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Cunning has a long-standing significance in Orthodoxy. The word “evil” comes from the Slavic “bow” (bend), which is one of the names of the devil. It is mentioned more than once in the New Testament, in particular in the most famous prayer, “Our Father.” In itself, it indicates moral distortion, deceit, and insincerity. And “devil” is translated as slanderer. Read on in the article about what wickedness means and what signs of wickedness exist.
crafty man
Man is wicked. And sinfulness made him that way. Cunning was absorbed into his entire being: it penetrated his mind, words, feelings, deeds. He lies constantly:
- with or without reason;
- cunning in small things and in difficult situations;
- understates;
- misrepresents;
- exaggerates;
- belittles;
- asks for advice so as not to take advantage of it;
- forgives himself without forgiving others;
- sees the small, but does not notice the huge.
Then he justifies himself for everything said and done, trying to find the “fake” correctness of his decisions. A person is simply sick with untruth and deceit, and this mystery cannot be explored to the end.
How did evil spirits appear?
Even before the creation of the Universe, there was an angelic world, and one day the most powerful of the angels, whose name was Dennitsa, became proud and rebelled against God. For this he was expelled from the angelic world. It was then that he formed his kingdom of darkness, absolutely opposite to the bright kingdom of God in his proud and insidious plans. He began to parasitize the existence created by God. As soon as God created man, this evil spirit began to penetrate the souls of people in order to conquer and expand the territory of its possession, as well as to displace God's grace. And quite often he succeeded.
Saints about wickedness
The Bible says a lot about guile, cunning and deceit. Almost all the saints expressed their opinion about this most unpleasant quality of the human soul. For it is precisely this that destroys it from the inside and brings negative influence to the surrounding world.
Often in their legends, the monks use an adjective from this word, which also has a corresponding meaning in every biblical saying.
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Apostle Paul
The Holy Apostle Paul used it to characterize the era, saying that Jesus “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age.” The evil age is the time when fallen man lives, a time of all-consuming egoism and irreconcilable passions.
Macarius the Great
This word was often used by the holy fathers, in particular the Monk Macarius the Great, calling that “the evil prince is the kingdom of darkness,” which captivated a person, invested his soul with power, in order to make him a king in all deeds and words. Thus, the human soul is still in sin, and his entire being is desecrated and has no freedom in thoughts, mind, or body.
Saint Basil
Saint Basil viewed wickedness as ingenuity for evil intentions. This happens when a person, hiding behind good thoughts and deeds, offers the same to another as bait. Benefit, selfishness, selfishness - and only by cunning, without the slightest hint of sincere intentions on one’s part.
Simeon the Theologian
The Monk Simeon the Theologian wrote more than once that one must not indulge in carelessness and inaction, for they give rise to wickedness, and from it all evil is born.
The Bible contains a huge amount of reflections on this quality of the human spirit. One thing is clear: deceit is a sin. And there is no reason to argue with this, because everything that is generated from the evil one brings only bad things. And a person has the right to choose the path to follow. And each such choice is a choice of a lifetime - truth, sincerity and devotion to God or selfishness, lies and selfishness. Faith is not born from sin, but it is the meaning of all existence.
The non-Orthodox spirit always seeks to penetrate the lives of Orthodox people. The cunning serpent is looking for loopholes to a person through which he can drag him along with him to hell. And the easiest way for him to do this is not in an obvious way, but by making up himself as something bright and good, something that most people cannot distinguish from true goodness. We accept lies as truth, and our souls are distorted, just as the souls of Adam and Eve were distorted when they believed the devil and acted on his word. An incorrect action or word is a consequence of a person’s already accomplished spiritual fall. When you touch a lie yourself, with your inner nature, you become a lie. And only repentance before the Lord can bring back what was lost. But the trick of the evil one lies in the fact that he tries to introduce a person to his lies unnoticed, so that he does not understand his wrongness, his fall, does not see the abyss opening up between him and God, and does not feel the need for repentance for his return to the bosom of the Church. Thus, many people consider themselves Orthodox without appearing as such before the Lord. And maybe it’s not even so scary for the “Orthodox by the fact of baptism”, as for the “Orthodox” who participate in the sacraments of the church, praying, fasting, people who think that they live with the Lord, teaching others, but in essence are far removed from Him.
We can say that we are all non-Orthodox, because “every man is a lie.” Or, as St. Ignatius Brianchaninov said, we are all, to one degree or another, in spiritual delusion... But there is an important point here. When a person begins to perform actions, speak words out of his own conviction, according to what he considers to be true in himself, with the desire to be heard, or receiving some kind of self-satisfaction from his actions... then this is the path prepared by the devil. Because “every man is a lie,” and he cannot create any truth with which he could at least somewhat satisfy his soul. On the contrary, the constant vision of one’s imperfection, the inability to do anything perfectly according to God (because even if the Lord Himself creates with our hands, we will still manage to ruin His work) leads to the Orthodox state of humility before the All-Perfect Lord, the Only Righteous One Truth; which man cannot contain, but into which he can flow through His Holy Mercy. The evil one acts deceitfully. His main goal is to eradicate the Church. And in the conditions prevailing today, the easiest way for him to do this is to distort church life, the consciousness of believers in such a way that we, continuing our services in churches and thinking that “everything is fine,” would gradually move away from their Orthodox inner essence, consisting in living communication between man and God, man with man in God, the union of all believers in the One Body of Christ, which is evidence of the already come Kingdom of God in the midst of this world far from Him. That is, we, people who have come to Christ, gathering at His Table, united “in the One Spirit of Communion,” are the Presence of God in this world.
Christ said: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” And two or three plus the Lord are not three or four, they are two or three united by the Lord in Himself into one single whole, that is, already one Man. God manifests Himself in this world as Love, which cannot be touched, seen, or understood with the mind; one can only learn through experience what it means to be united by one’s soul with another soul by this Love. And the Orthodox understanding of the Church lies in this, that we all meet each other halfway, overcoming the sins that separate us, washing them with the Blood of our Savior, in order to be the One Body of Christ, a place where there is still room for Love, a place of the Presence of the Lord in this world until the end of this age. This is “the calling of the true Church, which “the gates of hell will not prevail.” And it is this essence that the devil tries to distort, putting into the minds and consciousnesses of people any other meaning for them of visiting the temple: touching a shrine, receiving grace, their own - some kind of purification and union with the Lord, supposedly independent of other people... everything that whatever you want, in the most pious form, just to bypass the main thing that saves a person from his clutches: that going to meet the Lord is the same as going to meet your neighbor, constantly eradicating in yourself what interferes with this “meeting”, that in In the sacrament of Communion we unite not only with the Blood and Flesh of Christ, but with all those who partake of His Blood and Flesh - and this is the main purpose of the sacrament.
The Kingdom of God is the eternal Sacrament of Life in union with all neighbors. And you cannot enter into Him if you do not want to see someone next to you. That is why we are commanded: “Love your enemy...” - that, without overcoming this division between each other, we will remain divided... outside the boundaries of His Kingdom. The evil one is trying in every possible way to introduce his substitution into church life. Under the untouched external, ritual, pious, carefully squeezing in your false spirit. In godless times, the sacrament of Marriage was replaced by a solemn wedding ceremony in the registry office. People had an internal need to highlight this significant event, as a union of two lives into one: this has been the case for centuries. Many chastely entered into such a civil marriage, and, satisfied with the created solemnity, began family life. But they did not receive the essence that the sacrament of Wedding gives, the action of the Holy Spirit, uniting two into “one flesh,” but they received the consequences of such unions, growing with each generation. At first they stopped entering into civil marriages chastely: “a week earlier, a week later” - after all, there really is no difference. Then the registry office was no longer perceived as something necessary. The family was no longer perceived... This is an example, perhaps not entirely suitable for the topic, but it shows how the absence of the Holy Spirit in external form decomposes the “surrounding space.” In the same way, the absence of the Spirit of Truth in external liturgical forms can very quickly destroy the Orthodox life of people. And one more point that I would like to mention... As has already been stated, the evil one always tries to lead a person away from the true path to a false goal. And if it is not difficult to catch non-church people who do not live by the Lord even with obviously foul-smelling rotten bait, then for church people they have to wrap it in a shiny wrapper with images of bright angels. There is not much more work, but there is a lot more malicious laughter at the poor devils...
The easiest way to make an Orthodox person non-Orthodox is to redirect him from the inner spiritual life (which once consisted of natural simple communication with God in Paradise, and after the fall in constant introspection, comparing his life with how far it is from the life of Christ, seeing how We have deeply distorted ourselves, the image that God placed in us) to external life, relating to earthly existence, defending all sorts of supposedly righteous ideas, the rights to a comfortable and crossless life “in all piety and purity.” And now they are throwing money at us in the form of created panic with Taxpayer Identification Numbers, juvenile justice, childhood vaccinations and other ideas that take the world out of the hearts of unfortunate Orthodox Christians and plunge them into a spiritually delightful state of combat readiness to fight evil to the last drop of blood... But not in themselves! It is most important. A non-Orthodox person, wounded by the spirit of lies, is always ready to fight with any external “evil”, to resist the authorities that are from God, to resist the time that should be, because what is said in Scripture is being fulfilled, but turn a blind eye to his own fall, which drags away everything the world, the whole society is in ruins.
Natalia PAVLOVA
With the evil one according to his wickedness (Bible)
In gratitude for deliverance from his enemies, King David glorified the Lord with a song, in which, in particular, it was said: “You deal mercifully with the merciful, sincerely with the sincere man, purely with the pure, and with the evil one according to his wickedness” (2 Samuel 22:26,27; cf. Psalm 18:26 [17:27]).
A parable about the truth of lies and deceit:
Since time immemorial, along the road that leads from the port of Three Lands to the old city of Scarlet - the capital of the magical land of Fairy Tale, there lived a puddle named Dema. Her father, May Rain, and her mother, Morning Dew, did not remember their daughter, the child of random, fleeting love, from birth, and Dema did not remember them.
Days and years passed, Dema grew up, gaining strength and wisdom, day after day listening to merchants who were carrying their goods or travelers traveling light. Scraps of words, laughter, crying, even blood - her life consisted of this. Dyoma met and saw off everyone, from each she received grains of something new. But at the same time, I didn’t notice: how dust and dirt rose from under the wheels of carts and people’s feet; there were those who even threw garbage into it. The surface of Dema has long since become transparent, and the clean air around has been replaced by a terrible smell of rot.
And across the road, young Buttercup, a joker, sprouted; the wind carried his seed from a distant field and threw it, laughing, to the side of the road. Buttercup was not handsome, and no one paid attention to him, but one morning Dema, waking up from sleep, saw Rose instead of Buttercup. White, beautiful flower.
An early traveler passing by stopped, amazed and surprised by its beauty, caressed the tender leaves and smiled at his thoughts. In parting, he approached the flower very close and inhaled its aroma:
- Its smell is so wonderful!
It’s a pity that it’s spoiled by the stench from the puddle opposite - muttering with regret, he left, smiling and humming something to himself.
- “The stink of a puddle”!? I? ... I can't, no! “Dyoma cried and spent that day in bitter thoughts; everyone who passed by said how ugly and disgusting she was.
The sun set, and instead of the beautiful rose, as before, there was Buttercup. -What? He lied, he is not a rose! He's Buttercup! – she exclaimed, saddenedly she added:
- And I? I am a dirty and stinking puddle – and I began to cry quietly again.
- But if he is, then I can also turn into crystal! To bring joy and life-giving moisture to road-weary travelers! But does that mean lying? Life is a lie every day! How low and mean this is! No, never, she decided and fell asleep with relief.
So the days passed, people still smiled at the flower and scolded Dema, only one traveler looked at her thoughtfully and left without saying a word. Before sunset he returned, holding a horse harnessed to a cart by the bridles. In the cart, river sand poured over the edges, the man deftly set to work, and before dark there was not a trace left of the puddle.
Night came, Buttercup was sad, he could not understand how he could put his “worthless” principles above all else and not bring joy and benefit to others.
Let's think about how often we try to seem better to people than we really are. But let’s think about how much what we do is needed by God, how we look in His eyes...
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May the Lord protect you!
Fighting sins
Almost all people are overcome by passions and have a tendency to irritation, and this also means obsession. Through sins, the soul finds itself under demonic influence. The devil enters it like a pathogenic bacterium into the body and begins its negative activities. To avoid getting sick and protect yourself, a person needs a strong immune system. Protection from demons is spiritual improvement and direction towards God.
You can save your soul from evil spirits by reading prayers. However, an ordinary person will not be able to do this; it is too arrogant and very dangerous for a spiritually unprotected person to enter into the fight against the dark forces of evil.
Many people are interested in what a prayer from a demon sounds like. It is necessary to understand that performing such rituals yourself is strictly prohibited. We must also take into account the fact that not even every priest will take on this matter, and then only with the blessing of the bishop.
Faith in God
Demons in a person are driven out by prayer, fasting and, most importantly, sincere faith in God. Before this process, you must confess your sins and receive communion. The reprimand will be within the power of a prayer monk who has not known sin and carnal pleasures. The key point here is strict fasting. The soul of an unprepared person will not be able to cope with the expulsion of evil spirits. In this case, prayer against evil spirits will not work positively, and the result, on the contrary, can be very unexpected and deplorable.
A monk, having received instructions from senior spiritual brethren, is endowed with supernatural strength and protection, with the help of which he can cope.
Prayer that casts out demons is called exorcist prayer. It should also be noted that 90% of people ended up in the hands of the devil because of their involvement in the occult. An possessed person can bend unnaturally, scream in a frantic voice, convulse, and often he develops such enormous physical strength that several people cannot cope with him. This reaction often manifests itself when seeing shrines, reading Holy Scripture and prayers. It is also interesting that the possessed, or, as they are popularly called, cliques, unmistakably identify a glass of holy water. If you bring them a glass of holy water, they immediately begin to suffer from seizures. There can be no magic involved in the process of exorcism.
Prayer from the demon
There is a prayer called delaying the actions of the devil by Elder Pansophius of Athos. This prayer is recommended for devotees of piety for daily reading. No blessing is required for it. It begins with the words: “Merciful, Lord! You once through the mouth of a servant...”
The answer to the question of which prayer helps best against evil spirits can be obtained from a book called “The Complete Orthodox Prayer Book for Every Need.” There is a section with prayers “On driving away evil spirits from people.” All of them are read only with the blessing of the priest-confessor. These are prayers: To the heavenly powers, St. martyrs Cyprian and Justina, psalm 67, psalm 90, psalm 102, psalm 126, St. Martyr Tryphon, Rev. Cornelius of Pskov-Pechersk, Rev. Mary of Egypt, etc.
There is another wonderful collection of Orthodox Christians called “Prayer Shield”. There, in the section “Prayers for the exorcism of demons” you can read the prayers: St. John of Novgorod, Venerable Anthony the Great, Rev. Irinarch of Rostov, Rev. Seraphim of Sarov and many more different prayers.
A prayer against evil spirits should come from the lips of a person with a pure heart and sincere faith, then, perhaps, it will be possible to achieve the desired result and free the possessed person from the terrible murderous force.
