The sin of pride in Orthodoxy: how is it expressed?

When considering the list of mortal sins that kill not only the body, but also the soul, one cannot ignore pride, since many people suffer from it. Pride, from the point of view of Orthodoxy, can be considered an inadequate consideration of one’s own personality, which often leads to many problems and provokes serious mistakes.

The first person to commit the sin of pride, not wanting to bow before God, was the fallen angel Lucifer, which led to very serious consequences, triggering the eternal mechanism of the struggle between good and evil. Considering the example of Lucifer in more detail, it is worth reflecting on the fact that as a result, good nevertheless won, which means that pride will not lead to anything good, but will only doom the soul to eternal suffering, forcing a person to make irreparable mistakes.

It is imperative to fight pride, but before you try to get rid of addiction, you need to know the enemy well by sight, having studied all his treachery. Having considered the signs and consequences of pride, a Christian will understand how terrible this sin is and why it is worth fighting against it immediately.

The basics about the sin of pride - everyone should know this

Photo: Vera21.ru
Pride is a passion that is not only called destructive, but is considered the sin of Lucifer. When considering the basic concepts of the sin of pride and its emerging consequences, it is worth mentioning the following:

this sin first appeared in the world, even before God created man;
pride can be called a sign of contempt for one's neighbor;
of the eight deadly sins that kill the human soul, pride can be put in first place;
the sin of pride takes its beginning from the sin of vanity;
the most terrible type of pride, which is difficult to get rid of, is charm;
pride is called the foundation of all other sins, since bad deeds begin to be committed precisely through pride;
a proud person exceeds the level of his importance, becomes arrogant, suffers from arrogance, exalts himself above others;
the word “gurdus”, similar to the word pride, from Latin means stupid;
pride may not have external manifestations; often, a person who seems kind to others has long since become proud inside and exalted himself even before God;
pride cannot be defeated in a short period of time; one will have to actively fight against this sinful addiction throughout one’s life;
Church teachers say that the sin of pride has 12 daughters, and its main symptom is vanity.

A proud person is inclined to believe that he has achieved everything in life only thanks to himself, without recognizing that he received help from the Lord or others.

Section VIII. The passion of pride and its overcoming

It should be noted right away that pride is a spiritual disease. And we see its manifestations on the mental level only indirectly.

An Orthodox psychologist can see that behind anger, resentment, a passion for condemnation, a passion for people-pleasing, a fear of public speaking and many other things, there is a fear of receiving painful blows to one’s pride. A person tries in every possible way to protect his “ego” from these painful experiences.

I don’t remember a single case in practice where someone complained that their pride was preventing them from living.

The task of an Orthodox psychologist is to gradually build psychotherapeutic sessions in such a way that a person realizes the root of his problem and sees that all the negative manifestations in his life are mainly associated with the “seed of Satan” that has infected all of humanity. The most important thing here is to come to the realization of the fact that “I am one of everyone, and this disease has not escaped me.” From this moment it is possible to begin healing.

2.3.1. The difference between the approach of a secular psychologist and an Orthodox one in working with a proud person

A proud person often experiences a state of loneliness. This may be the reason why he sees a psychologist.

Many neurotic conditions are associated precisely with the presence of this passion. The joy of being, the joy of communication is lost, love leaves the heart...

We have already said that pride manifests itself as a person’s inadequate self-esteem. A sign of adequate self-esteem is a person’s state, which is called authenticity - the ability to be oneself.

Orthodox psychologist L. F. Shekhovtsova, in her article “Self-esteem, authenticity and self-love,” examines these concepts and analyzes the approaches that have been developed in Western areas of psychotherapy [see: 17].

She writes that secular psychotherapy, which, like the entire Western civilization, has experienced a crisis of humanism, does not have clear criteria, based on which it could offer a person to regulate his self-esteem in such a way that it does not go to the extreme poles, not “ would go off scale.” Spiritually oriented therapy, namely Christian and Orthodox therapy, can help a person maintain self-esteem in an average state between two poles - high and low.

Constant vision, that is, observation of one’s personal sins (self-control, “vigilance”), remembering that a person is a “worm”, a “slave of earthly passions”, protects a believer from overestimating his personality.

The other pole of ideas about man helps a Christian not to fall low in assessing his worth. The Creator made the originally created whole man master of the Universe and subordinated every creature to him. Such a person is called upon to harmonize the Cosmos and save all creation in it that groans and suffers. For the sake of man and his salvation, God, the Creator of the visible and invisible world, incarnated into an earthly, material body, suffered torment and was resurrected, making man capable of deification. Secular scientific thought, in the concepts of evolution and the role of the unconscious, places man at the center of the world (an anthropocentric picture of the world in humanism, promoting the development of human selfhood and pride), but deprives man of his original god-like dignity. The Church elevates a person to the highest moral dignity, with which responsibility and vocation are connected.

Thus, the antinomy of Christian theological ideas about man, “from the worm and the slave to the master of the Universe and the one for whom Christ suffered the death of the cross,” allows us to keep man’s own ideas about himself in the middle channel, guided by a sense of proportion.

...Let us imagine the result of our reasoning in the form of a cross. The middle of this scale, when a person does not evaluate himself extremely negatively or positively, but soberly, sensibly sees both his negative and positive sides, has adequate self-esteem: this is the zone of authenticity (the goal of psychotherapeutic work). Through it passes the vertical of a person’s spiritual ideas about himself from “I am a worm, I am a slave” (the lower end of the vertical) to “I am the image of God, I am the master of the Universe.” This vertical of assimilation to God, deification, theosis, spiritualization of the entire human trimerium is the goal of human spiritual growth in ascetic Orthodox practice [see: 17, p. 28].

I will give one example of how secular psychologists, focused on nurturing leadership and personal development, “increase a person’s self-esteem.”

In the early 90s, Lifespring training appeared, brought by specialists from the USA. He was very popular. His idea in itself is not bad: to discover in a person his potential, his unrealized abilities, to free him from neurotic shackles, but all this happened along the path of strengthening the self. During the training process, the feeling of superiority and opinion about oneself was “sublimated from scratch.” Just like that, without any internal work, just consider yourself a leader. And you will be. And everything will be as you planned. At first glance, everything seems to be correct - work is underway to raise self-esteem. To an inexperienced person attending this training, everything seemed surprisingly simple. In practice, this meant that everything depends on you and any person can easily build his life according to his own wishes. There was no place for God there. The result of the training was the removal of sexual barriers, feelings of guilt, and responsibility for others. This was accompanied by a “sublimation of feelings” to a state of euphoria. People intoxicated by the belief that “everything depends only on themselves” cannot remain in this state for long. The euphoria could not last long. In some cases it gave way to depression. Suicides also happened after this training (the organizers of the training, by the way, took a signature from the participants that they would not make any claims against the specialists, no matter what happened to them). Later, the organizers of the training added a psychiatrist to the staff, who was supposed to identify borderline states in those who wished to participate in this work. In addition to lifespring (by the way, very expensive and also prestigious for this reason), there are a lot of other personal growth and leadership trainings that are very unsafe for the soul.

Isn't this a clear call to pride - be a leader?! True leadership is service, it is responsibility for those around you. This is constant attention to your inner life. And examples for us are Christ, the apostles, saints, simply highly spiritual people...

Here is the difference in the meanings and attitudes of the work of a secular psychologist and an Orthodox psychologist. If for a secular psychologist the goal of therapy is to remove the interfering symptom and to adapt the person to worldly existence as much as possible, then the Orthodox psychologist relies on the Christian worldview. In this case, the symptom may be a “useful formation” from which a person’s spiritual growth begins. After all, the meaning of a person’s life does not boil down to acquiring all possible benefits on earth. Each symptom carries some important information for the development of the soul. The occurrence of symptoms cannot be random. The correct attitude towards them allows a person to discover the path of spiritual growth and take the path of acquiring grace. And these are completely different feelings that come from a fundamentally different source than the feeling of euphoria.

An Orthodox psychologist, based in his work on the Christian worldview, considers the questions of human purpose and the meaning of life in a completely different way.

According to Archpriest Alexander Men, “the meaning of life is for man, created in the image and likeness of God, to approach his Prototype. It is both meaning and purpose. We discover this Kingdom within us, and Eternity begins to speak within us. And then we rise above the vanity, we cease to be slaves of everyday life, we know how to courageously resist the misfortunes that befall us” [10, p. 67].

Whether a person knows it or not, the meaning of life is given to him by the Creator. And if we shy away from realizing this meaning, then we create opportunities for various problems to arise, seemingly of a psychological nature. However, their roots are in the spiritual sphere, namely in pride - a person’s voluntary decision to settle in this life without God.

Humility, according to F.M. Dostoevsky is a terrible force. Those psychologists who work with addictions (drugs, alcohol, gambling addiction) are convinced in practice of this truth again and again. When working with addictions, which are essentially passionate attachments to something or someone, we clearly see that results are only possible if we rely on spiritually oriented methods of work.

This is the first and main condition - to admit your powerlessness over the disease, to accept that you are frail and weak and that you cannot cope on your own. Here is another paradox of Christianity. How so? I admit powerlessness - and only then is healing possible! But God tells us through the mouth of the holy Apostle Paul: My power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Only in the hearts of the contrite and humble does the great mystery of God’s power take place.

The main method in Orthodox psychology and psychotherapy is introspection, that is, self-observation. To do this, it is proposed to keep a diary, the features of keeping it are explained, and what you should pay attention to. As we remember, self-knowledge is interpreted in patristic literature as the science of sciences. An attentive and sober attitude to your thoughts, feelings, and intentions is simply necessary to heal from a symptom or solve a problem.

Here is another small exercise that “cures” “pride”. For 21 days (psychology believes that a habit can be changed no earlier than three weeks), write twenty points of gratitude every evening, answering the question: what do I thank myself, people, God for. Let it be the simplest things, maybe even very insignificant. Perhaps the next day something will repeat itself. It’s okay, the main thing is to continue and allow yourself to grow a feeling of gratitude inside.

2.3.2. Examples of psychotherapeutic work with pride

Judgment of one's neighbor. In psychology there is such a thing as projection. Without going deeply into the description of this process, it should be noted that it is formed as a protective mechanism. The essence of projection is that a person begins to attribute his internal states, feelings, thoughts, motives for his actions (not fully realized) to other people, believing that he perceived this from the outside, and not from within himself. This mechanism “protects” us from seeing our own sins; it often manifests itself in us as condemnation of our neighbor. Judging another is a typical manifestation of pride, according to the holy fathers. When faced with the inevitable temptation to judge someone, we must remember this mental phenomenon. It is necessary to know: it is precisely the passionate desire to condemn someone that tells us that what we so condemn in our neighbor, we do not want to see in ourselves.

Judging our neighbor is a sin that we have been struggling with for years and cannot stop ourselves from repeating. Let's stop judging, therefore, we will gain purity of heart.

The Gospel directly prohibits judgment: Judge not, lest ye be judged (Matthew 7:1). This prohibition applies to the area of our personal relationships with others. Christ expressed this with the words: And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not feel the plank in your own eye? (Matt. 7:3).

Having succumbed to the sinful desire to caustically expose and criticize bitterly in order to please his pride and pride, the whistleblower begins to acquire other negative character traits, allowing his soul to slide into the abyss of evil. Losing love for his neighbor, a person gradually and imperceptibly moves away from God.

We are able to notice condemnation as an external manifestation of pride in ourselves, no matter what spiritual stage of our development we are at, and, therefore, we can begin to work with it. It’s very simple to start - look for something in ourselves that we so want to condemn others for. We must remember that our entire being will initially resist this. We find ourselves on the front line of spiritual warfare.

By what means can we practically combat the manifestations of condemnation in ourselves?

Here are some psychological tips.

First of all, we must make it a rule not to speak or think badly about strangers, with whom we have nothing to do, with whom our lives do not intersect in any way. A typical situation: friends, judging someone in our presence, invite us to take part in the condemnation and cannot calm down until we agree with them. And we, wanting to please them, often join in the condemnation.

You can prepare in advance for the correct behavior in such a situation, think about what words and thoughts we will use to remove the sin of condemnation from ourselves. These kinds of words, which have worked well in practice, could be: “Well? He who sins is responsible”, “And I am a sinner too”, “Yes, we will all have to answer for our deeds”, “He sinned today, and we will sin tomorrow.”

Experience shows that it is more difficult to refrain from judging those people with whom life circumstances confront us at home, at work, in stores, or just on the street. In this case, it is useful to control ourselves: do we wish the sinner to receive admonition from the Lord, correction and salvation, and if so, then wish him this in the form of a short prayer.

Remembering one's own sins cools the heat of condemnation. Let us remember that when they brought a woman caught in sin, the Lord said: He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her (John 8:7).

No one threw a stone at her. A good lesson for us who consider ourselves Orthodox Christians.

If we perceive the actions of our neighbors as an action of God’s Providence and as a cure for our pride, then we will gradually begin to treat such situations with gratitude. The Lord does not forget us, He allows us situations for spiritual strengthening. It is also important to remember the spiritual law, according to which God allows the condemner to fall into the same sin for which he condemns his neighbor, especially if the sinner was tempted beyond his strength or has already repented of his offense.

Let me suggest a psychological exercise that helps us see how often we judge others: give yourself the task of not judging or complaining about anyone out loud for three weeks. To control this process, it is recommended to wear a bracelet on your hand. The essence of the exercise is that as soon as we have judged or complained to someone, the bracelet is changed to the other hand. And the countdown begins again. The exercise is considered completed when the bracelet remains on one hand continuously for 21 days. Starting to do this exercise, you will see that during the day you will switch this bracelet from one hand to the other very often. The bracelet can be replaced with something else. It is important that it be a tangible object that reminds us of our inner work.

Let us add to what has been said that a person who is in a repentant mood and is busy experiencing his own sinfulness has no desire to notice and sort out the sins of others.

Algorithm for overcoming pride. Saint Theophan the Recluse, in his book “What is Spiritual Life and How to Attune to It,” based on patristic teaching, described algorithms for combating passion and acquiring the opposite virtue, in this case, by cultivating a humble attitude towards what is happening. The essence of this approach lies in the development of awareness, that is, observation of our internal processes and understanding of how this is projected onto our actions, words, and relationships.

Before you begin to work with passion to overcome it, you should clarify your intention (motivation) and pay attention to the fact that you cannot resist this struggle without God’s help.

Below is an example of how this can be done:

1) think about how good it will be when I overcome the passion of pride (“My relationships with loved ones and colleagues will improve; anxiety and tension will go away: I will be happier, internally freer...”);

2) understand why we don’t want to fight passion (“I’ll have to devote time to this, I don’t have much, I need to pay attention to my inner life, but I don’t know how to do that...”);

3) describe the consequences of passion (“Fear, loneliness, health problems have already begun, I’m nervous a lot...”);

4) feel whether we are firmly determined to fight (see: point 1: “Yes, we need to decide, but can I cope?”);

5) mobilize your will and ask God for help (“I can’t handle it on my own, but with God’s help I can handle it…”).

We remember that passion is not born in a person’s soul right away. The process of developing passion cannot always be traced to a person who lives by external impressions and is not accustomed to carefully observing his internal states. The Holy Fathers say that it begins with an adjective, or an attack; “to be infected” means to collide with something, to become infected.

The holy fathers divided this process into four stages.

The first stage is to see the emergence of a pretext in yourself.

The pretext arises in a person’s mind from the impressions of what he saw, for some other reason, or as an image imposed by the enemy - the devil. But the excuse comes against the will of a person, without his consent and participation. A person himself is free to accept the pretext in his heart or reject it.

The second stage - the preposition has been accepted, it is already being thought about, becoming one’s own. The Fathers also call this a combination or conversation with a thought.

The third stage is inclination to thought, or surrender, when the will has so fallen under the influence of a sinful thought, has become so close to it that a person is ready to move on to action. The sin is already half committed in thoughts.

A sinful thought that has settled in the soul and heart will definitely someday turn into action (deed, words). This will already be the fourth stage - captivity by thought.

In reality, for an inexperienced person, infection with passionate thoughts occurs much faster. The initial stages of the development of thoughts (adjective - combination - addition) go completely unnoticed, and only at the level of captivity, having realized everything, can a person begin to fight passion.

Anyone who wants to free himself from passions must learn to cut off bad thoughts in the bud, to “break their babies against a stone” (see: Ps. 136:9). And the germ of a thought is (as mentioned above) a pretext - something that does not belong to us at all, but like some kind of harmful insect trying to fly into the slightly open window of our consciousness. It should also be added that Orthodox people know very well that unclean, sinful thoughts can come from one more source, and this source is well known. Of course, these remarks concern only thoughts that have not taken root in consciousness; if a person accepts a thought and begins to think about it, he already becomes close to it, it becomes his own.

When we understand that our thoughts are not always ours, but come from the “enemy,” we begin to sort them out, without being afraid of them, without becoming despondent from our own sinfulness. This is one of the moments of spiritual warfare. With God’s help, we install a certain “filter” in our consciousness. At the same time, we ask which thoughts correspond to God’s commandments, and which ones should not be allowed within the range of a cannon shot. You don’t need to be afraid of thoughts, but you don’t need to talk to them either.

It is necessary to perceive thoughts as something external that has nothing to do with us. We begin to observe ourselves as if from the outside. This technique in psychology is called “decentration.”

Saint Theophan says that it is necessary to begin the fight against thoughts with prayers to the Lord, the saints and the Guardian Angel. So that we attribute the successes of spiritual warfare not to our own efforts, but only to the help of God.

Below is an example of working on this algorithm with the thought of pride.

In this case, two options are given: A - modern woman and B - modern man. Schematically it might look like this.

1. Exposition:

A - “I did a good deed today...”

B – “I completed a difficult task at work...”

What needs to be done to prevent the thought from developing further: “I wouldn’t have done this if God hadn’t helped me. He created the conditions for this. All for His glory."

2. Combination:

A - “In general, I often help her (my friend), and not only her, but also many others...”

B - “I did it great... I’m capable, not like Ivan... And who else besides me would have done it so well...”

To prevent the thought from developing further, you need to shift your thoughts to something good:

A - “But they often help me too... Perhaps she still needs my help...”

B - “Perhaps Peter could have coped with this job...”

3. Composition:

A – “Among our friends, I’m the only one who does good deeds, what would they do without me!!!”

B – “I am the best specialist in our company! The rest can’t do anything!!!”

Here it is necessary, before the onset of captivity, to be able to look at yourself from the outside, with humor, that is, to remove the sense of self-importance: “And why am I proud?.. I’m swelling right before my eyes, I’m about to burst with pride...”

4. Captivity:

A - “Well, what can they do, helpless mediocrities, they will die without me!”

B - “You should ask for a bonus, and in order to get a raise, you need to drive out these slackers... But I can solve not such complex problems.”

All these stages are quite difficult to track. When we write down our thoughts, we gradually begin to grasp what follows what, and our attention to inner life is trained.

The holy righteous John of Kronstadt advised both pastors and laity to keep a spiritual diary. The director of his museum-apartment, Archpriest Gennady Belovolov, believes that this feature was one of the reasons explaining the “secret” of John of Kronstadt. The pastor himself considered this form of working with the diary as a constant confession.

Examples from the experience of psychological counseling.

To get an idea of how the work of an Orthodox psychologist is practically carried out, I consider it appropriate to give two examples from the experience of psychological counseling. The cases are not fully described. The main task is to demonstrate exactly the Orthodox approach, when the client, together with the consultant, in dialogue mode, gets to the root of the problem, which lies in the spiritual sphere. In these examples – in pride.

The client was a young woman. She has been attending church for quite some time. He regularly goes to confession, receives communion, and has a confessor. The consultant was L.F. Shekhovtsova. A client complained that she needed to write an article on a certain topic. But she can't start work. It’s hard for her to pull herself together, it’s hard for her to find the desire to do this. I keep thinking that many articles have been written on this topic.

“...And she doesn’t understand how you can write something new here. This will not be the best article... and why write it in that case? And yet you have to write, because you were instructed to..."

During the dialogue, similar cases were recalled when the client experienced negative feelings about herself because everything she did was not the best.

“...And is it necessary to do this in this case?”

Her description of the problem clearly shows, as psychologists say, a desire for perfectionism, that is, perfection. This desire is expressed as follows: “...Either I will be better than everyone else, or I won’t do this.”

Isn't it a rather familiar situation? When we theoretically examined the problem of low and high self-esteem, we said that, in essence, low and high self-esteem are two sides of the same coin. Perfectionism is a phenomenon that a secular psychologist will interpret as erroneous and harmful. But an Orthodox psychologist understands this differently. Man is called to perfection, called to deification. But only this process is built through falls, mistakes, the ability to bear sorrows without criticism and condemnation of the people around us, etc. This process is built on two sides: through the efforts of the person himself and at the same time with God. The main reason for resistance in the process of improvement is blows to our pride. How painful and unpleasant it is for us to experience this process of formation! And a person often refuses to do something. After all, the result does not come immediately. In this case, perhaps you need to work hard on this article, humbly listen to comments, correct it, and finish it. Yes, this may not be the best article. But we must continue and continue with God’s help, with prayer. Using this seemingly rather simple example, a person can go through the school of his spiritual formation. He learns to transfer the pain from hurt pride to the background, concentrate on the task at hand, and continue this process. The consultant, with his questions, managed to bring the client to the realization that pride lies behind her reluctance to deal with the article. This served as a reason for the client to create internal motivation to complete the work assigned to her, since a person belonging to the Church recognizes the need to work on his passions. It should also be noted here that an important moment of change in motivation (intention) occurred. When the motivation was external, that is, the writing of the article was given from the outside, it was perceived as compulsion. But when the intention (desire) became internal, that is, it began to come from the client herself, then the strength and desire to solve this problem appeared. The fear of failure and making a mistake has also decreased. And this opened up the possibility of a creative approach to the matter and relieved the stress of waiting for the result. Once vanity was recognized, it reduced anxiety about how the paper would be judged. The client’s attention began to be occupied not so much by the result as by the process itself. The consultation took about an hour. But it gave some fruit.

Almost a year has passed since this consultation. The article was written and published.

The second example is a case taken from the practice of family counseling. A few months ago a woman approached me. The reason for the appeal is incredibly complicated family relationships. Let's call these people Elena and Ruslan. Both of them enter into a second marriage. Elena asked for family counseling; she identified the reason for the request as increased quarrels between her and her chosen one. These people started attending Church quite recently. A family counseling session revealed Ruslan’s personality traits as a rather self-confident person who believes that his opinion, his feelings, his desires should prevail. He formulated his goals clearly and clearly.

Elena came to me for consultation several times alone. A little more than three months passed, and Ruslan called me. He asked to be accepted as quickly as possible. It is this consultation that I would like to pay attention to.

As I said, three months have passed since our first meeting. Ruslan bought an apartment. They began to live together. But the relationship began to deteriorate more and more. This time Ruslan was already talking about himself, realizing that the problem of his difficulties was in himself. It was very important for him to realize and admit his powerlessness to influence the situation. Whereas before, on their first visit, he had no doubt that he was able to cope with all the difficulties that arose on his own. It is quite possible that for some time he was quite successful in this. A psychologist, even having his own point of view on the situation that has arisen, should not indulge in discussions about sin and morality. The task is different. In this particular case, it seemed to me to be to bring a person to an awareness of the reasons for the difficulties, to be ready to agree that if they want to save the relationship, they will have to begin work on transforming their personality. This time we more boldly touched on things that most likely would not have been heard by them at our first meeting. He was ready to talk about himself more openly. His level of honesty deserves respect. He told how, when he doesn’t like something, he can flare up, offend Elena, can not speak for three days, torment her with his silence. How jealous he is of her ex-husband, how everything should happen as he imagines. And if not, then he expresses his attitude quite directly and not always correctly. He also had to remember that he almost always behaved this way. And this model of behavior suited him. She allowed him to achieve a lot in life. But at the moment he sees that his relationship with the woman he loves is collapsing, and he wants to do something to prevent this. At the same time, Ruslan does not look like a person who is unable to control his emotions. Most likely, this is really a strategy of behavior aimed at optimally achieving results, which he once (consciously or not quite consciously) began to follow. He has a fairly successful business and achievements in the field of chemistry. His foreign partners value him as a specialist. After some time, we began to talk about those spiritual distortions of personality that are based on pride.

Apparently, much was new and surprising to him. How is it that he was raised as a leader, a fighter, a successful person - and now he has to reconsider his values?! At the end of our meeting, the question literally burst from his heart: “How can I cure myself of pride?”

In this situation, not everything is simple. But there are two important points. These people began to turn towards the Church; they want love to be present in their lives. Maintaining the relationship is very important for them. There comes an understanding that you need to start with yourself - to free your heart from passions.

There are many more examples that can be given. As a result of the secular upbringing that most of us received, we are taught to rely on ourselves, to make efforts, to achieve results, putting our self first. But at some point, according to God’s Providence, events begin to occur that are beyond our control and management. We usually perceive such a situation as a crisis. In any crisis there is always a new opportunity hidden. The crisis is the starting point from which the spiritual revival of the individual can begin. This is a call to take the path of repentance, the path of self-knowledge and finding the Truth.

And may the power of God and the grace of God help us! Therefore, let us pray that the Lord will teach us humility and destroy our pride. And then His mercy, His wisdom, His joy, which He gives to all who love Him, will be revealed to us.

How to recognize the sin of pride in yourself?

Photo: Flickr.com
The most difficult thing for a person to admit is that he is proud, which means it will be very difficult to fight this sin. To find signs of the sin of pride in yourself, you should definitely pay attention to the following things:

the proud elevates himself, demoting those who are ready to compete with him;
a proud person cannot stop in the process of exalting himself or condemning his neighbors;
people suffering from the sin described above love and extol themselves most of all, put others down, and boast about their achievements;
a proud person is overly touchy, irritable, shows dissatisfaction when things don’t go according to his plans;
pride plunges a person into the abyss of anger and hatred;
a proud person tends to be sarcastic and contemptuous, enjoys the mistakes of others, getting great pleasure from it.

It is not easy to identify pride, but it is even more difficult to fight it, so a person who is faced with this sin will face a real struggle with himself, which will take a long time.

Fragmentation and seduction

An example of humility is given by the true servants of the Church: they were sent into exile by “robber councils,” and some died in difficult conditions. However, none of the pious saints called for the division of Christianity into parts, since they knew that it was not their right to judge human vices.

The sinfulness of the schism is close to pride and is not washed away even by the blood of martyrdom. Holy people never allowed themselves to take advantage of individual authority and lead their followers; they were always devoted to the orthodox idea of Christianity and the Almighty Creator.
Today's whistleblowers seek to create a separate group that will have opposing views. This position is caused by the same pride, clouding the consciousness and preventing one from seeing the truth in unity. The seceding churches consider their doctrine to be the most holy and correct - this is the path chosen by schismatics and heretics, whose mind is strengthened by the belief in their own superiority.
But a rational believer must understand that the Church is one, despite the existence of separate groups that consider themselves independent. To correct such routines, it is necessary to observe personal piety without falling into stupid judgment.

Deception is the activity of the devil, who took the form of an angel or Christ himself . A person captivated by demonic forces is capable of performing feats, miracles, and experiencing the greatest emotions. However, the basis of such “charms” is the sin of pride, because a person who has sold his soul does something extraordinary just for the sake of glory, for show, forgetting about humility.

Getting rid of pride must begin with realizing responsibility for your life

The devil tempts weak-willed people to do an illegal act, to break one or more commandments. Demonic forces induce madness by promising material wealth or a false sense of security. A deceived people or individual kills, robs, receives temporary and worthless gifts, but remains deceived, having lost peace in the soul.

Pride is considered the most dangerous passion, because it often develops into a terrible spiritual disease, from which it is extremely difficult to cleanse yourself.

Important! This vice arises as a source of rude thoughts and negatively colored emotions. People infected with pride become irritable and aggressive. An accurate view different from their own gives rise to outbursts of anger, envy, resentment and pity. Soon the psychological health of the victim of vanity is destroyed.

Signs of pride

It is quite simple to identify a proud person in society. Arrogance and conceit gradually build a certain hierarchical system in a person’s consciousness, according to which everything around him is assessed. Self-love manifests itself in each person quite individually, but still this phenomenon has common characteristic features:

blaming everyone around you for your problems and troubles;
unreasonable irritability and disrespectful attitude towards people;
intolerance of criticism, inadequate reaction to indicated shortcomings;
100% certainty that you are right;
the need for constant competition;
self-satisfaction gradually decreases, and a loss of internal values also occurs;
a selfish person constantly gives advice to everyone, trying to prove his exceptionality

Pride - what is it

What is pride? She is called the progenitor of all sins. This is the most important sinful passion, expressed in the rejection of God and contempt for people.

What is the difference between pride and arrogance? In theological understanding, pride and arrogance are synonymous. Except in a few cases when a person is proud of a relative or his country. But this exception is dangerous: a little more vanity, and pride in one’s father, for example, turns into arrogance.

Pride

Punishment for pride

Lucifer was the closest angel to God. But pride deprived him of the joy of being with God and he turned into a focus of anger. The first people lost eternal life for their pride and were expelled from paradise. Along with them, their entire land was cursed. The humanity they gave birth to is forced throughout earthly history to struggle with the manifestations of their own passions that come out of this main passion.

But the greatest sadness for them was the agonizing expectation of the coming of the Savior and His Resurrection from the dead. Only after this did Christ lead all the righteous who were waiting for Him from the prison of hell.

A proud man punishes himself. First, sin cuts him off from unfamiliar or unfamiliar people, then from family and friends, and then from God. And this is the worst thing.

“I had not yet begun my deeds of piety, but I was already infected with vanity. I have not yet entered the vestibule, and I am already dreaming of the inner sanctuary. I have not yet laid down the beginnings of a life pleasing to God, and I am already reproaching my neighbors,” St. Ephraim the Syrian writes about himself.

Humility is the way to escape from pride

In order to defeat such a sin as pride, it is necessary to acquire the opposite virtue. This virtue is humility.

It is about humbling yourself before your neighbors. If you are possessed by pride, you need to honor your brother as wiser than yourself and superior in everything. Abba Dorotheos defined it this way:

Abba Dorotheus

saint

“... consider yourself lower than everyone else.”

Similarly, one can see in others many good, kind qualities that are hidden in others. By humbling yourself, humiliating yourself, you can also see in yourself those shortcomings that our pride does not allow us to see.

It exaggerates our merits, which may not correspond to reality.

Self-reproach should promote humility.

That is, it is necessary to blame not others for all troubles, but oneself. A person must always remember his sins and compare them with his achievements. This will allow you to sober up in time and not fall into pride.

In this regard, it is worth citing as an example the act of Our Lord Jesus Christ when he washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper. In Jewish tradition, servants were required to wash their feet before meals.

Last Supper. Monumental painting by Leonardo da Vinci

Thus, by washing the feet of the Apostle Peter, Christ made it clear that he came into the world to serve people, and not for them to serve him. This is a vivid example of humility and every Orthodox Christian should follow it.

At the same time, it is necessary to resist all fashion trends that are the machinations of the Devil. So, recently various courses and trainings have become widespread, which state that pride needs to be cultivated.

Naturally, a person must live in harmony with himself. However, cultivating superiority over others is clearly a sin of pride.

Orthodoxy about pride

Pride in Orthodoxy is sharply condemned. Both the Old and New Testaments repeatedly warn us about the dangers of this sin. In the Gospel, the Pharisees become the personification of pride, whom Christ more than once cites as a negative example. It was pride that was the very first sin. Lucifer (Dennitsa - “luminous”) became proud and wanted to become a god, for which he was cast out of heaven.

Why did the Lord allow this to happen, why didn’t he stop it? God, out of His Love and mercy, gave both angels and people a great gift - freedom. Freedom is the ability to independently choose between good and evil. And then take responsibility for the consequences of your choices.

The first people, Adam and Eve, misused their freedom by disobeying God. It was because of their pride that they were expelled from Paradise. The passion of pride became the first step towards the fall. Would the humble disobey the Lord and want to become equal to Him? And this is exactly what happened to Adam and Eve.

Therefore, Saint Maximus the Confessor said:

“Just as the devil fell because of dreams, he did the same thing so that Adam and Eve would dream in their minds that they would become exactly like God, and so that because of this dream they would fall.”

She tops the list of mortal sins in Orthodoxy

Pride, love of money, fornication, gluttony, envy, anger, greed and despondency - this is the list of the seven deadly sins. What is the first, most dangerous passion for a person?

How not to become proud while fulfilling the commandments

And this is where the most important ascetic problem of today’s Orthodox Christians emerges. And exactly how to acquire this humility?! For many of us, it has turned into a kind of ghost and is often replaced by the so-called humility.

This ascetic term means a person who does not have true humility, but humiliates himself in every possible way in words, calling himself a nonentity, the last sinner, guilty of all sins, but... But all this is verified by reproof from others. Once you hook such a humble person, he will sing such a proud, majestic song about himself and from himself that you are amazed. It is not for nothing that Saint Basil the Great said:

“A proud man, like an overripe melon, poke it and it immediately begins to rot.”

I remember one such clinical case. During my Christian youth, on the basis of a common faith, I met a woman, let’s call her Polina. Regularly visiting the temple and very distinguished by this very humility, as well as its manifestations. Because as soon as you hooked it, then... (see the above).

The last time I saw her was when I was a teacher at the Odessa Theological Seminary and on a very interesting occasion. She came to the UDS inspector and demanded that he return her 10,000 rubles. Considering that it was still Soviet times, the amount was quite significant.

To the inspector's question, where did the last one come from? She replied that she had been going to church for 10 years, donating, and that’s how it came. And her unbelieving husband told her that if the Church returned this money to them, he would become a believer. But the most interesting thing came later. Having talked with us, she began to warn us, persuading us to flee from Odessa, which would soon perish, for not a single righteous person was found in it.

To the inspector’s maliciously rhetorical question: “How is it, Polina, that there is not a single righteous person in Odessa - after all, you live here?” She gave a completely unexpected, truly sacramental answer, worthy of the annals: “Of course, this is so, but I will soon leave here,” so beware of “cockroaches”! Comments, as they say, are unnecessary. This is what humility is like—the wildest pride, covered with a fig leaf of verbal “humble” tinsel!

But why do the Orthodox have such a hard time acquiring the virtue of humility? This is due to the general Judaization of the Church's teaching on salvation. As you know, the Jews still expect to be saved by observing the Law of Moses. Although, according to the Holy Scriptures, “By the works of the law all flesh will not be justified in His sight” (Rom. 3: 20; Gal. 2: 16).

Comments

aunt
:
07/24/2020 at 13:41
that is, if there are only one worthless and ungrateful redneck around, enjoying the fruits of your labor and creativity and considering themselves significant with off-scale emotionality and they really take advantage of you, you have no right to even think that you are at least a cut above them, and should not put them in in place?????? Is this Pokakovsky? and who thought about it? I will invent and create, and this brat will take and consider that we are equal? Are you crazy?
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