To a person with little spirit and attached to earthly things, these virtues seem unbearably difficult. However, if you look into it, the difficulty lies not in the nature of virtues, but in our depravity. Indeed, the angels in Heaven live virtuously and fulfill all the commandments of God quite naturally, without deliberate podvig, and, most importantly, they do it with joy. If we were sinless and pure, as God created us, then it would be easy and pleasant for us to live virtuously. But sin has disturbed the harmony between soul and body in us. The body, stricken with the leprosy of sin, took power over the soul and began to tyrannize over it with its disorderly and capricious desires. It became necessary to restrain the body and place it in a subordinate place in relation to the soul. But this is easy only in words. In fact, mankind found itself in slavery to sin and the devil. It took the coming of the Son of God to earth and His assumption of our nature in order to help us free ourselves from our evil and restore the image of God in ourselves.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself walked the path of human adversity, all the difficulties of a virtuous life in the conditions of a selfish, sinful and sometimes atheistic society. He did this in order to show us the way to spiritual renewal. With His grace He helps us at every step, He strengthens and inspires us, He removes the burden of sins from us, but with all this we cannot avoid podvig, because the obstacles to spiritual renewal are within us. We are the main obstacle to our salvation!

But do not despair and give up. All the righteous, to a greater or lesser degree, at first suffered from various shortcomings, were subjected to internal and external temptations, sometimes they were exhausted and fell, then they got up and repented again. And it is remarkable how, with God's help, they reached great spiritual heights, gained wisdom and experience, so that later they could help those who followed them on the path of spiritual renewal. And God Himself testified to the correctness of their way by endowing them with the gift of performing miracles and predicting the future. Among these innumerable righteous people were people from the most diverse living conditions and social levels - there were beggars and rich, simpletons and scientists, slaves and kings. But for all their outward differences, they all have something in common, namely, the Christian podvig. All of them walked the narrow path paved by Christ, all of them voluntarily deprived themselves of various benefits and pleasures provided to them by life, they all tried to "crucify their flesh with its passions and lusts" (Gal. 5:24; Rom. 6:6).

Let us take the Apostle Paul as an example. His life is valuable especially because he is mainly referred to by Protestants when they assert that podvigs are not necessary, because a person is saved by faith alone. His autobiographical notes, scattered in his various epistles, make it possible to understand the driving motives that guided him in his personal life. First, the very mission of spreading the gospel entrusted to him by God required great effort and complete dedication from him. It would seem that he does not need any additional other feats. However, the Apostle constantly burdens himself with fasts and all-night prayers. In his own words, he often dwells "in toil and in weariness, often in vigilance, in hunger and thirst, often in fasting, in cold and nakedness" (2 Corinthians 11:27). In order to kindle spiritual fervor in himself, he constantly "trained" himself with spiritual feats, looking at his life as a competition at the Olympic Games. "Do you not know," he wrote to the Corinthians, "that those who run on the lists all run, but one receives the reward? So [you] also run to receive. All ascetics abstain from everything: they to receive a perishable crown, and we to receive an incorruptible crown. And therefore I do not run as to what is wrong, I do not fight so that I only beat the air; but I subdue and enslave my body, lest, preaching to others, I myself remain unworthy" (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

Obviously, he did so because he considered himself not yet to have attained the necessary measure of spiritual perfection: "I say this not because I have already attained or been perfected; but I strive to see if I will not attain as Christ Jesus reached me. Brethren, I do not consider myself to have attained; but only, forgetting what is behind and stretching forward, I strive towards the goal, towards the honor of the highest calling of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, whoever among us is perfect must think so; but if you think otherwise, then God will reveal this also to you. However, what we have come to, so we must think and live according to that rule. Imitate me, brethren, and see them that walk in the image which ye have in us" (Phil. 3:12-17).

There is no doubt that the Apostle Paul understood Christianity better than modern sectarians. And if he voluntarily enslaved and exhausted himself, it was because he considered it necessary for spiritual growth. When he wrote to Christians: "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, for your reasonable service" (Rom. 12:1-2), he exhorted them to follow the way of life that he himself followed (Phil. 3:17; 2 Thess. 3:7; Heb. 13:7).

Thus, if we were completely sinless, free from passions and inaccessible to temptations, if we were completely spiritually inclined and full of love for God and for our neighbors, in a word, if we were spiritually perfect, then, obviously, podvigs would be superfluous for us, just as they are superfluous for angels and saints who have attained the Kingdom of Heaven. In this damaged state, it is only a goal that must be achieved with God's help, but also with personal effort.

The Apostle Peter sums up the content of the Christian life in the following way: "As Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same thought; for he who suffers in the flesh ceases to sin, so that the rest of the time in the flesh he may no longer live according to human lusts, but according to the will of God" (1 Pet. 4:1). Here the overcoming of sin is made directly dependent on the voluntary crucifixion of the flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24).

In essence, everything comes down to a very elementary truth, that because of sinful damage, the soul and the body of a person are in conflict: when the body is satiated, then the spiritual forces of a person become blunted and weakened, and, conversely, when a person weakens the body by voluntary abstinence, then his spiritual forces awaken and begin to blossom. The best thinkers have established from ancient times that every spiritual effort, every voluntary deprivation, every refusal, every sacrifice is immediately exchanged for spiritual riches within us; The more we lose, the more we gain.

That is why the main theme of the Holy Scriptures is the motivation for podvig. The very life of a Christian is likened to bearing the cross after Christ: "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:38). To the disciples' question how many will be saved, the Lord answered: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for I say unto you, many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able" (Luke 13:24). "The kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away" (Matthew 11:12; see also Luke 13:22-30; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 14:25-27; John 12:25-26). "Seek ye first of all the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:19-34). And this is not only at certain moments of life, but should become a way of life: "Let your loins be girded up, and your lamps burning" (Luke 12:32-35, Mark 13:33-37). "In diligence do not faint; burn with the Spirit; Serve the Lord" (Romans 12:11).

However, speaking of the necessity of podvig, it must be remembered that in Christianity it is not spiritualization per se that is important, but assimilation to Christ. Spirituality can be dull, evil, and gloomy, like the "spirituality" of demons. Hinduism, with its yoga exercises, also develops "spirituality" and certain faculties of the soul - but the result here is the opposite of what is needed for salvation. Catholicism, breaking away from the apostolic tradition, has developed its own specific ascetic methods of "mortification of the flesh," but these feats are imbued with a gloomy and unconscious fulfillment of the established disciplinary requirements and are also far from the desired goal.

Christianity is a religion of joy. Irritability, severity, gloom contradict the Orthodox understanding of podvig. The very preaching of Christ began with the call of people to the Kingdom of eternal happiness: "Blessed are the poor in spirit... blessed are those who mourn... blessed are the meek..." (Matt. 5). The greatest ascetics have always reflected in themselves a bright and joyful mood. Talking, for example, with St. Seraphim of Sarov, Elder Ambrose of Optina, Righteous John of Kronstadt, St. Seraphim of Sarov, Venerable Ambrose of Optina, St. John of Kronstadt. Herman of Alaska and other true righteous men, people drew peace and consolation. All true ascetics were strict with themselves, indulgent and affectionate with others.

High Goal