Toward the end of the eighteenth century, St. Kosmas Aitolos foretold that a time would come when a person would have to travel for days to meet another person whom he could embrace as a brother. We are living in an age where this is already happening. Contemporary man, in his loneliness, experiences pathological anxiety, anguish and suffering. He is tormented and, in turn, torments others.

Why? This essay will attempt an answer by bringing the fragrance of community found in the desert to the loneliness and the desolation found in cities.

Contemporary Loneliness

Loneliness is the absence of communication and relationship- the inability to develop and maintain associations with others. Contemporary culture and the structures of society, the mass media reflecting prevailing ideologies, even children’s games, lead to social alienation, political estrangement and personal isolation. The individual person begins, early on, to be possessed by an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy, to lose the meaning and purpose of life, to live without principles and discipline, to be constantly suspicious and in doubt.

Alone and insecure, anxious and disorderly, modern man and particularly the contemporary young person attempts to build bridges, to raise flags, to shout slogans. But without a guide or with bad guides he is readily disillusioned and becomes hard and aggressive, a plaything for political exploiters and power-hungry anarchists. The desire for freedom becomes the bitter death of his freedom.

The young, who earlier had declared that they would never compromise with anyone, are now themselves compromised. They take refuge in demonstrations and sit-ins, becoming rebellious in an effort to relieve themselves of the weight of their loneliness, not realizing that they are thrusting themselves into an even more unbearable slavery.

It is particularly unfortunate that all this is happening where least expected even with young people of good education, exceptional intelligence, energy and talent. Unsatisfied with material prosperity and disillusioned by the hypocrisy of their elders, these young people struggle for simpler life, for quality in life, for a better way of life but unfortunately they do not manage to make the right beginning.

Modern art is a good example of the spiritual alienation that we see. Instead of shedding light and opening windows toward others and toward heaven it tends to shut us in and to plunge us, ever deeper, into obscurity and darkness.

It is not long before isolated man begins to talk to himself, to the irrational animals, to the shadows that surround him, and to the dead. By now he is seriously sick. Melancholy, phobias, suspicion and mistrust have made him a psychopath. A most appropriate observation characterizes our time as the century of the psychiatrist. According to World Health Organization statistics for 1985 there are more than 400 million people in the world suffering from deep depression, with about 400,000 committing suicide each year. And these statistics refer only to the developed countries!

In his isolation man is plagued relentlessly by egotism and pride which are the natural parents of his loneliness.

Humility — An Antidote to Loneliness

If egotism and pride foster this kind of loneliness, then true humility — even though the term is misused and loses meaning among those who merely talk about it — produces the climate in which this loneliness is not permitted to thrive. Behold how the desert that good mother, excellent philosopher and theologian speaks about holy humility, silence and peace.

The humble person, according to Abba Poimen, is comfortable and at peace wherever he may find himself.

Abba Isaac tells us that he who makes himself small in everything will be exalted above all. And his discerning voice continues:

“Hate honor and you will be honored indeed. He who runs after honors causes honor itself to be banished from him. But if you merely disdain yourself hypocritically in order to appear humble, God will reveal you.”

In the Gerontikon, which contains a wide variety of spiritual writings from the Fathers, it is repeatedly made clear that:

“The humble-minded and lowly in heart is not the one who cheapens himself and talks about humility, but the one who endures joyfully the dishonors which come from his neighbor.”

In another place the Gerontikon states that:

“The person honored more than he deserves is actually harmed, while the person who is not honored at all by his fellow human beings will be honored in heaven by God.”

Abba Poimen gives us this advice:

“Every possible sorrow that comes to you can be overcome with silence.”

Abba Isaiah agrees with him:

“Until your heart is at peace through prayer, make no effort to explain anything to your brother.”

In studying the writings of the holy fathers of the desert, one can easily observe a common mind, a common noble spirit, a humaneness, an understanding, a wisdom. These are dew drops of the Holy Spirit, which fall in the arid desert after long struggles, which make fragrant flowers grow among the communities of faithful committed totally to God, and which make fragrant the souls of those who truly thirst for God.

Abba Isaiah, that great mind, notes with particular grace and subtlety:

“He who humbles himself before God is capable of enduring every insult. The humble person is not concerned about what others say about him. The person who bears the harsh word of a rude and foolish man for the sake of God is worthy of acquiring peace.”

Abba Mark, on this important topic — our relationship with ourselves and with others, in which we find ourselves stumbling on a daily basis — goes on to note the following:

“When you become aware of the thought in your mind dictating human glory, you should know for sure that this thought is preparing you for shame. And if you discern someone praising you hypocritically, expect also his accusation some time soon.”

And with the daring precision of a surgeon of the soul, the holy Abba continues:

“When you see someone crying over the many insults he has received, you should know that, because he was overcome by vainglory, he is now unknowingly reaping the crop of evils in his heart. He who loves pleasure is grieved by accusations and abuse. On the other hand, he who loves God is grieved by praises and other superfluous remarks. The degree of our humility is measured by slander. Don’t think that you have humility when you cannot forbear even the slightest accusation.”

Abba Zosima goes even further:

“Remember the one who has ridiculed you, who has grieved you, who has wronged you, who has done evil to you, as your physician, your healer. Christ sent him to heal you; don’t remember him with anger.”

Evagrios considered those who spoke badly of him as benefactors.

The divine wisdom of these physicians of the desert has tremendous significance to our topic. It has been said that these remarks are addressed by monks and for monks, but this is a superficial view. The epidemic of loneliness and depression that we are discussing results from proud minds lacking in humility, from failed interpersonal relationships, from unsatisfied egotistical aspirations, from self-aggrandizement, praise-seeking and self-love. This loneliness is strong enough to weaken a person and to make him sick. But love is stronger, capable of healing and regenerating the whole world.

Man has an irrepressible need to communicate, but communication must be properly developed. Initially, we must strike up a conversation a sincere, honorable and courageous conversation with our unknown self. We must rediscover in the very depths of our soul the hidden innocence of our childhood years. Next we must learn to have unmasked face-to-face conversation with the only, true living friend our heavenly Father and God. Only then will we be able to effectively communicate with others, whoever they are — the worst, the best, the neighbors, the distant, our brothers and sisters in Christ. In this manner the webs of loneliness are removed, the inaccessible and sunless dungeons of the heart are illumined, the shell of our ego is broken. When we have rejected the loneliness of miserable, self-centered egotism we can begin to rejoice, to be free, to breathe, to live.

Natural Loneliness: A Sanctuary of Knowledge of Self and of God

There is another type of loneliness — natural loneliness which is not pathological but creative, life-giving, full of grace. It is exemplified by the natural separation of monastics from the world. It is a loneliness to which we all should devote much time. We must be able to withdraw ourselves from the noisy crowds which are so superficial, so distracting, and so counterproductive in a withdrawal which is healthy, beautiful and good. It is important that we learn to shut off the constant communication with the many, which does not allows us to be alone with our self and as a consequence, we are not able to be with the One who is always waiting, the incarnate Logos and God. We must make the time and find the way for this other kind of sacred communication of natural loneliness. And we must pursue this knowledgeably, with an orderly, disciplined program.

Please keep in mind that we are not talking about those who seek to escape from preoccupations with the world in order to find rest, to view beautiful sunsets, to gaze at star-studded skies. Such activities are not spiritual. Neither are we talking about those who seek to meditate using techniques of doubtful origins to achieve dubious results. Nor are we discussing those who devote fleeting moments to superficial daydreams and who presume to have repented when they feel sentimental emotions as they remember indiscretions of their past. And we certainly are not talking about the well-meaning but naïve who think the spiritual life of sacred quietude consists of strolling at the sea shore with a komboschoini (prayer beads) in hand. Furthermore, we are not referring to the spiritual tourists who visit holy places and converse boldly with holy persons, but who do not deny their ego nor sacrifice their will. Activities such as these are only superficial attempts to escape from life, through shallow day-dreaming and capricious imagination.

What we are talking about is sacred quietude achieved with ascetic effort which liberates us from the loneliness of the world, even though we find ourselves in a noisy city or a disorderly household. We are talking about the persistence and the patience which help us probe the deepest roots of our existence and understand its limits, and which dispel the darkness that tires and discourages us.

We need to learn to pray. We need vigils constant vigilance in a posture of immobility and calmness.

When I am near God what do I have to fear? He has guided me to where I may be guided by him. Despairing of friends and acquaintances — sorely disappointed with the arts, the technologies, the ideologies — disenchanted with social chatter and vacuous etiquette — I come to the privilege of ultimate despair. I become aware that, in my nakedness, God himself is there to vest me with authentic hope. And in this miracle the blessed Panaghia and all the saints are present to lend their support.

In this natural loneliness — this divine loneliness — I find relief. The actor’s masks which I had felt obliged to put on or which had been put on me have been discarded. It had been a dreadful state. Every night I needed to go to another gathering, to be part of another group, for I had to be included somewhere. I was constantly changing my mask. Now, however, by turning inward I begin to live, to become aware that I am a child of God, to unveil my unique and irreplaceable identity, my face, my person. I begin to observe the activities of the passions. I can see my strengths and my limitations. I am redeemed from errors, fantasies, excesses, and languid apathy.

A firm resolve helps guide our steps to this lonely sanctuary of knowledge of self and of God. In this sanctuary the loneliness the aloneness which had been feared becomes a delight. For the person who is with God can never be alone since he is in dialogue with himself and with God. Here we find ourselves with less individualism, and greater love for others. We find tears for the pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters, and strength for greater efforts that will help them. For the voice which arises from the depths of the lone person cuts through the clouds and reaches the Triune God, who always listens and always responds.

The Divine Loneliness of Man in Communion with God

The man in communion with God knows how to make his voice more fervent and to rejoice while standing in second place. He knows how to be a friend even with the stranger and to be satisfied with little. Moreover, he knows how to become tired in his diligent efforts and how to wash with tears those who are grasping and prodigal. And he knows how to do these things without complaint or dissatisfaction, even if abandoned by relatives, friends, colleagues.

Far from the tumultuous crowds and the confusion of the public arena, in the privacy of your room, choose freely and without coercion. It may appear that you are not offering anything to others and that you are being self-centered, particularly when others are saying that they need you, as they suffer from painful loneliness. This loneliness which you have chosen for yourself is an arduous task, requiring great strength, heroism, persistence. It is a long and endless undertaking. And sometimes it can be preparation for a return to those whom you have left out of your life, although this should never be the purpose of your ascetic commitment.

All the saints of our Church, the most fervent and active missionaries, even the Lord himself in his earthly life, experienced the mystery of divine loneliness. Remember those great personalities, the prophets of the Old Testament Moses, Elijah, Isaiah and John the Forerunner.

Returning to our century, we find it tragically alone, in despair, pessimistic. In spite of efforts to the contrary, the world is in conflict with everyone and everything countries, governments, races, colleagues, parents, friends, children, books, lessons, work. And being in conflict with itself it is also in conflict with God, to whom it never speaks, never says anything.

The most painful loneliness is to be next to your spouse and yet be unable to transmit your inner feelings, even as external messages are transmitted instantaneously from one hemisphere to another. It is painful loneliness for married couples to keep secrets from each other for years. It is painful when dialogue is non-existent between children and parents, between children and teachers, between children and clergy. There is no more cruel loneliness than for a family to sit for hours in front of the television without speaking a word among themselves. We live in a difficult time. Loneliness is at an all-time high. Man is lost. God is silent.

In this loneliness, in this desolation of the cities, in this apparent absence of God, man is called to gather his thoughts, to come to his senses, to put aside his many worldly preoccupations and to retire to his place of prayer speechless, naked, a child so that God may speak to him, clothe him, and endow him with spiritual maturity. Then his loneliness will become the divine loneliness of liberation and he will achieve a sense of fullness. Only such radical loneliness leads to a fundamental understanding and experience of God, destroying every hesitation, doubt and torment.

In this sacred loneliness man finds himself face-to-face with his existential poverty and the fear of death which it provokes. Yet, even here, there is the danger that he may choose procrastination as a solution and, for a time, set his panic-stricken self at ease. He may resume running back and forth endlessly, expanding social activities, and seeking a variety of entertainments a program of extreme busyness. Other people, other things, work and extensive involvements may serve as a cover for his spiritual impoverishment for a time. And he may continue wandering aimlessly, driven by circumstances, tormented, flirting with one thing and another, fighting, being torn and finally annihilated.

A life of work without the liberation of communion with God is slavery. The struggle for excessive wealth is an incurable, tormenting disease. Fear of the future can stimulate greed, miserliness, hoarding. And God can be easily forgotten.

Here is what Abba Markos says, on how man can avoid the slavery of misguided work and instead become a free servant of God:

“The one who casts off anxious cares for ephemeral things and is freed from their every need, will place all his trust in God and in the eternal good things. The Lord did not forbid the necessary daily care for our physical well-being; but he indicated that man should be concerned only for each day. To limit our needs and cares to what is absolutely necessary is quite possible through prayer and self-control, but to eliminate them altogether is impossible.”

In the discerning remarks of Abba Markos which continue, let me call your attention to a subtle point which applies to many faithful:

“The necessary services which we are obliged to carry out, we must of course accept and carry out, but we must let go of those other purposeless activities and prefer rather to spend our time in prayer, particularly when these activities would lead us into the greed and luxury of money and wealth. For the more one can limit, with the help of God, these worldly activities and remove the material which feeds them, the more will one be able to gather his mind from such anxious wanderings. If again someone, out of weak faith or some other weakness, cannot do this, then, at least, let him understand well the truth and let him try, as much as he can, to censure himself for this weakness and for still remaining in this immature condition. For it is far better to have to give an account to God for omissions rather than for error and pride.”

Let me repeat this last point:

“It is far better to have to give an account to God for omissions rather than for error and pride!”

A drama is played out in man wherein he continuously and intently seeks peace and knowledge externally. But when he comes to his senses he realizes that true hospitality exists in an unexpected place. For it is precisely within himself that he discovers and experiences the particularity of his personhood. It is here that the divine loneliness of liberation, based on the knowledge of his individual personality, is to be found. It is here, in mystical quietude, that he measures, decides, and takes on his responsibilities.

Achieving the mystical experience of what we are, what we should seek, and what we can do, involves troublesome effort which, nevertheless, is critical. It is within us that we rescue ourselves from the loneliness of ego and where we find the way to the light and joy of communion.

Much of the world is governed by sophistry, wisdom has been ostracized, and decency has been lost. Lies and deception abound, revisionism has made history counterfeit, the Gospel is misinterpreted, schoolbooks are political tools mouthing the ideologies of those in power. There is a tendency to mimic false western ideologies, including sentimental pietism and painless social neochristianitiy. The life of the Church and its life-giving Sacred Traditions are ignored.

The only refuge is for each of us to set up our own sanctuary wherever we can. To a world which considers deception to be intelligence and honor to be weakness, we must dare say “Do not touch me!” We must choose to remain voluntarily and responsibly alone, even though such aloneness requires great courage in a society which aggressively seeks our applause and urges us into amalgamation. The weariness over vanities, bitterness, constant motion and joyless joys that has filled our lives, helps us come to the realization that this is the best form of resistance to the general disorientation.

By restoring our inner world, we increase our resistance, and in time become invincible to, the organized attacks of evil. By placing our whole life at God’s feet and seeking the authentic life he wants us to live we begin to have a foretaste of immortality, where we are never alone but in the company of Christ and his saints. All loneliness is dispelled by inner self-sufficiency.

And it may help you to know that there are many, out of sight, who are assisting you with their prayers. These are the monastics, dedicated totally to God, who keep vigil. Even though you have not met them they pray for you, with arms raised and with knees and knuckles callused by their prostrations.

The Supreme Loneliness of Believers Today

It has been said that each person carries his own loneliness. The mentally unbalanced individual has a dangerous loneliness. The sick person has an agonizing loneliness. One who has unjustly accumulated wealth has a bitter and ugly loneliness. But the believer carries a permanent, incurable and supreme loneliness, the loneliness of the way to salvation.

We have become accustomed to referring to the loneliness of late evening, of mourning, of living abroad. And each of us deals with our own individual circumstances as best we can. But, how long will we continue to go around in circles, examining the subject externally yet never entering its reality? Standing before the eternal enigma of existence, when will we the sons and daughters of God by grace and participation, created in his image and likeness, the children of light when will we dare to cast aside worldly ideas and discussions and, standing face to face before God, make the decision to fundamentally change our lives?

Our movements remain uncertain. We talk about God, yet God remains someone we do not really know. We desire to be with God, we advance toward him, yet at the last minute we find an escape route and evade him.

We love ourselves excessively, beyond measure. We are unwilling to bear God. We are afraid of him, and we try to deceive him — although in fact we only deceive ourselves — with excuses which appear to be convincing. We have come to love our deceptions to the point of no longer being ashamed of them. And yet God himself never tires of seeking us out discreetly, reminding us of his presence in our sufferings and in our joys, in our mistakes and in our victories.

It is necessary for believers to begin again the way of the Lord. Let us abandon the crowds and their excited shouting; let not their words entice and influence us. The way of the Lord is narrow, uphill, demanding, lonely, but it is also salutary, as he himself has promised us. The believer must at last attach himself with love to what is essential to his personal existence, setting aside decisively and irrevocably the secondary and superfluous.

The message of the Book of Revelation is truly awesome. The lukewarm believers will be spewed out of the mouth of God! (Rev. 3:15-16) The term used is most expressive of God’s dissatisfaction with those who are indecisive and ambiguous, neither hot nor cold.

To be in the company of God is both a joy to God and the greatest liberating blessedness to man. But reconciliation with God cannot be detached from reconciliation with ourselves and with our brothers and sisters. These always go together the friend of God is a friend of himself and of others.

The relationships that result have no room for conceit or isolation. Love of God must never degenerate into Pharisaism, nor love of neighbor into sterile duty. Openness in three directions — toward self, God and neighbor — is achieved symmetrically, with balance, with knowledge, with freedom and with love.

The great fourth century teacher of the desert, Abba Isaiah, reminds us that

“the pathological love of self and of others is an obstacle to our relationship with God.”

Cicero used to say that

“a great city is a great loneliness!”

This loneliness produces boredom, lack of appetite, pessimistic bitterness, a constant looking to the future and doing nothing today, dissatisfaction, a desire to escape, cowardice. These conditions, collectively referred to by the ascetic literature as accidia, mercilessly plague many, including the careless monastic.

Here is how St. Maximos the Confessor, the great Byzantine theologian, speaks about accidia:

“All of the powers of the soul are enslaved by accidia, while almost all of the other passions are also and immediately aroused by it, because, of all the passions, accidia is the most burdensome.”

St. John of the Ladder, who knows profoundly even the most subtle movements of the soul, described accidia to monks who inquired with characteristic harshness:

“Accidia is the breakdown of the soul, the disorientation of the mind, negligence of ascetic practice, hatred of monasticism, love of worldliness, irreverence toward God, forgetfulness of prayer.”

Evagrios mentions that this unbearable condition of the soul devastates its victim,

“who does not know what to do anymore, seeing the time not passing and wondering when the mealtime will come which seems delayed.”

Antiochos, who lived in the seventh century, is even more vivid and precise in his definition of accidia:

“This condition brings you anxiety, dislike for the place where you are living, but also for your brothers and for every activity. There is even a dislike for Sacred Scripture, with constant yawning and sleepiness. Moreover, this condition keeps you in a state of hunger and nervousness, wondering when the next meal will come. And when you decide to pick up a book to read a little, you immediately put it down. You begin to scratch yourself and to look out of the windows. Again you begin to read a little, and then you count the number of pages and look at the titles of the chapters. Finally, you give up on the book and go to sleep, and as soon as you have slept a little you find it necessary to get up again. And all of these things you are doing just to pass the time.”

St. John of Damascus says that this struggle is very heavy and very difficult for monks.

St. Theodore of Studion says that the passion of accidia can send you directly to the depths of Hades.

Dostoyevski, who had a patristic mind, offered a solution to this problem when he had the Starets Zosima tell us we must make ourselves responsible for the sins of the whole world:

“This understanding of our salvation through others helps us to realize that love is not exhausted only in doing good, but in making the agonies and the sufferings of others our very own. The monks pray daily for the salvation of the whole world. Created in the image of God, we are all his, we are all brothers, his children. Loneliness is abolished in God. We are all ‘members of each other’ according to St. Paul. Thus, our sins and our virtues have a bearing upon the others, since, as we have said, we are all members of one body. Accidia provides a reason for more fervent prayer, and the difficulties are an opportunity for spiritual maturity and progress.”

Let me repeat. Separation from the world, maligned by some as desertion, is courageous and necessary, a resistance to the general leveling of all things. Man finds his authenticity, the beauty of his uniqueness, within the sacred silence of quietude, standing apart from the crowd. His suffering in solitude prepares him to return to the common and familiar, revitalized and ready for whole-hearted service.

Abba Alonios once said:

“Unless a man can bring himself to say to his heart that he alone and God are present in this place, he will never find peace and rest of soul.”

St. John Chrysostom said: “Quietude in solitude is no small teacher of virtue.” Elsewhere he also said:

“No matter where you are, you can set up your sanctuary. Just have pure intentions and neither the place, nor the time will be an obstacle, even without kneeling down, striking your chest or raising your arms to heaven. As long as your mind is fervently concentrated you are totally composed for prayer. God is not troubled by any place. He only requires a clear and fervent mind and a soul desiring prudence.”

St. Makarios of Egypt, in his spiritual homilies, becomes a little more affectionate:

“Even if you find yourself poverty stricken of spiritual gifts, just have sorrow and pain in your heart for being outside of his kingdom, and as a wounded person shout to the Lord and ask him to make you also worthy of the true life.”

Further on, he says:

“God and the angels grieve over those who are not satisfied with heavenly nourishment.”

Finally, St. Makarios makes this significant and remarkable observation:

“Everything is quite simple and easy for those who desire to be transfigured spiritually. They need only to struggle to be a friend of God and pleasing to him, and they will receive experience and understanding of heavenly gifts, an inexpressible blessedness, and a truly great divine wealth.”

Being inexperienced in these more profound spiritual conditions, I should simply work in the beloved desert to uproot my passions. But there is a need to speak of men I have seen and heard, who live on the peaceful mountain sides of the sacred Athonite peninsula, who experience the mysteries of God. They are charismatic monks consumed by heaven, bearing Christ in their hearts and loving God, devotees of quietude, of solitude, thunderous workers of silence, alone but without loneliness, who, in their solitude, remember the loneliness of the whole world. While some in the world suffer involuntarily sleeplessness and others spend their nights without love in strange places, the monks of Mt. Athos keep a voluntary vigil, praying for the health, mercy and salvation of the whole world.

An amazing book by a contemporary hermit, which circulated recently, describes the famous ascetic of Mt. Athos, Hatzi-Georgis, as a faithful friend of quietude in the caves of the desert, an honorable and noble fighter, a great faster who found his rest in vigils, in prayer and in solitude. The desert did not make him wild and harsh like itself. On the contrary it refined and beautified him. His reverend biographer writes as follows:

“Hatzi-Georgis had much innocent love for all. He was always peaceful, tolerant and forgiving. He had a great heart and that is why he had room for everything and everyone, just as they were. In a sense he had been rendered incorporeal. Living the angelic life on earth he became an angel and flew to heaven, for he held on to nothing neither spiritual passions nor material things. He had thrown everything away and, consequently, flew very high.”

The Elder Gerasimos, the hesychast from Katounakia, remained for seventeen years, as noted by his fellow ascetic, at the peak of Prophet Elijah struggling with demons and the elements. He remained an immovable pillar of patience. His tears were flowing constantly. He completed his carefree and quiet life in the sweetness of the constant vision of Christ.

Another hesychast from Katounakia, Fr. Kallinikos, loved pain, toil and quietude beyond measure. He bathed in his tears and perspiration. The last forty-five years of his life he passed in seclusion, praying without ceasing. His face attained the grace of shining like that of Moses when he descended from Mt. Sinai.

The spiritual Father Ignatios had the peculiar habit of closing the shutters of his cell so that he would not notice the coming of the new day, but could continue his prayers. It was his custom to beseech his visitors in this manner:

“Love God who has loved you!”

He would sometimes forget to wash, to comb himself, to eat, but prayer beads were always in his hand and prayer always on his lips and heart. When he lost his eyesight, he became even brighter. He was fragrant in life and he was also fragrant after falling asleep in the Lord.

The remarkable priest and father confessor, Fr. Savvas, from the Little St. Anna, drew his strength from the daily Divine Liturgy which he celebrated in tears. During Liturgy, and during his all night vigils, he would take hours to commemorate thousands of names.

This is the nature of the community of the desert silent, praying, serene, blessed. This is the life of the desert. If a monk does not possess an intense spiritual life and a constant vigilance, he will certainly fall into a myriad of temptations. Accidia will lead him to a barren isolation when, mocked by angels and demons, he will become the worse of the worst, and the loneliness of the desert will become unbearable for him.

Summing Up the Paradoxes

The cities become more and more desolate and they will continue in this direction, while the deserts will become inhabited and will again blossom. No one who remains unrepentant will be able to block the repentance of the willing, the prayer of the faithful, the supplication of the poor. No one can prevent the free person from self-imprisonment, self-exile, from living the mystery of the living God. This miracle is experienced in martyrdom and in humility, where the Orthodox way of life always blossoms in quietude, in silence, in anticipation. We are called to experience the transcendence of Christianity, which is not so much the abolition of evil as it is the honorable acceptance of ourselves and of others, living the wealth of poverty, the health of illness, the blessing of tribulation, the power of weakness, the joy of patience, the victory of defeat, the honor of dishonor, the freedom of seclusion, the majesty of meekness, the resistance to death, the incarnation of God, the deification of man. And we should expect all these spiritual realities, not from the authority of the leaders of this world, but from the authority we exercise over ourselves, and from the creation of healthy and bright spiritual hearths which we call parish, family, cell, workshop, office, auditorium, room.

In this way, though the desolation and loneliness of the cities will continue to exist, it will not penetrate into our hearts. In this way the world can be changed, not from without, but from within and from above.

Do not consider great the missionary to Africa or the significant inventor. Great is the little person who forbears the madness, the injustice, the persecution, the pain of his neighbor and of his own life. According to Abba Isaac, the person who recognizes and overcomes his passions is greater than the person who raises the dead.

All who seek redemption from pathological anxiety, from sorrow and sadness, from emptiness and loneliness are invited to a rendezvous with themselves and with God. And when you do meet, remember the humble person who has offered these thoughts.

— From Athonite Flowers: Seven Contemporary Essays on the Spiritual Life by Monk Moses. The author was born in Athens, Greece and has been living the monastic life on Mount Athos since 1975. He is the Elder of the Kalyvi of St. John Chrysostom at the Skete of St. Panteleimon of the Koutloumoussiou Monastery. He devotes much of his time to studying the lives of saints and poetry, to writing articles and books.

The monk departs far from the world not because he hates it, but because he loves it. In this way he will, through his prayer, help the world more in those matters that are, being humanly impossible, only possible by God’s intervention. This is how God saves the world. The monk never says: “I will save the world.” Instead, he prays for the salvation of the whole world, along with his own soul. When the Good God hears his prayer and helps the world, he does not say: “I saved the world,” but “God saved the world.”

In a few words, monks are the “radio operators” of Mother Church, and therefore, if they depart far from the world, they do it out of love, departing from the distractions of this world in order to be in better contact with God and help people more effectively.

Of course, when their unit is in danger, some mindless soldiers also share the irrational demand of certain clergymen (i.e. that monks should return to the world). They say that the radio operator should leave the radio aside and grab his rifle, as if by adding one more gun to the two hundred others he will salvage the situation. While the radio operator clamors to make contact, yelling “calling headquarters, come in, come in” etc., the others think that he calls pointlessly to the wind. However, astute radio operators pay no attention, even if they are reviled. They struggle until they make contact and then ask for immediate help from Headquarters and the air forces arrive, as well as the armed forces, the navy, etc. Thus, in this way, and not with their meager rifles, the unit is saved. The same applies to monks who advance with divine power, with their prayer, and not with their negligible individual powers. It is especially the case in our age, when evil is so widespread, that we are in need of God’s intervention.

(Before becoming a monk, Elder Paisios was himself a radio operator in the army during the Greek civil war, 1945-1949)

Teva: First of all, I want to thank you for taking the time for this interview and sharing your thoughts with the readers of The St. Nina Quarterly. You are originally from Kansas and came to Boston to pursue graduate studies in education at Harvard University. While in Boston, you were received into the Orthodox Church. Would you tell us about your journey to the Church – what attracted you to Orthodoxy.

Sister Aemiliane: I knew nothing about Orthodoxy growing up. I was friends with Mary Ford, now a professor at St. Tikhon’s [Orthodox Seminary in South Canaan, Penn.] who was the first person to tell me about Orthodoxy. She was studying theology and literature at that time and was able to explain some things to me about the difference in theology – what Orthodox theology is and what the West says theology is.

Orthodox theology seemed to me so obviously more adequate, natural, and just… true. There were other things that I didn’t understand, didn’t like, or was repelled by, but one thing that I understood was that these people knew about prayer. They knew about the connection between the mind and the body. Those were enough to interest me. I still had an attract/repel relationship with the Church. I had to turn inside out in order to enter the Church.

T.: Can you elaborate on that?

S.A.: I had all the fashionable feminist conceptions of my age, education, and culture. I found that these very much restricted what I was able even to see and hear in the Church. For instance, I was offended by the thought that only men can be priests and, walking into a church, I didn’t even see that the Panagia [all holy, Mary] was the biggest thing in the Church. She is the first thing we see. On the iconostasis both Christ and the Panagia are present and are the same size. Anyone else is smaller and farther away. She is beside Christ. I didn’t hear the prayers in which you cannot end a prayer without saying, “… remembering our Most Holy Lady&hellp;” You can’t even say a prayer without calling the Panagia to mind. But I didn’t hear that. I was so busy with my ideas about what it would mean if women were suppressed or honored or whatever.

Another blindness had to do not only with my constructs but with the Church itself – what it is like in America . I was all busy with the fact that women can’t go in the altar, when the fact is that no one can go in the altar unless they have a reason and a blessing to do so. When I was in the Holy Land on a pilgrimage, I noticed that the Panagia’s tomb is the altar of a church. The pilgrims are passing by – in it, in front of it, through it, kissing it. When it comes time for the Liturgy, that stops for the brief time of the service, and then it continues [after the service.] You go to the tomb of Christ and the tomb itself is the table of preparation – the piece of stone that was sealing the tomb is the altar. The pilgrims are passing in and venerating the tomb of Christ, and the rock becomes the altar during the Liturgy. In Bethlehem, the altar is built over the star that is embedded in the floor of the place of the Nativity. There is no iconostasis. I was in the cave for the Christmas Liturgy right in with the star – there was nothing between me and it. Pilgrims enter, venerate the star, falling on their faces, and then grab onto the altar table to pull themselves up. My trip to the Holy Land radically changed my whole experience of everything.

From the Holy Land I went to Greece, where I visited my first women’s monastery (there were almost none in America at that time). In a women’s monastery, not only do the nuns serve in the altar, but you see the nuns taking the blessing of the abbess – as well as lay people, men and women. Even priests and monks take the blessing of the abbess or nuns. I then began to realize that all this stuff that I had in my head [regarding hierarchy and patriarchy] was not applicable. And was in large part blown out of proportion by the unnatural state of the Church in America, made up almost entirely of parishes with very few, if any, monasteries.

This is quite in addition to the fact that when speaking of power issues with Christ and the Holy Spirit we have everything upside down. The beatitudes are the reversal of all the categories and of all secular ambitions, values, and interpretations of what good is and what power is, what strength is; the secular and political assumptions of what is important are all upside down.

In addition, although already in the Orthodox Church at the time, I didn’t receive all the sensations that I had expected from what I thought was a hierarchical, liturgical church. I think that was also because of the way the space is used in an Orthodox church. Everything is included. Icons are everywhere – behind you, in front of you, to the side, above you. The incense is everywhere. You don’t have a linear or vertical perception of things.

T.: In the summer of 1981, two walkways collapsed at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, killing 114 people and injuring many others. You were severely injured when you were trapped by the fallen beams and debris. I was actually in Boston that summer (prior to relocating to the area) and I remember praying for someone named, Melanie [Sister Aemiliane]. I didn’t think I would ever meet you in person.

Would you tell us about that experience and your subsequent recovery?

S.A.: I had a burst fracture of the third lumbar vertebra. My spinal cord was badly twisted and crushed with pieces of bone sticking in it. The initial X-rays compelled the X-ray technicians to jump up and down in amazement when they saw that I had sensation, because the X-rays showed a huge piece of bone right where the spinal cord is, indicating that my spinal cord was almost undoubtedly severed. It wasn’t, but I was paralyzed from the waist down. I had a bunch of ribs broken, a compound fracture of the ankle, my lung collapsed….

T.: And yet, here you are today.

S.A.: The first part of recovery was being extracted from the rubble. Many people died who were not hurt as badly as I was, because they couldn’t get them out in time. (This is what is happening now in Turkey and Athens [The recent earthquakes in these areas]. There are people who are experiencing what it is to be buried alive or just crushed and killed.) It was impossible for others to get to me. And it was impossible for me to be extracted in time to survive.

T.: Do you remember that?

S.A.: Yes, I do – in detail. I remember that I was crushed – bent over with my face between my knees. I couldn’t move anything except my right hand slightly from side to side. There was not enough room even to breathe – there were sixty tons on top of me. My knees broke my ribs. At some point my sister pulled on my right hand but couldn’t move me. Then, at some point I spoke to my guardian angel: “Where are you?” I felt my right hand clasped, without pulling, and then I was out. I was lying on my back, totally free of the rubble. Someone I did not recognize was holding me and told me that I would be OK. No one remembers seeing this person.

T.: This experience must have affected your life in many ways. How did it affect your spiritual life?

S.A.: The fact of the virgin birth, in which Christ came out of the womb without destroying virginity, without pain. The fact of the Resurrection, in which He rose from the tomb without moving the rock. It was sealed until the angel moved it away. The fact of the experience of the disciples when they were in the upper room and the doors were shut, but Christ came in – not as a spirit or as a metaphor or phantom, but in His flesh. He ate and drank. The disciples stuck their fingers in His wounds. This was all made very real to me. This is not because I am something. It is because of the prayer of holy persons who have purified their hearts by incredible commitment, by scathing honesty before their father confessor, themselves, and God, by humbling themselves to the extreme and becoming like Christ – full of Christ. It is nothing more than a witness to that – to the power of prayer, the power of the love of God, which is resurrection and life. It is the fact of the resurrection.

T.: How did you decide to follow the monastic way of life?

S.A.: Although I didn’t think about it at the time logically, the whole of my life was as broken as my back. The whole of my life was as paralyzed as my body. 114 people were killed. So what matters after that? What could bear that much meaning? What could express or feel that much, as to include a connection forever with all those people, all those souls? Only living for them and for everyone. At that point, my studies lost whatever meaning they had. I got well. I could do anything – marry, have a career. A year after the accident, if you just saw me, you wouldn’t have been able to tell [that I had been so seriously injured]. The doctors are still totally mystified about it and they openly admit it. They had told my parents that I might not live, but if I lived, I would never walk. And then I received Holy Communion on the eighth day [after the accident], and I moved my whole left foot. So they said, “We don’t know, maybe she will walk, but it will be a year in the hospital with braces and canes.” I left after three months – with a body brace, but with no braces on my legs, and with two canes. So my doctor in Kansas City said and still says that, “We never could explain you, we can’t and that is it.” So, I could do anything, but I didn’t care enough about any career to give myself to it. Nothing in the secular life meant enough to me. In that moment no doctor, no scientist, no social worker, no psychologist, no member of my family, no loved one, no friend – nothing – could help me; all the technology in the world wasn’t enough to have saved me. And the others died.

Nine months later I was still in great need after all that had happened and with everything black in front of me. I came to Holy Cross [Seminary in Brookline , Mass. ] for confession with a Hieromonk from Holy Mountain, Fr. Dionysios (He had been invited to the seminary by Archbishop Iakovos during all of Great Lent to offer guidance to the students and faculty). I am still eating the spiritual bread he gave me at that moment. Some months later, he sent me a picture of his Elder, Archimandrite Aemilianos, Abbot of Simonos Petras Monastery, Mt. Athos. I was totally shocked. I recognized his likeness as the one who pulled me out from under the tons of debris after the accident. Then I knew. What saved me was the prayer of the Elder Aemilianos – someone who was on the other side of the world in his monastery without ever having set foot in America, in the flesh. There was no reason why he should or could know me. I had heard of him and his spiritual son, my Elder, Dionysios, but had no idea I could ever meet them. After that, I found out that the day of the accident was his namesday – 18 July, the feast day of St. Aemilianos the martyr. So it became clear to me in my very blood and broken bones, without this being at all, ever, an analytical thought, that the prayer of a pure – purified! – heart is the most powerful thing in the cosmos.

By the way, on the old calendar, on the Holy Mountain, it was 5 July, which is the feast day of St. Athanasios the Athonite, the father of cenobitic [communal] monasticism on Mount Athos in the tenth century. Many times we do an all-night vigil on 5 July to celebrate this feast. At the beginning we start reading about the life of St. Athanasios. Every year we only get part way through. By that time that part is finished in Orthros, or (if we are reading it during the meal) the meal is finished. I had never read the end. The “end” of the story is that St. Athanasios the Athonite was killed by the collapse of a new building.

I then saw the icon of the guardian angel (here, in Boston, at the Monastery of the Holy Transfiguration), on which is written a prayer from Compline that says, “Take me by my wretched and outstretched hand….”

When the structure of things is wrong or increasingly inadequate, the only hope is to break it all apart and then it can be restructured – a new creation. Gerontas [Elder] Aemilianos said to me sometime much later that God prepares and provides in the life of every person a “Hyatt” that is the bridge to the new life.

T.: You first joined a large monastery in Greece, Ormilia, a sister monastery to one on Mount Athos - under the spiritual direction of the Elder Aemilianos. You were in a new country with a different culture and language. Would you tell us of your experience living and praying in that environment?

S.A.: Yes. It was paradise. It’s true that it was hard work. It was work to learn Greek and everything else. But Gerontas Aemilianos said to me, “Exile is a very heavy work.” You can become a monk or a nun without undertaking exile. Becoming a stranger in terms of country and culture is not necessarily part of it. But it is in some cases. So he said, xeniteia, exile, is a very heavy work. So then, when I sometimes felt tired, I thought, “Well of course I am tired, it’s natural, it is a very heavy work.” He saved me in this way, as in many other ways.

T.: You are now part of a new, international women’s monastery outside of Athens in Thebes – the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The community includes women from many different parts of the world – Romania, Russia, Britain, South Africa, Israel, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Greece, and the United States. In what ways do the various cultural backgrounds of the community influence your lives together?

S.A.: It is Pentecost all the time – we have a continual feast of Pentecost. The different languages make it abundantly clear that communication is not absolutely dependent on language nor is miscommunication largely a matter language. It has mainly to do with the clarity of heart, the honesty, the humility, and the sacrifice of the people involved in the communication.

T.: Do you learn things from them because they come from so many different backgrounds?

S.A.: All the time – every day, every month. It is like a mosaic. There is such beauty and such possibilities, such talent, such strengths that are cultural and these all come together. It sounds like a stereotype, but our Abbess is German and she is a very good administrator. She has a mind “like a computer,” but she has a heart and spirit first. So when you see this kind of strength, which is common from her culture, when you put this kind of power under and at the disposal of and at the direction of the spirit and of obedience and of a humble heart, then you have an incredible thing. It is not just being an administrator. If this power is at the service of the heart, then you have miracles happening all the time. In our monastery it is impossible to go on our natural charisms, because the thing wouldn’t hold together for five minutes. But if someone is there in the Holy Spirit, humbling herself and repenting all the time for her sins, which are the things that divide one from the other people and make it impossible for us to live together, then the whole thing turns into something divine.

T.: Are there advantages to being a monastic in an Orthodox country?

S.A.: Oh, yes. The simple people from the village teach us what we are and who we are by their expectations, by their holy hearts, by their faith, which is just mind-boggling, by their humility, by their gratitude – especially since so many of us are converts from Western countries who have not grown up in the Church. When you hear the immediate reactions and incredible sensitivity, from someone who may not even be a college graduate – in order to orient what I want to say according to the assumptions and values of western culture – then you say, “Wow!” You realize that this is from this culture of prayer, the courtesy, the kindness, the sensitivity which is from centuries of life in the Church. There is a spontaneous piety totally without affectation. For example, I remember my mind being blown away as a convert when I was in a village in Greece at the very beginning and I was walking along the street and an adolescent boy was coming around the corner on his bicycle. He was steering with his left hand and making the sign of the cross with his right hand because he was going around the church. It was totally natural with every motion baptized with grace.

T.: Based on your experience in helping to build a new monastery in Greece , what advice do you have for establishing and building up monastic communities in the U.S. (or other non-majority Orthodox countries)?

S.A.: This is a burning issue. I think Fr. Sophrony (a great elder from England, a saint – holy monastic of our time who very much loved both my geronta, Dionysios and his geronta, Aemilianos) said to me (although I didn’t have enough experience to even formulate the question at the time), “The Orthodox monastery is organically related to its surroundings, and so,” he said, “the very same Tradition – the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church – when it is in a Western, non-Orthodox country, will look very different and its forms will seem very different than in a traditional Orthodox country – in order to be the same. In order to be that same genuine Orthodox monasticism.”

When he said this to me, I didn’t have any idea where to connect this or where to apply it.

Now at that time Fr. Sophrony was already going on ninety years old and frail. In addition, it was winter. I was sent to him by my Elder and he knew that and accepted me, and when he finished counseling me he said, “Now we are going to go to my cell and we are going to walk like this (arm and arm). This way, if anyone sees us they will hesitate to approach.”

I didn’t find anything strange in that. I was very honored and happy because when you are near someone who is holy you feel very happy. We set off. As we were going along. I said, “Can you give me an example of what you just said, about how Orthodox Monasticism is different in a non-Orthodox country?”

And he says to me, with a slightly indignant – as in “Obviously!” – and emphatic tone, “Well! In Greece we could never walk like this.” At that time, I had never been to Greece . It is true. It is just unthinkable. And what this means to me now, in relation to your question, is that you can’t take a Greek or Russian monastery and just put it lock, stock and barrel someplace else. The meaning of Fr. Sophrony’s words is very, very powerful. If you have a carbon copy from one context placed in a different context, then almost by that very fact, you are deforming the Tradition. I realize that that may be taken as an extremely radical thing to say. But it means that the rare virtue of diakrisis, discretion, is necessary. You can be an actual saint and yet not happen to have that particular virtue, as far as I understand. Yet only with this virtue can it be distinguished in the Holy Spirit what must be rejected, what can and must be baptized, what corresponds to and serves and expresses living Tradition.

T.: As a monastic, what do you see as some of the important issues facing women in the Church today?

S.A.: In the Holy Land, for instance, it becomes clear that to be a Christian is more and more like it was in the beginning to be a Christian. I think what we have to realize is that Christianity is counter-cultural. It is radically different. It is a continual change of mind. It is continual repentance, a continual sobriety which challenges even the most fashionable and almost universally accepted presuppositions and values of our cultures and times. Everything around is not necessarily able to be incorporated into the life of the Spirit. We are a little flock – a dynamic leaven. The Lord says to us, “Fear not little flock.” We have to not be afraid to be different, not afraid to be looked down on, misunderstood, and even be ridiculed or suffer for being different.

T.: Once again, I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts, experiences, and feelings with our readers. You have given us much to reflect upon.

Interview: 12 September 1999. Published in the St. Nina Quarterly, Volume 3, No. 4.

Modern society’s obsession with materialism, its absorption with consumerism in its search for happiness and fulfillment, is not unique. The ancient Greek historian Diodoros Sikeliotis (first century BC) writes that his compatriots, the citizens of the city of Acragas, ate every day as if they were to die the following day, but they built houses as if they were to live forever.

It was against a background of materialism that the principles and teachings of the school of philosophy known as Cynicism revived in the same century and became popular among thoughtful people.

Cynicism was a school of ethical philosophy that provoked extremes both of admiration and of hostility. Because of the behavior of some followers of Cynicism, it has brought to light some of its teachings of great contemporary significance — teachings parallel to those of Christianity, Christian monasticism in particular. It is interesting that the revival of interest in Cynicism coincided with the emergence of Christianity.

Cynics’ origins

In this article, we will present some of Cynicism’s teachings that are of modern value, and consider them either as influential on, or as parallel to Christianity. The origins of Cynicism can be traced to the fifth century before Christ but, following a period of decline, it became very popular during the first two centuries of the Christian era, more precisely from the last quarter of the last century before Christ to the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius (c. 180 AD). Cynicism survived at least until the end of the fifth century.

The Cynic philosophers of this period (27 BC-180 AD) taught the importance of the principles of self-sufficiency, simplicity, independence, asceticism, cosmopolitanism and philanthropy toward all people, independent of race and ethnic origins.

Furthermore, along with Stoic and Neo-Pythagorean teachers, revived Cynicism taught principles of frugality, temperance and in general, humanitarian concerns.

The best exemplars of these principles were Krates of Thebes and Apollonios of Tyana. Nevertheless some of the Cynic principles can be traced back to the teachings of Socrates and his students, including Antisthenes of Athens.

Concept of virtue

Antisthenes ( ca. 455-360 BC ) a devoted follower of Socrates, a sophist and professional teacher, taught that happiness is based on virtue (arête) and that virtue is acquired through knowledge. Thus virtue can be taught.

Virtue is not identified with material pleasures but through constant exertion and heroic effort. For Antisthenes, Herakles was the ideal person and a human prototype to imitate.

As far as religion is concerned, Antisthenes believed that, not withstanding the fact that people believed in many gods, a study of nature and the cosmos speak of the existence of a unity, one Creator God. Antisthenes is one of the early Greek philosophers who conceived of mankind’s unity through homonia (oneness of mind) and philanthropia (love for mankind.)

He taught that it is not the legalistic application of the city’s laws but the law of arête that should guide people in their daily life. Virtue, goodness, is the same for men and women.

Because of his humanitarian teachings and acts of philanthropia, along with other Cynic philosophers, Antisthenes was considered “a liberator of people and healer of their passions.”

Long before Antisthenes Greek philosophers, such as the Ionians, attempted to replace inherited religious beliefs about the world by rational explanations.

It is believed that Antisthenes’ teachings influenced Diogenes of Sinope of Pontos (Asia Minor) (ca. 400 – c.325 BC ), the philosopher who is commonly considered the father of the Cynic school of philosophy.

Diogenes’ main principles of philosophy, too, were about happiness: What is happiness? What contributes to happiness? How does one become happy?

Diogenes taught that happiness is identified with a life of self-sufficiency, oligarkia – contentment with little, training of the body to have as few needs as possible, to kata physein zein – to live according to natural needs. To live according to nature is to live a simple and undemanding life. What is natural is good, whatever has been added by convention is evil and a source of unhappiness.

Diogenes’ teachings about simplicity, self-sufficiency, and independence attracted many followers from among both educated and uneducated classes in Athens and other Greek cities.

His critics called him kyon (dog) because he had rejected many conventions and emphasized that living a free life — a “dog-like” life is natural. In the ancient world, dogs were symbols of a life without shame — anaideia (shamelessness). Thus Diogenes’ teachings became the basis of a school of philosophy known as Cynicism.

Influence of Cynicism

The question that requires our attention is to what degree Cynic principles of philosophy, asceticism, and philanthropy influenced Christian thought, monasticism in particular. Arête, autarkeia, askesis, ponos, important elements of Cynicism, became integral parts of Christian monasticism.

The principles of Cynicism advocated an asceticism that aimed at the achievement of spiritual freedom and independence, a freedom that required a constant askesis (training, labor) to harden the body and strengthen the spirit. Such an exertion implied ponos (pain) a painful struggle that leads to virtue and purification.

Revived Cynicism, in the early Roman Empire (27BC-180AD) developed a moral philosophy which included a powerful philanthropic impulse and advocated humanitarian treatment of all people, a spiritual message for the betterment of all — poor and rich, Greeks and barbarians, literate and illiterate.

Through theory and practice several Cynic philosophers set an example of self-sufficiency, autonomy of will, and independence of action, and attacked luxury and sensual indulgence.

By their own justification of poverty, they offered hope to the poor and weak, the marginalized of societies and the oppressed. The fame of some of Cynicism’s representatives survived for many centuries. Krates of Thebes, one of Diogenes’ most faithful disciples, along with his wife, devoted themselves to humanitarian and good works.

Kerkedas of Megalopolis, inspired by Cynicism’s principles proposed reforms, attacked inequalities in his efforts to bring a renaissance in his city.

Later, at the beginning of the Christian era, Apollonios of Tyana in Cappadocia became famous for his ascetic life and his wanderings, teaching principles of simplicity to the extent that later writers paralleled him with Jesus Christ.

Demetrios, Dio Chrysostomos, Demonax, Peregrinus Proteus, Oinomaos of Gadara, Sostratos, Theagenes and Salustios lived in the early Christian centuries (first to the fifth).

For Cynic political philosophy, a monarch, emperor or king, was expected to be a person of virtue and wisdom. Thus some of the Cynics, such as Demetrios, were men of courage and did not hesitate to condemn corrupt leaders. Because of his anti-monarchical teachings and criticism of Nero, Demetrios was exiled.

Dio Chrysostomos (AD c.40-120) is better known because of his writings. He became known as Chrysostomos (the golden mouthed) — not to be confused with the Church Father John Chrysostom (AD347-407) — because of the quality of his orations and his rhetorical style.

He exerted a great influence through his speeches on the duty of a prince. He emphasized a virtuous active life. Later in the second century, Demonax of Cyprus came from a wealthy family, but like some Christian ascetics he elected to live in poverty, indicating that happiness is not necessarily identified with possession of material wealth. He avoided some of the extremes of some Cynics and maintained a moderate attitude toward life.

The principles of Cynic philosophy such as arête, oligarkia, autarkeia, askesis, ponos (virtue, satisfaction with little, self-sufficiency, asceticism, pain and labor) could be found in other philosophies, philosophies outside of the Greek world.

Nevertheless, they were popular principles in a period when Christianity spread in the Roman Empire and the emergence of Christian monasticism in particular.

Christianity and Cynicism

During the fourth and fifth centuries we find even Christian theologians who claimed to be followers of Cynic philosophers such as Salustios, described by Julian the Emperor as “an excellent man.” Notwithstanding his praise for Salustios, Julian delivered an oration (no.6) scolding the new Cynics who had deviated from the pure principles of Antisthenes, Diogenes and Krates.

Some of the new Cynics of the fourth century, Julian called hypocrites for wearing the coarse cloak, the staff and wallet, and long hair. They were rebuked for their greed and pretentious piety, their itinerant and mendicant life. These kinds of Christian monks were derided not only by Julian and other non-Christians, but Church Fathers such as Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, and others. There were followers of Cynicism that went to extremes and condemned for anaideia (shamelessness) and there were Christian monks, too, who went to extremes in their teachings and their practices.

We must note however that there were some basic differences between Cynics and Christian monks. The aim of the Cynic way of life was to achieve an undisturbed, peaceful, independent, happy life on earth. The main purpose of Christian monasticism was personal sanctification on earth that ultimately leads to eternal happiness in God’s heavenly kingdom. Cynics aspired for happiness on earth, while Christian monasticism’s target was heaven.

Monasticism

The ideals of Christian monasticism were set by Sts. Anthony, Pachomios, and Basil the Great in particular, who defined the aims of monasticism and introduced rules that guided it throughout the Byzantine era (324-1453).

Anthony, the founder of Christian monasticism, taught that the chief purpose of the monk is personal sanctification and the gain of God’s Kingdom in heaven through the practice of poverty, chastity, asceticism, discipline of daily life.

He set an example of poverty by giving away his possessions, retiring himself into the desert. A similar example was set by Basil who used his wealth to establish a complex of philanthropic institutions, hospitals (nosokomia), hotels (xenones) for travelers, an orphanage, leprosaria (for the relief of lepers), ptocheia (homes for the poor.) Basil, too, emphasized that a monk’s life should require poverty and chastity.

But, once again, the aim of the monastic life and the practice of the principles of poverty, chastity, asceticism, philanthropy in general was the kingdom of heaven — not necessarily happiness on earth.

Closer to the ideals and practices of Cynicism was Christian anchoritic monasticism. Hermits, like Cynics, who practiced an extreme form of asceticism, including defiance of all forms of convention, became antisocial. But their ideal, too, was not earthly happiness but the gaining of the Kingdom of God. Because of their extreme practices, Christian hermits at times went against some of the teachings of the organized church.

Many Fathers of the desert and others, known as fools for Christ’s sake, were admired, but it was coenobitic (communal life) monasticism that prevailed and established itself as the arm of the Church.

“Fools” for Christ

The “Fools for Christ’s sake” more than any other form of monasticism adopted certain principles of Cynic philosophy and imitated the daily life of their representatives. They became known as fools because they tried to follow St. Paul’s advice that Christians should “become fools so that you may become wise” (1 Co. 3:18) and that Paul himself and other apostles became “fools for the sake of Christ” (1 Co.4:10).

Church historians and chroniclers such as Palladios, Evagrios Scholastikos and others of later centuries write of men and women who became fools, or “played’ the fool, for the sake of Christ. An anonymous nun in a convent at Tabennisi in Egypt, Symeon of Emesa, Andreas of Salos, Vasilios the Younger, Symeon Eulaves, Kyrillos Phileas, Savvas the Younger are some saints named fools. They came from various geographical areas of the Byzantine Empire and lived between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries.

All the “fools for Christ’s sake” had something in common with Cynic philosophers. They had rejected traditional values of urban civilization, social conventions and had pursued a life of austerity, living an itinerant ascetic life in the streets and fields, subjecting themselves to all kinds of ridicule and humiliations like their predecessor Cynics.

One thing is certain: There were many followers of the principles of Cynic philosophy who were greatly influential and admired, as there were many Christian monks who made their mark on history. For example the Cynic philosopher Krates enjoyed a reputation for moral excellence because of his great sense of fairness and justice (dikaiosyne) but also his profound concern for the practice of philanthropia for the well-being of all people.

From as early as the Homeric age (eighth century before Christ), from the fifth century in particular, philanthropia in Greek moral philosophy was used in a broad sense to include acts of kindliness, gentleness and benevolence in general. But in revived Cynic philosophy, as well as in Christian theology, philanthropia was used in the profound sense of love for mankind — love toward all independently of color or creed.

It became synonymous to agape. In addition to a common understanding of philanthropia, both Cynicism and Christianity held progressive views on issues we today consider very important: the equality of the sexes, the breaking down of social barriers, concern for all people over nationalistic extremes.

Universal attributes

The universal human attributes advocated by Cynic philosophers such as Krates, Demetrios and Apollonios were not related to logos (reason) but to arête, eleos, philanthropia. Like many Church Fathers, who were less concerned with dogma and abstracts but more with the application of pistis (faith), elpis (hope) and, above all, agape (love — 1 Cor.13:13).

Furthermore, it needs to be said that notwithstanding the limits imposed upon them by both history, geography, and their environment, Greek thinkers such as Cynics and Stoics perceived of the human being as the center of the cosmos and emphasized the unity of humankind free of violent nationalisms, color and religions prejudice. Neither divisions in city-states nor conflicts between them prevented them from promoting the idea of common fellowship bringing together all humankind.

To be sure similar ideas could be found among other people contemporary to the Greeks, but the Greek concept of humanity’s unity is distinct because it appears as a single connected process through a variety of Greek poets, philosophers and historians from Homer and Hesiod through the pre-Socratic philosophers, the tragedians, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and especially the Cynics and the Stoics.

There is little doubt for the student of ancient Hellenism and the Hellenistic Age in particular that the views of the philosophers mentioned above became a paidagogos, a prelude to Christian ideas about the unity of human kind.

Whether the principles of Cynic philosophy influenced the ideals of Christian hermits, or whether both developed along parallel lines, is academic. Neither Cynicism’s philosophy nor Christian ideals of asceticism were unique.

They were known and practiced in other parts of the world. Human beings everywhere have common needs, both material and spiritual.

What unites them is a common aspiration for happiness in daily life and eternal life beyond the grave. Self-sufficiency, simplicity, independence, asceticism, philanthropy, temperance, frugality (oligarkia, arête, autarkeia, askesis, ponos), principles that harden the body and strengthen the spirit are just as important today as they were in the time of Diogenes the Cynic and Basil the Christian.

From the Little Mountain takes you through a year at the Hermitage of the Holy Cross in West Virginia. This video is an attempt to portray some of the beauty and struggle of monastic life using quotes from the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church. Insights about monasticism from one of the senior monks at the monastery are given as you are visually taken through the Church liturgical year and the changing seasons in the mountains.

This is a unique documentary of an Orthodox monastery in the 21st century, but the imagery and principles set forth are as ancient (and relevant) as those written by the 6th century instructor of monks, Abba Dorotheos.

Preview the DVD here:

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Order directly from Holy Cross Hermitage.

by Mother Ephrosynia of the Convent of Lesna, France

A brother went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my prayer rule, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

This is what monasticism is: a longing for God that knows no limits. It is the beginning of the Age to come, of the Kingdom of Heaven still here on earth. The Church calls monasticism the Angelic Life. According to holy tradition, in the 4th century an angel appeared to St. Pachomius, the first of the monks struggling out in the Egyptian desert to establish a monastic community, and gave him a bronze tablet inscribed with a Rule for his monks to follow. From apostolic times to the present day thousands, hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people have left everything they had and scorned everything that this world has to offer in order to follow Christ and to live the Gospels more fully.

At times this impulse has been stronger, at times weaker, and the Holy Fathers speak of monasticism as a barometer of spiritual life in the Church. When monastic life flourishes, the faithful are really striving spiritually, and conversely, when few people find inspiration in the monastic ideal, monasteries diminish and are ignored, spiritual life amongst the faithful is on the decline. At the end of the 4th century, when persecution of Christians ceased and the Church knew peace for the first time, but the zeal of converts hadn’t cooled and many Christians desired to give everything to Christ, monasticism even became a mass movement.

One of the travel writers of the period, St. Palladius, tells of his visit to “Oxyrhynchus, one of the cities of the Thebaid (in Egypt). It is impossible to do justice to the marvels which we saw there. For the city is so full of monasteries that the very walls resound with the voices of monks. Other monasteries encircle it outside… The temples and capitols of the city were bursting with monks; every quarter of the city was inhabited by them… The monks were almost in the majority over the secular inhabitants… and there is no hour of day or night when they do not offer acts of worship to God… What can one say of the piety of the… people, who when they saw us strangers.. approached us as if we were angels? How can one convey an adequate idea of the throngs of monks and nuns past counting? However, as far as we could ascertain from the holy bishop of that place, we would say that he had under his jurisdiction 10,000 monks and 20,000 nuns. It is beyond my power to describe their hospitality and their love for us. In fact each of us had our cloaks torn apart by people pulling us to make us go and stay with them.”

Closer to our own time, in Russia in 1907, towards the end of the spiritual revival of the 19th century and before the Revolution there were 24,000 monks and 66,000 nuns, about 90,000 monastics, living in 970 monasteries. On the bleak side, the countryside of France, where my monastery is, is peppered by empty monasteries in ruins, remnants of the Age of Faith, as historians call the Middle Ages. They are testimonies to the spiritual barrenness of France, where more people believe in astrology than in Christ, and people spit at me on the streets because they think I’m a Moslem. It would never occur to them that a woman wearing black might be a nun. The scene at the airport here in Ottawa when I arrived was nothing like the scene in Oxyrhynchus when St. Palladius walked through the gates, and you could probably travel clear across Canada or America and not see a single monastery nor meet a single monk or nun.

But is monasticism completely a lost cause today? True, to modern eyes, the monk is increasingly a figure of yesterday, someone silly and eccentric. People think of roly-poly Friar Tuck from Robin Hood or of the sinister, murderous monks in the novel “The Name of the Rose”. The word “nun” brings to mind Mother Theresa or silly movies about nice but rather dumb women wearing strange, uncomfortable clothes. Even in someone with a more Orthodox frame of mind the word “monastic” applied to our times calls up the image of St. John of Shanghai, of Fr. Seraphim Rose, or the New Martyr the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, and we wonder what can these saints possibly have in common with us? Is anything from their lives and experiences at all relevant or applicable, and how can we, Orthodox Christians of the 21 century, even dare to aspire to imitate them?

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers and the lives of the founders of monasticism abound with dire warnings that monasticism, especially the strict asceticism of past centuries, will be just about impossible in the latter days. Once, when “the Holy Fathers were making predictions about the last generation, they said, “What have we ourselves done?” One of them, the great Abba Ischyrion replied, “We ourselves have fulfilled the commandments of God.” The others replied, “And those who come after us, what will they do?” He said, “They will struggle to achieve half our works.” They said, “And to those that come after them, what will happen?” He said, “The men of that generation will not accomplish any works at all and temptation will come upon them; and those who will persevere in that day will be greater than either us or our fathers”. Reading St. Ignaty Brianchaninov’s instructions for contemporary monastics, first published a little over a century ago and known in English as “The Arena” can be downright depressing. “We are extremely weak,” he says, “while the temptations that surround us have increased enormously… Spiritual activity is quite unknown to us. We are completely engrossed in bodily activity and that with the purpose of appearing pious and holy in the eyes of the world and to get its reward. We have abandoned the hard and narrow way of salvation… we monks are diminished more than any nation, and we are humbled in all the earth today for our sins….” At the end of the Arena, St. Ignaty uses the image of beggars eating the scraps left over from a sumptuous banquet to describe the monks of the latter days, where the Lord says to them, “Brothers, in making my arrangements for the banquet, I did not have you in view. So I have not given you a proper dinner, and I am not giving you the gifts which have all been given away according to a previously made calculation which only I can understand.” If someone today so much as even dares think of monasticism everything around him, both worldly and Orthodox, of the Church seems to say, “Forget it! Don’t even try! It’s absolutely useless!”

In spite of the hardships and the off-putting advice of even the most authoritative Orthodox sources, many people still do choose to leave everything and everyone behind, to take up the cross of monastic struggles and to follow our Saviour. I don’t think that it’s too optimistic to speak of a sort of revival of monasticism in our times. In the 20 years that I’ve been struggling to be a monastic my monastery has doubled in size. Every week we get letters and phone-calls from women and girls that want to come, to enter or to learn more about our life. They are clearly searching for a deeper, more intense spiritual life and some form of dedication. Our monasteries in the Holy Land are growing and flourishing. Since the years of Perestroika in Russia hundreds, if not thousands of monasteries have been opened. When I travel there, on the street every few feet of the way someone comes up to ask where I’m from, what monastery, for prayers, for a word of advice or consolation. They weep at the very sight of a nun and press lists of names into my hands, and their last kopecks and rubles. A very serious writer noted in surprise that in Russia more tourists visit monasteries than exhibits, museums or zoos.

What is it that continues to draw people to this way of life that is essentially a mystery, something that even the holiest monks speak of with awe and trembling? Above all, monasticism is the way of repentance. Not of the sort of repentance when we stop to sigh and feel sorry about the bad things we’ve done and then quickly move on to the next item on our list of things to do, or mumble a list of sins at confession so that we can go to Communion, but the sort that means a complete turn-about, a conversion, a profound change of lifestyle. This is the repentance of the Prodigal Son of the Gospels, who comes to realize that his entire way of life has been very wrong, and who leaves it all behind to go home to his father to ask forgiveness. The service of monastic tonsure begins with a stichera paraphrasing this parable: “Make haste to open unto me Thy fatherly embrace, for as the Prodigal I have wasted my life. In the unfailing wealth of Thy mercy, O Saviour, reject not my heart in its poverty. For with compunction I cry to Thee, O Lord: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee.” It is this longing for our Heavenly Father’s embrace, for His forgiveness, and for a home with Him that still makes people turn their backs on everything and trudge along this rocky road.

The first step along this road is renunciation of the world, leaving it behind. This does not mean simply quitting school or your job, closing your bank account, moving to a monastery, putting on black and saying your prayers. According to the Holy Fathers the term “world” means the sum total of all our passions, attachments, opinions, petty likes and dislikes; everything that distances us from God and prevents us from discerning His Will. “No one can draw nigh to God save the man who has separated himself from the world. But I call separation not the departure of the body, but departure from the world’s affairs”, says St. Isaac the Syrian, one of the greatest monastic fathers of all time. “…No one who has communion with the world can have communion with God, and no one who has concern for the world can have concern for God”, he continues.” If you truly love God”, begins St. John of the Ladder, another monastic guide, “and long to reach the Kingdom that is to come, if you are pained by your failings and are mindful of punishment and of the eternal judgment, if you are truly afraid to die, then it will not be possible to have an attachment, or anxiety, or concern for money, possessions, for family relationships, for worldly glory, for love and brotherhood, indeed, for anything of earth… Stripped of all thought of these, caring nothing about them, one will turn freely to Christ…”

At this point the most common question is “how do I know?” How do I know that I’m called to the particular form of renunciation of the world that monasticism represents? All of us have to leave the world in the sense of struggling to overcome our passions in one way or another; there’s no question about that. But how can a person be sure that the Lord means for him to do it by embracing the monastic life? How can we discern the will of God in this case? It’s very true that there’s no specific “monastic type” or particular character trait that defines someone as a candidate. My monastery has all sorts of people: fat, thin, old, young, outgoing, very shy, well-educated, high-school drop-outs, of the sweetest disposition, and some can be downright nasty at times. They did all sorts of things: one was a magazine editor, another a seamstress, someone was a semi-professional ball player, another sister has a PHD in philosophy, one of the youngest sisters came to us practically off the streets. Some of them had happy childhoods, others hated their parents, some of them were extremely successful at what they did, others hated their jobs. But all of them at some point in time became convinced of the necessity of dropping everything and starting along the road home to their Heavenly Father.

People often talk of vocations and callings, assuming that there has to be some sort of mystical experience to convince you to become a monastic. It’s true that a lot of monastics can look back to a particular event that was the turning point in their lives. 9 times out of 10 there’s nothing really otherworldly about it. If you hear voices or see angels probably the last place where you belong is a monastery! One of our sisters made her decision during an akathist before a miracle-working Icon of the Mother of God. All of her friends had gone dancing that night, but she chose to attend this akathist, and in the middle of it, it dawned on her that she was having a really good time; much better than she would have had dancing, and that it would make sense to do this full-time, as it were. Another sister was moved by the example of 2 nuns she met at the Synod Cathedral in NY. They were there to collect money for the Holy Land. Someone from the parish attacked them for no reason, accusing them of taking food from the kitchen without permission. Most of us would have tried to reason and explain the mistake, but one of the nuns, in a beautiful example of monastic humility, simply made a prostration and begged forgiveness. The fact that there really are still people today who try to do what the Gospels teach was a real revelation, and within a year this girl was a novice. Someone else was moved by a passage from St. John Cassian. One of our older nuns made her decision when her parish priest asked her if she knew anyone that might consider entering being a nun. This was soon after World War II, and this person had assumed that there were no longer any monasteries left, that monasticism wasn’t even a possibility. And when the priest asked, everything fell into place for her.

Even if there is such a moment, the choice and the decision to follow a monastic path is almost always a period of real struggle, of doubts, fears and temptations. A lot of the monastics I know, when the thought first came to them, wanted nothing to do with it and were quite shocked by the idea. The Holy Fathers emphasize that there is nothing that the evil one hates as much as monasticism and he will do everything possible to turn someone away from this path. If one is at all spiritually alert you can practically see and hear him at work at this point. I’ve known people to get incredible job offers, receive huge amounts of money, marriage proposals from tall, dark, handsome and rich men. An older nun I knew had her husband, missing for 20 years, turn up on her doorstep the day before she left. Another one had her son threaten to shoot himself, someone else’s mother starved herself for 6 weeks. If you speak to monastics you truly will find that fact is stranger than fiction! In spite of the trials, there’s a growing conviction that there is nothing else that you can do, that no matter what, the monastic life is the only viable alternative. And this nags at you until there’s just no other way out.

Once a monk escapes from the world he begins to try to finally think clearly and to concentrate on the things that will determine his eternal fate. He begins to really understand and to feel that we, wretched sinners, really are perishing, that we desperately need a Redeemer and Someone to heal our souls, and that in Him alone is life, that everything besides is empty and senseless. He begins to really feel and experience this, not just to say the words. Only when a person stops listening to the noise and clatter of the world, turns his eyes away from its wild, psychedelic colors, and when he gets over the hangover that the world leaves you with does he begin to see himself clearly and to discern the meaning and aim of life on this earth and to struggle against his enemy, the evil one. St. John of the Ladder tells us, “All who enter upon the good fight, the monastic life, which is tough and painful, but also easy, must realize that they must leap into the fire, if they…expect the heavenly fire to dwell within them…let everyone test himself, and then eat the bread of the monastic life with its bitter herbs.. .and drink the cup of it with its tears… Yes, it’s true. The monastic life is not “fun”. Most of us, especially those that had to go through a severe trial to leave the world, experience a “honeymoon” period, when you finally take the plunge, make the break with the world and get to a monastery. It’s such a relief to have all that behind you and to have finally started out on the way. Everything and everyone seems wonderful, you’re full of zeal, and you can practically see the grace, it’s so abundant. For some monastics this stage can go on for years. But sooner or later reality strikes and you see that everything that’s been written about the hardships of monastic life is not just fancy words or symbolic phrases or allegory. It’s not the physical side that’s hard. With some effort and discipline anyone can learn to get up early and to stand through long church services, to make prostrations and to work and work hard at jobs that you don’t necessarily like. A lot of people in the world have a much more difficult life in that sense. It’s the encounter with yourself and who you really are and the struggle to change that, that is the slow but painful, day by day, minute by minute work of the monk. The work is done largely through our contacts and conflicts with other people. St. John of the Ladder is very blunt about this: “…Derided, mocked, jeered, you must accept the denial of your will. You must patiently endure opposition, suffer neglect without complaint, put up with violent arrogance. You must be ready for injustice, and not grieve when you are slandered; you must not be angered by contempt and you must show humility when you have been condemned.” For most of us the most difficult element in all this is giving up your own will. In one of the most quoted monastic sayings Abba Dorotheus, another great teacher of the monastic life says: “I know of no fall that happens to a monk that does not come from trusting his own will and his own judgment… Do you know someone who has fallen? Be sure that he directed himself… nothing is more grievous… nothing is more pernicious.”

When I was a young novice I would get really annoyed at the writings of the Holy Fathers and the constant repetition that in the latter days monks will not be able to perform any podvigs, or great ascetic feats, but will work out their salvation through patience and long-suffering. “How boring!” I would think, “Surely if we set our minds and spirits to it, we can do it, too? How come all we’re allowed is to sit around and be patient?” The secret here is that this is truly a great mercy of the Lord. Today we are not only unchristian in our approach to life, in our thoughts, words and actions, we are outright anti- Christian. Were the Lord to grant us the grace and give us the strength to perform even just 1/10 of the ascetic feats of previous times, we would not only not profit, but the resulting pride and vain-glory would lead us straight to perdition. This is especially true in monasticism, where, for the inexperienced, the intense work on one’s self is very easy to confuse with the self-analysis that so many self-help/’feel-good-about-yourself” guides teach today.

Take, for example, the concept of “moods”. This is not an Orthodox concept; we do not have moods, we are inflicted by passions and we strive to acquire virtues. “Being in a bad mood” can never excuse your behavior in a monastery. This can be very hard for a novice to accept. Likewise, we do not have any “rights”; we have obligations and obediences, and we owe it to the Lord Himself to fulfill them, but no one owes us anything. Similarly, we cannot expect to be “happy” and “fulfilled”; we come to a monastery to weep for our sins. Today just about everything is “boring”. We’ve tried everything, we’re stubborn and very self-assured. To cure the boredom, some people decide to try monasticism. Young people especially want nothing more than to make an impression, cause a sensation. What could be more sensational than to suddenly have all your friends see you 30 pounds thinner, draped in black, clutching a prayer rope, expounding spiritual wisdom? Worst of all, in our times people are prouder than ever before. We take pride in our imaginary virtues, we even take pride in our sins. And most of all, we are proud of our minds. We see ourselves as great thinkers, understanding psychologists, brilliant philosophers, who of course can understand all the finer, most profound monastic truths much more deeply than those that came before us. The notions of humility, obedience, self-condemnation, meekness and renunciation of one’s will used to “go without saying” for Orthodox Christians, but today they have to be learned. One of the Russian new martyrs, Vladyka Varnava Beliaev, wrote that it takes 30 years for someone to start being a monk. That was said 80 years ago; today it probably takes 40 or 50!

So why bother? Is it really worth it? I remember Metropolitan Philaret, paraphrasing St. John of the Ladder, saying, “If everyone knew how hard it was in monasteries, no one would ever go. But if they knew the joys and rewards of monastic life, they would all come running. And it’s true, the rewards and the blessings really are there. One of the Optina Elders, St. Barsanuphius, taught, “True blessedness can only be acquired in a monastery. You can be saved in the world, but it is impossible to be completely purified.. .or to rise up and live like the angels and live a creative spiritual life in the world. All the ways of the world, …. laws destroy or at least slow down the development of the soul. And that’s why people can attain the angelic life only in monasteries… Monasticism is blessedness; the most blessed state that is possible for a person on this earth. There is nothing higher than this blessedness, because monasticism hands you the key to spiritual life.”

In what do we find this blessedness? There is the knowledge that every day of your life and every minute of your day are sanctified and significant before God. Even your “bad” days and your really low days having meaning before Him. As long as you live the life consciously there is no wasted time. There is the solemnity and beauty of the Divine Services of our Church, which is truly the beginning of the life of Heaven still here on earth. In the world our attendance in Church is always time stolen away from the world’s affairs, a welcome respite, a sort of spiritual treat. In the monastery the services determine the very patterns of life, and they are the real life; everything else is time stolen away from them. They nourish us, instruct us, and in a certain sense even entertain us. When I was entering the monastery one of my greatest fears was that eventually I would find the services boring-the same thing, year in, year out, forever. Instead I find that they contain such vast wealth and so many levels, each more profound than the one before it, that a lifetime is nowhere near enough to begin to appreciate them. The saints have become my close friends and mentors, I experience the feasts differently each year, every Great Lent and every Pascha are a completely new revelation. Above all, in monasticism there is what St. Theophan the Recluse called “being sure that God keeps you as His own”. If you accept the ways of the Lord as your life your conscience will soon be lit up with the knowledge that He, too has accepted you as His own. I remember the night I spent in church after my tonsure, after making my monastic vows. I had such a vivid sense that the Lord was with me, it seemed that Heaven was literally just around the corner, that if I opened the door of the church it would be right there. This wasn’t a feeling; I knew this.

There is nothing more beautiful than the way monastics die. Most of our sisters die having received Holy Communion, surrounded by the community, with prayers and chanting and tears. Not the desperate tears of the world, but tears at parting with a friend and sister, even if just for a while. The funeral service of a monk, which is quite different than that of a lay person, is a lesson on the monastic life and the solidly grounded hope of eternal life that it represents rather than a meditation on death. For those that spend their life on the threshold of the Age to Come death is merely stepping into the next room.

We do give up a lot in monastic life. My arms have ached after holding my friends’ children, knowing that I would never hold my own. But the Lord has given me many children of the spirit amongst the young novices that I work with in the monastery. A monastic will never know the special intimacy and closeness that is the blessing of an Orthodox marriage. And a married person will never know the spiritual kinship of a monastic community. There are no vacations from monasticism, no sick days, no time off. But every day is a feast.

“Monasticism”, one of the Optina elders said, “supports the entire world. And when there will be no more monasticism the Dread Judgment will be upon us.

And for those of us that are drawn to this way of life there simply is no other way to live. One writer described it like this: “Some people are very single-minded by nature. And there are ideas that permeate the lives of such people down to the very last detail. Everything beautiful, joyous and of consolation in this life is overshadowed for them by the memory of one thing, by a single thought: that of Christ Crucified. No matter how bright the sun might be, how beautiful nature, God’s creation is, how tempting faraway places might seem, they remember that Christ was Crucified, and everything is dim in comparison. We might hear the most beautiful music, the most inspired speeches, but these souls hear one thing: Christ was Crucified, and what can ever drown out the sound of the nails being hammered into His flesh? Describe to them the happiness of a family life, of a beloved husband or wife, of children, but Christ was Crucified, and how can we not show the Lord that He isn’t alone, we haven’t deserted Him. There are those that are willing to forget everything in the world so as to stand by His Cross, suffer His suffering and wonder at His Sacrifice. For them the world is empty, and only Christ Crucified speaks to their hearts. And only they know what sweetness they taste still on this earth by sharing in the eternal mystery of the Cross and only they hear what He says to them when they come to Him after a life full of incomprehensible hardships and inexplicable joy.

Lesna Monastery, Provemont, 5/18 December 2000.
St. Sabbas the Sanctified

Saint Silouan was born Simeon Ivanovich Antonov in 1866, of godly parents who came from the village of Sovsk in the Tambov region. At the age of twenty-seven he received the prayers of St. John of Kronstadt and came to the monastic region of Greece called Mt. Athos where he became a monk at the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon, and was given the new name Silouan. An ardent ascetic, he received the grace of unceasing prayer and was granted to see Christ. After long years of spiritual trial, he acquired great humility and hesychia, inner stillness. He prayed and wept for the whole world as for himself, and he put the highest value on love for enemies. Thomas Merton has described Silouan as “the most authentic monk of the twentieth century.” St Silouan reposed on September 24, 1938.

He left behind his writings which were edited by his disciple and pupil, the Elder Sophrony. Father Sophrony has written a complete life of the Saint along with the record of Saint Silouan’s teachings in the book Saint Silouan the Athonite.

Saint Silouan on Love

The soul cannot know peace unless she prays for her enemies. The soul that has learned of God’s grace to pray, feels love and compassion for every created thing, and in particular for mankind, for whom the Lord suffered on the Cross, and His soul was heavy for every one of us.

The Lord taught me to love my enemies. Without the grace of God we cannot love our enemies. Only the Holy Spirit teaches love, and then even devils arouse our pity because they have fallen from good, and lost humility in God.

I beseech you, put this to the test. When a man affronts you or brings dishonor on your head, or takes what is yours, or persecutes the Church, pray to the Lord, saying: “O Lord, we are all Thy creatures. Have pity on Thy servants and turn their hearts to repentance,” and you will be aware of grace in your soul. To begin with, constrain your heart to love enemies, and the Lord, seeing your good will, will help you in all things, and experience itself will show you the way. But the man who thinks with malice of his enemies has not God’s love within him, and does not know God.

If you will pray for your enemies, peace will come to you; but when you can love your enemies – know that a great measure of the grace of God dwells in you, though I do not say perfect grace as yet, but sufficient for salvation. Whereas if you revile your enemies, it means there is an evil spirit living in you and bringing evil thoughts into your heart, for, in the words of the Lord, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts – or good thoughts.

The good man thinks to himself in this wise: Every one who has strayed from the truth brings destruction on himself and is therefore to be pitied. But of course the man who has not learned the love of the Holy Spirit will not pray for his enemies. The man who has learned love from the Holy Spirit sorrows all his life over those who are not saved, and sheds abundant tears for the people, and the grace of God gives him strength to love his enemies.

Understand me. It is so simple. People who do not know God, or who go against Him, are to be pitied; the heart sorrows for them and the eye weeps. Both paradise and torment are clearly visible to us: We know this through the Holy Spirit. And did not the Lord Himself say, “The kingdom of God is within you”? Thus eternal life has its beginning here in this life; and it is here that we sow the seeds of eternal torment. Where there is pride there cannot be grace, and if we lose grace we also lose both love of God and assurance in prayer. The soul is then tormented by evil thoughts and does not understand that she must humble herself and love her enemies, for there is no other way to please God.

The house in which St Silouan’s cell was located

What shall I render unto Thee, O Lord,
for that Thou hast poured such great mercy on my soul?
Grant, I beg Thee, that I may see my iniquities,

and ever weep before Thee,
for Thou art filled with love for humble souls,
and dost give them the grace of the Holy Spirit.

O merciful God, forgive me.
Thou seest how my soul is drawn to Thee, her Creator.
Thou hast wounded my soul with Thy love,

and she thirsts for Thee, and wearies without end,
and day and night, insatiable, reaches toward Thee,
and has no wish to look upon this world, though I do love it,
but above all I love Thee, my Creator,
and my soul longs after Thee.

The mlll in which St Silouan worked for many years

O my Creator, why have I, Thy little creature, grieved Thee so often?
Yet Thou hast not remembered my sins.

Glory be to the Lord God that He gave us His Only-begotten Son
for the sake of our salvation.
Glory be to the Only-begotten Son that He deigned
to be born of the Most Holy Virgin, and suffered for our salvation,

and gave us His Most Pure Body and Blood to eternal life,
and sent His Holy Spirit on the earth.

O Lord, grant me tears to shed for myself,
and for the whole universe,
that the nations may know Thee and live eternally with Thee.
O Lord, vouchsafe us the gift of Thy humble Holy Spirit,

that we may apprehend Thy glory.

From the Synaxarion

On this day we keep the memorial of our sacred father Silouan whom God inspired, who lived the monastic life upon the Holy Mountain in the Russian Monastery of the holy and great martyr Panteleimon, and who died godly in the Lord on the twenty-fourth day of September in the year of our salvation 1938.

Once, in this life, thou didst see Christ, O Saint;
And now thou beholdest Him face to face,
Not darkly as in a glass.
Thine earthly country delights that thou wast born in her;
Athos rejoices in the Spirit; for in thee she nurtured a saint;
And from that sylvan mountain heaven has now received thee.

Saint Silouan, that citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, was born of pious parents in the land of Russia in the village of Sovsk in the diocese of the Metropolitan of Tambov. He came into the world in the year of our Lord 1866, and from a young man was called to repentance by the all-praised Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary.

When he had reached his twenty-seventh year, he renounced the things of this life, and, with the prayers of Saint John of Kronstadt to speed him on his way, he set forth for Greece and the illustrious Holy Mountain. Here, in the cloister of the holy great martyr and physician Panteleimon, he took upon him the yoke of the monastic life.

Thus he gave himself to God with all his soul, and in a brief while he not only received the gift of unceasing prayer from the most holy Mother of God, but was also granted ineffably to see the living Christ in the chapel of the holy prophet Elijah that was next to the monastery’s flour mill.

But this first grace was taken away, and the saint was constrained by anguish and great grief, and with God’s permission for fifteen years he was given over to manifold temptations of spiritual foes, and so he followed in the footsteps of Christ, having offered up prayers and strong supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death (Heb. 5:7), being taught by God through a voice from above that gave him this commandment: Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not. This he observed as an infallible rule, and so ran the way of Antony, Macarius, Pœmen and Sisoës, and the other celebrated preceptors and fathers of the desert, to whose measure and spiritual gifts he also attained, and was manifested an apostolic and inspired teacher both living and after death.

The saint was wondrously meek and lowly in heart, a fervent advocate before God for the salvation of all, and unequalled among teachers: For he says that there is no surer proof that the divine Spirit dwells within us than that we love our enemies.

This blessed Saint Silouan passed over from death to life, full of spiritual days on the twenty-fourth day of September in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1938: To Whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.

At his prayers and those of all Thy saints, O Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Troparion: By prayer didst thou receive Christ for thy teacher in the way of humility; and the Spirit bare witness to salvation in thy heart; wherefore all peoples called unto hope rejoice this day of thy memorial. O sacred Father Silouan, pray unto Christ our God for the salvation of our souls.

Kontakion: In thine earthly life thou didst serve Christ, following in His steps; and now in heaven thou seest Him Whon thou didst love, and abidest with Him according to the promise. Wherefore, O Father Silouan, tteach us the path wherein thou didst walk.

…And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11:12)

Rotating Obediences and the Plundering of Grace

by Monk Cosmas

As St. Paul says, “If anyone will not work, let him not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). So we work. Assigned duties in our monastery are called “obediences” because they are done in obedience to the abbot or the man he designates to assign tasks, and ultimately in obedience both to God and to our brothers in Christ. They fall into two broad categories, revenue-generating on the one hand and housekeeping and upkeep on the other. We do various things to bring in the money needed to pay our bills, and these chores or jobs are given out partly on the basis of an individual’s skills and talents. Revenue-generating obediences include such things as the making of hand-dipped 100% beeswax candles which we sell to churches, a bookstore, our publishing operation, wooden coffins which we make on order, and the importing and selling of liturgical items, primarily priests’ vestments.

The revenue-generating obediences represent the business side of the monastery. What is more interesting in some ways is the set of obediences that fall under the housekeeping and upkeep side of monastic life. These fall into two groups—the long-term assignments and the rotating obediences. My long-term housekeeping and upkeep obediences include making coffee and cleaning the church, the guest bathroom, and the area around the guesthouse. Other people have to sweep and clean the public areas, especially the walkways, the other bathrooms, the office, the dorm, and the dining area. We have a number of vehicles—for the most part fairly old and decrepit—and each vehicle has a “steward” who is responsible for making sure that it has plenty of oil, antifreeze, a good spare tire, and that it is inspected for smog when necessary, and all the other sorts of things required to maintain a car “in the world.”

Now we come to an even more interesting topic—rotating obediences and the plundering of grace. I will try to explain how this works, because it shows the synergy between the rather ordinary and the more spiritual aspect of monastic obediences. Every week a new schedule is posted on the refrigerator in the trapeza—that is, the dining room. It lists the services for that week, including any special feasts and any visits we are making as a group to a nearby church. If we know that the bishop will be visiting that week, that is usually indicated as well, or if a new priest or deacon is coming to practice serving with us before going to his first parish assignment, that will be noted as well. Along the top of the week’s schedule are listed the rotating obediences for the week. There are three of them—dishes, trapeza and compline reader, and tables. Dishes means simply washing dishes after meals and unloading the dishwasher so that the table-setter has plenty of plates, dishes, bowls, glasses, coffee mugs, teacups, and silverware to put out for meals. The trapeza and compline reader has the one-week assignment of reading a selected spiritual or inspirational text while others eat—that is, until someone finishes his meal, and then the abbot nods to him to read so that the assigned reader can sit down to eat—and to be the main reader at the compline service in the evening which is also known as apodeipnon. The obedience we call “tables” consists of setting the table for each meal and gathering the dirty plates, dishes, bowls, glasses, coffee mugs, teacups, and silverware after the meal is over.

My own rule of thumb is that my cycle of rotating duties comes up about every seven weeks, and then I have three weeks of obediences in a row, going from one obedience to the next. In practice it isn’t quite that simple, because we do not have a single list containing all the rotating obediences, but three separate lists and a set of rules for the interaction between the lists. For example, a given person cannot have two of the obediences in the same week, nor can anyone be given dishwashing duty or table-clearing duty if he cooks that week. Besides that, one man has a blessing to be exempted from doing the readings. In addition, if someone is away from the monastery for a week—for example, on a visit to his family—he trades places with someone else. In other words, the formulae for calculating the rotating obediences are something like the formulae for determining moveable feasts and other such niceties of the liturgical calendar. In any case, what it means for me in a practical sense is that most weeks I check the calendar and exclaim, “Oh, cool!—I’m off the hook this week.”

This leads us to the most interesting part of the whole topic—the plundering of grace. As we know, salvation belongs to the violent. But how does “spiritual violence” apply to rotating obediences? Well, one application is that we can seek out opportunities to help our brother when it is not our own turn to do anything that week, and especially when there happen to be a lot of guests at the time. I recall when I was on dishwashing duty the week of Christmas. That night we had the bishop with us for dinner, and we sat around the table late into the night singing Christmas carols and chatting while I contemplated—with great dismay—the huge piles of dishes and pots and pans that I knew were waiting for me in the kitchen. When we finally got up from the table, two of my beloved brothers in Christ asked for a blessing to help me wash dishes, and as a result of their kindness, we were able to finish washing them shortly before midnight. The fact that they willingly helped their brother to bear his burden is a practical example of “taking the kingdom of heaven by force.” What is even more praiseworthy—and I won’t give any examples of it here so as not to spoil the grace of it—is when one of the brothers or fathers sees that someone has left part of his rotating obedience undone and simply does it for him quietly, without complaining about his brother’s lapse or calling attention to the fact that he did something he was not required to do.

Perhaps it seems like we are reading a lot into little ordinary things when we see something so simple as doing another person’s chores as a victory in the spiritual warfare, but stop and think about it. It can mean growth in humility and obedience, and an increased concern for the welfare of others. Those things—not mystical experiences and altered states—are what the real spiritual life in a monastery is all about.

One who climbs a mountain for the first time needs to follow a known route; and he needs to have with him, as companion and guide, someone who has been up before and is familiar with the way. To serve as such a companion and guide is precisely the role of the “Abba” or spiritual father, whom the Greeks call “Geron” and the Russians “Starets”, a title which in both languages means “old man” or “elder”. ¹

The importance of obedience to a Geron is underlined from the first emergence of monasticism in the Christian East. St. Antony of Egypt said: “I know of monks who fell after much toil and lapsed into madness, because they trusted in their own work… So far as possible, for every step that a monk takes, for every drop of water that he drinks in his cell, he should entrust the decision to the Old Men, to avoid making some mistake in what he does.” ²

This is a theme constantly emphasized in the Apophthegmata or Sayings of the Desert Fathers: “The old Men used to say: ‘if you see a young monk climbing up to heaven by his own will, grasp him by the feet and throw him down, for this is to his profit… if a man has faith in another and renders himself up to him in full submission, he has no need to attend to the commandment of God, but he needs only to entrust his entire will into the hands of his father. Then he will be blameless before God, for God requires nothing from beginners so much as self-stripping through obedience.’” ³

This figure of the Starets, so prominent in the first generations of Egyptian monasticism, has retained its full significance up to the present day in Orthodox Christendom. “There is one thing more important than all possible books and ideas”, states a Russian layman of the 19th Century, the Slavophile Kireyevsky, “and that is the example of an Orthodox Starets, before whom you can lay each of your thoughts and from whom you can hear, not a more or less valuable private opinion, but the judgement of the Holy Fathers. God be praised, such Startsi have not yet disappeared from our Russia.” And a Priest of the Russian emigration in our own century, Fr. Alexander Elchaninov (+ 1934), writes: “Their held of action is unlimited… they are undoubtedly saints, recognized as such by the people. I feel that in our tragic days it is precisely through this means that faith will survive and be strengthened in our country.” ⁴

The Spiritual Father as a ‘Charismatic’ Figure

What entitles a man to act as a starets? How and by whom is he appointed?

To this there is a simple answer. The spiritual father or starets is essentially a ‘charismatic’ and prophetic figure, accredited for his task by the direct action of the Holy Spirit. He is ordained, not by the hand of man, but by the hand of God. He is an expression of the Church as “event” or “happening”, rather than of the Church as institution. ⁵

There is, of course, no sharp line of demarcation between the prophetic and the institutional in the life of the Church; each grows out of the other and is intertwined with it. The ministry of the starets, itself charismatic, is related to a clearly-defined function within the institutional framework of the Church, the office of priest-confessor. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the right to hear confessions is not granted automatically at ordination. Before acting as confessor, a priest requires authorization from his bishop; in the Greek Church, only a minority of the clergy are so authorized.

Although the sacrament of confession is certainly an appropriate occasion for spiritual direction, the ministry of the starets is not identical with that of a confessor. The starets gives advice, not only at confession, but on many other occasions; indeed, while the confessor must always be a priest, the starets may be a simple monk, not in holy orders, or a nun, a layman or laywoman. The ministry of the starets is deeper, because only a very few confessor priests would claim to speak with the former’s insight and authority.

But if the starets is not ordained or appointed by an act of the official hierarchy, how does he come to embark on his ministry? Sometimes an existing starets will designate his own successor. In this way, at certain monastic centers such as Optina in 19th-century Russia, there was established an “apostolic succession” of spiritual masters. In other cases, the starets simply emerges spontaneously, without any act of external authorization. As Elchaninov said, they are “recognized as such by the people”. Within the continuing life of the Christian community, it becomes plain to the believing people of God (the true guardian of Holy Tradition) that this or that person has the gift of spiritual fatherhood. Then, in a free and informal fashion, others begin to come to him or her for advice and direction.

It will be noted that the initiative comes, as a rule, not from the master but from the disciples. It would be perilously presumptuous for someone to say in his own heart or to others, “Come and submit yourselves to me; I am a starets, I have the grace of the Spirit.” What happens, rather, is that — without any claims being made by the starets himself — others approach him, seeking his advice or asking to live permanently under his care. At first, he will probably send them away, telling them to consult someone else. Finally the moment comes when he no longer sends them away but accepts their coming to him as a disclosure of the will of God. Thus it is his spiritual children who reveal the starets to himself.

The figure of the starets illustrates the two interpenetrating levels on which the earthly Church exists and functions. On the one hand, there is the external, official, and hierarchial level, with its geographical organization into dioceses and parishes, its great centers (Rome, Constantinople, Moscow, and Canterbury), and its “apostolic succession” of bishops. On the other hand, there is the inward, spiritual and “charismatic” level, to which the startsi primarily belong. Here the chief centrs are, for the most part, not the great primatial and metropolitan sees, but certain remote hermitages, in which there shine forth a few personalities richly endowed with spiritual gifts. Most startsi have possessed no exalted status in the formal hierarchy of the Church; yet the influence of a simple priest-monk such as St. Seraphim of Sarov has exceeded that of any patriarch or bishop in 19th-century Orthodoxy. In this fashion, alongside the apostolic succession of the episcopate, there exists that of the saints and spiritual men. Both types of succession are essential for the true functioning of the Body of Christ, and it is through their interaction that the life of the Church on earth is accomplished.

Flight and Return: the Preparation of the Starets

Although the starets is not ordained or appointed for his task, it is certainly necessary that he should be prepared. The classic pattern for this preparation, which consists in a movement of flight and return, may be clearly discerned in the liyes of St. Antony of Egypt (+356) and St. Seraphim of Sarov (+1833).

St. Antony’s life falls sharply into two halves, with his fifty-fifth year as the watershed. The years from, early manhood to the age of fifty-five were his time of preparation, spent in an ever-increasing seclusion from the world as he withdrew further and further into the desert. He eventually passed twenty years in an abandoned fort, meeting no one whatsoever. When he had reached the age of fifty-five, his friends could contain their curiosity no longer, and broke down the entrance. St. Antony came out and, ‘for the remaining half century of his long life, without abandoning the life of a hermit, he made himself freely available to others, acting as “a physician given by God to Egypt.” He was beloved by all, adds his biographer, St. Athanasius, “and all desired to ‘have him as their father.” ⁶ Observe that the transition from enclosed anchorite to Spiritual father came about, not through any initiative on St. Antony’s part, but through the action of others. Antony was a lay monk, never ordained to the priesthood.

St. Seraphim followed a comparable path. After fifteen years spent in the ordinary life of the monastic community, as novice, professed monk, deacon, and priest, he withdrew for thirty years of solitude and almost total silence. During the first part of this period he, lived in a forest hut; at one point he passed a thousand days on the stump of a tree and a thousand nights of those days on a rock, devoting himself to unceasing prayer. Recalled by his abbot to the monastery, he obeyed the order without the slightest delay; and during the latter part of his time of solitude he lived rigidly enclosed in his cell, which he did not leave even to attend services in church; on Sundays the priest brought communion to him at the door of his room. Though he was a priest he didn’t celebrate the liturgy. Finally, in the last eight years of his life, he ended his enclosure, opening the door of his cell and receiving all who came. He did nothing to advertise himself or to summon people; it was the others who took the initiative in approaching him, but when they came — sometimes hundreds or even thousands in a single day — he did not send them empty away.

Without this intense ascetic preparation, without this radical flight into solitude, could St. Antony or St. Seraphim have acted in the same ‘degree as guide to those of their generation? Not that they withdrew in order to become masters and guides of others. ‘They fled, not, in order to prepare themselves for some other task, but out of a consuming desire to be alone with God. God accepted their love, but then sent them back” as instruments of healing in the world from which they had withdrawn. Even had He never sent them back, their flight would still have been supremely creative and valuable to society; for the monk helps the world not primarily by anything that he does and says but by what he is, by the state of unceasing prayer which has become identical with his innermost being. Had St. Antony and St. Seraphim done nothing but pray in solitude they would still have been serving their fellow men to the highest degree. As things turned out, however, God ordained that they should also serve others in a more direct fashion. But this direct and visible service was essentially a consequence of the invisible service which they rendered through their prayer.

“Acquire inward peace”, said St. Seraphim, “and a multitude of men around you will find their salvation.” Such is the role of spiritual fatherhood. Establish yourself in God; then you can bring others to His presence. A man must learn to be alone, he must listen in the stillness of his own heart to the wordless speech of the Spirit, and so discover the truth about himself and God. Then his work to others will be a word of power, because it is a word out of silence.

What Nikos Kazantzakis said of the almond tree is true also of the starets: “I said to the almond tree, ‘Sister, speak to me of God,’ And the almond tree blossomed.”

Shaped by the encounter with God in solitude, the starets is able to heal by his very presence. He guides and forms others, not primarily by words of advice, but by his companionship, by the living and specific example which he setsin a word, by blossoming like the almond tree. He teaches as much by his silence as by his speech. “Abba Theophilus the Archbishop once visited Scetis, and when the brethren had assembled they said to Abba Pambo, ‘Speak a word to the Pope that he may be edified.’ The Old Man said to them, “if he is not edified by my silence, neither will be he edified by my speech.’” ⁸ A story with the same moral is told of St. Antony. “It was the custom of three Fathers to visit the Blessed Antony once each year, and two of them used to ask him questions about their thoughts (logismoi) and the salvation of their soul; but the third remained completely silent, without putting any questions. After a long while, Abba Antony said to him, ‘See, you have been in the habit of coming to me all this time, and yet you do not ask me any questions’. And the other replied, ‘Father, it is enough for me just to look at you.’” ⁹

The real journey of the starets is not spatially into the desert, but spiritually into the heart. External solitude, while helpful, is not indispensable, and a man may learn to stand alone before God, while yet continuing to pursue a life of active service in the midst of society. St. Antony of Egypt was told that a doctor in, Alexandria was his equal in spiritual achievement: “In the city there is someone like you, a doctor by profession, who gives all his money to the needy, and the whole day long he sings the Thrice-Holy Hymn with the angels.” ¹⁰ We are not told how this revelation came to Antony, nor what was the name of the doctor, but one thing is clear. Unceasing: prayer of the heart is no monopoly of the solitaries; the mystical and “angelic” life is possible in the city as well as the desert. The Alexandrian doctor accomplished the inward journey without severing his outward links with the community.

There are also many instances in which flight and return are not sharply distinguished in temporal sequence. Take, for example, the case of St. Seraphim’s younger contemporary, Bishop Ignaty Brianchaninov (t1867). Trained originally as an army officer, he was appointed at the early age of twenty-six to take charge of a busy and influential monastery close to St. Petersburg. His own monastic training had lasted little more than four years before he was placed in a position of authority. After twetity-four years as Abbot, he was consecrated Bishop. Four years later he resigned, to spend the remaining six years of his life as a hermit. Here a period of active pastoral work preceded the period of anachoretic seclusion. When he was made abbot, he must surely have felt gravely ill-prepared. His secret withdrawal into the heart was undertaken continuously during the many years in which he administered a monastery and a diocese; but it did not receive an exterior, expression until the very end of his life.

Bishop Ignaty’s career ¹¹ may serve as a paradigm to many of us at the present time, although (needless to say) we fall far short of his level of spiritual achievement. Under the pressure of outward circumstances and probably without clearly realizing what is happening to us, we become launched on a career of teaching, preaching, and pastoral counselling, while lacking any deep knowledge of the desert and its creative silence. But through teaching others we ourselves begin to learn. Slowly we recognize our powerlessness to heal the wounds of humanity solely through philanthropic programs, common sense, and psychiatry. Our complacency is broken down, we appreciate our own inadequacy, and start to understand what Christ meant by the “one thing that is necessary” (Luke 10:42). That is the moment when we enter upon the path of the starets. Through our pastoral experience, through our anguish over the pain of others,’ we are brought to undertake the journey inwards, to ascend the secret ladder of the Kingdom, where alone a genuine solution to the world’s problems can be found. No doubt few if any among us would think of ourselves as a starets in the full sense, but provided we seek with humble sincerity to enter into the “secret chamber” of our heart, we can all share to some degree in the grace of the spiritual fatherhood. Perhaps we shall never outwardly lead the life of a monastic recluse or a hermit — that rests with God — but what is supremely important is that each should see the need to be a hermit of the heart.

The Three Gifts of the Spiritual Father

Three gifts in particular distinguish the spiritual father. The first is insight and discernment (diakrisis), the ability to perceive intuitively the secrets of another’s heart, to understand the hidden depths of which the other is unaware. The spiritual father penetrates beneath the conventional gestures and attitudes whereby we conceal our true personality from others and from ourselves; and beyond all these trivialities, he comes to grips with the unique person made in the image and likeness of God. This power is spiritual rather than psychic; it is not simply a kind of extra-sensory perception or a sanctified clairvoyance but the fruit of grace, presupposing concentrated prayer and an unremitting ascetic struggle.

With this gift of insight there goes the ability to use words with power. As each person comes before him, the starets knows — immediately and specifically — what it is that the individual needs to hear. Today, we are inundated with words, but for the most part these are conspicuously not words uttered with power. ¹² The starets uses few words, and sometimes none at all; but by these few words or by his silence, he is able to alter the whole direction of a man’s life. At Bethany, Christ used three words only: “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43) and these three words, spoken with power, were sufficient to bring the dead back to life. In an age when language has been disgracefully trivialized, it is vital to rediscover the power of the word; and this means rediscovering the nature of silence, not just as a pause between words but as one of the primary realities of existence. Most teachers and preachers talk far too much; the starets is distinguished by an austere economy of language.

But for a word to possess power, it is necessary that there should be not only one who speaks with the genuine authority of personal experience, but also one who listens with attention and eagerness. If someone questions a starets out of idle curiosity, it is likely that he will receive little benefit; but if he approaches the starets with ardent faith and deep hunger, the word that he hears may transfigure his being. The words of the startsi are for the most part simple in verbal expression and devoid of literary artifice; to those who read them in a superficial way, they will seem jejune and banal.

The spiritual father’s gift of insight is exercised primarily through the practice known as “disclosure of thoughts” (logismoi). In early Eastern monasticism the young monk used to go daily to his father and lay before him all the thoughts which had come to him during the day. This disclosure of thoughts includes far more than a confession of sins, since the novice also speaks of those ideas and impulses which may seem innocent to him, but in which the spiritual father may discern secret dangers or significant signs. Confession is retrospective, dealing with sins that have already occurred; the disclosure of thoughts, on the other hand, is prophylactic, for it lays bare our logismoi before they have led to sin and so deprives them of their, power to harm. The purpose of the disclosure is not juridical, to secure absolution from guilt, but self-knowledge, that each may see himself as he truly is. ¹³

Endowed with discernment, the spiritual father does not merely wait for a person to reveal himself, but shows to the other thoughts hidden from him. When people came to St. Seraphim of Sarov, he often answered their difficulties before they had time to put their thoughts before him. On many occasions the answer at first seemed quite irrelevant, and even absurd and irresponsible; for what St. Seraphim answered was not, the question his visitor had consciously in mind, but the one he ought to have been asking. In all this St. Seraphim relied on the inward light of the Holy Spirit. He found it important, he explained, not to work out in advance hat he was going to say; in that case, his words would represent merely his own human judgment which might well be in error, and not the judgment of God.

In St. Seraphim’s eyes, the relationship between starets and spiritual child is stronger than death, and he therefore urged his children to continue their disclosure of thoughts to him even after his departure to the next life. These are the words which, by his on command, were written on his tomb: “When I am dead, come to me at my grave, and the more often, the better. Whatever is on your soul, whatever may have happened to you, come to me as when I was alive and, kneeling on the ground, cast all your bitterness upon my grave. Tell me everything and I shall listen to you, and all the bitterness will fly away from you. And as you spoke to me when I was alive, do so now. For I am living, and I shall be forever.”

The second gift of the spiritual father is the ability to love others and to make others’ sufferings his own. Of Abba Poemen, one of the greatest of the Egyptian gerontes, it is briefly and simply recorded: “He possessed love, and many came to him.” ¹⁴ He possessed love — this is indispensable in all spiritual fatherhood. Unlimited insight into the secrets of men’s hearts, if devoid of loving compassion, would not be creative but destructive; he who cannot love others will have little power to heal them.

Loving others involves suffering with and for them; such is the literal sense of compassion. “Bear one anothers burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). The spiritual father is ‘the one who par excellence bears the burdens of others. “A starets”, writes Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, “is one who takes your soul, your will, unto his soul and his will… . ” It is not enough for him to offer advice. He is also required to take up the soul of his spiritual children into his own soul, their life into his life. It is his task to pray for them, and his constant intercession on their behalf is more important to them than any words of counsel. ¹⁵ It is his task likewise to assume their sorrows and their sins, to take their guilt upon himself, and to answer for them at the Last Judgment.

All this is manifest in a primary document of Eastern spiritual direction, the Books of Varsanuphius and John, embodying some 850 questions addressed to two elders of 6th-century Palestine, together with their written answers. “As God Himself knows,” Varsanuphius insists to his spiritual children, “there is not a second or an hour when I do not have you in my mind and in my prayers… I care for you more than you care for yourself… I would gladly lay down my life for you.” This is his prayer to God: “O Master, either bring my children with me into Your Kingdom, or else wipe me also out of Your book.” Taking up the theme of bearing others’ burdens, Varsanuphius affirms: “I am bearing your burdens and your offences… You have become like a man sitting under a shady tree… I take upon myself the sentence of condemnation against you, and by the grace of Christ, I will not abandon you, either in this age or in the Age to Come.” ¹⁶

Readers of Charles Williams will be reminded of the principle of ’substituted love,’ which plays a central part in Descent into Hell. The same line of thought is expressed by Dostoevsky’s starets Zosima: “There is only one way of salvation, and that is to make yourself responsible for all men’s sins… To make yourself responsible in all sincerity for everything and for everyone.” The ability of the starets to support and strengthen others is measured by his willingness to adopt this way of salvation.

Yet the relation between the spiritual father and his children is not one-sided. Though he takes the burden of their guilt upon himself and answers for them before God, he cannot do this effectively unless they themselves are struggling wholeheartedly for their own salvation. Once a brother came to St. Antony of Egypt and said: “Pray for me.” But the Old Man replied: “Neither will I take pity on you nor will God, unless you make some effort of your own.” ¹⁷

When considering the love of a starets for those under his care, it is important to give full meaning to the word “father” in the title “spiritual father”. As father and offspring in an ordinary family should be joined in mutual love, so it must also be within the “charismatic” family of the starets. It is primarily a relationship in the Holy Spirit, and while the wellspring of human affection is not to be unfeelingly suppressed, it must be contained within bounds. It is recounted how a young monk looked after his elder, who was gravely ill, for twelve years without interruption. Never once in that period did his elder thank him or so much as speak one word of kindness to him. Only on his death-bed did the Old Man remark to the assembled brethren, “He is an angel and not a man.” ¹⁸ The story is valuable as an indication of the need for spiritual detachment, but such an uncompromising suppression of all outward tokens of affection is not typical of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, still less of Varsanuphius and John.

A third gift of the spiritual father is the power to transform the human environment, both the material and the non-material. The gift of healing, possessed by so many of the startsi, is one aspect of this power: More generally, the starets helps his disciples to perceive the world as God created it and as God desires it once more to be. “Can you take too much joy in your Father’s works?” asks Thomas Traherne. “He is Himself in everything.” The true starets is one who discerns this universal presence of the Creator throughout creation, and assists others to discern it. In the words of William Blake, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything will appear to man as it is, infinite.” For the man who dwells in God, there is nothing mean and trivial: he sees everything in the light of Mount Tabor. “What is a merciful heart?” inquires St. Isaac the Syrian. “It is a heart that burns with love for ‘the whole of creation — for men, for the birds, for the beasts, for the demons, for every, creature. When a man with such a heart as this thinks of the creatures or looks at them, his eyes are filled with tears; An overwhelming compassion makes his heart grow! small and weak, and he cannot endure to hear or see any suffering, even the smallest pain, inflicted upon any creature. Therefore he never ceases to pray, with tears even for the irrational animals, for the enemies of truth, and for those who do him evil, asking that they may be guarded and receive God’s mercy. And for the reptiles also he prays with a great compassion, which rises up endlessly in his heart until he shines again and is glorious like God.”‘ ¹⁹

An all-embracing love, like that of Dostoevsky’s starets Zosima, transfigures its object, making the human environment transparent, so that the uncreated energies of God shine through it. A momentary glimpse of what this transfiguration involves is provided by the celebrated conversation between St. Seraphim of Sarov and Nicholas Motoviov, his spiritual child. They were walking in the forest one winter’s day and St. Seraphim spoke of the need to acquire the Holy Spirit. This led Motovilov to ask how a man can know with certainty that he is “in the Spirit of God”:

Then Fr. Seraphim took me very firmly by the shoulders and said: “My son, we are both, at this moment in the Spirit of God. Why don’t you look at me?”

“I cannot look, Father,” I replied, “because your eyes are flashing like lightning. Your face has become brighter than the sun, and it hurts my eyes to look, at you.”

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “At this very moment you have yourself become as bright as I am. You are yourself in the fullness of the Spirit of God at this moment; otherwise you would not be able to see me as you do… but why, my son, do you not look me iii the eyes? Just look, and don’t be afraid; the Lord is with us.”

After these words I glanced at his face, and there came over me an even greater reverent awe. Imagine in the center of the sun, in the dazzling light of its mid-day rays, the face of a man talking to you. You see the movement of his lips and the changing expression of his eyes and you hear his voice, you feel someone holding your shoulders, yet you do not see his hands, you do not even see yourself or his body, but only a blinding light spreading far around for several yards and lighting up with its brilliance the snow-blanket which covers the forest glade and the snowflakes which continue to fall unceasingly ²⁰.

Obedience and Freedom

Such are by God’s grace, the gifts of the starets. But what of the spiritual child? How does he contribute to the mutual relationship between father and son in God?

Briefly, what he offers is his full and unquestioning obedience. As a classic example, there is the story in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers about the monk who was told to plant a dry stick iii the sand and to water it daily. So distant was the spring from his cell that he had to leave in the evening to fetch the water and he only returned in the following morning. For three years he patiently fulfilled his Abba’s command. At the end of this period, the stick suddenly put forth leaves and bore fruit. The Abba picked the fruit, took it to the church, and invited the monks to eat, saying, “Come and taste the fruit of obedience.” ²¹

Another example of obedience is the monk Mark who was summoned by his Abba, while copying a manuscript, and so immediate was his response that he did not even complete the circle of the letter that he was writing. On another occasion, as they walked together, his Abba saw a small pig; testing Mark, he said, “Do you see that buffalo, my child?” “Yes, Father,” replied Mark. “And you see how powerful its horns are?” “Yes, Father”, he answered once more without demur. ²² Abba Joseph of Panepho, following a similar policy, tested the obedience of his disciples by assigning ridiculous tasks to them, and only if they complied would he then give them sensible commands. ²³ Another geron instructed his disciple to steal things from the cells of the brethren; ²⁴ yet another told his disciple (who had not been entirely truthful with him) to throw his son into the furnace. ²⁵

Such stories are likely to make a somewhat ambivalent impression on the modern reader. They seem to reduce the disciple to an infantile or sub-human level, depriving him of all power of judgment and moral choice. With indignation we ask: “Is this the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God’?” (Rom. 8:21)

Three points must here be made. In the first place, the obedience offered by the spiritual son to his Abba is not forced but willing and voluntary. It is the task of the starets to take up our will into his will, but he can only do this if by our own free choice we place it in his hands. He does not break our will, but accepts it from us as a gift. A submission that is forced and involuntary is obviously devoid of moral value; the starets asks of each one that he offer to God his heart, not his external actions.

The voluntary nature of obedience is vividly emphasized in the ceremony of the tonsure at the Orthodox rite of monastic profession. The scissors are placed upon the Book of the Gospels, and the novice must himself pick them up and give them to the abbot. The abbot immediately replaces them on the Book of the Gospels. Again the novice take the scissors, and again they are replaced. Only when the novice gives him the scissors for the third time does the abbot proceed to cut hair. Never thereafter will the monk have the right to say to the abbot or the brethren: “My personality is constricted and suppressed here in the monastery; you have deprived me of my freedom”. No one has taken away his freedom, for it was he himself who took up the scissors and placed them three times in the abbot’s hand.

But this voluntary offering of our freedom is obviously something that cannot be made once and for all, by a single gesture; There must be a continual offering, extending over our whole life; our growth in Christ is, measured precisely by the increasing degree of our self-giving. Our freedom must be offered anew each day and each hour, in constantly varying ways; and this means that the relation between starets and disciple is not static but dynamic, not unchanging but infinitely diverse. Each day and each hour, under the guidance of his Abba, the disciple will face new situations, calling for a different response, a new kind of self-giving.

In the second place, the relation between starets and spiritual child is not one- but two-sided. Just as the starets enables the disciples to see themselves as they truly are, so it is the disciples who reveal the starets to himself. In most instances, a man does not realize that he is called to be a starets until others come to him and insist on placing themselves under his guidance. This reciprocity continues throughout the relationship between the two. The spiritual father does not possess an exhaustive program, neatly worked out in advance and imposed in the same manner upon everyone. On the contrary, if he is a true starets, he will have a different word for each; and since the word which he gives is on the deepest level, not his own but the Holy Spirit’s, he does not know in advance what that word will be. The starets proceeds on the basis, not of abstract rules but of concrete human situations. He and his disciple enter each situation together; neither of them knowing beforehand exactly what the outcome will be, but each waiting for the enlightenment of the Spirit. Each of them, the spiritual father as well as the disciple, must learn as he goes.

The mutuality of their relationship is indicated by certain stories in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, where an unworthy Abba has a spiritual son far better than himself. The disciple, for example, detects his Abba in the sin of fornication, but pretends to have noticed nothing and remains under his charge; and so, through the patient humility of his new disciple, the spiritual father is brought eventually to repentance and a new life. In such a case, it is not the spiritual father who helps the disciple, but the reverse. Obviously such a situation is far from the norm, but it indicates that the disciple is called to give as well as to receive.

In reality, the relationship is not two-sided but triangular, for in addition to the starets and his disciple there is also a third partner, God. Our Lord insisted that we should call no man “father,” for we have only one father, who is in Heaven (Matthew 13:8-10). The starets is not an infallible judge or a final court of appeal, but a fellow-servant of the living God; not a dictator, but a guide and companion on the way. The only true “spiritual director,” in the fullest sense of the word, is the Holy Spirit.

This brings us to the third point. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition at its best, the spiritual father has always sought to avoid any kind of constraint and spiritual violence in his relations with his disciple. If, under the guidance of the Spirit, he speaks and acts with authority, it is with the authority of humble love. The words of starets Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov express an essential aspect of spiritual fatherhood: “At some ideas you stand perplexed, especially at the sight of men’s sin, uncertain whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide, ‘I will combat it by humble love.’ If you make up your mind about that once and for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force; it is the strongest of all things and there is nothing like it.”

Anxious to avoid all mechanical constraint, many spiritual fathers in the Christian East refused to provide their disciples with a rule of life, a set of external commands to be applied automatically. In the words of a contemporary Romanian monk, the starets is “not a legislator but a mystagogue.” ²⁶ He guides others, not by imposing rules, but by sharing his life with them. A monk told Abba Poemen, “Some brethren have come to live with me; do you want me to give them orders?” “No,” said the Old Man. “But, Father,” the monk persisted, “they themselves want me to give them orders.” “No”, repeated Poemen, “be an example to them but not a lawgiver.” ²⁷ The same moral emerges from the story of Isaac the Priest. As a young man, he remained first with Abba Kronios and then with Abba Theodore of Pherme; but neither of them told him what to do. Isaac complained to the other monks and they came and remonstrated with Theodore. “If he wishes”, Theodore replied eventually, “let him do what he sees me doing.” ²⁸ When Varsanuphius was asked to supply a detailed rule of life, he refused, saying: “I do not want you to be under the law, but under grace.” And in other letters he wrote: “You know that we have never imposed chains upon anyone… Do not force men’s free will, but sow in hope, for our Lord did not compel anyone, but He preached the good news, and those who wished hearkened to Him.” ²⁹

Do not force men’s free will. The task of the spiritual father is not to destroy a man’s freedom, but to assist him to see the truth for himself; not to suppress a man’s personality, but to enable him to discover himself, to grow to full maturity and to become what he really is. If on occasion the spiritual father requires an implicit and seemingly “blind” obedience from his disciple, this is never done as an end in itself, nor with a view to enslaving him. The purpose of this kind of shock treatment is simply to deliver the disciple from his false and illusory “self”, so that he may enter into true freedom. The spiritual father does not impose his own ideas and devotions, but he helps the disciple to find his own special vocation. In the words of a 17th-century Benedictine, Dom Augustine Baker: “The director is not to teach his own way, nor indeed any determinate way of prayer, but to instruct his disciples how they may themselves find out the way proper for them… In a word, he is only God’s usher, and must lead souls in God’s way, and not his own.” ³⁰

In the last resort, what the spiritual father gives to his disciple is not a code of written or oral regulations, not a set of techniques for meditation, but a personal relationship. Within this personal relationship the Abba grows and changes as well as the disciple, for God is constantly guiding them both. He may on occasion provide his disciple with detailed verbal instructions, with precise answers to specific questions. On other occasions he may fail to give any answer at all; either because he does not think that the question needs an answer, or because he himself does not yet know what the answer should be. But these answersor this failure to answerare always given the framework of a personal relationship. Many things cannot be said in words, but can be conveyed through a direct personal encounter.

In the Absence of a Starets

And what is one to do, if he cannot find a spiritual father?

He may turn, in the first place, to books. Writing in 15th-century Russia, St. Nil Sorsky laments the extreme scarcity of qualified spiritual directors; yet how much more frequent they must have been in his day than in ours! Search diligently, he urges, for a sure and trustworthy guide. “However, if such a teacher cannot be found, then the Holy Fathers order us to turn to the Scriptures and listen to Our Lord Himself speaking.” ³¹ Since the testimony of Scripture should not be isolated from the continuing witness of the Spirit in the life of the Church, the inquirer will also read the works of the Fathers, and above all the Philokalia. But there is an evident danger here. The starets adapts his guidance to the inward state of each; books offer the same advice to everyone. How is the beginner to discern whether or not a particular text is applicable to his own situation? Even if he cannot find a spiritual father in the full sense, he should at least try to find someone more experienced than himself, able to guide him in his reading.

It is possible to learn also from visiting places where divine grace has been exceptionally manifested and where prayer has been especially concentrated. Before taking a major decision, and in the absence of other guidance, many Orthodox Christians will goon pilgrimage to Jerusalem or Mount Athos, to some monastery or the tomb of a saint, where they will pray for enlightenment. This is the way in which I have reached the more difficult decisions in my life.

Thirdly, we can learn from religious communities with an established tradition of the spiritual life. In the absence of a personal teacher, the monastic environment can serve as guide; we can receive our formation from the ordered sequence of the daily program, with its periods of liturgical and silent prayer, with its balance of manual labor, study, and recreation.³² This seems to have be en the chief way in which St. Seraphim of Sarov gained his spiritual training. A well-organized monastery embodies, in an accessible and living form, the inherited wisdom of many starets. Not only monks, but those who come as visitors for a longer or shorter period, can be formed and guided by the experience of community life.

It is indeed no coincidence that the kind of spiritual fatherhood that we have been describing emerged initially in 4th-century Egypt, not within the fully organized communities under St. Pachomius, but among the hermits and in the semi-eremitic milieu of Nitria and Scetis. In the former, spiritual direction was provided by Pachomius himself, by the superiors of each monastery, and by the heads of individual “houses” within the monastery. The Rule of St. Benedict also envisages the abbot as spiritual father, and there is no provision for further development of a more “charismatic” type. In time, of course, the coenobitic communities incorporated many of the traditions of spiritual fatherhood as developed among the hermits, but the need for those traditions has always been less intensely felt in the coenobia, precisely because direction is provided by the corporate life pursued under the guidance of the Rule.

Finally, before we leave the subject of the absence of the starets, it is important to recognize the extreme flexibility in the relationship between starets and disciple. Some may see their spiritual father daily or even hourly, praying, eating, and working with him, perhaps sharing the same cell, as often happened in the Egyptian Desert. Others may see him only once a month or once a year; others, again, may visit a starets on but a single occasion in their entire life, yet this will be sufficient to set them on the right path. There are, furthermore, many different types of spiritual father; few will be wonder-workers like St. Seraphim of Sarov. There are numerous priests and laymen who, while lacking the more spectacular endowments of the startsi, are certainly able to provide others with the guidance that they require.

Many people imagine that they cannot find a spiritual father, because they expect him to be of a particular type: they want a St. Seraphim, and so they close their eyes to the guides whom God is actually sending to them. Often their supposed problems are not so very complicated, and in reality they already know in their own heart what the answer is. But they do not like the answer, because it involves patient and sustained effort on their part: and so they look for a deus ex machina who, by a single miraculous word, will suddenly make everything easy. Such people need to be helped to an understanding of the true nature of spiritual direction.

Contemporary Examples

In conclusion, I wish briefly to recall two startsi of our own day, whom I have had the happiness of knowing personally. The first is Father Amphilochios (+1970), abbot of the Monastery of St. John on the Island of Patmos, and spiritual father to a community of nuns which he had founded not far from the Monastery. What most distinguished his character was his gentleness, the warmth of his affection, and his sense of tranquil yet triumphant joy. Life in Christ, as he understood it, is not a heavy yoke, a burden to be carried’ with resignation, but a personal relationship to be pursued with eagerness of heart. He was firmly opposed to all spiritual violence and cruelty. It was typical that, as he lay dying and took leave of the nuns under his care, he should urge the abbess not to be too severe on them: “They have left everything to come here, they must not be unhappy.” ³³ When I was to return from Patmos to England as a newly-ordained priest, he insisted that there was no need to be afraid of anything.

My second example is Archbishop John (Maximovich), Russian bishop in Shanghai, in Western Europe, and finally in San Francisco (+1966). Little more than a dwarf in height, with tangled hair and beard, and with an impediment in his speech, he possessed more than a touch of the “Fool in Christ.” From the time of his profession as a monk, he did not lie down on a bed to sleep at night; he went on working and praying, snatching his sleep at odd moments in the 24 hours. He wandered barefoot through the streets of Paris, and once he celebrated a memorial, service among the tram lines close to the port of Marseilles. Punctuality had little meaning for him. Baffled by his unpredictable behavior, the more conventional among his flock sometimes judged him to be unsuited for the administrative work of a bishop. But with his total disregard of normal formalities he succeeded where others, relying on worldly influence and expertise, had failed entirely — as when, against all hope and in the teeth of the “quota” system, he secured the admission of thousands of homeless Russian refugees to the U.S.A.

In private conversation he was very gentle, and he quickly won the confidence of small children. Particularly striking was the intensity of his intercessory prayer. When possible, he liked to celebrate the Divine Liturgy daily, and the service often took twice or three times the normal space of time, such was the multitude of those whom he commemorated individually by name. As he prayed for them, they were never mere names on a lengthy list, but always persons. One story that I was told is typical. It was his custom each year to visit Holy Trinity Monastery at Jordanville, N.Y. As he left, after one such visit, a monk gave him a slip of paper with four names of those who were gravely ill. Archbishop John received thousands upon thousands of such requests for prayer in the course of each year. On his return to the monastery some twelve months later, at once he beckoned to the monk, and much to the latter’s surprise, from the depths of his cassock Archbishop John produced the identical slip of paper, now crumpled and tattered. “I have been praying for your friends,” he said, “but two of them” — he pointed to their names — “are now dead and the other two have recovered.” And so indeed it was.

Even at a distance he shared in the concerns of his spiritual children. One of them, superior of a small Orthodox monastery in Holland, was sitting one night in his room, unable to sleep from anxiety over the problems which faced him. About three o’dock in the morning, the telephone rang; it was Archbishop John, speaking from several hundred miles away. He had rung to say that it was time for the monk to go to bed.

Such is the role of the spiritual father. As Varsanuphius expressed it, “I care for you more than you care for yourself.”

Endnotes

1. On spiritual fatherhood in the Christian East, see the well-documented study by I. Hausherr, S. L., Direction Spintuelle en Orient d’Autrefois (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 144: Rome 1955). An excellent portrait of a great starets in 19th-century Russia is provided by J. B. Dunlop, Staretz Amvrosy: Model for Dostoevsky’s Staretz Zossima (Belmont, Mass. 1972); compare also I. de Beausobre, Macanus, Starets of Optina: Russian Letters of Direction 18341860 (London, 1944). For the life and writings of a Russian starets in the present century, see Archimandrite Sofrony, The Undistorted Image. Staretz Silouan: 18661938 (London, 1958).
2. Apophthegmata Patrum, alphabetical collection (Migne, P.G., 65, pp. 37-8).
3. Les Apophtegemes des Pres du Desert, by J. C. Guy, S.jj. (Textes de Spiritualit Orientale, No. 1: Etiolles, 1968), pp. 112, 158.
4. A. Elchaninov, The Diary of a Russian Priest, (London, 1967, p. 54).
5. I use “charismatic” in the restricted sense customarily given to it by contemporary writers. But if that word indicates one who has received the gifts or charismata of the Holy Spirit, then the ministerial priest, ordained through the episcopal laying on of hands, is as genuinely a “charismatic” as one who speaks with tongues.
6. The Life of St. Antony, chapters 87 and 81 (P.G. 26, 965A, and 957A.)
7. Quoted in Igumen Chariton, The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology (London, 1966), p. 164. [Webmaster Note: I could not determine where this footnote appeared in the original article.]
8. Apophthegmata Patrum, alphabetical collection, Theophilus the Archbishop, p. 2. In the Christian East, the Patriarch of Alexandria bears the title “Pope.”
9. Ibid., Antony p. 27.
10. Ibid., Antony, p. 24.
11. Compare Ignaty’s contemporary, Bishop Theophan the Recluse (+l894) and St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (+l753).
12. Three of the great banes of the 20th century are shorthand, duplicators and photocopying machines. If chairmen of committees and those in seats of authority were forced to write out personally in longhand everything they wanted to communicate to others, no doubt they would choose their words with greater care.
13. Evergetinos, Synagoge, 1, 20 (ed. Victor Matthaiou, I, Athens, 1957, pp. 168-9).
14. Apophthegmata Patrum, alphabetical collection, Poemen, p. 8.
15. For the importance of a spiritual father’s prayers, see for example Les Apophtegmes des Peres du Dsert, tr. Guy, “srie des dits anonymes”, P. 160.
16. The Book of Varsanuphius and John, edited by Sotirios Schoinas (Volos, 1960), pp. 208, 39, 353, 110 and 23g. A critical edition of part of the Greek text, accompanied by an English translation, has been prepared by D. J. Chitty: Varsanuphius and John, Questions and Answers, (Patrologia Orientalis, XXXI, 3, Paris, 1966). [Webmaster Note. This and many other fine books on spiritual direction are available from St. Herman Press.
17. Apophthegmata Patrurn, alphabetical collection, Antony, p. 16.
18. Ibid., John the Theban, p. 1.
19. Mystic Treatises of Isaac of Nineveh, tr. by A. J. Wensinck, (Amsterdam, 1923), p. 341.
20. “Conversation of St. Seraphim on the Aim of the Christian Life,” in A Wonderful Revelation to the World (Jordanville, N.Y., 1953), pp. 23-24.
21. Apophthegmata Patrum, alphabetical collection, John Colobos, p. 1.
22. Ibid., Mark the Disciple of Silvanus, pp. 1, 2.
23. Ibid., Joseph of Panepho, p. 5.
24. Ibid., Saio, p. 1. The geron subsequently returned the things to their rightful owners.
25. Les Apophtegmes des Peres du Desert, tr. Guy, “serie des dits anonymes,” p. 162. There is a parallel story in the alphabetical collection, Sisoes, p. 10; cf. Abraham and Isaac (Gen. 22).
26. Fr. Andr Scrima, “La Tradition du Pre Spirituel dan l’Eglise d’Orient.” Hermes, 1967, No. 4, p. 83.
27. Apophthegmata Patrurn, alphabetical collection, Poemen, p. 174.
28. Ibid., Isaac the Priest, p. 2.
29. The Book of Varsanuphius and John, pp. 23, 51, 35.
30. Quoted by Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction and Meditation. (1960), p. 12.
31. “The Monastic Rule,” in G. P. Fedotov, A Treasury of Russian Spirituality, (London, 1950) p.96.
32. See Thomas Merton, op. cit., pp. 14-16, on the dangers of rigid monastic discipline without proper spiritual direction.
33. See I. Gorainoff, “Holy Men of Patmos”, Sobornost (The Journal of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius), Series 6, No. 5 (1972) pp. 341-4.

From Cross Currents (Summer/Fall 1974), pp. 296-313.

Christian monasticism was born in the deserts of Egypt at a time when the way of Christ was consolidating its position in the cities. The apparent success in the gospel’s appropriation of the Empire was a blessing not unmixed with danger. The early monastics flew into the desert not to escape the city and its newly respectable churches but rather to seek salvation at a time when increasing wealth and prestige might have been the undoing of the Church through a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle!) compromise with worldliness. In this manner the Church’s integrity in both desert and city was preserved. The monastic stood for the gospel’s untameable power, in short for God and the possibilities of an entirely unheard of life in Him beyond the city gate. In the desert wastes new lives were transformed and the gospel returned in power to the cities.

Beyond the limits of ancient maps it was sometimes written:- “Here be dragons.” Indeed this was the truth that the first monks encountered in the desert, a place of combat with adversary powers, with Satan himself. Like a trained athlete the monk entered the arena and faced the ancient foe, for all mankind. The abbas and ammas (fathers and mothers) of the desert pioneered the old ways of sacrifice and martyrdom but in a new setting and circumstance.

More…

A great deal of foolishness goes by the name “Celtic.” Anything that features harps, knotwork, and a starry-eyed “creation spirituality” is claimed as part of popular “Celtic” spirituality. For a refreshing contrast, in this article, Father Richard Woods looks at the history of the real Christians who actually lived in ancient Ireland and Britain.

The Celtic church, which flourished for many centuries, was a vigorous expression of Christian faith and offers us lessons for dealing with today’s critical issues.

Only in relatively recent years have scholars been able to recover the history of the Celtic churches in what should be called Early Christian Britain and Ireland rather than simply the Dark Ages. For the centuries between the fall of the Roman empire and the so-called Middle Ages were hardly dark for the millions of Christians living at the periphery of northwestern Europe. In many respects, the Renaissance began there six hundred years before the reflowering of scholarship, art, and literature in Italy and France.

If the rich history of the Celtic churches is a fairly recent discovery, their spirituality may be an even more surprising resource for a life-affirming, holistic, and faithful way of life for Christians in this “postmodern” world and, more importantly, the world of the future. Celtic spirituality may in fact be “newer” and more valuable than many better known spiritual traditions of later ages.

The word keltoi was first used by historians of the sixth century before Christ to describe a welter of people sharing a family of languages rooted in a lost ancestral tongue remotely related to Greek. Perhaps significantly for understanding Celtic character, Professor John T. McNeill notes that “Plato mentions them in a list of nations addicted to drunkenness, and Aristotle notes their reckless indifference to danger, even of earthquake and raging seas.” ¹

By the beginning of the Christian era, Celtic tribes had migrated west, occupying Gaul and part of Spain. There were British tribes, Irish tribes, and the outlandish Picts of the north. But with the partial exceptions of the short-lived alliances formed in the first century before Christ by Vercingetorix, and in the first, fifth, and eleventh centuries afterwards by Caradoc (Caracticus), Arthur, and Brian Boru, there never developed a pan-Celtic movement or even much national sentiment.

Celtic peoples have never been much taken with system and structure. The Christian churches they established reflected that irreducible independence of spirit as long as they endured. And by any standards that was a very long time, ending officially with the Synod of Kells in 1152 following the Norman invasion of Ireland. Even at the time of its absorption into full Anglo-Roman character in 664, the British church was older than any Protestant denomination today and claimed to be as venerable as any patriarchate of East or West. By the Middle Ages, it was commonly held that the faith had been established there by none other than Joseph of Arimathea.

Yet the Celtic churches did come to an end and in that respect can be considered the only fully extinct Christian tradition in the world. Such a distinction would be misleading, however, if it failed to recognize two perhaps startling facts. First, the missionaries and scholars from Ireland and Britain who revitalized the continental church after the barbarian invasions thereby inaugurated the chain of events that not only ended their own tradition but ushered in the great era of Christendom in the High Middle Ages. Second, the Celtic churches did not simply die out. They melded fairly smoothly, if not without resistance, into the mainstream church of Western Europe, once again whole and now embraced in a precariously fragile spiritual and political body called The Holy Roman Empire.

Celtic Christianity

In 410 the last legions were withdrawn from Britain to protect Italy from the Vandals and Huns, leaving that largely Christian Britain open to increasing attack from the pagan Irish, Saxon, and Picts. And to no avail: with the deposition of the Emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476, the Western empire came to its inglorious end. The Western church also began a long winter of organizational decline, largely because it had adopted the legal and governmental structures and even the territorial divisions of the empire. ² The term diocese itself originally referred to an administrative unit of civil government.

But the ensuing ecclesiastical disintegration, political chaos, and disrupted communication indirectly brought about two events which were to transform the Celtic churches structurally and forever change the history of Western Europe. In 431, as an aspect of a counteroffensive against heresy in the British church, Pope Celestine sponsored a minor mission to Ireland. Shortly afterwards, monasticism was introduced into the Celtic churches.

Like other Western churches of the ancient world, the Celtic churches had their differences with Rome. Only one heresy gained much of a following, however, and then only in Britain. It took its name from an itinerant teacher, lay preacher, and pamphleteer living in Italy, a well-born Briton who had come to the study of theology from law.

Pelagius’s teachings were propagated in his native church by influential friends and were finally extirpated only through the evangelical efforts of papal emissaries, Sts. Germanus and Lupus, in 429 and 447. The decision, or even the afterthought, of Pope Celestine to authorize a simultaneous but less ambitious mission to Ireland also produced success — one far more spectacular than he could have expected.

There were Christians and possibly even bishops in Ireland before Palladius, the first Roman missionary bishop, arrived there around 431. But there was as yet no recognizable church. At that time Patrick was still a half-educated expatriate British monk living in Gaul. Having been a captive in Ireland for many years as a teenager, he had become obsessed with the desire to return as a missionary. When Palladius’s mission faltered, Patrick was presented by sympathetic British clergy to St. Germanus, who had been commissioned to oversee the Celtic churches.

Even though Patrick still lacked much of even the rudimentary theological training of the clergy of his time, Germanus ordained him deacon, priest, and finally bishop. At first his mission, like that of Palladius, was hardly a triumph. But with the assistance of several companions, probably monks ordained and functioning as secular clergy, he eventually managed to organize a stable community.

Eventually Patrick set up diocesan structures, including a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons.³ He did not found monasteries. Nevertheless, within a century, the dominant form of Irish and British Christianity was not diocesan but monastic in form. As a consequence, its spirituality was more familial, personal, and democratic rather than curial, legal, and republican. This was not only because of the direct influence of the Gallican monks, but because their monastic spirituality was more richly compatible with the structure and values of Celtic culture than was the legalistic diocesan form.

Although monastic spirituality came to Britain and then Ireland from Gaul, particularly Lérins, Tours, and Auxerre, its original home and character were Egyptian. ⁴ The familial, democratic, and decentralized character of African Christianity surely endowed its monasticism with some of its particular appeal to the Celts. And for six hundred years, their churches would be typified by this distinctive monastic spirit.

Elements of Early Celtic Spirituality

At the height of their development in the eighth and ninth centuries, Celtic monasteries extended from Iceland to Italy. More like settlements or small villages, many monasteries admitted both men and women, married lay persons as well as celibates, and a variety of support personnel. Many abbots were married, and leadership was often handed down through families for generations. ⁵

The life-style tended to be cenobitical, that is, the monks lived in separate cells or huts but participated in common prayer, meals, and other functions. However, there was also a tendency among the more austere ascetics to become hermits in the strict sense, separating from others to undergo what came to be called the “green martyrdom,” living in remote, isolated places alone with God.

This quest for an intense, self-sacrificing form of testimony was further expressed by the “white martyrdom,” voluntary exile and death in an alien land out of love for the homeless Christ. In its extreme form, the white martyrdom meant a life of perpetual pilgrimage. The renunciates who undertook such a discipline came to be known as peregrini. Sometimes these wanderers would set themselves adrift at sea in rudderless boats to go where the winds and fates would carry them. ⁶

Because the roots of British and Irish monasticism were largely Eastern, it contained rich philosophical and theological elements as well as a profound mystical tendency. It is not surprising that in the ninth century an itinerant Irish scholar, John Scottus Eriugena, would introduce the mystical theology of Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, and Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite into the Latin west.

This mystical and scholarly tradition produced other outstanding figures in medieval theology, philosophy, and spirituality: Alcuin, Sedulius Scottus, Duns Scottus, and Richard of St. Victor among them. Their spirituality, like that of their predecessors, was nevertheless first and foremost a biblical spirituality.

All the early literature of the Celtic churches, particularly in Ireland, is filled with biblical citations. For instance, St. Patrick’s confessional apologia is heavily punctuated with quotations and allusions.⁷ Primarily, however, Scripture was used for liturgical celebration, private devotional purposes, and especially study.

The great Gospel Books, undisputed masterpieces of the world’s greatest art, may have been used for liturgical celebrations, although missals were created for this purpose at a very early period. At any rate, the magnificently illuminated Gospels of Kells, Durrow, Lindisfarne, and elsewhere not only represent the artistic genius of the Celtic church at its pinnacle, but testify to the outstanding importance of the word of God in their calligraphy, portraiture, and abstract designs.

In addition to the role of Scripture as the liturgical and artistic focus of Celtic spirituality, there were several forms of private devotional use. One of the most interesting of these uses was the development of small Pocket Gospels which could be taken on journeys or pilgrimage. Finally, and importantly, Scripture was also subject to critical study, exegesis, and commentary by the monks, for whom love of study was next only to love of God. “it is beyond doubt,” Fr. Martin MacNamara writes, “that the study of the Bible was intensely pursued in the early Irish monastic schools.” ⁸ James Kenney states that Bible study was in fact their chief subject. ⁹

Public and private prayer was hardly of less importance in Celtic spirituality than devotion to Scripture. The formal liturgy consisted of the Mass, the sacraments, and, at least in the monastic settlements, psalmody-the divine office.¹⁰ In addition to official books, there is a vast literature illustrating the private, intensely personal devotion and informal liturgies of the monks and people at large. ¹¹ Long litanies or loricae were composed, for instance, probably for processional usage. A superb and famous example is the lorica attributed to St. Patrick. It begins:

I arise today
Through a mighty strength,
the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

Devotion to the angels and saints, and in particular to Mary, seems always to have been of cardinal importance in Celtic spirituality, especially in Ireland, where Jesus was often referred to simply as “the Son of Mary.” Its own great saints appeared in the beginning, during its flowering, and at the decline of the Celtic church, among them Patrick, Illtyd, David, Bridget, Ita, Brendan, Kevin, Columcille, Columban, Malachy, and hundreds more.

Much of our knowledge of the early period of the Celtic church comes from the many biographies of these saints written from the sixth to the tenth centuries. Place names in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland still testify to the enduring importance of areas associated with favorite saints. In fact, often little else is now known of these revered men and women but their names, thousands of which have been preserved in various lists and especially the Celtic martyrologies. ¹²

In its most developed form, the vigorous asceticism that typified the spirituality of many of the early Celtic saints may strike us now as extreme. In those heroic and demanding times it would have appeared less so. While the majority of Celtic Christians did not, engage in severe austerities, some ascetical practice was a common feature of everyday spirituality. Significantly for our times, such asceticism was more a willing acceptance of poverty and natural hardship than a pursuit of refined artificialities in the social and psychological orders.

The Celtic Monks

While often attracted to the wilderness and “disearts” of solitary communion with God, the monks were hardly antisocial and even their fiercer forms of asceticism accomplished an evangelical function by the force of its example. The great missions to pagan areas of Pictland, England, and the Continent began as a form of solitary witness rather than attempts at direct evangelization.

As Christianity spread northwards and eastwards from Ireland and Wales, however, a true missionary impulse developed. By the ninth century, wandering scholars with a different kind of discipline had succeeded the missionaries, returning the light of learning as well as faith to much of postimperial Europe.

Monastic scribes and court scholars did not only copy, study, and comment upon Scripture, but also pursued grammar, rhetoric, and even the works of classical pagan poets, especially Virgil and Horace. While they copied and preserved the writings of the Latin Fathers — Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Cassian , and Gregory, among others — the monks also recorded the pre-Christian myths and sagas of the Celts from the oral versions of the bardic schools. Thus they preserved for subsequent generations in the Book of Invasions the Ulster Cycle, the Fenian Cycle, and the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, the earliest of all nonclassical European mythologies. ¹³

The monks’ great scholarly achievements were matched by an equally great love of beauty, especially in nature, which was brilliantly expressed in a variety of artistic forms. There the mystical element of Celtic spirituality became manifest with its paradoxical tensions between the sense of the nearness and farness of God, the melancholy fleetingness of all life, and the vanity of the world, yet the grandeur and wonder of creation in all its ecstatic and myriad loveliness. Such opposition may reflect a fundamental ambivalence in the Celtic temperament as well as the character of the land itself: uncommonly beautiful yet frequently harsh, poor, rocky, and sea-washed, blessed with a mild but wet climate, and therefore also boggy.

The earliest Christian Celtic art is poetry, the bardic elegies and lyrics of the poets of the British courts in the sixth century. In Ireland, scarcely later, epigrammatical poems by often anonymous scribes begin to appear in the margins of Gospels and other books:

To go to Rome
is much of trouble, little of profit:
The King whom you seek there,
Unless you bring him with you,
you will not find. ¹⁴

Even the more severe saints are known for their poems. Four are ascribed to Columban, and many more to the lyrical favorites such as Columcille. The scribes also sometimes broke through their scholarly tedium to etch the margins of their manuscripts:

A stream of wisdom of blessed God
Springs from my fair-brown shapely hand:
On the page it squirts its draught
Of ink of the green skinned holly.¹⁵

Artistic accomplishment soon extended far more brilliantly to graphic and plastic expression, such as the great stone crosses that punctuate Ireland like rubrics and are found to a lesser extent in all the Celtic lands. But surely the greatest of all artistic achievements of the Celts are the illuminated manuscripts of the seventh and eighth centuries and the metalcraft from the same period.

As mentioned earlier, the calligraphy, illuminations, and portraiture of the famous Gospel Books rank among the supreme art treasures of the human race. Perhaps even greater works were irretrievably lost to time, piracy, and the deliberate destruction of ancient materials by fanatical Puritans in the seventeenth century. Great masterpieces of metal art which have been preserved or recovered likewise testify eloquently to the genius of the craftworkers who expressed their native genius by concentration and miniaturization rather than by expansion to heroic proportion. Typically, neither architecture nor civic design were of interest or perhaps even possible to the Celtic artist in a land where necessary materials were scarce.

Music was also part of the spirituality of the Christian Celts, some little of which was recorded on paper or even in stone.¹⁶ Later hymnals and antiphonaries exist, however, some describing examples of instruments developed by the Celts, the favored being the harp. St. Patrick’s own bell and several other handbells have been preserved as well.

Social Action

An outstanding feature of Celtic spirituality concerns its active political character, which is to say, its commitment to social justice. Because of the tribal nature of the monastic settlement and indeed of Celtic life in all aspects, involvement in social life was as inescapable for the monks as it had been for the druids before them. This social dimension of Celtic spirituality was largely expressed in its devotion to pastoral care and spiritual development.

Such active ministry included extensive preaching, sacramental administration, and spiritual direction. Fully thirteen sermons of St. Columban survive in manuscript.¹⁷ According to legend, preachers often summoned congregations at bridges and crossroads by their enticing playing on the small harp.

The emergence in Irish monasticism of the anamchara, the “soul-friend,” was an important step in the evolution of the practice of spiritual direction. Both confessor and advisor, the spiritual authority of the soul-friend approached that of the abbot or abbess. It was a role earned by dedication and could be exercised by both women and men.

The Irish monks’ development of penitentials, more or less uniform codes of penances and ecclesiastical penalties, similarly advanced common spiritual welfare. For, rather than a legalistic mortmain, they represented a liberal effort to ensure some measure of equality in pastoral practice. But even the penitentials were characterized by the irreducible Celtic tendency toward independence of spirit.

Justice and charity were the main hinges of Celtic social action. Despite exceptions, distributive justice was especially prominent in the Celts’ dealings with one another. Social justice was no less important. Thus, women occupied a position not only equal to that of men but, in some instances, such as those of Bridget and Ita, far surpassing it. Irish deaconesses and abbesses exercised ecclesial authority, sometimes unimpeachably so. Children, too, were not only highly valued, but fostering was widely practiced lest orphans or the poor lack access to material and spiritual benefits. Prisoners and hostages were normally treated with sacred respect, and warfare among the tribes was conducted with surprising equanimity.

Similarly, a strong emphasis on kindness and hospitality pervades early Christian literature. Fr. Diarmuid O. Laoghaire describes an ancient series of proverbs which begin with the word eochair, “key.” There we learn that if the key to justice is distribution, the key to miracles is generosity. ¹⁸ He cites two short poems that treat typically of the importance of hospitality:

O King of Stars!
whether my house be dark or be bright
it will not be closed against anybody;
may Christ not close his house against me. ¹⁹

Again, with regard to an unfit guest house:

Great the sorrow!
Christ’s guest-house is fallen into decay;
if it bears the name of Christ the renowned,
it means that Christ is without a home. ²⁰

Lessons for Our Times

The uniqueness of our own era is not so much challenged by comparison with earlier ages as it is demonstrated, even when we are able to find striking similarities. Even a brief survey of Celtic spirituality suggests both theological and spiritual implications for our own time and time to come.

In an age dominated by war and militarism, increasing global poverty, social injustice, and environmental deterioration, we will learn, for example, that no nation which relies primarily on military strength for its security will endure long nor will it leave to coming civilizations a heritage much worth preserving. We will likewise learn that justice for some is ultimately injustice for all, and that to ignore the intimate implications of the social, biological, and physical systems that constitute our environment, and the delicate balance that prevails between them to make this a habitable planet, is to court disaster for life on earth.

And perhaps most significantly, we will learn that it is possible to live peaceably in the face of terror.

Beginning in 795, coping with terrorism became a recurrent, almost routine challenge for Celtic Christians as, for over two hundred years, Viking raiders plundered the coasts and navigable river areas. Sometimes the Irish, British, and Christian English were able to repel pirate attacks. The Scandinavian thrust westwards was even temporarily halted by military resistance led in Saxon England by Alfred the Great in 878 and again in 895, and in 1014 by Brian Boru in Ireland. However, Christian Celtic and Anglo-Saxon realms still remained prey to raids, whose major targets were usually the monasteries. Overall, tens of thousands of monks and nuns as well as countless lay persons were massacred by the Vikings, for whom terrorism operated as an informal but highly effective policy.

Terrorism has of course become a major, almost formal policy of revolutionary guerillas as well as established and often dictatorial governments throughout the world. Directly or indirectly, even the major powers, while themselves often the target of terrorist attacks, support political terrorism by supplying arms, ammunition, mat6riel, training, and money to terrorist groups of the right and the left. So widespread and entrenched has terrorism become in world politics that it has not only grown into a major industry but even, as Clare Sterling has argued, a professional international network.

What can a Celtic spirituality teach us about living with terrorism? Fundamentally, that the resort to terror ultimately defeats itself if met with patience, firmness, and nonviolence. The Vikings were not ultimately stopped by the armies of Brian Boru and Alfred, but by the force of civilization, enculturation, and conversion. Intermarriage and relative harmony among Scandinavian settlers and their unwilling hosts eventually came to prevail. Significantly, the last and most sophisticated period of Celtic art in Ireland incorporated the enriching influence of both Saxon and Scandinavian design.

In a word, the important lesson we can learn from our Christian brothers and sisters of that far distant time is one far older yet: not to render evil for evil. For it is only in patience that we shall possess our souls.

Originally published in Spirituality Today, Fall 1985, Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 243-255

Notes

1. John T. McNeill, The Celtic Churches [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974], p. 1.
2. “The organization of the Gallic Church of the fourth century was based on the orderly system of Roman civil administration: bishops had their sees in important provincial centres; ecclesiastical law and administration took as their models the imperial legal code and civil service procedure”[J. F. Webb, Lives of the Saints [New York: Penguin Books, 1965], p. 11].
3. For the existence of deaconesses in the Irish church, see Père Grossjean, Analecta Bollanda, LXXIII, 298, 322.
4. Cf. Webb, Lives, p. 11.
5. For a concise history of Celtic monasticism, see Jeremiah O’Sullivan, “Old Ireland and Her Monasticism,” in Robert McNally, ed., Old Ireland [New York: Fordham University Press, 1965], pp. 90-119; and Kathleen Hughes and Ann Hamlin, Celtic Monasticism [New York: Seabury, 1982].
6. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 891 recounts the story of three Irish peregrini who may be taken as a possibly typical example: “And three Scots came to King Alfred from Ireland in a boat without oars. They had left home bent on serving God in a state of pilgrimage, they cared not where. Their boat was made from two and a half hides and contained enough provisions to last them seven days, and within a week they landed in Cornwall and shortly afterwards came to King Alfred. They were called Dubslane, Macbeth and Maelinmum” [Webb, Lives, p. 19].
7. Patrick relied largely on the translation known as the Vetus Latina, which was eventually replaced by St. Jerome’s superior version of 384, commonly called the Vulgate. Significantly, as Charles Thomas observes, “the oldest extant MS of the complete Vulgate is British, the early eighth century Codex Amiatinus, written around 700 at Jarrow-Monks-wearmouth, sent as a gift by Abbot Coelfrith to the pope. Its textual standing is such that it has formed the basis of post-medieval recensions of the Vulgate” [Christianity In Roman Britain to AD 500 [Berkeley: University of California Press, 19811, p. 82].
8. Martin MacNamara, “The Bible in Irish Spirituality,” in Michael Maher, ed., Irish Spirituality [Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1979], p. 35.
9. Cited, ibid. So important was scriptural study, that the following epigrammatical protest usefully reminds us that, by the eighth century, most people could neither read nor write, particularly Latin, but were not on that account to be accorded second-class status among the saints: ” ‘Tis sad to see the sons of learning/ in everlasting Hellfire burning/ While he that never read a line/ Doth in eternal glory shine” [Robin Flowers translation, in David Greene, ed., An Anthology of Irish Literature [New York: Modern Libraru. 1954], p. 14].
10. For a variety of reasons, British liturgical documents are almost wholly lacking. On the other hand, early Christian Irish liturgical sources include the Stowe Missal, the Book of Armagh, the Book of Deer, the Book of Dimma, and the Book of Mulling. One of the treasures of the continental church is the famous Sacramentary, of Rheinau, ca. 800. Less a source for the Irish liturgy, it rather testifies to Celtic influence on the development of liturgy elsewhere, mainly through the work of missionaries such as St. Columban. See also J. H. Bernard and R. Atkinson, eds. and trans., The Irish Liber Hymnorum, 2 vols., [London: Harrison and Sons, 1898] and Hugh Jackson Lawlor, ed., The Rosslyn Missal [London: Harrison, 1899]. For an overview of this subject, see John Hennig, “Old Ireland and Her Liturgy,” in McNally, ed., Old Ireland pp. 60-89.
11. Some of the earliest sources, all from about the year 800, include the Book of Nunnaminster, the Book of Cerne, the Hadeian Prayer Book, the Royal Library Prayer Book, and the Durham Ritual.
12. Several of these fascinating books have been edited and translated since the turn of the century, including the Martyrology of Oengus [Félire Óengusso], ed. Whitley Stokes [London: Harrison, 1880, 1905]; the Martyrology of Gorman [Félire Húi Gormáin], ed. Whitley Stokes [London: Harrison, 1895]; the Psalter and Martyrology of Ricemarch, ed. H. J. Lawlor, 2 vols. [London: Harrison, 1914]; the Martyrology of Tallaght, ed. R.I. Best and H.J. Lawlor [London: Harrison, 1931], and the Martyrology of St. Jerome, ed. Dom Henry Quentin, O.S.B. [London: Harrison, 1931]. For lives of the saints, see W. W. Heist, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, Subsidia Hagiographica 28 [Brussels, 1965]; the now classic editions by Charles Plummer of the Latin and Irish versions, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, 2 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910] and Bethada Náem nÉrenn, 2 vols. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968; repr. 1922 ed.]; Sabine Baring-Gould and John Fisher, The Lives of the British Saints; The Saints of Wales and Cornwall and Such Irish Saints as Have Dedications in Britain, 4 vols. [London: C. J. Clark, 1907-13]; and J. F. Webb, Lives of the Saints [New York: Penguin Books, 1965].
13. Nora Chadwick, The Celts [New York: Penguin Books, 1971], p. 255. See among other versions, H. d’Arbois de Jubainville The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology trans. from the French with additional notes by Richard Irvine Best [New York: Lemma Publishing Corp., 1970; original: Dublin, 1903].
14. Meyer’s translation modernized, in Green, ed., Anthology, p. 18.
15. Eleventh century. Meyer’s translation, in Greene, ed., Anthology, p. 33.
16. See James Travis, Miscellanea Musica Celtica, Musicological Studies 14 [Brooklyn N.Y.: The institute of Mediaeval Music, Ltd., 1968], and Séan O’Boyle, Ogam: The Poet’s Secret [Dublin: Gilbert Dalton, 1980].
17. See G.S.M. Walker, ed., Sancti Columbani Opera, Scriptores latini Hiberniae 2 [Dublin, 1957].
18. “Old Ireland and Her Spirituality,” in McNally, ed., Old Ireland, p. 47.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., p. 48.

Saint Silouan was born Simeon Ivanovich Antonov in 1866, of godly parents who came from the village of Sovsk in the Tambov region. At the age of twenty-seven he received the prayers of St. John of Kronstadt and came to the monastic region of Greece called Mt. Athos where he became a monk at the Russian monastery St. Panteleimon, and was given the new name Silouan. An ardent ascetic, he received the grace of unceasing prayer and was granted to see Christ. After long years of spiritual trial, he acquired great humility and hesychia, inner stillness. He prayed and wept for the whole world as for himself, and he put the highest value on love for enemies. Thomas Merton has described Silouan as “the most authentic monk of the twentieth century.” St Silouan reposed on September 11/24, 1938. His memory is celebrated on September 11/24.

He left behind his writings which were edited by his disciple and pupil, the Elder Sophrony. Father Sophrony has written a complete life of the Saint along with the record of Saint Silouan’s teachings in the book Saint Silouan the Athonite.

Saint Silouan on Love

The soul cannot know peace unless she prays for her enemies. The soul that has learned of God’s grace to pray, feels love and compassion for every created thing, and in particular for mankind, for whom the Lord suffered on the Cross, and His soul was heavy for every one of us.

The Lord taught me to love my enemies. Without the grace of God we cannot love our enemies. Only the Holy Spirit teaches love, and then even devils arouse our pity because they have fallen from good, and lost humility in God.

I beseech you, put this to the test. When a man affronts you or brings dishonor on your head, or takes what is yours, or persecutes the Church, pray to the Lord, saying: “O Lord, we are all Thy creatures. Have pity on Thy servants and turn their hearts to repentance,” and you will be aware of grace in your soul. To begin with, constrain your heart to love enemies, and the Lord, seeing your good will, will help you in all things, and experience itself will show you the way. But the man who thinks with malice of his enemies has not God’s love within him, and does not know God.

If you will pray for your enemies, peace will come to you; but when you can love your enemies – know that a great measure of the grace of God dwells in you, though I do not say perfect grace as yet, but sufficient for salvation. Whereas if you revile your enemies, it means there is an evil spirit living in you and bringing evil thoughts into your heart, for, in the words of the Lord, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts – or good thoughts.

The good man thinks to himself in this wise: Every one who has strayed from the truth brings destruction on himself and is therefore to be pitied. But of course the man who has not learned the love of the Holy Spirit will not pray for his enemies. The man who has learned love from the Holy Spirit sorrows all his life over those who are not saved, and sheds abundant tears for the people, and the grace of God gives him strength to love his enemies.

Understand me. It is so simple. People who do not know God, or who go against Him, are to be pitied; the heart sorrows for them and the eye weeps. Both paradise and torment are clearly visible to us: We know this through the Holy Spirit. And did not the Lord Himself say, “The kingdom of God is within you”? Thus eternal life has its beginning here in this life; and it is here that we sow the seeds of eternal torment. Where there is pride there cannot be grace, and if we lose grace we also lose both love of God and assurance in prayer. The soul is then tormented by evil thoughts and does not understand that she must humble herself and love her enemies, for there is no other way to please God.

The house in which St Silouan’s cell was located

What shall I render unto Thee, O Lord,
for that Thou hast poured such great mercy on my soul?
Grant, I beg Thee, that I may see my iniquities,
and ever weep before Thee,
for Thou art filled with love for humble souls,
and dost give them the grace of the Holy Spirit.

O merciful God, forgive me.
Thou seest how my soul is drawn to Thee, her Creator.
Thou hast wounded my soul with Thy love,
and she thirsts for Thee, and wearies without end,
and day and night, insatiable, reaches toward Thee,
and has no wish to look upon this world, though I do love it,
but above all I love Thee, my Creator,
and my soul longs after Thee.

The mlll in which St Silouan worked for many years

O my Creator, why have I, Thy little creature, grieved Thee so often?
Yet Thou hast not remembered my sins.

Glory be to the Lord God that He gave us His Only-begotten Son
for the sake of our salvation.
Glory be to the Only-begotten Son that He deigned
to be born of the Most Holy Virgin, and suffered for our salvation,
and gave us His Most Pure Body and Blood to eternal life,
and sent His Holy Spirit on the earth.

O Lord, grant me tears to shed for myself,
and for the whole universe,
that the nations may know Thee and live eternally with Thee.
O Lord, vouchsafe us the gift of Thy humble Holy Spirit,
that we may apprehend Thy glory.

From the Synaxarion

On this day we keep the memorial of our sacred father Silouan whom God inspired, who lived the monastic life upon the Holy Mountain in the Russian Monastery of the holy and great martyr Panteleimon, and who died godly in the Lord on the twenty-fourth day of September in the year of our salvation 1938.

Once, in this life, thou didst see Christ, O Saint;
And now thou beholdest Him face to face,
Not darkly as in a glass.
Thine earthly country delights that thou wast born in her;
Athos rejoices in the Spirit; for in thee she nurtured a saint;
And from that sylvan mountain heaven has now received thee.

Saint Silouan, that citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, was born of pious parents in the land of Russia in the village of Shovsk in the diocese of the Metropolitan of Tambov. He came into the world in the year of our Lord 1866, and from a young man was called to repentance by the all-praised Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary.

When he had reached his twenty-seventh year, he renounced the things of this life, and, with the prayers of Saint John of Kronstadt to speed him on his way, he set forth for Greece and the illustrious Holy Mountain. Here, in the cloister of the holy great martyr and physician Panteleimon, he took upon him the yoke of the monastic life.

Thus he gave himself to God with all his soul, and in a brief while he not only received the gift of unceasing prayer from the most holy Mother of God, but was also granted ineffably to see the living Christ in the chapel of the holy prophet Elijah that was next to the monastery’s flour mill.

But this first grace was taken away, and the saint was constrained by anguish and great grief, and with God’s permission for fifteen years he was given over to manifold temptations of spiritual foes, and so he followed in the footsteps of Christ, having offered up prayers and strong supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death (Heb. 5:7), being taught by God through a voice from above that gave him this commandment: Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not. This he observed as an infallible rule, and so ran the way of Antony, Macarius, Pœmen and Sisoës, and the other celebrated preceptors and fathers of the desert, to whose measure and spiritual gifts he also attained, and was manifested an apostolic and inspired teacher both living and after death.

The saint was wondrously meek and lowly in heart, a fervent advocate before God for the salvation of all, and unequalled among teachers: For he says that there is no surer proof that the divine Spirit dwells within us than that we love our enemies.

This blessed Saint Silouan passed over from death to life, full of spiritual days on the twenty-fourth day of September in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1938: To Whom be glory and might forever and ever. Amen.

At his prayers and those of all Thy saints, O Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Troparion: By prayer didst thou receive Christ for thy teacher in the way of humility; and the Spirit bare witness to salvation in thy heart; wherefore all peoples called unto hope rejoice this day of thy memorial. O sacred Father Silouan, pray unto Christ our God for the salvation of our souls.

Kontakion: In thine earthly life thou didst serve Christ, following in His steps; and now in heaven thou seest Him Whon thou didst love, and abidest with Him according to the promise. Wherefore, O Father Silouan, teach us the path wherein thou didst walk.