In my previous posting, I mentioned a word that may be for some of us is not a familiar one. Then Romanos encouraged me to share its meaning to my beloved readers, because many of those readers are my campus friends and this will be very helpful if they know a little bit about Orthodox language. And the word I am telling about is podvig.
The word podvig, based on what I read from a brilliant book of Light in the Darkness by Sergei Fudel (Don't worry, for those who live with me in the dorm, you may ask me to make this book borrowed by you), transliterated as follows:
"Podvig: The Russian word podvig means a heroic act. It is used by Church Fathers to describe spiritual or ascetic effort. A saint is called in Russian "podvizhnik", the one who carries a podvig" (p. 135).
This expression reminds me to the passage in the Holy Scripture:
“The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matt. 11:12)
"...but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself should not be disqualified” (I Cor. 9:24-27) and you can find many more in the Holy Scripture.
I admit that I can't explain better than those who had been living this podvig faithfully. St. Theophan the Recluse defines our entire Christian life as podvig. He explains that the spirit hates sin, while the flesh dwells in it. How is this battle within ourselves to be resolved? Through podvig, that spiritual struggle of bringing the soul into mastery over the body. St Innocent, in his book, Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven, writes clearly that the way which leads to the kingdom of Heaven is precisely to deny oneself, take up the cross, and follow Christ. Our beloved American saint goes on to explain that to deny oneself means to give up ones bad habits, to root out of the heart all that ties us to the world...there are external and internal crosses. To take up ones cross means not only to bear crosses laid on us by others or sent by Providence, but ...even to lay crosses upon oneself and bear them. (Orthodox info).
I recommend these good articles for you who wants to know more : Podvig, Fighting the Good Fight (by Fr. Milovan) and Podvig (Orthodox Info).
Glory to Thee, O God! Glory to Thee!
Very good introduction and explanation of the word podvig, my dear brother. You have written well.
ReplyDeleteExcellent. Thank you.
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