10 Lessons from "Unseen Warfare"

An Orthodox Text for All Times

Introduction

I have finished the work Unseen Warfare by St. Nicodemus and St. Theophan. Though I have written on the book’s origin story previously, I wanted to write a little more on the book’s actual content. There is so much that an Orthodox Christian could glean from this work, and so much that people far smarter and holier than I am could say about it. Nevertheless, I have put together 10 lessons that I consider to be some of the most important from the book as a whole.

This list of themes that I consider to be the most important is, of course, my opinion. I tried to have these lessons be pulled from as many of the topics that the saints talk about in the text, so as to make them as widely applicable as possible. One of the many beauties of Unseen Warfare is its comprehensive approach to the spiritual life; considerations on personal piety, the sacraments, creation, and prayer, all play a role in the type of Christian life that the work describes, and so Orthodox Christians can relate to at least one of the topics spoken of in the text even if they don’t have extensive experience with others. Because of this, Unseen Warfare is a book that can be returned to time and time again, and I hope to re-read the book once I have gained more experience in the Orthodox Church.

With that, here are 10 lessons from Unseen Warfare

All Are Participants in Spiritual Combat

One of the more important yet challenging aspects of Unseen Warfare is its emphasis on the urgency of spiritual combat and its importance to Christian living. In an age when matters of the divine are related to a level of secondary importance, it can be forgotten just how important the matters are that St. Theophan discusses in his book. As such, the reader is hit almost immediately with one of the text’s most crucial teachings, that being on who exactly is called to engage in the spiritual warfare.

Spoiler alert: It’s all of us, as St. Nicodemus’ “Foreward” to the text declares:

“This book teaches that the warriors who take part in this unseen war are all who are Christians; and their commander is our Lord Jesus Christ, surrounded and accompanied by His marshals and generals, that is, by all the hierarchies of angels and saints. The arena, the field of battle, the site where the fight actually takes place is our own heart and all our inner man. The time of battle is our whole life”(pg. 72)

Engaging in the unseen fight is not some “add-on” to the Christian life devised by later theologians, but rather the natural consequence of one’s participation as a member of the Body of Christ. As Nicodemus reminds us, at our moment of Baptism, we “vowed to renounce Satan and all his works”, and thus are called to resist him at every turn in every moment of our lives (pg. 73)

To put it succinctly: there are no civilians in spiritual warfare. To be an Orthodox Christian is to enter the arena, to enlist in an army and become a combatant in the war “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Epheseians 6:12, quoted on pg. 71-72). And these evil spirits are not taking prisoners; to refuse to fight back is to condemn oneself to spiritual death, both in this life and in the next.

But while this may seem frightening at first, we can also take encouragement; being in the Church, we have the guides and tools necessary to undertake this fight, and to win. And victory will result in not just avoiding sin, but will also lead to our ascendance; we shall rise above the inclinations of our fallen nature in the world, so that we can rise to the heights of heaven, and earn the eternal reward from Christ for our efforts:

“So, Christ-loving readers, accept this book graciously and gladly, and learning from it the art of ‘Unseen Warfare’, strive not merely to fight, but to fight according to the law, to gift as you should, so that you may be crowned…” (pg. 73)

All Orthodox Christians therefore, must take up the spirital arms and armor we have been given and enter the fray. Salvation is not going to be found in the pleasures and pomp and circumstance of the world, but rather it will be found in the arena; to forego the arena is to forego the path of Christ and to instead take up the path of the world. And this is nothing short of apostasy, for as the Epistle of James tells us, to be a lover of the world is to cease being a friend of God (James 4:4).

The Unseen War is Ceaseless

One would be foolish to think that this spiritual combat is one “sector” among many in our Orthodox life. Rather, this spiritual combat is our Orthodox life.

St. Theophan tells us that in order for us to win against the “powers of the air”, we must wage our unseen war ceaselessly (pg. 108). Theophan provides an interesting comparison: A Christian is like the Israel of the Old Testament. Israel eliminated many of the hostile tribes in the Promised Land, but not all of them. God preserved a few enemies so that Israel not only had to be constantly on guard and ready to fight back if they were attacked, but also to ensure they continued to have faith in the Lord, knowing that He would preserve them even in times of trouble. In a similar way, a Christian may conquer many of the passions that assail him, but God may allow a few to remain, so that we not learn the art of spiritual warfare, but that also we learn to rely on God above all else (pg. 109-110).

While there is deep theological significance to this reality, there are also practical considerations that Theophan touches on. For example, he advises Christians to recite specific prayers and petitions every morning so as to prepare for the obstacles one may encounter during the day (pg. 113-114). And in another place, St. Theophan instructs the Christian on how to conduct an “examination of the conscience” in the evening, so that we recognize in what ways have fallen short and how to avoid these sins in the future (pg. 248-249).

Just as the life in Christ should be all encompassing, so will the struggle against those who seek to divert us from that life be all encompassing. At every hour we must be prepared to call upon the Name of the Lord to defend us from our adversaries, requiring constant vigilance, prayer, and ultimately, trust in the Lord’s care for us, no matter the circumstances:

“Keep only one thing in your mind and intention- to gift with all courage and ardor, since it is unavoidable; No man can escape this warfare, either in life or in death. And he who does not fight to overcome his passions and his enemies will inevitably be taken prisoner, either here or yonder, and delivered to death” (pg. 111)

Creation as an Icon of God

St. Theophan spends a large portion of the text discussing the senses and their place in the spiritual life. While he gives many examples and warnings as to how an improper use of the senses can lead to sin, St. Theophan also shows how our sensory powers can be transfigured to better reveal Christ in our everyday lives.

One way St. Theophan describes this is how a person can connect phenomena he observes in the natural world back to the profound glory and genius of God’s creation. For example, when one sees the sky, one should think of the realm of Heaven and the home that God has prepared for us there, or how the chirping of the birds can remind one of the beautiful chanting that we will hear from the angels in Paradise (pg. 136).

This strategy doesn’t just apply to the natural world. A Christian can take the opproutnity with created things to employ the same practice, using it to thank God for His many blessings that he has bestowed upon the pinnacle of creation, that being mankind. One can look at a cross and see it as “the emblem of our spiritual warfare”, or see icons of the saints and remember how many intercessors he has fighting alongside him (pg. 138). Things that seem mundane or “in the background” of our life can actually be powerful reminders of God’s all-encompassing presence, and an effective tool in combating the passions before they even arise.

Avoiding Foolish Zeal

St. Paul warns us of those who possess “zeal not according to knowledge” in his Epistle to the Romans (Romans 10:2). Unseen Warfare gives us a similar warning, and its one I believe is especially applicable to converts (myself included).

It is tempting as a new Orthodox Christian to immediately set out to imitate the saints in every way. We strive to fast the way they did, to pray the way they did, and to live the way they did. As well intentioned as this may be, St. Theophan says this can actually be quite foolish, and also dangerous. He warns that the devil will trick some Christians into attempting great feats of asceticism, only for them to fall ill from exhaustion and become so weary that they then relapse into older sins more severely than ever before (pg. 195).

Instead, St. Theophan advises us to pursue other avenues, namely by forming good dispositions, establishing consistent prayer, guarding against evil, and fighting the passions, to name a few:

“All these righteous activities of the heart are more pleasing to God than excessive feats of mortification of the flesh, when the later are not demanded by our mortal condition” (pg. 196)

Zeal is good and holy, but it must tempered and channeled by grace. For if it isn't, rather than being what drives us along the path of salvation, it instead places us on the road to perdition and becomes our soul’s downfall.

The Cross as an Antidote to Despair

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, fell not once, not twice, but three times while carrying the Cross to Golgatha. You too, will fall, and you will fall many times as you carry your own cross on the path to the Heavenly Jerusalem. You are human, and because of that you will make mistakes that will lead to sins which will harm you in some fashion. If the Christian life is a form of combat, then like all combatants, you shall inevitably suffer wounds.

Yet we should not lose hope or despair because of this reality. Quite the opposite in fact! As I quoted from this text previously in a note:

“The deeper the contrition, the better. But however deep the contrition, never admit a shadow of doubt about forgiveness. Forgives is already fully prepared and the record of all sins has been torn up on the Cross. Repentance and contrition alone are expected of every man, before he too can participate in the power of the redemption of the sins of the world through the Crucifixion. Trusting in this, prostrate yourself in body and soul and cry; ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving-kindness’ (Ps. li. 1) and do not cease to cry thus, until you feel yourself together guilty and forgiven, so that guilt and forgiveness merge into one feeling” (pg. 158)

No matter how often you sin and how often you neglect your spiritual duties, you must always get back up after the fact; confess your sins and repent, and vow to sin no more. Trying to find excuses or placing blame at the feet of others will not cut it either. St. Theophan tells us that instead, we need to accept our weaknesses and call upon Christ to help us, since our very participation in the spiritual combat, let alone our striving to combat the passions, is dependent upon His grace and aid (pg. 157-158).

Through the Cross, we have found redemption and forgiveness of our sins. To despair after we have sinned and believe that we cannot be forgiven is not only inaccurate, but is also sinful, for in doing we so we deem as false the very thing that Christ came to do. Therefore, we must strive for repentance and work to sin no more, but must always do with an eye to Golgatha.

The Art and Science of Prayer

One of the most important skills a Christian can acquire in their pilgrimage in this life is how to properly pray. Something that Unseen Warfare made abundantly clear to me is how often I misunderstand what true prayer actually is, and furthermore, how to actually practice true prayer.

For starters, payer requires a proper disposition in order for the peition to achieve its full power. For example, we should come to God only seeking to serve Him and conform to His will, because our own wills are often infected with traces of our passions and hidden faults, which therefore can corrupt our desires and what we ask God for (pg. 200-201).

Furthermore, prayer is not just about “asking God for stuff”. For example, St. Theophan references St. Basil in describing how different kinds of prayers should be ordered: one should first offer glory and praise to God for all that He has done for them, followed by a confession of our sins, and concluded with our petitions for different wants and needs (pg. 202).

We must also pray consistently and diligently, even if at times it doens’t seem as if our prayers are being answered. St. Theophan quotes St. John Chrysostom who explains why this is the case:

“Prayer is a great blessing if practiced in a right inner state and if we teach ourselves to give thanks to God, both when we receive what we ask and when we do not receive it. For when He gives, and when he does not give, He does it for your good. Thus when you receive what you ask, it is quite clear that you have received it; but when you do not receive it, you also receive, because you thus do not receive what is undoubtedly harmful for you; and not to receive what harmful means to be granted what is useful…” (pg. 204)

It is also worth mentioning that prayer is not an isolated activity. It is one part of many in the Christian life, and thus must be practiced in tandem with other disciplines; properly keeping the fasts, examining the conscience, and spiritual reading are just a sampling of other activities that both aid prayer and are aided by prayer (pg. 218).

And most importantly of all, prayer is always a reliable weapon in the spiritual war. Quoting passages from St. Hesychius, St. Theophan stresses that actions such as invoking the name of Christ can be very powerful in repelling evil thoughts or inclinations, even if we aren’t well versed in the spiritual life or the art of prayer (pg. 220-221).

Prayer is essential to the Orthodox life, but it is something that takes time to both learn and to understand. Paradoxically, it is simple and yet also highly complex. Any one of us can pray, but it takes great faith, knowledge, struggle, and experience to truly pray well.

The Jesus Prayer

As every Orthodox Christian knows, the Jesus Prayer should be the crowning jewel in one’s prayer life, and Unseen Warfare is no exception to this ideal.

While St. Theophan does say that the Jesus Prayer is like other prayers in that it can be said by word, mind, and heart, he stresses that this prayer reigns supreme over all others, for “it unites the soul with our Lord Jesus, and the Lord Jesus is the only door to union with God, which is the aim of prayer…Thus a man, who acquires it, acquires also the whole force of dispensation by incarnation: and in this lies our salvation” (pg. 215).

Because of its significance, St. Theophan provides several pieces of advice for ensuring that an Orthodox Christian can learn this beneficial prayer. For example, he suggests that one set aside time within their personal prayer rule to focus on the Jesus Prayer, and to steadily increase the amount of repetitions as time goes on (pg. 215-216). He also recommends that if one desires to learn more about the Prayer, they should consult great spiritual works and figures, such as the famous collection of texts known as The Philokalia or the writings of St. Gregory of Sinai (pg. 216-217).

Additionally, it is of crucial importance to undertake this practice with the guidance of a spiritual father. As the Fathers write frequently of the many dangers that can arise when we don’t practice this prayer properly, it is vital to have proper direction in how we go about obtaining this prayer so as to avoid the mistakes of the past (pg. 217).

The invoking of the Name of our Lord is one of the most beneficial practices we can learn. Out of all our prayers, it deserves the most attention, and is a crucial weapon in our arsenal for spiritual combat. Our forefathers spared nothing in learning the Jesus Prayer and perfecting it, and neither should we (pg. 215).

The Eucharist is Everything

While St. Theophan prescribes four main weapons for engaging in the unseen warfare (prayer, resisting sin, not relying on oneself, and firm hope in God), these are given their power by a fifth, more powerful weapon, that being the sacrament of the Eucharist.

St. Theophan describes the Eucharist in one place as “the all-conquering weapon” (pg. 225) and an indispensable aid not just in the spiritual life, but in the Christian life as a whole:

“This sacrament is the highest among sacraments, and is the most powerful and effective of all spiritual weapons. The four weapons of which we have spoken receive their power from the forces and gifts of grace, obtained for us by the blood of Christ. But this sacrament is Christ’s blood itself, and His flesh itself, in which Christ is Himself present as God. When we use those four weapons, we fight the enemy with the power of Christ; in the latter case our Lord Christ Himself strikes down our enemies through us, or in company with us”.- pg. 225

Because of the Eucharist’s immense power, St. Theophan encourages Orthodox Christians to receive as frequently as possible, albeit with proper preparation (pg. 225-227). Indeed, St. Theophan gives detailed instructions on the sentiments that one should have fixed in their hearts not only when receiving Communion, but also in how we prepare to receive, and in how we thank God after we have received. All of this is necessary so as to best understand the miraculous nature of what this sacrament actually is. It is the key to not only destroying the passions, but also working towards attaining union with Christ Himself. A proper understanding of the significance of the Eucharist leads to a proper understanding of Christ:

“Having understood from such thoughts and contemplations how great is God’s desire to enter your heart, to gain there a final victory over your enemies, who are His enemies also, you cannot help feeling an ardent desire to receive Him into yourself, in order that He should accomplish in you such a deed in actual fact. Thus fully inspired by courage and filled with daring by the sure hope that the heavenly Commander, your Jesus, can enter you, frequently challenge to a fight the passion which troubles you most and which you wish to overcome, and strike it down with with hatred, contempt and disgust, at the same time rousing in yourself the prayerful desire for the opposite virtue, and the readiness to do corresponding deeds, precisely such and such”- pg. 227

But St. Theophan does more than this. Rather than just encouraging an accurate knowledge of and desire to receive the Eucharist, he also calls on the Orthodox Christian to enter into a deeper devotion to the sacrament itself. He calls the sacrament a “token of God’s strong love for you” and one that should be the “object of your constant contemplation and deep pondering” so as to better understand the true love that Christ has for us (pg. 229).

After we receive communion, St. Theophan commands us to make the sacrament a focal point of our piety; among other things, we should continually increase our devotion to the sacrament of the Eucharist each day, kindle an unfading desire to receive the Lord in Communion, and to not wish to receive the Lord in anyway other than how He has instituted it through this sacrament (pg. 234).

The act of receiving the Holy Mysteries is also a sort of “oath of allegiance” to God and His Will. Partaking in the Eucharist is displaying the death that Christ suffered for us for the whole world to see, and thus are declaring their willingness “to lay down their lives for it, undertake the task no longer to live either for themselves, the world, or sin, but for the Lord God they receive into themselves in the Holy Communion, Who died and rose again or them.”(pg. 234).

Greater devotion to the Eucharist means both a greater desire to receive the Eucharist and to prepare oneself properly to receive it, and therefore means greater success in combatting sin and fostering total submission and love for the Lord of Hosts in order to better receive the Eucharist. Both in preparing to receive and in receiving, we are aided in the spiritual combat, and therefore draw closer to Christ.

Death is Not the End

As mentioned above, the war against the passions is one that will be waged throughout one’s whole life. It’s with this in view that we listen to another warning from St. Theophan, that being the temptations that a man will face at the hour of death.

The Russian saint names four specific temptations that will greet a dying Christian as he prepares to depart from this life, these being a wavering of faith, despair over one’s salvation, vainglory, and finally, deceptive visions brought about by demons (pg. 252).

This section helps to hammer home the description of spiritual combat as “unceasing”. Even at the moment when we are closest to entering the Kingdom of Heaven, the evil one will do all he can to prevent us from reaching our final destination. The last temptation is especially frightening, as Theophan warns how the demons will try to appear as angels so as to deceive the unprepared Christian (pg. 256).

As such, we need to be ready to face these obstacles at our final hour. This is, I believe, one reason why many prayers related to death include a petition to receive the Eucharist shortly before one dies, for as we have discussed above, the Eucharist is one of the most important tools in combatting evil. And if evil should try to tear us away from Christ at death, allowing for Christ to be within us through His Body and Blood would crush any last ditch attempts to knock us off the Ladder to Paradise.

The End Goal of the Unseen Warfare: Christian Perfection

Now, it is tempting to look at what has been shown from St. Theophan and potentially be discouraged. After all, it seems like one would not be “uplifted” by the vision of life described in this book; a tale of constant, hard struggle with invisible foes, denial of oneself at every turn, and the need to remain constantly on guard can sound a like a dreary and even miserable experience at first glance.

But I would argue that in reality, the vision of the Christian life that St. Theophan outlines in Unseen Warfare is not only inspiring, but dare I say, beautiful. The reason I thin this is because what St. Theophan describes is a life where one can achieve true greatness, that being perfection in the eyes of God.

There is an all too common misconception that being a Christian can be boiled down to just being a good person (or being “nice”), and not doing bad things. There is some truth to this, but one would be missing the point. Instead, St. Theophan explicitly states what man not only naturally desires, but is also commanded to want and acquire, and that is Christian perfection (pg. 77). And what is this perfection? St. Theophan tells us: “I will tell you plainly: the greatest and most perfect thing a man may desire to attain is to come near to God and dwell in union with Him”, otherwise known as theosis (pg. 77)

This what everything we do as Christians should be aimed towards. Acts like vigils, prayer, alms giving, and the gathering of the virtues have value in of themselves, but they are also means to this higher end, or more appropriately, the highest end (pg. 77).

The reason for needing preparation for the spiritual combat- and hence the writing of a book like Unseen Warfare- is that the attaining of this higher end is not done without hard labor. St. Theohan warns that Christians must prepare “for labour, sweat, and struggle from your first steps on the path”, and furthermore, to “sacrifice everything to God and do only His will” (pg. 80).

But since this fight is the greatest of all, it also means that victory in this fight is the greatest victory of all (pg. 79). And when the greatest victory is achieved, we shall obtain the greatest rewards, for they are far greater than anything that could be offered to us in this life:

“And what of the rewards which await you in this victory? They are many and great. Hear of them from the lips of the Lord Himself, Who makes you this promise in the holy Revelation: ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which in the midst of the paradise of God’ (Rev. ii. 7). ‘He that overcometh shall not be hurt by the second death’ (Rev. ii. 11). ‘To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the hidden manna’ (Rev. ii. 17). ‘And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations…and I will give him the morning star’ (Rev. ii. 26, 28)…”- (pg. 74)

Think about it; we have been given an incredible opportunity! We do not have to be bound by the pointless concerns and chatter and standards of the world. We don't have to engage in tireless labors for rewards that will wither away. We can choose to reject all of this and to instead pursue a reward that never ends, a reward that involves us reuniting with our Creator, a reward that truly never dies.

This is at the heart of Unseen Warfare; the true Christian lives a life in which he is pursuing true greatness, and that greatness, while it may seem pitiful or despairing in the eyes of the world, is more precious than gold in the eyes of God. We can rise above our culture, our societies, our flaws and vices, even our very human nature and its inclinations, to make the journey back to Eden, to reclaim the transfigured humanity we once possessed, and restore our union with the Most High. This is attaining Christian perfection, and why we engage in the “Unseen Warfare”.

Conclusion

There are many more themes that can be talked about from this book that I didn’t get to, such as the importance of the heart, establishing interior peace, etc.

My hope though is that these lessons from Unseen Warfare will aid other Orthodox Christians in their spiritual endeavors, and be inspirations we carry on the fight. I pray that all Orthodox Christians read this wonderful book, and continue to return to it all of their lives.

May St. Nicodemus the Athonite, St. Theophan the Recluse, and the Theotokos intercede for us!

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner