St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." That is to say, as baptized Orthodox Christians, we have been enlisted as soldiers in the Militia of Christ, engaged--whether we like it or not--in spiritual warfare against Satan and his demonic hosts, those fallen angels who inhabit the air around us, ever seeking the destruction of the human race.
If, then, this is the existential struggle to which we have been called, why is it that we so often strive against our brother, who is weak and sinful and deceived by the Devil just as we are? We are, indeed, commanded by Christ to love our enemies, to ceaselessly pray for those who persecute us and despitefully use us. For it is the Devil alone who inspires hatred in the human heart--inciting violence, strife, and vengefulness among the sons and daughters of men.
For surely God is love, and it is love alone that can deliver us from the wicked machinations of the Evil One. Like all the other passions of the soul, anger is not in and of itself sinful... so long as it is directed not against our neighbor, but rather against the demons, and those sinful thoughts and desires that they engender within us.
"Unto this day, the Kingdom of God has suffered violence, and the violent take it by storm." And so it is that our Lord--Who is love incarnate--commands us to do violence... not against our fellow man, but rather against the sinful passions engendered within us by the Evil One, and against the demonic powers that ever strive to drag us down into the pits of hell. It is in this sense that Jesus has come into this world not to bring peace, but rather a sword. The sentimental Protestant image of Jesus "meek and mild" is but a pale and distorted image of this truth. It is, rather, through the sacrificial sufferings of the holy martyrs and ascetics of all ages that the Holy Orthodox Faith triumphs over the principalities and powers that rule this fallen world.
And so it is that the true path of salvation revealed by the holy Orthodox Fathers is not for the timid and the faint-hearted. It requires manly courage and self-sacrificial love, and the willingness to put to death every egotistical thought and desire, that we might in the end--through the prayers of the most holy Theotokos and of all the saints-- be made worthy of true and eternal life in God's heavenly Kingdom.
