, and so on from people with such an upbringing. That is, the soul becomes, as it were, shallow. Such a person is not capable of a noble act - magnanimous, as we say, that is, to forgive a person with all his heart, to help a person with all his heart. It is difficult for a cowardly person to stand up when the weak are offended; it is difficult for him to stand up for the truth; for a generous person, it is the opposite.

“It seems to me that cowardice prevents you from creating families.”

– Of course, because indecision arises: what will come of this, and what will happen next, and how to live then? The cowardly one tries to live at the expense of someone, as he was used to with his mother: “so that we have everything, and we don’t have to pay anything for it.” At the slightest difficulty, the faint-hearted breaks down and gives up everything.

– How are cowardice and fear related?

- The cowardly is more timid.

– Maybe, indeed, a person in childhood was so frightened by a harsh upbringing or unfair treatment of himself that as a result he became cowardly?

– Severe upbringing cannot frighten and spoil a child; only pampered upbringing spoils him. And if the upbringing is harsh, but with love, then the child submits with pleasure.

“But here we very rarely do this with love, most often with cruelty.”

– Cruelty is an unnatural thing. Man is kind by nature, and it takes a lot of work to make him into a cruel person.

- But, father, now you look at the behavior of some children and you cannot say that they are kind creatures.

“They just haven’t developed all their senses yet.” I watched a scene that amazed me extremely. A three-year-old girl took a cat that was lying on the grass and dragged it onto the asphalt, saying: “What are you doing, why are you lying on the grass? She's in pain." This suggests that the child even feels the pain of the grass, but these feelings are still so undeveloped that she cannot understand that the cat is uncomfortable lying on the asphalt, and the grass, after the pussy lies down, can rise. And this scene was so vivid that I remembered it for the rest of my life. The girl is kind by nature, but she doesn’t yet have life experience, she doesn’t understand that pussy also wants to lie on the grass, that grass was created by God, including for pussy to lie on it. All this still needs to be explained to her, but the impulse is to feel sorry for the grass, this is surprising in such a small child.

– What sins give rise to cowardice?

- Selfishness, of course. If we talk about the spiritual part, then lack of faith. Every Christian should know that everything that happens to him is not without the will of God, so everything must be accepted. Although there is a very wise proverb: “God protects those who are careful,” that is, you should never get into trouble, this is fraught with unpleasant consequences. Caution is always needed, of course. And the Lord Himself warned His disciples: “Look how dangerous you are walking,” therefore all necessary precautions must always be observed. But, nevertheless, when a firm, courageous act is required for the sake of God’s truth, we must, strengthened by the power of the Honest Life-Giving Cross and prayer to the Lord, move forward.

– Father, how to overcome indecision, which is a human character trait?

– Only by prayer addressed to the Lord asking for help. And also with constant exercises: if a person remains indecisive for a long time, he may find himself in this position for the rest of his life. Therefore, when he is given the opportunity to show generosity, he must show this generosity by praying to God, and then thanking Him. And so gradually he will overcome cowardice, and then completely forget about it.

Through the prayer of the saints, help will come faster

- Father, there is a call, let's answer the question.

“I recently learned that there is a special day when we can turn to deceased relatives and ask them for help. Is it true?

- No it is not true. But we can make a request to the deceased, of course, there is nothing special in this, they can hear us. But the Church has a different custom - we turn for help to those people who are glorified by the Church as saints, because their help is much more effective. They will pray to God for us, and the Lord will do it sooner according to their prayer. This is much more effective, and those who have experience in praying to the Mother of God, to all the saints, first of all turn to them for prayer help.

– Father, one day a woman came to me in tears and said: “My mother died three months ago and I never dreamed about it. My friend dreams about it all the time, but I don’t. Apparently I offended her, did I do something wrong?” A person is waiting for the appearance, at least in a dream, of a deceased loved one.

- Well, this is a prejudice, it’s called superstition.

– And those who see their dead, what should they do?

- Don’t do anything, live as you lived.

- Father, what you dreamed about is just an image, a product of the human mind, his emotional experience?

- But it happens in different ways. Very rarely, but it happens that the soul of the deceased appears in a dream. Usually the experiences of the day are reflected in a dream, they are simply refracted in such a way that a person does not really recognize them.

– We know that after the Resurrection of Christ, many bodies of the departed saints were resurrected and appeared to people in the city. That is, the souls of the departed can still appear to us?

– It was a special occasion in Jerusalem, when many people saw them, and in general this happens very rarely. For example, I dreamed about my father a couple of times, but not once about my mother.

- And if such visions did exist, it means that he got up in the morning and prayed to God...

– Drink some holy water and get ready for Communion next Sunday. And when you have already received communion, when the Lord is already with you, in your heart, remember the deceased.

Throwing pearls before swine is futile

– Should a layman somehow respond to attacks against the Church, engage in verbal altercations, or should he step aside and remain silent? Wouldn't such a retreat be cowardly?

– It depends on the situation. If there are people nearby who expect us to stand up, then this must be done, but if alone with someone, then there is no need to throw "beads before swine", it's completely useless.

– As a rule, this happens in groups of non-believers.

- “Blessed is the man who does not follow the counsel of the wicked and does not walk in the path of sinners,” - let’s read the Psalter, the first psalm.

– That is, if your work colleagues suddenly start a theological dispute, then you need to quietly leave it?

- Yes, don’t participate in it. You can say: “Gentlemen, open the Internet, there are many sites there, read Orthodox books, and you will find all the answers to your questions.”

- Father, but often people speak not to enlighten themselves, but to enlighten others. This is where an exchange of opinions takes place.

- Yes, for your health, but it’s not appropriate for us to participate in this. The Apostle said: “Accept him who is weak in the faith without arguing about opinions.” If a person is weak in faith (we can appreciate this), then why talk to him? This does not mean that we despise him, but that this conversation is useless. A physicist scientist will not talk seriously about physics with a preschooler.

– What if a person starts approaching us with clearly provocative questions?

- Then even more so, it’s just better to remain silent and look at the bridge of his nose. He asks: “Can you hear me?” - “I hear.” - “Why are you silent?” - “And I am a free person, if I want, I’m silent, if I want, I speak.” - “Are you interested in talking about this?” - “No, not interesting.” And the question itself will be settled.

– Father, if a person is embarrassed to somehow declare his faith at work, or somehow show his faith in the office or in front of non-believers, is this also cowardice?

– This should be manifested in actions. Every nation, including ours, has a concept of what a good and decent person means. You must be good and decent and thus testify to your faith. Then they eventually find out that the most decent and good person in their team turns out to believe in God: “Oh, that’s why he’s so good and decent.” The good and decent are always respected. Always.

God hears all prayers

– Father, there is still a question from a TV viewer.

– My question is: how can we establish communication with people from friendly republics who come to our country to work?

– We need to act the same way as all the missionaries acted. Learn their language in order to understand them, and show them every kind of love, come to them, find out if they need any help, intercede for them with employers, our compatriots. Then they will love our country, and the mission can only be successful if we want to somehow direct them to Christ. And if they ask: “In your country they treat us like dogs, but we came here because of hunger; why do you suddenly treat us with such love?”, then tell them that we are believers, Christians. Then they can listen to us.

– Father, but these people come here with their religion, with their spiritual values, and they spread it all around them.

– I’ve never heard of this. Here we have Tajiks working in the yard, I go out and say to one: “Salaam alaikum,” but he doesn’t know what to answer. His great-grandfather once professed Islam, but he knows nothing, and most of them are post-Soviet people who know nothing about religion.

- Let's answer the call.

- Father, how do I know when I pray whether my prayer is heard by God, the Mother of God, and the saints?

– Your uncertainty is due to lack of faith. Whenever you pray, your prayer is always heard, try to believe it, and the fact that you began to doubt is your distrust of God. Of course, it happens that we demand something from the Lord that is not in accordance with His will, then the Lord will not fulfill it or will wait. But it does not happen that God does not hear prayer - God knows thoughts before we ask for it.

“But it happens that a person asks for a long time,” Joachim and Anna had enough faith to ask for a child for fifty years and not lose faith. How can we not lose faith?

- So you can’t lose faith: looking at Joachim and Anna, and what Fruit their prayer gave.

“It’s cowardice that hinders us.” Without a visible result of prayer, people still have doubts.

– Doubt is a natural thing for a fallen mind, and therefore our faith is like seeing through a dark glass. This is a fact, and the Apostle Paul said this. But haven’t we had enough assurances in our lives that the Lord knows us and hears us? Even the very fact that we have come to God, to faith, to the Church - is this not enough? What is needed here, first of all, is humility.

What is the motive - such is the action

– A person comes to Confession either in despondency or in tears. And you begin to list to him: “God gave you this, took care of this, forgave you here, helped you there, why do you doubt Him?” And he says: “It’s true, father, thank you: you opened your eyes.” Why does the person himself miss this memory?

“That’s why a priest exists, to give a person pastoral advice, to show the way.” Life is actually not a resort, it is very serious work.

– Many people are embarrassed to cross themselves when passing by a church. Is this also a manifestation of cowardice? How are cowardice and shyness related?

– Maybe connected, maybe not connected. It’s just that another person somehow doesn’t want to demonstrate his faith, because there is no such commandment to be baptized at the temple. It’s just that a church is another reason to remember God, but you can remember without making the sign of the cross, as you are used to.

– But still, stopping, crossing yourself and bowing is a manifestation of respect for the temple of God.

– And for some, this is a manifestation of their own pharisaism: you are all fools, I’m the only smart one.

- Father, let's not take this extreme.

- But this is what it is. It's all about the motive - what is the motive for the action; one and the same act can be pious and ungodly. Depending on what the motive was for this act.

– Father, if we return to shyness, is his nature also sinful cowardice?

- Not necessary. Maybe this is a character trait, but you need to try to overcome it.

– Let’s answer one more question.

– How should we, Orthodox people, relate to such a concept as tolerance? I have heard that the clergy have a negative attitude towards this. Please comment.

– Tolerance is simply a tool of the system that is now generally accepted in Europe. The purpose of which, in its depths, is the destruction of Christianity as such, the destruction of the Christian view of the world. Tolerance prohibits a person from calling good as good and evil as evil. There must be tolerance, that is, calm indifference.

– But indifference is also associated with cowardice, what do you think?

– In general, all sinful life is interconnected. For example, the love of money is associated with pride, and so on. There are, of course, passions that are directly opposite, for example, drunkenness and love of money.

– What causes indifference? Out of fear to stand up for your idea, faith?

- No, indifference is a consequence of a sinful life: everything that does not concern me is not interesting to me, I am only interested in my desires, desires, my tastes and pleasures.

– But this is unacceptable for an Orthodox Christian. Thank you, Father Dimitri, for your answers.

Archpastor

– Hello, dear friends, viewers of the Soyuz TV channel, listeners of the Resurrection radio station. Today there is an extraordinary episode of the “Archpastor” program on air, and since it is extraordinary, we hope that it will be especially interesting; Our guest is Vladyka, to whom we are very grateful for his support of the Soyuz TV channel.

Church people

– Do European pseudo-values ​​threaten the Orthodox foundations of Moldova? This is discussed in the “People of the Church” program with Metropolitan Vladimir of Chisinau and All Moldova. Vladyka, life in Moldova today is quite difficult. Are you able to maintain the stability of church life in these unstable conditions?

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Conversation with Priest Alexy Zaitsev, priest of the Holy Trinity Church in the city of Chelyabinsk

If a person does not have willpower, then he cannot do anything... A person flies spiritually with the help of two wings: the will of God and his own will. God forever glued one wing - His will - to one of our shoulders. But in order to fly spiritually, we also need to glue our own wing to the other shoulder - the human will. If a person has a strong will, then he has a human wing that reacts with the divine wing, and he flies.
Elder Paisiy Svyatogorets

- Father Alexy, what is cowardice?

It is very important to understand the meaning of the concept of “cowardice” at the very beginning of our conversation, since it does not have such a clear and unambiguous expression as, for example, despondency, love of money, lies, vanity.

“The Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language,” edited by S. I. Ozhegov, defines cowardice as “the absence of fortitude, determination, and courage.” This kind of cowardice boils down to indecision, cowardice and affects mainly the spiritual feelings and abilities of a person.

V. I. Dal in his explanatory dictionary tries to reflect the deeper spiritual nature of cowardice, defining it as “despair, loss of spirit.” In this case, cowardice turns out to be a consequence of the action in a person of such passions as sadness and despondency, and is in a synonymous connection with them.

If we try to look into other dictionaries, we will find new shades of the meaning of a given word, and all of them will have the right to exist.

That is why it seems to me justified to give the following expanded interpretation to the concept of “cowardice” within the framework of our conversation.
Cowardice is the weakness of the soul of a person who is characterized by a lack of firmness, determination and consistency in actions, even to the point of cowardice and betrayal. Various manifestations of cowardice are most often noticed by us in the sphere of human earthly activity, but they are always a consequence of those spiritual weaknesses and shortcomings that are hidden in the depths of the human heart. The development of cowardice inevitably leads to loss of spirit and despair.

In the aspect of spiritual life, by cowardice we understand the lack of determination, the proper disposition of a Christian to follow the commandments of God.

How is fortitude different from willpower? Who, from an Orthodox point of view, can be called a person with a strong spirit?

The specific meaning that is given to the words “strength of spirit” and “willpower” by different people can be very ambiguous. Let's define these concepts as follows.

The power of the spirit is the power of the highest sphere of the human soul, which in Orthodox asceticism is called spirit. The spirit, by its nature, is always turned towards God, and it cannot be considered strong if the human heart is not filled with the light of Divine grace, if in its depths rough passionate desires have not yet been overcome. The action of the spirit is always guided by the Providence of God and is aimed only at good deeds pleasing to God. The closer a person is to the knowledge of the true God, the more his heart is sanctified by the action of Divine grace, the more free it is from passions - the stronger the person’s spirit. According to the Orthodox understanding, it is impossible to be strong in spirit outside the true faith and the Church.

Willpower is one of the innate, natural powers of the human soul. It is not directly related to the spiritual and moral perfection of a person and can be aimed at both good and evil. A person with a strong will can be outside the Church, outside the grace-filled life. During the period of socialism in the USSR, millions of people showed strong will to serve communist ideals. However, outside the action of Divine grace, a person is not always able to use his strong will to serve goodness and for the benefit of others. Lack of spiritual prudence can gradually lead a person with a strong will to such perverted forms as tyranny and cruelty. Even criminals demonstrate something similar to willpower when they are ready to sacrifice their lives at the moment of committing a crime. Moreover, if a strong will is not strengthened by the action of Divine grace, it can easily be lost by a person. I know many examples of people who in their youth had a strong will and were ardent adherents of high values ​​and ideals, but in adulthood they turned out to be weak-willed and disillusioned with life.

Thus, a person who is strong in spirit will also have willpower, since the spirit, supported by Divine grace, subjugates all the powers of the soul, directing them to serve God and others. A person who is strong-willed does not always have the strength of spirit and is not always able to demonstrate a strong will as a positive quality of his soul.

Saint Nicholas of Serbia said: “Crime is always a weakness. A criminal is a coward, not a hero. Therefore, always consider that the one who does evil to you is weaker than you... For he is a villain not because of strength, but because of weakness.” How to understand these words correctly? What weakness do they refer to?

We noted above that the entire will of a person, as the natural power of the soul, can be directed both to doing good and to doing evil. The extreme manifestation of evil will is crime.

Nowadays, largely thanks to cinema, criminals are often perceived as role models - courageous, consistent, strong-willed. However, if you look closely at the circumstances of the crimes they commit, then in reality everything will turn out to be completely different. If you look at a rapist who chooses a weak woman as a victim, look at a robber who suddenly attacks a defenseless person with a weapon, look at a thief who sneaks into an apartment at night while no one sees him and the owners are not at home, look at a murderer (killer) who fires his ominous shot from cover, we will see that there is no courage here. For some, an adulterer who is ready to do anything for the sake of “love” for a vicious woman seems like a hero. But if we remember how much suffering and pain this man caused to his lawful wife and children for the sake of low passion, we will understand that this man is not a hero of love affairs, but simply a traitor.

Therefore, in criminals and sinners there is only a semblance of courage and willpower. They are more likely to be cowardly and weak. That weakness to which they repeatedly fell victim in their lives: both when they allowed vicious thoughts to captivate their soul, and then when, shamefully succumbing to this captivity, they embarked on a criminal path, and then when they chose methods of committing their crimes that are characteristic only of cowards and traitors.

St. Nicholas of Serbia points to this weakness of criminals in the statement you cited - so that people are not deceived by their false courage and heroism.

The Lord’s famous answer to the Apostle Paul reads: “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). What kind of weakness are we talking about here? Not about our laziness, despondency, cowardice.

In Orthodox asceticism, the word “weakness” can be understood in two ways. It is necessary to distinguish, firstly, from the internal weakness of a person, which manifests itself in the captivity of his soul by various passions, including despondency, laziness, and cowardice. And secondly, external weakness, which manifests itself in illnesses of the body, sorrows and temptations that come from outside, regardless of the will and desire of the person himself.

However, these external infirmities, on the one hand, for simple sinful people, and on the other, for the righteous, marked by God with grace-filled gifts, have a fundamentally different character. For an ordinary person, bodily ailments, external misfortunes and sorrows are the result of the defeat of his soul by sinful ailments, the effect of which has a destructive effect on both his physical health and all circumstances of life. You can get rid of these infirmities through healing the soul from the infection of sin.

For the righteous, marked by gifts of grace, such infirmities are sent by God for the purpose that His saints would not become proud, but would always remember by Whose power they accomplish wonderful deeds; so that they are always aware of the natural weakness of human nature, which can easily fall and lose great gifts, deprived of Divine grace. The experience of spiritual life shows that a righteous person, to whom much has been given from God, cannot preserve either his gift or the height of life if everything in his destiny turns out easily and cloudlessly and if various external infirmities, according to the Providence of the Lord, do not temper his heart. It is in these weaknesses of the righteous that the power of God is perfected.

-Is cowardice related to false humility? If yes, then how?

We talk about false humility when outwardly a person behaves humbly, but his internal state does not correspond to the external one, and often turns out to be the exact opposite. For example, when a person outwardly shows respect for another, but internally experiences hatred and contempt for him; shows humility and solidarity, while he himself makes insidious plans; He speaks compliments to his face, but utters curses behind his back.

False humility has various manifestations, and all of them are somehow connected with cowardice.

False humility can be expressed in hypocrisy towards superiors. In this case, a person can easily give up his opinion, neglect truth and justice; he is ready to endure any humiliation, to make any compromises with his conscience, so as not to spoil relations with stronger and more influential people, not to be left without their protection. However, in relation to the weak and defenseless, such a person often behaves tyrannically and cruelly. For example, it is not uncommon for a husband, after humiliation and troubles at work, to come home and take out his negative emotions on his wife and children. The Holy Fathers quite rightly insisted that true humility of a person is manifested in relation to those who are weaker than him, and true courage is manifested in relation to those who are stronger. So, in relation to the boss at work, it would be courageous to express one’s opinion in order to defend the truth, and in relation to the wife and children, it would be to reconcile and tolerate their shortcomings.

False humility can manifest itself in hypocrisy towards peers, when a person wants to appear kind and courteous in the eyes of others. If he does evil to other people, it is secretly and on the sly. Currently, many people believe that it is beneficial to appear downtrodden, weak and gray - this way you can get better in life, as well as avoid many troubles and conflicts. However, people who reason in this way forget that for such a comfortable life they will have to sacrifice their honor and principles, they will have to remain cowardly silent in those circumstances when truth and justice are violated. This condition has a destructive effect on a person’s spiritual and moral life, completely depriving him of both willpower and fortitude.

False humility can also manifest itself in relation to subordinates, when, for example, a boss indulges in the sins of his subordinates, is in no hurry to punish them for various shortcomings and mistakes in order to gain honor and praise from the people entrusted to his care, to enlist their goodwill and support, as well as to avoid conspiracies and malicious intentions of those who may be dissatisfied with his exactingness and firmness.

As we see, cowardice associated with false humility can be expressed in different ways - from obvious cowardice to more subtle manifestations associated with the passion of vanity.

The Monk Seraphim of Sarov said: “If we had the determination, we would live like the fathers who shone forth in ancient times.” In other words, there is only one difference between a person who perishes and a person who is saved - determination. What should this determination be based on?

There are a lot of temptations and seductions around us, which are an obstacle to our spiritual and moral development, constantly throwing us back on the path to salvation and eternal life. We are often inclined to consider these temptations and enticements as harmless and innocent, and therefore do not show the necessary determination to avoid them for the sake of the blameless service of God. Often the fortitude is not enough for this. The ancient fathers, unlike us, had such determination, and therefore reached the heights of spiritual life. I think this is how we can briefly express the meaning of the above saying of St. Seraphim.

Father Gennady Nefedov said: “The first question that a priest should ask a parishioner at confession is: “Son, what do you believe?” And the second: “What is stopping you from believing correctly and living by faith?” Then confession will not turn into a listing of unseemly deeds and actions, which the believer reports to the priest in confession, and not always while deeply repenting of them.” Do you think that if priests always conducted confession this way, we would have more laypeople strong in the faith?

Many priests can take note of this form of confession, but in no case can it be considered universal.
It is necessary to take into account the fact that the clergy who perform the sacrament of confession have significantly different experiences of spiritual life, their level of knowledge in matters of faith, and their personal character. The confessors who bring their repentance are also very different. Therefore, each experienced priest has his own forms of confession, his own approaches - depending on the state of the penitent and the circumstances under which the sacrament is performed.

The main thing is that confession should not be reduced to a formal listing of sins, but should encourage the penitent to continually work on himself, to actually correct his vices and shortcomings, and to grow in goodness.

Saint John Chrysostom taught: “If all the weeds in the field are pulled out, but no seeds are sown, what good is the work? In the same way, there is no benefit to the soul if, while cutting off evil deeds, you do not instill virtue in it.” Why do you think today the majority of believers, paying a lot of attention to searching for their sins and shortcomings, at the same time show negligence in developing virtues (merits of the soul)?

A person’s repentance always begins with knowledge of the depth of his sinfulness. However, it is possible to eradicate the discovered vices and shortcomings only if, while driving out the evil, we begin to plant in our hearts virtues that are opposite to our previous sinful inclinations. If you neglect to develop virtues in your heart, evil will return with even greater force. The Savior also warned us about this: “When the unclean spirit comes out of a person, it walks through dry places, looking for rest, and does not find it; Then he says: I will return to my house from where I came. And, having arrived, he finds [it] unoccupied, swept and put away; then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and entering they live there; and the last thing for that person is worse than the first” (Matthew 12: 43–45).

Why does a modern believer too often stop at the stage of recognizing his sins and not take the next step towards spiritual and moral improvement? The problem, it seems to me, is that the path of planting virtues today requires a person to make great sacrifices, to renounce many earthly joys and consolations that feed the vices in our hearts. It is very difficult for the modern man in the street, completely enslaved by the material side of existence, to renounce part of his earthly wealth for the benefit of the people around him, which the path of a virtuous life invariably requires. One can say this: often there is not enough fortitude to sacrifice part of one’s earthly well-being.

But here it is important to take the first step. After all, a person who has firmly decided to plant virtues in his heart will soon understand how great the spiritual joy is from doing good deeds, how much closer God becomes to him both in spiritual and in earthly life.

Do you think that perhaps one of the reasons for cowardice is that a person does not realize the omnipotence of God, His strength and power?

Yes, definitely. A person who does not believe in God or has imperfect faith has to rely only on his own strengths and abilities, guided only by the calculations of earthly logic. However, we know very well that a person’s own strengths are very limited, and often situations happen in life from which there is no chance of emerging victorious if one relies only on earthly means. For many, this becomes a reason for cowardice.

Moreover, if people did not trust in God, then many great events, both in personal destinies and in the fate of our Fatherland, would not have been allowed to happen. Let's take, for example, the liberation of Moscow from the Poles in 1612 by the people's militia of K. Minin and Prince D. Pozharsky. This miracle became possible only thanks to the faith of the people in God's help. Indeed, in 1610, Muscovite Rus' practically ceased to exist: there was no tsar, no government, no system of government, no army, no state treasury... On the side of the Polish garrison in Moscow was a well-trained army of a powerful state - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. If the Russian people relied only on their own strength, gathering a militia would seem like a completely insane undertaking, and there would be no chance of victory. However, our people firmly trusted in God, and victory was achieved, contrary to the calculations of earthly logic.

When a person has a living faith in God and is constantly aware of the presence of the Creator in his destiny, this is a very good basis for fighting cowardice.

Paisius the Svyatogorets taught: “When a person is disposed to asceticism, when he prays and asks God to increase his willpower, God helps him. A person should know that if he does not succeed, then [this means that] he either does not apply the will at all, or does not apply it enough.” It turns out that in order to succeed spiritually, we must pray to strengthen our willpower. What, besides prayer, should you do to develop your willpower? How can you avoid becoming overly self-confident?

In order to succeed spiritually, we ask the Lord for many blessings: the gift of prayer, repentance, humility, knowledge of our sins... Including that the Lord would strengthen our will in the fight against passions.

We have already said that we should distinguish between willpower and fortitude. Willpower is connected with the innate, natural abilities of the soul, and the strength of the spirit is with the extent to which our heart is sanctified by the light of Divine grace, how free it is from passions, and the extent to which it can serve as an instrument of God. The stronger the spirit of a person, the more it is directed towards God, the more it subjugates the power of a person’s will, directing it to the service of good.

Therefore, there are two ways to strengthen willpower itself. Firstly, the spiritual path is through cleansing the heart from sinful ailments, through bringing it closer to God. Secondly, the natural path is through proper education, through awareness of responsibility for all one’s actions, through love for one’s Motherland and people, through serving one’s neighbors, through the physical development of the body, etc.

Only with the help of spiritual exercises, neglecting, for example, education and physical training, will it be impossible to make the will strong. But neglecting spiritual life in favor of active training makes a person’s will defective and its strength limited. History bears witness to how, even before Christianity, the Roman Empire knew many exemplary warriors who showed great courage and heroism on the battlefields. But after the battle, the same warriors could become weak-willed slaves of depraved women, capable of the most pitiful and unseemly acts for the sake of their mistresses. The same warriors could become slaves to gluttony and drunkenness, remaining in their pleasant captivity even when it became a threat to their health and life. Therefore, from the Orthodox point of view, if a person’s heart is filled with passions, if the natural forces of his soul are not subordinated to the spirit, it is too early to talk about a strong will.

Now let's touch on another aspect of the question you asked. What does it mean when they say that a person’s will is not enough, that willpower is not enough, etc.?

Let me give you a simple analogy. Imagine a young man who can lift a barbell weighing 80 kilograms. What if he is required to lift a weight of 150 kilograms? He will be unable to do this, since he does not have enough strength for this at this time. Desire alone and willpower is clearly not enough here; you need to spend a lot of time, make a lot of effort in order for lifting a weight of 150 kilograms to become a reality. And if the young man stops training and indulges in bliss and relaxation, then he will not be able to lift the previous 80 kilograms. So it is in spiritual life. When we put little effort into developing willpower and nurturing our soul, in difficult life situations our willpower may not be enough, and we will fall into cowardice. If we work hard to develop fortitude and willpower, then after a while a lot will become possible for us; and if we indulge in negligence after the first failures, we will fall into even greater cowardice and lack of will.

Every Christian is a warrior of Christ. He can be worthy of this high title only by overcoming cowardice. Unfortunately, it is an obvious fact that now is the time of weak men. What should an Orthodox man be like, and what prevents him from being such?

In short, an Orthodox man, first of all, must be a faithful child of his mother Church. He must have a living faith in God, actively struggle with his vices and shortcomings, strive to prefer the spiritual to the spiritual, the eternal to the temporary, the high to the low. He must develop in himself the strength of spirit, which is nourished and strengthened by the grace of God.
At the same time, he, of course, must be a worthy citizen of his Motherland, capable of serving it, sacrificing his personal property for the common good; he has no right to compromise his principles, his high values ​​and ideals, either because of cowardice and cowardice, or because of earthly self-interest.

It is also very important that he be a loving husband and father who will never act dishonestly towards his closest people, will not betray them for the sake of flighty passionate desires, a comfortable life and personal benefits.

The problem of weak men in our society is connected, first of all, with improper upbringing. In modern families, practically nothing is done to raise a boy to be a future father, courageous and responsible for his actions. Increasingly, the child becomes the center of the family, where everyone, starting with the parents, indulges his weaknesses. Besides everything else, we have very, very few strong, prosperous families today.

In such a situation, is it worth surprising at the weakness and cowardice of modern men, because willpower must be cultivated long and consistently from birth - it does not develop spontaneously.

A well-known Orthodox “hand-to-hand” instructor said: “Some priests do not give their blessing to engage in martial arts at all. Not understanding the specifics of the military path, they deprive today’s younger generation of physical and military training. And our boys cease to be men already under the wing of the Church.” What can you say about this?

It seems to me that military-patriotic clubs based on Russian military and cultural traditions are little of what today can save our country from decay, and its male component from degradation. These clubs are needed for boys who should learn to defend their homeland and their loved ones. If education in the club is done correctly, if the spiritual needs of students are not limited, then this can lead to success in spiritual life.

Archpriest Igor Shestakov, rector of our church, organized and still heads the military-patriotic club “Warrior” several years ago. Some guys even came there unbaptized and unbelievers, but in the club, thanks to church care, they acquired saving faith and received holy baptism. Currently, many of them are active parishioners of various churches of the Chelyabinsk diocese. Thus, the correct upbringing of boys in military-patriotic clubs can lead to birth in spiritual life. I am sure that every priest who ministers to such clubs and organizations will give many specific examples of the above.

Among other things, military-patriotic clubs can make a significant contribution to the power and defense of our Motherland by educating worthy defenders. Their development should be one of the priorities in government support programs. Unfortunately, such support is practically non-existent today. Regarding the fact that “some priests do not give their blessing to engage in martial arts in general,” I note: our Orthodox Church has never shared such views. Moreover, in many monasteries of Ancient Rus' there was an arsenal of weapons and monks trained in military affairs.

The monasteries themselves were often reliable fortresses, capable of repelling in the event of an enemy attack and sheltering not only the brethren, but also defenseless civilians behind their walls. I'm not even talking about the fact that mastery of martial arts in Rus' was strongly encouraged for lay people, regardless of their origin and nobility. After all, the beginning of our regular army was laid only in the 18th century.

However, in more than 12 years of my priestly service, I have practically never met priests who were so strict about martial arts.

From some priests I have heard similar “pacifist” judgments... Although neither in the Holy Scriptures nor in the patristic works we will see a ban on self-defense without weapons.

Father Alexy, it is known from the New Testament that cowardice left the apostles after they received the Holy Spirit. Can we say that cowardice is a consequence of a person’s failure to acquire the Holy Spirit?

It has already been said that the grace of God nourishes the strength of the spirit, and a strong spirit directly strengthens the will as the natural strength of our soul. The more graceless a person is, the weaker his will, the more susceptible he is to cowardice.

In addition, the grace of God can impart such strength to the spirit, so strengthen the will of the believer that the latter’s abilities can exceed natural human strength. The era of persecution of Christianity clearly demonstrates that those who had a pure heart endured suffering for Christ most courageously and with dignity. Those who, due to persistent sinful inclinations, were little strengthened by the power of Divine grace, turned out to be unable to endure torment and renounced the Lord. It also happened that a weak, defenseless woman endured all the most monstrous tortures with dignity, and a strong male warrior disgracedly renounced the Lord and humbly asked for mercy from his tormentors.

The apostles cannot be considered cowardly people in comparison with their foreigners. However, before the descent of the Holy Spirit, their willpower had the limits of human nature. The grace of God subsequently enabled them to accomplish what was beyond natural human strength.

- Christ’s chagrin with the desire for indecision/inconstancy/hesitation in movement/aspiration both for good (to fulfill the commandments of Christ) and for evil (to fulfill the commandments of men/demons)…

“38 The righteous shall live by faith; but if anyone moves, My soul has no pleasure in him.

39 But we are not of those who waver to destruction, but we stand in faith for the salvation of our souls.

(Heb. 10 )"

"8 A double-minded man is not steadfast in all his ways.

(Jacob 1 )"

"8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you; cleanse your hands, you sinners; straighten your hearts, you double-minded.

(Jacob 4 )"

“10 He who is faithful in a little is also faithful in much, but he who is unfaithful in a little is also unfaithful in much.

11 Therefore, if you have not been faithful in unrighteous wealth, who will give you the true credit?

12 And if you have not been faithful in what belongs to others, who will give you what is yours?

13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

(OK. 16 )

“24 No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate one and love the other; or he will be zealous for one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

(Matt. 6)"

“20 But what is sown on rocky places is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;

21 But it has no root in itself and is fickle: when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, it is immediately offended.

(Matt. 13 )"

“27 And Jesus saith unto them, Ye shall all be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.

30 And Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, today, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.

“69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a certain maid came to him and said, “You too were with Jesus the Galilean.”

70 But he denied it before everyone, saying, “I don’t know what you are saying.”

71 And as he went out of the gate, another saw him, and said to those who were there, “This one also was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

72 And he again denied with an oath that he did not know this Man.

73 A little while later those standing there came and said to Peter, “Surely you are one of them, for your speech also convicts you.”

74 Then he began to swear and swear that he did not know this man. And suddenly the rooster crowed.

75 And Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken to him: Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times. And going out, he wept bitterly.

(Matt. 26)"

“24 Pilate, seeing that nothing helped, but the confusion was increasing, took water and washed his hands before the people, and said: I am innocent of the blood of this righteous man; see you.

26 Then he released Barabbas to them, and beat Jesus and handed him over to be crucified.

“11 Our lips are open to you, O Corinthians, our hearts are enlarged.

12 You are not cramped in us; but your hearts are tight.

13 In equal recompense, I say, as to children, you too will be distributed.

14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship has righteousness with iniquity? What does light have in common with darkness?

15 What agreement is there between Christ and Belial? Or what is the complicity of the faithful with the infidel?

16 What is the relationship between the temple of God and idols? For you are the temple of the living God, as God said: I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.

17 Therefore come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

18 And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

(2 Cor. 6)"

“28 Do not be distrustful of the fear of the Lord, and do not approach Him with a divided heart.

12 Woe to timid hearts and weak hands, and to the sinner who walks in two paths!

13 Woe to the weak heart! for it does not believe, and for this reason it will not be protected.

14 Woe to you who have lost patience! what will you do when the Lord visits?

23 When one builds and another destroys, what will they gain for themselves except weariness?

24 When one prays and another curses, whose voice will the Master hear?

25 When someone washes himself from the defilement of the dead and touches him again, what good does his washing do?

26 So a man who fasts for his sins and goes again and does the same thing: who will hear his prayer? and what benefit will he receive from being humble?

(Sire. 1:28; 2:12-14; 34:23-26)"
"8 Like a bird that leaves its nest, so a man leaves his place.
(Prov. 27)"
“17 And you gird up your loins, and stand up, and tell them everything that I command you; do not be faint-hearted before them, lest I strike you in their sight.
(Jer. 1)"

“The Great Macarius says that Satan shakes all people, as if in a sieve, with fickle thoughts, wishes, confusion, fears. As they say, “fish are caught in troubled waters.” When the waves subside and the water becomes transparent, then everything can be seen to the very bottom both fish and plants.To see your condition and the machinations of the demons, you need to stop worrying, and in a reconciled soul every movement becomes visible and understandable, and the rays of the Sun penetrate to the very bottom, and everything is light.

Having turned away in prayer once and twice, being robbed, in my mind I prayed to the Lord: “God, come to my help.” And I heard a suggestion in my soul: “As much as the passions are still alive in you, the same way you become distracted by your mind. And to the extent that passions are diminished, so will you become established and calm in your mind.”

Therefore, as we strive in prayer, let us exercise not only in prayer itself (although this is very necessary), but at the same time we will strive for passion using the means and deeds available to us. After all, if the garden is not weeded from weeds, you may not expect a harvest. Or expect, but extremely scarce.
It is no coincidence that St. Symeon the New Theologian says: “Silence requires a more strict and attentive life.” After all, if we enter the region of silence or rational community, then we descend into another region with its own laws of being, with its own depth, breadth, height. And this area begins to demand from us precisely compliance with its environment and the laws of life, and then only give us and reveal its benefits and treasures.
And if we came here just to gawk and fill our time with something, then we will remain wasted or empty. In order to realize ourselves and acquire spiritual benefits that correspond to our way of life, we must accept both the conditions and requirements of God. Then only one can comprehend what the depth and breadth and height of this region are.
That is why we need the writings and traditions of the holy fathers in order to understand the entrance and exit, the bottom and the top, the slope and the middle of the path along which we must go. And living according to the laws and regulations of the world means that we had no intention of leaving its area. After all, this world also has its own region with its own laws, paths, ambushes, and networks. With our lives, we belong to either this or this area.
That is why the Lord Jesus said that at the hour of His coming “there will be two in the village, one goes up, and the other is left, two grinding in the millstones - one goes up, and one is left.” Because even when living next to each other, one lives in one area and its laws, and the other lives in another area. One soul was grinding pure and heavenly thoughts in its mind, and the other was unclean and earthly thoughts. Therefore, under the guise of ignorance, let us not deviate from the path of virtue.
If we ourselves don’t understand, we’ll ask someone who understands, but we must go. No one will walk our path for us. As someone who grinds the wrong thing, they didn’t ask him the reasons why he was grinding the wrong thing. They just didn't take him. And we can come up with many reasons and we do come up with them. But they will not help and will not save us. It is much more thorough and useful if we learn from someone who works in God’s field. And it’s also clear that both WORK and sweat, and both of their backs hurt. BUT one cultivates virtues, and the other - passions. After all, a person’s passions exhaust us, weaken us, demand time and attention, and in the end, having abused us, they throw us out. And virtue makes labors for God easy and unnoticeable and lifts you to God on its wings. ( Notes of an Orthodox monk)"

“It is not surprising that it is difficult to be a Christian, almost impossible. No one will consciously choose a life in which the more righteously you live, the faster you will die, that is why we always grumble, try to make our life easier, compromise with our Christian faith, we want and "To succeed in this world and to acquire eternal life. But a choice will have to be made: either worldly happiness or eternal happiness. Give us, Lord, the strength to follow the path of the Cross - there is no other way for a Christian.
(Jeromon. Seraphim (Rose))"

“Let us not behave in such a way that today we have abstinence and meekness, and in the morning intemperance and pride; today - silence, vigil, humility, and in the morning - entertainment, insatiable sleep, insubordination and the like. Do not be faint-hearted when you see that in this life you are in disgrace or in illness, or in extreme old age and poverty, He who feeds the birds of the air will not leave you without His providence.

“Not unknown are also those who, as it were, are mercenaries, who, being voluptuous and lazy, immediately, as it were, devouring everything that comes their way, and not finishing with patience what is in their hands, always walk around in nakedness and poverty. Such people have great readiness and ardor for the acceptance of grace, but since they are fickle, as soon as they touch them they already feel satiated, but they turn out to be unwilling and clumsy to work, then they are deprived of the grace that they have already been awarded; because laziness, inactivity and careless will are always recognized today, and in the next century they will turn out to be inconsistent with grace, deprived of good deeds, unworthy and inglorious before God.
Those who unfalteringly complete the course to the end, who have completely hated all worldly desires, themselves, all distraction and pleasure in the world and the pursuit of worldly affairs. For this means to deny oneself. Therefore, everyone is ejected from the kingdom by his own will, by the fact that he does not take on labors according to the truth itself, and renounces himself, but with this Divine love he wants to enjoy something in this age, and does not devote the entire aspiration of his will to God. One example will explain the case we are considering. Everyone clearly discerns, and it is not hidden from him, that whatever work he seeks to do is incompatible with anything.
For first, doubt is expressed within his heart. The scales and the scale arrow in his conscience first show within himself a clear preponderance of either love for God or love for the world; and then it also reveals itself in external reasoning, because, as has been said, everyone discerns this well. For example, if he happens to quarrel with his brother, then the person argues with himself, and first makes objections to himself: “Should I tell me?” No; I will not say. Should I respond to this reproach made to me? No; I’d better keep quiet.” We adhere to God’s commandments, but we do not put aside our own glory. No one dares to completely deny himself.
If the inclination of love for the world even slightly tugs the scales in the heart, immediately an evil word comes even to the lips. And then the mind, as if drawing a bow inside, shoots its neighbor with its tongue, and evil reaches the hands, and sometimes to wounds, and even to murder itself. From this one can see how, once it began, to what horrors this short-term movement of the soul extends. Therefore, understand that the same thing happens with every sin and undertaking. Vice caresses and beckons the spiritual will with worldly desires and carnal pleasures. This is how fornication is prepared, this is how theft is prepared, this is how covetousness is prepared, this is how vanity is prepared, this is how every evil deed of any kind is prepared.
(St. Macarius the Great)"

“If we want to have a firm faith, then we must lead a pure life, which disposes the Spirit to dwell in us and maintain the strength of faith. It is impossible, truly impossible, for someone who leads an unclean life not to waver in faith. Let us not be embarrassed and lose heart when they befall us temptations.If the artist of gold things knows how long to keep the gold in the furnace and when to take it out, and does not allow it to remain in the fire until it deteriorates and burns out, all the more does God know this, and when He sees that we have become purer, then he delivers us from temptations, so that from the excess of disasters we do not stumble and fall.
(St. John Chrysostom)"

“Cowardice and confusion are born from unbelief; but as soon as the ascetic resorts to faith, cowardice and confusion disappear, like the darkness of the night from the rising sun. Many approach the Lord, few decide to follow Him. Many read the Gospel, enjoy, admire the height and holiness of the teaching him, - few decide to direct their behavior according to the rules that the Gospel lays down. The Lord declares to all who come to Him and want to be assimilated to Him: “If anyone comes to Me and does not renounce the world and himself, he cannot be My disciple.”
Let us prepare to look at our victories and victories in the same way: courageously, coolly, impartially. Whether you were carried away by sinful dreams, whether you delighted in sinful thoughts, whether you uttered an idle, reckless word, whether you consumed a lot of food or did something else similar to this - do not be indignant, do not be cowardly, do not add harm to harm. Repent immediately before God, who knows the heart, try to improve and improve, become convinced of the need for the strictest observation of yourself, and, maintaining a calm soul, continue your spiritual path with firmness and perseverance.
“My son! From your youth, devote yourself to learning, and until your gray hairs you will find wisdom. Approach it as one who plows and sows, and expect its good fruits: for you will labor in cultivating it for a little while, and soon you will eat its fruits.” "In the morning, sow your seed, and in the evening, do not let your hand rest. According to the explanation of St. Gregory of Sinai]" "Glorify the Lord; call on His name... Seek the Lord and His power, seek His face always." With these words, Holy Scripture teaches us that the feat of serving God, the feat of prayer, must be performed with all our hearts, constantly and continuously.
External and internal sorrows, which must certainly be encountered in the field of this feat, must be overcome with faith, courage, humility, patience and long-suffering, healing deviations and distractions with repentance. Both abandonment of the prayer feat and gaps in it are extremely dangerous. It is better not to begin this feat than, having started, to leave it. The soul of an ascetic who abandoned the exercise he had undertaken in the Jesus Prayer can be likened to land that has been cultivated and fertilized, but subsequently abandoned: on such land, tares grow with extraordinary force, take deep roots, and become particularly plump.
In a soul that has renounced the blissful union with prayer, abandoned prayer and abandoned by prayer, passions invade in a stormy stream and flood it. Passions acquire special power over such a soul, special firmness and strength, and are imprinted with bitterness and deadness of the heart, with unbelief. Demons expelled by prayer return to the soul: enraged by the previous expulsion, they return with greater fury and in greater numbers. For that person, the last is worse than the first, according to the definition of the Gospel: the state of one subjected to the dominion of passions and demons after getting rid of them through true prayer is incomparably more miserable than the state of one who did not attempt to throw off the yoke of sin, who did not take the sword of prayer out of its sheath .
The harm from intervals or from periodic abandonment of the prayer feat is similar to the harm that comes from complete abandonment; The longer the interval, the more significant this harm is. During the sleep of the ascetics, that is, during their neglect of prayer, an enemy comes, invisible to the eyes of the senses, unnoticed by the ascetics who have allowed themselves to be carried away and distracted, and sows tares among the wheat.
The sower of tares is very experienced, cunning, full of malice: it is easy for him to sow the most malignant tares, insignificant in appearance and at the beginning, but subsequently enveloping and confusing the entire soul with its numerous offspring. He who is not with me, said the Savior, is against Me: and he who does not gather with Me scatters. Prayer does not entrust itself to double-minded, fickle workers; for the ignorant it is very severe, and the foolish will not stay with it: it will be on him like a heavy stone of testing, and he will not be slow to throw it off.
Listen, my son, and accept my opinion, and do not reject my advice. Place her fetters on your feet and her chain on your neck. Give her your shoulder, and carry her and do not be burdened by her bonds. Draw close to her with all your soul, and with all your strength keep her ways. Explore and seek, and it will be known to you, and, having become its owner, do not leave it; for at last you will find peace in her, and she will turn into your joy. Her bonds will be your strong protection, and her chains will be a glorious robe.
You cannot serve God and wealth, the Savior said to fallen people, revealing before people the state into which they were brought by the fall. So the doctor will tell the patient the state into which he is brought by the disease and which the patient himself cannot understand. Due to our mental disorder, we need timely self-sacrifice and renunciation of the world for salvation. No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate one and love the other; or he will be zealous for one and neglectful of the other.
Experiences constantly confirm the validity of that view of the moral morbidity of people, which was expressed by the all-holy Physician in the words we cited, spoken with decisive certainty: the satisfaction of vain and sinful desires is always followed by a passion for them; after infatuation comes captivity, death for everything spiritual. Those who allowed themselves to follow their desires and carnal wisdom were carried away by them, enslaved by them, forgot God and eternity, spent their earthly life in vain, and perished in eternal destruction.
Those who do not dare to arbitrarily renounce themselves and the world are forcibly forced to do both. When inexorable and irresistible death comes, then they part with everything to which they were attached; self-sacrifice extends to the point of throwing off their very body, throwing it down, leaving it on the earth to be eaten by worms and decay.
Earthly life is not life itself, but a constant struggle between life and death: alternately we deviate first to one or the other, hesitate between them, are challenged by them. All Christian life on earth is nothing more than repentance, expressed by activities characteristic of repentance.
Looking at ourselves from such self-knowledge, we must maintain peace of mind, not be embarrassed or despondent, not bewildered when the action of passions is revealed in us. Sometimes this effect is mild, sometimes very strong. Let us courageously resist passions. They will not stop rising up and attacking us to the death! And we will prepare for lifelong resistance to them, in the firm conviction that we cannot be constant conquerors of passions, that by natural necessity we must be subject to involuntary victories, that these very victories contribute to success when they support and strengthen in us repentance and the humility born from it.
There is no possibility of fulfilling one’s will and the will of God together: from the fulfillment of the first, the fulfillment of the second is desecrated and made obscene. There is no way to acquire the mind of God while remaining in carnal wisdom. Carnal wisdom, the apostle said, is death. Carnal wisdom is enmity against God: for one does not submit to God’s law, one can do less. What is carnal wisdom? - A way of thinking that arose from the state into which people were brought by the fall, directing them to act on earth as if they were eternal on it, exalting everything corruptible and temporary, humiliating God and everything related to pleasing God, taking away salvation from people.
The refuge of prayer is in the great mercy of God towards the human race. The Son of God, to save us, offered Himself to His Father as a propitiatory, reconciling sacrifice: on this basis, wanting to engage in prayer, reject doubt and double-mindedness. Don’t say to yourself: “I’m a sinner, will God really hear me?” If you are a sinner, then the consoling words of the Savior apply to you: “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
(St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov))"

“See that you do not be faint-hearted. Be complacent in everything you do according to the will of God. Prudent people must constantly remember that by undertaking small and short-lived labors in this life, after death we will receive the greatest consolation and eternal bliss. Those who struggle with passions and desire to be crowned by God if he falls, let him not be faint-hearted and not remain in this fall, despairing of himself, but having risen, let him fight again and strive to receive the crown, rising to his last breath from the falls that happen.Bodily labors are instruments of virtues and are saving for souls.
(St. Anthony the Great)"

“Know that in this invisible battle two wills existing in us fight with each other: one belongs to the rational part of the soul and therefore is called the rational, higher will, and the other belongs to our sensual part and therefore is called the sensual, lower will, in general it is called by a wordless, carnal, passionate will. The highest will always desires only good, and the lower - only evil. Both happen by themselves, therefore neither a good desire in itself is imputed to us as good, nor an evil one - as evil. Imputation depends on inclination our free will; therefore, when we incline with our will towards a good desire, it is imputed to us as good, and when we incline towards an evil desire, it is imputed to us as evil.
These desires accompany one another: when a good desire comes, an evil desire immediately comes against it, and when an evil desire comes, a good desire immediately comes against it. Our will is free to follow both, and whichever desire it inclines towards is the victorious one this time. This is what all our invisible spiritual warfare consists of. Its goal for us should be to not allow our free will to incline towards the desire of a lower, carnal and passionate will, but to always follow one higher, rational will, for it is the will of God, following which is the fundamental law of our existence: fear Keep God and His commandments; As is every man, says the wise Solomon.
Both desires attract our will and want to subjugate it. Suppress the lower desire and bow to the higher - and victory is yours; but if you choose the lower, despising the higher, you will find yourself defeated. St. Apostle Paul writes that there is a struggle within us: I have found the law, that I would do good, because evil is due to me. I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my heart, warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive by the law of sin that is in my heart. And he commands everyone as a law: walk in the Spirit, and do not commit carnal lusts. And this cannot be achieved without fighting the flesh.
Particularly great feat and hard work should be experienced at the beginning by those who, before deciding to change their worldly and carnal life to a life pleasing to God and indulge in deeds of love and sincere work for God, bound themselves with evil habits through frequent satisfaction of the desires of their carnal and passionate will. In them, around free will, although on the one hand there are the desired demands of the rational will, influenced by God, on the other hand there are still the wishes of the carnal and passionate will, not without sympathy, and, opposing the former, they draw him to their side with such force that as sometimes they drag a snake to a snake; and only the grace of God gives them the strength to persist in the intention once accepted.
The time of confrontation with them and failure to concede victory weakens their strength, but this does not stop the struggle. Therefore, let no one dream of acquiring true Christian well-being and Christian virtues and working for God as befits, if he does not want to force himself to reject and overcome all passionate movements of the carnal will, not only large, but also small, which he was previously accustomed to satisfying willingly and lovingly. The main reason why so few achieve complete Christian perfection lies in the fact that, out of self-pity, they do not want to force themselves and deny themselves absolutely everything.
For when they, having with difficulty conquered large passionate inclinations, do not want to force themselves to overcome small, seemingly insignificant inclinations, then, since these small ones are the generation and expression of large ones, satisfying them, they feed these latter, which therefore continue to live and act in heart, although they are not found in large sizes. Therefore, the heart remains passionate and unclean and, most importantly, not in the least detached from self-indulgence and self-pity, which always leave all deeds of pleasing God in doubtful dignity.
For example, there are those who, without appropriating someone else’s property, love their own too much and, on the one hand, rely too much on it, on the other hand, they are too lazy to do good; others, not seeking honors by unkind means, do not, however, value them at all, and often wish that their receipt would somehow be arranged, as if against their will; others, again, observe long-term fasts, but do not refuse to satisfy the desire to eat plenty and sweetly, which completely destroys the dignity of fasting; some live chastely, but continue to maintain relationships and acquaintances with people they like and delight in the fact, without wanting to understand that through this they erect a great obstacle in themselves to perfection in spiritual life and unity with God.
I will add here the inattention of some to the natural shortcomings of their character, which, although not dependent on arbitrariness, nevertheless make him guilty of the court, when someone, seeing how they interfere with the work of spiritual life, does not care not only to completely destroy them, but and to put it within harmless limits, whenever possible, with the help of the grace of God, with due attention and zeal. Such, for example, are unsociability, hot temper, impressionability and, as a result, injudicious speed in words, movements and deeds, severity and grumbling, stubbornness and argumentativeness, and the like.
All such imperfections and natural weaknesses should be corrected, taking away excesses from some, adding what is missing to others, transforming both of them into corresponding good qualities. For nothing natural, no matter how wild and stubborn it may be, can resist the will when it, armed with the grace of God, becomes zealous to resist it with all attention and diligence.
As a result of the above, it happens that others do good deeds, but these deeds remain imperfect, tempting, intertwined with the lusts that reign in the world. That is why these persons do not at all succeed on the path to salvation, but rotate in one place, and often return back and fall into previous sins, since, apparently, at first they did not fully love the good life in Christ, they were not completely filled with a feeling of gratitude to God who delivered them from the power of the devil, and did not with perfect determination set out to work for Him alone to please Him.
Hence it also happens that such people always remain untrained in goodness and are blind and do not see the danger they are in, thinking that their position is secure and no trouble threatens them. For this reason, my beloved brother in Christ, I urge you to love the difficulty and burdensomeness that inevitably accompany our inner struggle, if you do not always want to be overcome. This is what the wise Sirach also advises: Do not hate a difficult task. Because everything in this battle stands on this as the foundation. The more you love this difficulty or merciless self-exertion in exploits, the sooner and more completely you will gain victory over yourself and that which is opposed to the highest good in you, and as a result you will be filled with all virtue and good disposition, and the peace of God will be established in you.
If the Lord hesitates to give you complete victory over your enemies and postpones this until the last day of your life, then know that this will do great things for your own good; Just don’t retreat and don’t stop fighting wholeheartedly. Even if you get wounded sometimes, don’t lay down your arms and don’t take flight. Have one thing in mind and intention - to fight with all the enthusiasm and courage, because this is inevitable. There is no person who has escaped this battle, whether in life or in death. And whoever does not wage war to defeat his passions and enemies will inevitably be captured, whether here or there, and put to death.
It is not useless for you to keep in mind the purpose for which God is pleased to leave us in such a military situation. And that's what this is for. As in ancient times, God, leading Israel into the Promised Land, did not order all those who lived there to destroy the nations, but left in place five tribes alien and hostile to Israel: firstly, in order to test whether the chosen people firmly believed in Him and faithfully fulfilled His commandments, and secondly, in order to teach His people the art of warfare - so He does not suddenly destroy all our passions, but leaves them in us so that they fight with us until death, for the same purpose, but namely, to test our love for Him and submission to His will and to teach us spiritual warfare. Blessed Theodoret explains this in more detail. God, he says, does this for this:
a) so that we do not indulge in carelessness and negligence, but are vigilant, diligent and attentive;
b) so that we do not forget about the always ready attack on us and are not suddenly surrounded by enemies and overcome by passions;
c) so that we always remain resorting to God and seeking and expecting help from Him;
d) so that they do not be proud, but humbly think about themselves;
e) so that we learn to hate from the heart the passions and enemies who so tirelessly attack us;
f) to test whether we preserve God’s honor, love and faith to the end;
g) to encourage us to more accurately fulfill all the commandments of God and not transgress even the smallest ones;
h) to actually know how valuable virtue is, and therefore not agree to abandon it and fall in sin;
i) so that constant warfare gives us the opportunity to win greater and greater crowns;
j) to glorify God, but most of all to shame the devil and sin with your patience to the end;
k) so that, having become accustomed to warfare throughout life, we will not be afraid of it at the hour of death, when the most severe warfare will be against us.
Thus, being always surrounded by so many and such enemies, who hate us so viciously, we cannot expect from them either peace, truce, suppression, or postponement of battle, but at every moment we must be ready for battle and immediately courageously enter into her as soon as her enemies discover her. Of course, it would be better if we first did not open the doors of our nature and did not let enemies and passions inside us, into our soul and heart; but after they have once made their way into us, there is no need for us to indulge in carelessness, but we must arm ourselves against them in order to drive them out of ourselves. They are shameless and stubborn and will not come out unless they are driven out with abuse.
(St. Nicodemus the Holy Mountain)"

“Two, as if there were two minds in me: one good - he follows everything that is beautiful, and the other fallen - he follows the bad. One mind strives for the light and is ready to worship Christ, and the other mind - flesh and blood - is drawn to darkness and agrees to surrender to captivity to beliar. One reels in earthly things, seeks what is useful for himself not in the permanent, but in the transitory, loves feasts, quarrels, burdensome satiety, the shame of dark deeds and deceptions, walks the broad path and is covered with an impenetrable darkness of unreason, amuses himself with his own destruction.
And the other admires the heavenly and hoped-for things as real, in God alone he places the hope of life, but here, subject to various accidents, he considers things worthless as smoke, loves labors and good concerns and follows the narrow path of life. Seeing their struggle, the Spirit of the great God descended from above and gave help to the mind, stopping the uprising of restless flesh or pacifying the troubled waters of black passions. But even after this, the flesh has furious strength and does not stop fighting...
(St. Gregory the Theologian)"

"Every Christian has a double birth, the old and the carnal, the spiritual and the new, and one opposite to the other. The carnal birth is flesh, the spiritual is spirit. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And since both of these births are opposite to each other , then from here arises battle and warfare between the flesh and the spirit: the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit - what is contrary to the flesh. The flesh wants to mortify the spirit, but the spirit is the flesh. The flesh wants to be proud, magnified, exalted, but the spirit does not want, but wants to be humble. The flesh wants to be angry, be angry, quarrel, take revenge in deed and word, but the spirit does not want this, but wants to forgive everything with meekness.
The flesh wants to live in idleness, lie down, but the spirit turns away from this, and wants to exercise itself in blessed labors. The flesh wants to walk, get drunk, and have fun, but the spirit turns away from this and wants to either live in moderation or fast. The flesh wants to seek glory, honor, wealth in this world, but the spirit despises all this, strives for the same eternal blessings. A Christian, as a renewed one, needs to live not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, and subdue the flesh to the spirit according to the apostolic exhortation: Walk according to the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
(St. Tikhon of Zadonsk)"

“We will be offered two paths: the path of life and the path of death. He who goes along one does not go along the other. Whoever goes first along one or the other does not ultimately belong to either of the two paths: neither to the one leading to the Kingdom, nor to leading to torment. When he dies, then the judgment over him belongs to the One God... Cowardice and reproach of one's neighbor confuse the thought and do not allow it to see the light of God.
(Abba Isaiah)"

“The idea that one can live like a Christian and adhere to peace and secularism is an empty, delusional thought. Whoever lives by it will learn nothing more than pharisaism and a suspicious life, that is, he will only be a Christian in his opinion, but in fact, no. Don’t say, I can’t. This is not a Christian word. The Christian word is: I can do everything. But not on my own, but in the Lord who strengthens us.
(St. Theophan the Recluse)"

The vice of cowardice is both paradoxical and purely (dual) in its manifestations/properties, causes and consequences...

It opposes the virtue of courage (magnanimity) - a person’s determination in his striving for good (evil or good spirituality) and lack of striving for evil on the one hand, and opposes the vice of stubbornness (cruelty) - a person’s determination in his striving for evil (evil spirituality) and lack of striving for good on the other hand...
Cowardice belongs to one of the main (basic, fundamental) human infirmities/weaknesses and is very often combined with impatience and negligence...

“We got up in the morning, we want to live well, and in the evening you look - you’re lying drunk. That’s how it is, that’s the thing. After all, this is the most difficult thing - to live worthy of the title of a person. It’s very hard work, because you have to fight with yourself, with your desires, with all this “if you really want to, then you can". But it’s the other way around. If you really want to, then you can’t! Yes, you can’t! And not because God is standing over you like a guy with a stick, but because that by indulging your weakness, you make yourself worse, again and again.(Mamonov P.N.)"

If generosity can be either good (courage), growing out of love/hatred of evil, or evil (stubbornness/cruelty) growing out of malice/hatred of good, then cowardice is an unambiguous evil that does not allow a person to unambiguously (irrevocably) form his attitude /aspiration/orientation/spirit (worldview) both towards good (and towards its Source - God) and towards evil...

Thus, cowardice prevents a person from completely repenting/coming out/joining the Church and starting a zealous life according to the commandments of Christ - to be saved...

“You cannot dedicate today to sin and promise a precarious tomorrow to God.
(St. Luke Filofeisky)"

Cruelty (stubbornness), for example, leading a person to the bottom/maximum of evil, can facilitate a person’s repentance (remember the prudent robber) - this is some of its benefit (in case of his congenital or acquired spiritual blindness/insensitivity/heart petrification, which does not allow him to notice his small /average evil)...

The reason for cowardice can be in lack of faith, and in unbalanced (approximately equal in magnitude) love of goodness/evil-love (both innate and acquired), and maybe in a special, weak from birth state of a kind of spiritual impotence (when desire in a person He seems to have the ability to strive for good, but he doesn’t have enough abilities for this)...

Since modern man has no special “problems” with striving for evil (with stubbornness, with an inclination towards sin) (as a result of his original/congenital damage), it makes more sense to write about cowardice in relation to goodness...

Such cowardice is born from the love of voluptuousness that is inseparable from it, from selfishness, from self-pity, mental and physical effeminacy, laziness, and many others. other reasons (for example, from human fear)...

This spiritual weakness (weakness) can be inherited from generation to generation, accumulating like a snowball in people who do not perform good actions (both internal and external) in the simplest situations, when they see where is evil and where is good and They can do good, but they don’t...

Sometimes cowardice can also be the cause of betrayal (the antipode of devotion)...

It is not without reason that during the times of persecution of the Church in the first centuries of Christianity, serious discussions took place about the possibility or impossibility of accepting back into the fold of the Church those who had abandoned (betrayed Christ) the cowardly from Her...

It was at those very times, in the prayer of permission during confession, that the words of the priest about reconciliation and union with the Church of the confessor arose and have been preserved to this day (as a memory).

Nowadays, cowardice often manifests itself in the so-called. infantilism (in the fear of making independent decisions and irresponsibility for one’s external and internal actions), which categorically does not give a person the opportunity to repent and pushes him to systematically condemn and blame both people and the circumstances surrounding the infant (even internal ones), andin “bending” to this “changeable world” - in opportunism/conformism... ...

Often cowardice is combined with deceit and hypocrisy, with the help of which an “unreliable” Christian, as they say, “turns the arrows”...

In this case, it is doubly harmful, developing in the faint-hearted also “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,” almost completely cutting off from him the opportunity to repent (be saved)...
It should be noted that it is useful/reasonable to distinguish cowardice both from the natural variability in human nature itself, and from the entire complex/set of changing, involuntary, external, objective circumstances of a person’s life (an important component of God’s providence):

"If the sun always shines, then everything in the field will wither - that's why it needs rain. If everything rains, then everything will trample - that's why you need a wind to blow it. And if there's not enough wind, then a storm is also needed - so that everything will blow away. A person All this happens in due time healthy, because he changeable(by its fallen/sinful nature - from the author).( St. Ambrose Optinsky)"
"Among temptations, do not be embarrassed. He who sends an opportunity for battle will give strength to victory. Be calm in spirit, trust in God; if God is for you, then who can be against you? ( St. rights Alexy Mechev)"
“A sign of courage is not to be proud in prosperity, and not to be humbled in adversity, but to have the same way of thinking. ( St. Isidore Pelusiot)"

Cowardice is cured by sincere repentance, and if necessary, then by Confession and subsequent Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ as a Source of courage and the most effective Cure for cowardice...

A diligent life according to all the commandments of Jesus is extremely necessary, humbling a person and giving him the ability to heal from the very Source of courage, absolute courage - Christ...

“If you fall into cowardice, pray. Pray with fear and trembling, pray diligently, cheerfully and soberly. This is how it is appropriate to pray, especially since our invisible enemies act cunningly and vigilantly: they especially try to prevent such prayer.(Abba Evagrius)"

“No matter what grief befalls you, no matter what trouble you have, say: “I will endure this for Jesus Christ!” - and it will be easier for you. For the name of Jesus Christ (as a prayer tool - from the author) is strong O. With him (when uniting with the Lord with his help - from the author), all troubles subside, demons disappear. Your annoyance will subside, and your cowardice will calm down.
(St. Anthony of Optina)"

Excellent material on this topic are the relevant lectures by Prof. MDAiS Osipova A.I. from his official website, A Word about the cowardice of St. Ephraim the Syrian from the site Patristic Heritage, articles by Priest Alexei Zaitsev, Hieromonk Job (Gumerov), Priest Afanasy Gumerov, Inna Karpova, hieromonk. Seraphim (Rose), Sergei Mazaev, Met. Afanasy of Limassol, abbot. Nektary (Morozov), Peter Davydov, Tatyana Shishova, Irina Medvedeva, Maria Gorodova from the website Pravoslavie.Ru and the corresponding materials from the sites Nika, ABC of Faith, Orthodoxy and the World, Seraphim and Logoslovo...

CHRIST IS RISEN!