Spiritual Guidance on Mount Athos [1 ed.] 3034318944, 9783034318945

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graham speake studied classics at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford for a thesis on the Byzantine transmission of ancient Greek literature. He is the founder and Chairman of the Friends of Mount Athos and author of Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise (2nd edn., 2014), for which he was awarded the Criticos Prize. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Spiritual Guidance on Mount Athos



Speake and Ware (eds)

kallistos ware holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford where from 1966 to 2001 he was Fellow of Pembroke College and Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies. He is a monk of the monastery of St John the Theologian, Patmos, and an assistant bishop in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. In 2007 he was raised to the rank of metropolitan.

Spiritual Guidance on Mount Athos

Spiritual guidance is the serious business of Mount Athos, the principal service that the Fathers offer to each other and to the world. Athonites have been purveyors of spiritual guidance for more than a thousand years in a tradition that goes back to the fourth-century desert fathers. The recent monastic renewal on the Mountain is testimony to the Fathers’ continuing power to attract disciples and pilgrims to listen to what they have to say. The papers included in this volume examine some of the many aspects of this venerable tradition, as it has developed on Mount Athos, and as it has devolved upon monks and nuns, spiritual fathers and confessors, lay men and women, in other parts of Greece and in the world. Most of the papers were originally delivered at a conference convened by the Friends of Mount Athos at Madingley Hall, Cambridge, in 2013.

Edited by

grah am s peak e and

m et ropol i t an k al l i s t os ware

isbn 978-3-0343-1894-5

www.peterlang.com

Peter Lang

Spiritual Guidance on Mount Athos

Spiritual Guidance on Mount Athos

Edited by

g rah am s p e a ke and

m e t r o p o l i ta n k a l l i st os ware

PETER LANG

Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main • New York • Wien

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Speake, Graham, 1946Spiritual guidance on Mount Athos / Graham Speake and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. -- First edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-0343-1894-5 (alk. paper) 1. Spiritual direction--Orthodox Eastern Church. 2. Athos (Greece)--Religious life and customs. I. Kallistos, Bishop of Diokleia, 1934- II. Title. BX382.5.S64 2015 271’.81949565--dc23 2015001551

isbn 978-3-0343-1894-5 (print) isbn 978-3-0353-0693-4 (eBook) Cover image: a view of Mount Athos and St Andrew’s skete from the north-west. Photo: Graham Speake. © Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 2015 Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland [email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. Printed in Germany

Contents

Acknowledgementsvii GRAHAM SPEAKE AND METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS WARE

Introduction1 METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS WARE

What Do We Mean by Spiritual Guidance?

7

ARCHIMANDRITE EPHRAIM OF ST ANDREW’S SKETE, MOUNT ATHOS

Spiritual Fatherhood on the Holy Mountain

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METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS WARE

Spiritual Guidance according to the Philokalia25 FATHERS METHODY AND KIRILL ZINKOVSKIY

Spiritual Guidance in Mount Athos and Russia and the Theological Notion of Person

43

FATHER MAXIMOS OF SIMONOPETRA MONASTERY, MOUNT ATHOS

Charisma and Institution at an Athonite Cloister: Historical Developments and Future Prospects

69

FATHER LIVIU BARBU

Spiritual Fatherhood in the World: A Practical Approach

91

vi

FATHER ANDREAS ANDREOPOULOS

The Challenges of Spiritual Guidance in Modern Greece

111

SISTER THEOKTISTI OF THE MONASTERY OF ST JOHN THE FORERUNNER, ANATOLI

The Renewal of Women’s Monasticism in the Twentieth Century through the Guidance of Athonite Monks

131

Notes on Contributors

151

Index153

Acknowledgements

Most of the papers included in the present volume were first delivered at a conference entitled ‘Spiritual Guidance on Mount Athos’ which was held by the Friends of Mount Athos at Madingley Hall, Cambridge, in March 2013. The society would like to acknowledge with thanks the generous sponsorship that it received from the Eling Trust and His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales in support of the conference. The editors in their turn would like to thank the Friends of Mount Athos for generously contributing towards the cost of publishing the proceedings. They would also like to acknowledge with thanks the helpful and courteous treatment that they have always received from the publishing staff of Peter Lang Ltd in this and previous collaborative ventures. It is a mutually rewarding partnership that they hope will continue.

GRAHAM SPEAKE AND METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS WARE

Introduction

Spiritual guidance is the serious business of Mount Athos, the principal service that the Fathers offer to each other and to the world. Athonites have been purveyors of spiritual guidance for more than a thousand years in a tradition that goes back to the fourth-century desert fathers. The recent monastic renewal on the Mountain is testimony to the Fathers’ continuing power to attract disciples and pilgrims to listen to what they have to say. The papers included in this volume examine some of the many aspects of this venerable tradition, as it has developed on Mount Athos, and as it has devolved upon monks and nuns, spiritual fathers and confessors, lay men and women, in other parts of Greece and in the world. In an introductory chapter Metropolitan Kallistos Ware asks the question, ‘what do we mean by spiritual guidance?’ It is not about rules, it is about persons. What the spiritual father (or mother) offers is not a set of inflexible rules but a personal relationship founded upon love. He must above all be a good listener, sometimes in silence, creative silence. He is the physician who offers healing, not only by his words, but by his example and by his prayers. He shares the burdens of his spiritual children and is their soul-friend, but there can be no spiritual guidance without compassionate love. Archimandrite Ephraim, hegoumenos of St Andrew’s skete on Mount Athos, continues the introductory theme by describing what is meant by ‘spiritual fatherhood on the Holy Mountain’. As Christians it is our privilege to address God as ‘Our Father’, as Christ himself taught us. But we may call other people ‘father’, starting with Abraham who is the spiritual father of us all. The grace to forgive sins is passed down from Christ through the Apostolic Fathers to bishops and priests who by the laying on of hands are empowered to serve the sacraments. Without this ceremony priests cannot

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forgive sins, but on Athos not all the priests are also spiritual fathers and confessors, nor are all the monks priests. The Athonite pilgrim is not necessarily looking for a priest or an abbot but a Spirit-bearer or elder who can guide him to Christ. Such blessed elders are traditionally simple monks, such as St Silouan or Elder Joseph the Hesychast or Elder Paisios. They acted as elders to other elders, for even spiritual fathers need a spiritual father. In his second paper Metropolitan Kallistos examines what the Philokalia has to say about the need for spiritual guidance. It is in fact one of the unifying threads that runs through the whole work. The care of other men’s souls, says St Neilos, is the hardest thing of all; it is ‘the art of arts’. The true elder, he says, is not self-appointed but is sought out by others; he needs experience and he should teach more by example than by his words; and he should remember that ultimately the only true spiritual guide is Christ himself. St Peter of Damaskos repeats the theme that the spiritual father acts in the place of Christ and emphasizes the importance of disclosing not just sins but thoughts, catching them before they have become sins. Symeon the New Theologian reiterates the teaching of his predecessors and, because the elder represents Christ, insists on complete obedience. He was writing for monks but he believed that laymen as well as monks could have a spiritual father. St Paisy Velichkovsky was taught that obedience was the essence of monasticism and for a long time he searched in vain for a spiritual father. He insisted that monks should submit to their spiritual father in all things and should confess their thoughts daily. In the absence of an elder, the disciple may seek the counsel of a spiritual brother; or as St Nil Sorsky advises, if a teacher cannot be found, then we should turn to the Scriptures and listen to the Lord Himself. In a paper entitled ‘spiritual guidance in Mount Athos and Russia and the theological notion of person’, the twin brothers Methody and Kirill Zinkovskiy, both priest-monks from St Petersburg, consider the great importance in spiritual guidance of the theological notion of the divine and human person. Their main thesis is that it is only through the person and personal communion that the guidance patterns found in the Bible and in the holy tradition of asceticism can be understood. Various examples of the influence of the ascetic tradition of Mount Athos on Russian and European religious revivals are highlighted in the framework of personal guidance.

Introduction

3

St Paisy Velichkovsky, the Optina elders, St Silouan, and Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), all of whom derived a rich experience from the Athonite treasuries, are vivid exemplars of personal spiritual guidance in the Orthodox tradition. Due to its personal character this guidance possesses unique characteristics which distinguish it from other guidance experiences and techniques used in various human activities. In a paper that looks to the future as much as to the past, Fr Maximos of Simonopetra writes about the phenomenon of charismatic eldership on Athos. It was the presence of a large number of charismatic elders that inspired the Mountain’s renewal in the latter part of the twentieth century. Fr Maximos focuses his attention on just one of them, Elder Aimilianos, who was abbot of Simonopetra from 1974 to 2000. Tonsured a monk in 1960, the young Aimilianos was placed by his bishop in the monastery of St Vissarion in Thessaly where he had a life-changing religious experience. One night he was granted a mystical vision of the glorious light of God which inundated him and everything around him at the hour of the Liturgy. The progress of the vision, from darkness to light, from the cell to the Liturgy, became the basis for his reorganization of monastic life. Transformed overnight from a young monk to a charismatic elder, he decided that each monk was now to spend several hours in his cell practising the Jesus Prayer in preparation for the sacramental encounter with God in the Liturgy. The monk’s nightly rule of prayer was expanded into a vigil of four to six hours and was followed by a daily, communal celebration of the Divine Liturgy. By introducing the spirit of hesychasm into the rhythm of a cenobitic monastery Aimilianos was setting the pattern for a renewal that was to overtake the whole of Athos. Most of the architects of that renewal have now left the stage, leaving their successors to wonder who will take their place. But what Elder Aimilianos offered was a spiritual education in a spirit of exceptional freedom, and it is this balance between freedom and community that attracts young people today and is likely to continue to resonate with future generations. Fr Liviu Barbu is not a monastic but a married priest from Romania serving an Orthodox parish in Norwich. He is therefore well qualified to write about ‘spiritual fatherhood in the world’. A spiritual father, he writes, is an icon of the Good Shepherd, a true disciple of our Father in

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heaven, entrusted with the task of translating God’s love and care into the life of the Church and of each Christian. Spiritual fatherhood is not just for monastics: it is open to all, single or married, man or woman, child or adult; but the monastic spiritual father did grow into a towering figure, a prophet who knows the mind of God and the hearts of men, and charismatic leadership is still the most revered virtue in the spirituality of the desert. Spiritual fatherhood may have grown out of the early Christian practice of confession of sins and, though they are distinct, the two complement each other. The purpose of spiritual direction is to heal the wounds of sin. It therefore comprises sacramental as well as charismatic elements and is, in the view of the Church Fathers, the essence of priesthood. In the writings of the Fathers obedience is considered one of the principal Christian virtues and obedience is manifested in the advice of the spiritual father. Few people are good judges of themselves. It is through our spiritual father that we learn to see our true self, and it is in communion with him that we accomplish our spiritual journey. The spiritual father does not demand total submission but rather offers advice in the form of an open dialogue, and so he is to be regarded as a fellow traveller or ‘soul-friend’ on the road to perfection. Fr Andreas Andreopoulos is also a priest serving a parish in the UK as well as being Reader in Orthodox Christianity at the University of Winchester, but he writes about ‘the challenges of spiritual guidance’ in his native Greece. Athos, as he reminds us, holds a position of special authority, especially since its recent revival, but nowhere in Greece is far from an active monastery and these monasteries operate like a network of ‘spiritual hospitals’ throughout the country. The individual monk has no such special authority: any authority that he does have is defined by his obedience, his humility, and his asceticism. The monk and the layman are governed by the same spiritual principles and share the same spiritual struggle: through their need for each other spiritual guidance can be seen to flow in both directions and can sometimes contradict the natural order and hierarchy, as is demonstrated in the stories of the nineteenth-century Greek writer Alexandros Papadiamantis. Most pilgrims do not go to Athos to find the intellectual solution to theological problems but to participate, if only for a few days, in the liturgical life of the monastery. The latter may

Introduction

5

well lead on to an experience of spiritual guidance, which the former will not. There was a fragmentation of Greek society in the twentieth century which compromised the parish structure and resulted in the emergence of a number of para-ecclesiastical organizations such as Zoi and Sotir. Spiritual guidance has suffered in the same way as the parish structure and there is now a greater need for it in Greece than ever before. The resurgence of monasticism may indicate a way forward, but it is noticeable that the new generation of monastics has found more spiritual nourishment in the works of Papadiamantis than in the pietistic pamphlets circulated by organizations such as Zoi and Sotir. Sister Theoktisti, by contrast, has migrated from her native England to Greece where she is a nun of the monastery of St John the Forerunner on Mount Ossa. Her paper on ‘the renewal of women’s monasticism in the twentieth century’ begins with a summary of the history of the Church of Greece in the previous century when monasticism was all but stamped out and over 500 monasteries dissolved. The revival of women’s monasticism in the last sixty years owes much to the work of St Nektarios whose monastery on Aegina was founded on Athonite principles. He formed a particularly close bond with Elder Daniel of Katounakia, but other Athonite elders have inspired and supported women’s monasteries in other parts of Greece, and many such monasteries have placed themselves under the spiritual direction of Athonite spiritual fathers. The paper ends by identifying six basic principles on which monasticism is grounded. The essence of monastic spirituality is to enter into the love of God and of our neighbour. Cenobitic monasticism provides the context in which monastics work out how to love and be loved, and to elevate that love to a participation in divine love.

METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS WARE

What Do We Mean by Spiritual Guidance?

Not rules but persons What matters most of all in our experience of the Christian life is not rules but persons. We are to understand spiritual guidance in exactly this perspective. It signifies the Gospel made personal. The Gospel is not to be interpreted in fixed and abstract terms, as a legal code, a set of moral rules. The Gospel is, on the contrary, the Good News of salvation in Christ; and this message of Good News is communicated to each one of us in a specific and immediate way, directly and personally. God does not just speak to humankind in a detached manner, lumping everyone together into a vast and indiscriminate whole. He speaks to each one of us in a distinctive way, face to face and heart to heart. Each human person is unique and unrepeatable, and so the Good News is communicated to each in a unique and unrepeatable way. It is precisely this unique character of each human person that is respected and enhanced in the Orthodox tradition of spiritual guidance. A code of moral rules offers the same recommendations to everyone. But what the abba or amma – the spiritual father or mother – offers is not a set of inflexible rules but a personal relationship. Within that personal relationship there is room for inexhaustible variety. The unvarying truth of the Christian faith is transmitted to each one in the particular form that each one personally needs to hear. Spiritual fathers or mothers are of course consistent and truthful in testimony. They are not opportunists or chameleons. Yet at the same time they adapt their guidance to the specific situations of their spiritual children. The mother or father in Christ is in this way the guardian of evangelical freedom.

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Compassion and co-suffering To illustrate more precisely how it is that the spiritual guide provides not rules and regulations but a personal relationship, let us take three representative descriptions of the elder, the geronta or starets. First, in the Gerontikon or The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, it is stated of a certain unnamed hermit, ‘He possessed love and many came to him.’1 There, expressed in the simplest possible way, is the heart of the matter. The personal relationship between the abba and the disciple is founded upon love. Second, the all-embracing character of this relationship is summed up by Fyodor Dostoevsky in a sentence from his master-work The Brothers Karamazov: ‘A starets is one who takes your soul, your will into his soul and into his will.’2 Third, this all-embracing relationship extends beyond the grave into life eternal. St Seraphim of Sarov enjoined that these words should be written on his tomb, for the benefit of his spiritual children: When I am no more, come to me at my grave, and the more often, the better. Whatever weighs on your soul, whatever may have happened to you, whatever sorrows you have, come to me as if I were 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 sorrow will fly away from you. As you spoke to me when I was alive, do so now. For to you I am alive, and I shall be for ever.3

St John (Maximovitch) of San Francisco spoke in similar terms to one of his spiritual children in a dream: ‘Although I have died, yet I am alive.’ From these passages we can discern what are the essential characteristics of the spiritual guide. The first and most fundamental characteristic is humble love, a vivid and ever-burning compassion. This compassion implies 1 2 3

Apophthegmata Patrum (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers), alphabetical collection, Poemen 8 (PG 65: 321C). The Brothers Karamazov, tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Vintage Classics, 1991), p. 27. Archimandrite Lazarus (Moore), An Extraordinary Peace: St Seraphim, Flame of Sarov (Port Townsend, WA: Anaphora Press, 2009), p. 278 (translation adapted).

What Do We Mean by Spiritual Guidance?

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a double openness, to the Holy Spirit on the one side, and to all humankind on the other. The spiritual guide is a burden-bearer and a co-sufferer, who makes his or her own the sorrows and the joys of others. She or he lives out to the full two sayings of St Paul: ‘Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ’ (Gal. 6: 2); ‘If one member [of the body] suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it’ (1 Cor. 12: 26). In this way the father or mother in God exemplifies pre-eminently what the Anglican poet-theologian Charles Williams termed ‘the way of exchange’ or ‘substituted love’, in other words, the mystery of co-inherence. All this is well expressed in the Celtic term for the spiritual guide, amchara, ‘soul-friend’.

Creative silence Hearing all this affirmed concerning the spiritual guide we may well be tempted to respond: ‘This is far too high and exalted for me; I could never even begin to realize such a vocation.’ But let us not be too quick to draw such a conclusion. The Holy Spirit chooses the most unexpected people. God can speak through Balaam’s ass (Numbers 22: 28). Let us also remember that when someone becomes a spiritual guide, the initiative almost always comes from others. The geronta or starets does not put him/herself forward, saying: ‘Here am I; come to me; I have the answers and will help you.’ On the contrary, it is usually other people who reveal to the spiritual father the vocation to which Christ is calling him. This we see from the Life of St Antony of Egypt written by his friend St Athanasius. Antony had withdrawn into the desert and enclosed himself in a ruined fort, with no idea at all of acting as a director and teacher of others. It was his friends who eventually sought him out and broke down the entrance to the fort. If he then became what Athanasius terms ‘a physician given by God to Egypt’,4

4

Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of Antony 87.

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it was because others took the path into the remote desert and implored him to act as their guide. The same is true of St Seraphim of Sarov. When people tried to visit him during his years as a hermit in the forest, he refused to speak to them. Likewise, when he was subsequently enclosed in a cell within the monastery, at first he received absolutely no one, and spoke to nobody. Later, under constant pressure from others, he somewhat relaxed his strictness and began to receive visitors, but at first he listened to them in silence and prayed for them, without offering them any counsel. It was only towards the end of his life that he embarked fully on the apostolic ministry of the starets. Very clearly in the life of Seraphim we see how the initiative came from others. It is noteworthy that initially St Seraphim listened to others without actually speaking to them. We can all of us imitate him in this. Perhaps we feel that God has not endowed us with the gift of counsel and instruction, but we can each of us try to be a good listener. Often others are helped more by our creative silence than by our eloquent speech. The importance of listening was strikingly disclosed to me early in my priestly ministry. During the later 1960s I used to visit regularly a monastery in central France. One Saturday evening, after the vigil service – which had lasted nearly three hours – an elderly Russian layman, a pensioner in the monastery, came to me for confession. He had endured lengthy imprisonment in Russia, his wife and children had been killed, and he had lost everything. The main theme of his confession was that his heart was filled with bitterness: he longed to forgive those who had inflicted such suffering on him and on those he loved, but he could not bring himself to do so. The confession continued for about forty-five minutes. When he had finished, I tried to offer some words of reassurance and hope, and I gave him absolution. Next Saturday, after the vigil, he came again for confession, and began to tell me at even greater length all the same things. I was tired and hungry, and so I grew restless. ‘You told me all this last Saturday’, I said. ‘There is no need to tell me again.’ He responded in anger. ‘Priest!’ he exclaimed. ‘Keep silent! It is I who am speaking. As for you – listen!’ So I allowed him to finish; and after saying what best I could, once more I gave him absolution.

What Do We Mean by Spiritual Guidance?

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That, however, was not the end of the story. A few days later, suddenly and unexpectedly, he died. He had no chance to go again for confession; the double confession that he made to me was the last during his earthly life. That experience taught me the importance of listening.

Counsellor, intercessor, burden-bearer In two primary texts on spiritual guidance – St John Climacus, To the Shepherd, and St Symeon the New Theologian, Letter on Confession – there are three qualities above all that are emphasized.5 The spiritual father or mother is counsellor, intercessor, and burden-bearer. It is important to keep in mind that the ministry of eldership is essentially charismatic. It is a ministry that expresses the Church as event rather than the Church as institution. The spiritual guide is not ordained or appointed by higher ecclesiastical authority, but he or she is revealed by the Holy Spirit to the conscience of the Christian people. The bishop does indeed appoint priests to perform the office of confessor, that is, to minister the sacrament of confession and to confer absolution. But he cannot appoint someone to act as a geronta or starets in the broader and deeper sense. The elder – whether man or woman, whether priest, monk, nun, or lay person in the ‘world’ – is not commissioned or nominated but recognized. A charismatic elder, according to Climacus and Symeon, is in the first place a counsellor (symvoulos). In certain situations, as already emphasized, he may give help through his silence, through being a good listener. But in 5

See my article, ‘The Spiritual Father in Saint John Climacus and Saint Symeon the New Theologian’, foreword to Irénée Hausherr, Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East, Cistercian Studies Series 116 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990), pp. vii–xxxiii. Compare Kallistos Ware, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, The Inner Kingdom (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000), pp. 127–51.

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most cases he will provide spiritual healing through his words, through his counsel or advice. In The Sayings of the Desert Fathers what the visitor or disciple says to the abba is commonly, ‘Speak a word to me, how I may be saved.’ If his words are indeed to prove words of healing and salvation, then what he needs above all is the grace-given gift of diakrisis, of insight and discernment, the ability to perceive the secrets in the heart of others, and so to speak ‘a word in season’ (Proverbs 15: 23). At the same time the spiritual guide instructs his disciples not only through his words but through his total way of life. In the words of Abba Poemen, ‘Be an example, not a lawgiver.’6 According to St Benedict, ‘The abbot ought to rule his disciples by deeds rather than words.’7 There is a Jewish saying, ‘I learned the Torah from all the limbs of my teacher.’ As the eleventh-century Kievan text The Admonition of the Father to his Son insists, ‘Seek out a God-fearing man … Adhere to him with soul and body; observe his life, his walking, sitting, looking, eating, and examine all his habits.’8 When St Antony of Egypt asked a monk who came regularly to visit him why he never put any questions to him, the other replied, ‘It is enough for me just to look at you, father.’9 The abba heals, however, not only by his words of counsel and by the example of his life, but by his prayers. And so he is called to be, in the second place, an intercessor (presbevtis). In The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, the visitor says, not merely ‘Speak a word to me’, but ‘Pray for me.’ This is a recurrent theme in the answers given by the sixth-century elders of Gaza St Barsanuphios and St John: ‘Night and day’, they say, ‘I am praying for you unceasingly to God.’10 I recall a visit made some years ago by a friend of mine, an American, to Fr Paisios, the greatest geronta on Mount Athos in 6 7 8 9 10

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, alphabetical collection, Poemen 174 (PG 65: 364C). Rule of St Benedict 2. Cited in G. P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, vol. 1, Kievan Christianity, the Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 215. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, alphabetical collection, Antony 27 (PG 65: 84D). Questions and Answers 17: François Neyt and Paula de Angelis-Noah (eds), Sources chrétiennes, 426 (Paris: Cerf, 1997), p. 198.

What Do We Mean by Spiritual Guidance?

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the late twentieth century. At the end of their conversation my friend said to him, ‘May I write to you sometimes to ask for advice?’ ‘No,’ Fr Paisios replied, ‘don’t write; but I will pray for you.’ My American friend felt this as a rebuff. But another monk who was present said to him afterwards, ‘Don’t be sad. The geronta’s advice is wonderful, but his prayers are far, far better.’ In promising to pray rather than to correspond, Fr Paisios had offered his visitor not what was less but what was more. Elder and disciple, it should be noted, are bound in a two-way relationship: if the elder prays for the disciple, at the same time he too needs the prayers of his spiritual children. In the third place, the spiritual guide is not only a counsellor and intercessor but a burden-bearer. Here the Greek word used by Climacus and Symeon is anadochos, meaning someone who assumes responsibility and stands surety for another. The term is applied to Christ as the redeemer of our souls, to the godparent at baptism, and to the sponsor at a monastic profession. As well as praying for his children, the elder takes on his shoulders the weight of their temptations and guilt. This is strikingly illustrated in the ancient rite of confession, as found in the Penitential attributed to St John the Faster. In the present-day practice, at the moment of absolution the priest places his stole (epitrachilion) on the head of the penitent, and then puts his hand on the stole, making the sign of the cross on the penitent’s head. In the ancient rite, however, the gesture was reversed, and at the moment of absolution the penitent laid his hand on the neck or shoulders of the priest, thus signifying that the burden of guilt was transferred from the penitent to the absolving priest. As St Barsanuphios wrote to one of his spiritual children, ‘I am bearing your burdens and offences.’11 This emphasis upon the bearing of burdens should not lead us to imagine that the relationship between elder and the spiritual child is somehow dark and sombre. On the contrary, between the two there can often be humour and playfulness, joy and laughter. I myself witnessed this when I visited Fr Paisios of Athos. I saw it also in the geronta of Patmos, Fr Amphilochios, whom I met many times in the 1960s.

11

Questions and Answers 239: Sources chrétiennes, 450 (Paris: Cerf, 2000), p. 180.

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People often lament that, though they have searched diligently, they have not been able to find a spiritual guide. Here it should be remembered that there are many different kinds of spiritual mothers or fathers. Not all of them will be like St Seraphim or Fr Paisios, who could alter people’s lives through a single meeting, and sometimes through a single sentence, often answering the doubts and problems of their visitors before the latter had the chance to put their questions in words. There are numerous priests and lay persons who, while lacking the spectacular endowments of the famous elders, can yet in a more humble and less startling way provide us with exactly the help we need. Perhaps, in looking far and wide for distant treasures, we are neglecting the opportunities that God is setting before us near at hand. Moreover, let us never forget that, besides spiritual fatherhood and motherhood, there is spiritual brotherhood and sisterhood. Frequently we learn more from our peers than from our teachers. Let us in conclusion recall what was said in the beginning about the heart of the matter, about the one thing needed. As was said in the Gerontikon, ‘He possessed love, and many came to him.’ Without compassionate love on the part of the ‘soul-friend’, there can be no authentic spiritual eldership. None can be a true ‘soul-friend’ unless he is able to say to his spiritual children with full conviction what St Barsanuphios said to those under his charge: ‘I care for you more than you care for yourself – and God cares for you even more than that.’12

Bibliography Hadot, I., ‘The Spiritual Guide’, in A.  H. Armstrong (ed.), Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), pp. 436–59. Hausherr, Irénée, Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East, Cistercian Studies Series 116 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990). 12

Questions and Answers 39: Sources chrétiennes, 426, p. 240.

What Do We Mean by Spiritual Guidance?

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Ware, Kallistos, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, in id., The Collected Works, vol. 1: The Inner Kingdom (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000), pp. 127–51. See also Bibliography to the chapter ‘Spiritual Guidance according to the Philokalia’, below, pp. 41–2.

ARCHIMANDRITE EPHRAIM OF ST ANDREW’S SKETE, MOUNT ATHOS

Spiritual Fatherhood on the Holy Mountain

From the Holy Mountain, the Garden of our all-holy Lady, we send you our warmest greetings and this humble paper on the great spiritual theme of your conference. How good it would be for such conferences to take place frequently in our Orthodox Church! It would be a source of very great spiritual profit both for our spiritual fathers and for their spiritual sons and daughters reborn in the Holy Spirit. Fathers and brethren in Christ, Christ himself incarnate during his earthly teaching ministry, in which he revealed the will of his heavenly Father to the faithful, amongst his other heavenly teachings expressly stated: ‘Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven’ (Matthew 23: 9). This heavenly revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ together with the prayer which God Himself gave us, the Our Father, clearly show that we faithful Orthodox all have one Father, the Heavenly Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is his Father by nature and our Father by grace and communion. This, however, is not believed, experienced, and preached by all men on earth, even by all Orthodox. Only those who have been reborn in the Holy Spirit, who frequently participate in the Church’s sacraments, and who without ceasing call on the name of Jesus Christ with the prayer ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’, so believe, experience, and preach. We cannot pray: ‘My Father, who art in heaven …’ Only Christ spoke thus. We always use the plural (‘Our Father, who art in heaven’). If all we Orthodox, who believe in Christ and have been baptized, are not one, then we shall pray with our lips only and not from our heart. Honourable Fathers and brethren in Christ, it is our unwavering belief that it is for us Orthodox the greatest of honours that we can call our heavenly God, who is without beginning, Father, especially as this is the command of His only-begotten Son!

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Nevertheless, in the Orthodox experience, so full of the Holy Spirit, and the sacred tradition of our most holy Orthodox Church, both in the Old Testament and the New, men of God in the Holy Spirit called other people ‘father’, without this being sinful, bold impudence, or departure from Christ’s divine teaching. In the Old Testament (Genesis 17: 5) God the Word Himself, before He took flesh, changes Abram’s name and calls him Abraham, which means father of many children. Thus the most holy patriarch Abraham, the root of the whole old Israel, that is to say of them that believe in the one true God, is her spiritual father and consequently the spiritual father of all Orthodox Christians all over the world. One may say that he inherited paradise in its entirety and it is in his bosom that we shall rest. We call by the name ‘father’ the following: 1. our natural parents; 2. our sponsors at baptism; 3. our teachers in secular studies, who granted us well-being as Aristotle or Alexander the Great would have it; 4. all Orthodox bishops and priests; 5. monks (elders); 6. very especially our spiritual father (elder); 7. Our heavenly God and Father. It is therefore reasonable and right for us to call men ‘fathers’, for all the obvious reasons and we are not at fault. When we are at prayer, however, we call ‘Father’ only the first person of the Holy Trinity, because, as Christ the lover of man said after his resurrection, we are all brethren, because of our common baptism: ‘Tell my brethren that they go into Gallilee, and there they shall see me’ (Mark 16: 7). If Christ calls his disciples ‘brethren’, and he is thus, as St Dionysios the Areopagite would say, our elder brother, so much more should we sinners call one another ‘brother’. Why do we sin? Why do we continually sin in knowledge or in ignorance? Why do we accept thoughts, which we know to be sinful? Why do we sin at all after holy baptism? Do we sin just to have something to say at

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confession? It is a huge and tormenting question for the whole human race, all peoples all over the world, with no exception. This is why Jesus Christ, the lover of man, granted us repentance and sacred confession, that the sins we commited after holy baptism may be forgiven. From the time of Moses, who saw God on Mount Sinai and was given the Law, until the incarnation of God the Word about 1,500 years passed by. Until then everyone knew – and it was true – that only One could forgive sins – God. The Pharisees used to say it frequently, mocking and making fun of Christ, when he worked miracles, like the healing of the paralysed man, to whom Jesus said: ‘My child, thy sins are forgiven thee. And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins (then saith He to the sick of palsy), Arise, take up thy bed and walk. And he departed to his own house, glorifying God’ (Luke 5: 20–5). Men then knew from their own experience that what Christ says is real, that his word brings to life. This power to forgive sins was passed on by Christ to his disciples, when he appeared to them after his resurrection, on the evening of Easter Sunday, and said to them: ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained’ ( John 20: 22–3). The disciples were astonished and filled with very great joy, when they heard these words, because they would be, by grace, just like God, even though they had never even asked for such a thing. The Apostles used their right and power to forgive sins after Pentecost and all life long. They preached wherever the Holy Spirit sent them, celebrating the Divine Liturgy, confessing, teaching, and healing. They also ordained bishops, priests, and deacons, and thereby passed on all the grace they had received at Pentecost. The blessed Seventy Apostles ordained the Apostolic Fathers, who then ordained the post-Apostolic Fathers, who in turn ordained the following Fathers, and so forth until our own times. The grace of the forgiveness of sins is passed on, when the bishop in the midst of the congregation ordains a priest and he is thus enabled to serve the Liturgy, to hear confessions, to teach and shepherd the blessed

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people of God. In this way we have now many spiritual fathers – bishops and priests. The holy hierarchs make priests spiritual fathers and confessors through the laying on of hands in a special ceremony. Without this ceremony the priest, whilst he may celebrate the Liturgy and all the other mysteries, cannot forgive sins! This procedure is followed with particular splendour and strictness on the Holy Mountain, where not all the priests are also spiritual fathers and confessors. Thus the blessed Paul addresses his spiritual children in Corinth and teaches them: ‘For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel’ (1 Corinthians 4: 15). This teaching is very revealing: there are many spiritual fathers – bishops and priests – but each of us has only one spiritual father or mother. In the blessed Garden of our all-holy Lady, the Holy Mountain, for a thousand years now there exists a blessed and truly Orthodox tradition, which is still practised and shall be practised in the future, because it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. On the Holy Mountain people who want to become monks there and the monks themselves have a great desire and burning thirst for the most humble way of life on earth. This way of life is called apostolic or evangelical. What this means is that the monks of the Holy Mountain wish and unwaveringly believe that the the aim of their life there is personal holiness of life and not career-making. This does not mean disrespect for the priesthood – we have abbots, priests, and deacons. What is, however, of primary importance on the Holy Mountain is not the priestly rank but rather, as we said, the way of life of each monk. We left the delusive and deceptive world for the love of Christ and our all-holy Lady, in order to live in repentance, obedience, virginity, and selfless love for all, following in the steps of the blessed Twelve Apostles, and to enter with surety the Kingdom of Heaven. Some of the monks of the Holy Mountain are also priests. This does not mean at all – God forbid – that the rest have commited some sin that prevents them from being ordained or that they are somehow second-class monks. There are sanctified monks on the Holy Mountain that exude a sweet odour like the lilies of the field, more than worthy to become

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priests or bishops. They were never ordained, however, for one very simple reason: they never received a heavenly vocation, a secret calling in their heart; their elder never told them so. ‘He that entereth in by the door’ is the lawful candidate. This means also that he who invites the candidate to come forth will give answer to Christ. An elder, who was a simple monk, was once asked by a pilgrim: ‘Why, Father, didn’t you become a priest?’ His answer was: ‘My blessed child, I never got such a calling from heaven!’ These virtuous monks will be a condemnation for priests, especially those that should never have been ordained! Thus was created on the Holy Mountain by the Fathers, be they just monks or priest-monks, this blessed tradition: that they be concerned with how they might personally and permanently receive the grace of the Holy Spirit within. In this way virtuous monks found freedom from the passions, became gods by grace, attained to great holiness, received richly the grace of the Holy Spirit. This gift is called spiritual discernment and it was given to them that they might guide priests, monks, and lay people unto the Kingdom of Heaven. That is why the pilgrim who comes to the Holy Mountain is not looking for priests or abbots, just because they are priests. He is looking for a man full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, a Spirit-bearer, who can guide him to Christ, who by his words can give new spiritual birth to those who approach him. A hymn of the Church in the fourth tone (first ode) says: ‘I shall open my mouth, and the Spirit shall inspire it.’ One turns on the switch, and the current – the Holy Spirit – flows copiously, enlightening souls and bodies and forming Christ within us. This is what blessed Paul meant when he said: ‘My little children, I travail in birth until Christ be formed in you.’ In other words there is spiritual conception, spiritual pregnancy, spiritual rebirth. The blessed Apostle to the Nations Paul spoke with such boldness, because Christ in his entirety, Christ’s grace that is, dwelt in him, as he said: ‘Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 11: 1). Thus the tradition of the Holy Mountain has its blessed elders and guides to Christ, who are simple monks, and its elders and guides to Christ, who are priest-monks. These elders teach, admonish, advise, and hear confessions! Do not wonder and be at loss when you hear us say that elders, who are simple monks, hear confessions! They do so in obedience to Christ

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and their elder, albeit they are simple monks. After the confession a priestconfessor reads the prayer of absolution. The pilgrims ask: ‘Father, can you recommend me a virtuous elder, either monk or priest, who can help me? I’m in danger of perdition, of going astray. I’m almost in despair. I don’t mind whether he’s a priest or not. I want him to be enlightened and experienced in unseen warfare, a physician of souls and thoughts. That’s what I’m looking for. Does such an elder exist?’ As we can see, Fathers and blessed brethren, the pilgrims come to the Holy Mountain for these reasons: firstly to venerate with great devotion the grace-flowing icon of the all-holy Virgin, secondly to venerate the holy relics, thirdly to participate in the Holy Mountain’s sacramental life and to find an experienced spiritual guide. Fathers and beloved brethren, I warmly request that what you hear may not be a cause of scandal. It is really so. Many people, unfortunately, are fed up with many bishops and priests. They are looking for someone spiritual, whether they be bishop or priest, monk or even lay person. Just as bees search for fragrant flowers and do not touch plastic flowers, because they are attracted by smell rather than colour, so do spiritual people look for spiritual guides who have been reborn in the Holy Spirit. On such a guide depends their progress, even their salvation. We reiterate the words of the blessed Apostle Paul: ‘For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers’ (1 Corinthians 4: 15). We younger monks of the Holy Mountain nostalgically recall the blessed and holy elder Monk Paisios, who is now a citizen of heaven. Swarms of pilgrims, monks and lay people, priests and bishops, used to rush to hear his divinely inspired teachings and admonitions. Many of the pilgrims expressed their impressions: the elder resurrected my soul, he gave me life, he showed me how black my soul is, he chased away demons, which had been driving me crazy! So much more could be said about the sanctified man of God and so many other elders. You members of this sacred conference can thus see that the tradition of the Holy Mountain as regards spiritual fatherhood follows the ancient monastic path. The desert teacher and monastic leader St Antony the Great, for example, St Paisios the Great, St Barsanuphios the Great, and

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many others were simple monks, not priests, but served as spiritual fathers of literally thousands of monks and lay people. They made their spiritual children spiritual lighthouses, teachers of our holy Church. Again and many times and until our last breath we shall reiterate: the office of bishop and the priestly office are all very well, a heavenly grace. Without them none of the mysteries may be celebrated. Everything we have written, however, was written responsibly, with pain and anguish for our blessed people, that no bishop or priest-confessor may boast that just because he is a priest forgiveness of sins is granted so easily without the minister’s personal holiness. This does not mean that the priesthood or the mystery which is performed is doubted; simply that whoever has passions, when he speaks and acts, his passions are manifest, whilst he who is without passion shall speak and act without passion. This is the huge difference. Two recent twentieth-century examples we shall mention. St Silouan of Athos (d. 1938) and the blessed Elder Joseph the Hesychast and Cavedweller (d. 1959) were both simple monks, but at the same time temples of the Holy Spirit, full of the grace of the Paraclete. They acted as unerring guides and mystical theologians for contemporary sanctified elders (Elder Sophrony Sakharov, Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, Elder Charalampos of Dionysiou, Elder Joseph of Vatopedi, and Elder Ephraim of Philotheou). We distinguish between the prayer of absolution, which is given only by confessor-priests or bishops, and the oral admonition of an elder. Often both are offered together, often not. Thus with excellent co-operation the Fathers of the Holy Mountain progress in good repentance and obedience to the commandments of Christ, who is God and man. What ineffable joy! What inexpressible grace! To see a bishop, a patriarch, an abbot, bowing before his elder, who is often a simple monk or priest-monk. That is why the advice of the priest-monk of blessed memory, Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, thunders out from heaven: ‘My children, the bow you make before your elder is of great, great import. Don’t forget what the Fathers said: Obedience is life, disobedience is death!’ Truth in very simple words! Holy Fathers of your conference, these humble words were written with great simplicity, with unwavering faith, and great responsibility. Huge

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and heavenly is the grace of the bishop’s and priest’s office, but each one of us should be very attentive to his personal way of life. It is better to go to paradise as a simple monk with one’s prayer-rope, rather than to hell with a priestly stole. Without priesthood nothing is achieved, but priesthood on its own does not save anyone: from the experience of the Fathers it is easier to be condemned, than to be saved. That is why all the monks of the Holy Mountain of all ages with one voice insist on the personal way of life of each one of us. Trade, until sweet Jesus comes, redeeming the time. Time is money and everything earthly is merchandise, which saves and sanctifies all those who make good use of it. Otherwise our soul is in danger of being lost. Most honourable and blessed Fathers and brethren in Christ of this sacred conference, we have deposited the widow’s two meager mites with you, whom God loves. Just as, according to the proverb, you can tell a lion by its nails, so have you, Fathers, with your discernment, understood much from my few words. There are many teachers and pedagogues for God’s people. We beseech and entreat everyone as if we were their sons: let no spiritual father, be he bishop, priest, or monk, live without his own personal spiritual father. All should bend their necks before their own personal spiritual father. This is the glory and honour and splendour of our Orthodoxy, this is the teaching of our Fathers. A spiritual father, before he confesses others, must first confess all his own sins. We spiritual father-confessors should preserve the flame of the Holy Spirit in frequent remembrance of the saying from the holy Gospel: ‘Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required’ (Luke 12: 48). Finally, all Orthodox spiritual fathers, bishops, and priests are the little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump of this world and preserves it from rotting, making it shine like the sun, guiding souls unto the Kingdom of Heaven. May we all enter therein by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, at the intercessions of the Mother of God, and through the prayers of the saints of the Holy Mountain and all the saints. By their prayers may God have mercy on us all, counting us worthy to see the face of our Lord Jesus Christ.

METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS WARE

Spiritual Guidance according to the Philokalia

The art of arts The Philokalia has much to say about the need for spiritual guidance by an experienced elder. This is one of the unifying threads that runs throughout the five volumes1 of this great Athonite anthology, and it serves to confer upon the work as a whole a definite coherence and inner consistency. In thus emphasizing the crucial importance of personal instruction from an elder – from the one who is known in Greek as geron or geronta and in Slavonic as starets2 – the Philokalia reflects the standard teaching of the ascetic and mystical tradition of the Orthodox East in its entirety.3 As

1

2 3

The Greek Philokalia was originally published in a single folio volume at Venice in 1782, but the most accessible edition, issued by the publishing house Astir/ Papadimitriou (Athens, 1957–63), appeared in five volumes. The English translation by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, published by Faber and Faber, is likewise divided into five volumes, of which four have so far appeared (London/Boston, 1979–95). References in this article to the Philokalia are to the Astir/Papadimitriou edition (Greek) and to the translation by Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware (ET). On the different editions and translations of the Philokalia, see Kallistos Ware, ‘Philocalie’, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 12 (Beauchesne: Paris, 1984), cols 1336–52; and id., ‘St Nikodimos and the Philokalia’, in Dimitri Conomos and Graham Speake (eds), Mount Athos the Sacred Bridge: The Spirituality of the Holy Mountain (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 69–121. The elder (geron, starets) is not necessarily old in years, but he (or she) is wise in spiritual understanding and endowed with the gift of charismatic insight. For further bibliography on the spiritual father or mother, see Kallistos Ware, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, in id., The Collected Works, vol. 1: The

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the Preacher insists, ‘Woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up’ (Ecclesiastes 4: 10). In the opening volume of the Philokalia the profound value of guidance by an elder is repeatedly underlined by St Neilos of Ancyra, writing in the early decades of the fifth century. In his Ascetic Discourse he states that the ministry of the spiritual father – he does not mention the possibility that the guide might be a spiritual mother – while altogether essential, is also arduous and exacting: ‘The care of other men’s souls is of all things the most difficult’;4 it is ‘the art of arts’.5 All too often, people seek to become spiritual guides for the wrong reasons, and so they bring the monastic vocation into disrepute. They go about ‘with a bevy of disciples’,6 ‘swaggering all over the market place’.7 ‘Relying solely on their own self-assurance, they order their brethren to wait on them like slaves. They glory in this one thing: to have many disciples. Their main objective is to ensure that, when they go about in public, their retinue of followers is no smaller than that of their rivals.’8 Certainly such pseudo-elders can as easily be found in the twenty-first as in the fifth century! In reality, the life of the true elder, so far from bringing facile renown and material comfort, is full of pitfalls and challenges. ‘Nothing is so demanding as the charge of souls’, writes Neilos. ‘… Anyone undertaking this task must prepare himself for a severe struggle.’9 The guide should not expect to find a quick and willing obedience among his disciples. To control horses or other animals is by no means a simple task, but human beings with their inexhaustible variety and deliberate malice are far more unruly. Yet if those under his charge prove disobedient, the guide himself

4 5 6 7 8 9

Inner Kingdom (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000), pp. 127–51, especially p. 127 n. 1. Greek 1. 203; ET 1. 215. Greek 1. 204; ET 1. 215. Compare St Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 2. 16 (PG 35: 425A). Greek 1. 203; ET 1. 215. Greek 1. 204; ET 1. 216. Greek 1. 205; ET 1. 217. Greek 1. 207; ET 1. 219.

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will be held responsible: ‘The disciples’ negligence endangers the teacher himself.’10 Those who embark on this ministry must therefore recognize the hazards to which they are exposing themselves: ‘If they knew the risks involved, they would certainly abandon the task as beyond their powers’, for it is like ‘leaping into a burning furnace’.11 All of this means that no one should, incited by his own self-will, confidently put himself forward as qualified to exercise the ministry of spiritual guidance. The true elder is not self-promoted, but discovers his vocation through the initiative of those who seek to become his spiritual children. He should ‘refuse, as far as possible, to assume the direction of others’, and if he does become a guide, this should be ‘not from any choice of his own’, but because he is ‘obliged’ to do so by his would-be disciples.12 He does not claim boldly, ‘Here am I; come to me’, but it is others who beat upon his door until eventually he opens. Moreover, no one can become a guide and teacher without proper preparation. ‘To master any art requires time and instruction; can the art of arts alone be mastered without being learnt? No one without experience would go in for farming; nor would someone who has never been taught medicine try to practise as a doctor … The only art which the uninstructed dare to practise, because they think it the simplest of all, is that of the spiritual way.’ Yet this, which the majority imagine to be easy, is in reality of all things the hardest.13 What is needed by the genuine elder is first and foremost that he should have undergone a radical conversion of his own life. Before he ventures to teach others, he must himself be inwardly transformed by God’s grace. ‘How, then,’ asks Neilos, ‘do they rashly take upon themselves the direction and cure of others, when as yet they have not cured their own passions, and when they cannot lead others to victory, since they have not yet gained the victory for themselves?’14 If their words of counsel are to be 10 11 12 13 14

Greek 1. 211; ET 1. 224. Greek 1. 204; ET 1. 216. Greek 1. 210; ET 1. 223. Greek 1. 204. ET 1. 215. Greek 1. 205; ET 1. 216.

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effective and life-giving, then it is essential that they speak from ‘personal experience’.15 ‘The spiritual director must also possess knowledge of all the devices of the enemy, so that he can forewarn those under his charge about the snares of which they are unaware.’16 Finally, it should never be forgotten that the elder will teach others more by his life than by his verbal instructions. ‘It is not words but actions that inspire people to follow a leader’, insists Neilos. ‘… It is more convincing to teach through actions than through words.’ The elder’s message to his disciples is ‘Look at me, and do the same’ ( Judges 7: 17); ‘The Lord himself first acted and then taught.’17 In the last resort he benefits others not by what he says but by what he is. There are stories in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers where the geron keeps silent; his spiritual children learn simply by sharing a common life with him.18 Such are the qualities required of the one whom my academic supervisor used to call the ‘ghostly leech’.19 ‘My aim in saying all this’, Neilos adds, ‘is not to discourage people from assuming the spiritual direction of beginners, but to urge them first to acquire the inward state needed for so great a task.’20 Not surprisingly, in view of his high expectations, he admits that a true elder is ‘rare and not easily found’.21 He is nothing less than ‘God’s spokesman’ or ‘mouth’,22 who, ‘having once accepted responsibility [for his disciples], will be accountable to God for them as well as for himself ’.23 He is in this way what other authors call anadochos, a ‘sponsor’, one who takes up the burden of his spiritual children and carries it on his own shoulders. This he does above all by showing patience and forbearance to those under 15 16 17 18 19

Greek 1. 205, 208; ET 1. 216–17, 221. Greek 1. 207; ET 1. 220. Greek 1. 205; ET 1. 217. See the examples in Ware, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, p. 145. During 1960–3 I studied early monasticism under the Revd Dr Derwas James Chitty (1901–71), author of The Desert a City. An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966). 20 Greek 1. 208–9; ET 1. 221. 21 Greek 1. 207–8; ET 1. 220. 22 Greek 1. 211; ET 1. 224. 23 Greek 1. 210–11; ET 1. 223.

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his charge. One thing he should never forget: the ‘true teacher’ is Christ,24 and he is no more than Christ’s servant. There is ultimately only one spiritual guide: Christ himself, active among us through the Holy Spirit.

‘Do not judge him in any respect’ Neilos, in his exposition of spiritual guidance, concentrates almost exclusively on the characteristics that should mark the guide himself, and he says little about the demands that are made upon the disciple, apart from saying that he should show obedience, following all the instructions of his teacher.25 The complementary aspect of spiritual fatherhood and sonship, the duties of the disciple, is discussed at greater length in a text dating from the seventh century or perhaps somewhat later, A Century of Spiritual Texts, attributed to ‘St Theodoros the Great Ascetic’, alias Theodoros of Edessa. Theodoros stresses the importance of faithfulness and loyalty on the part of the disciple. He must refrain from passing judgement on his father in God: ‘When you have taken up your dwelling with a spiritual father and find that he helps you, let no one separate you from his love and from living with him. Do not judge him in any respect … Do not side with anyone who criticizes him … Obey his commands.’26 The demons, ‘gnashing their teeth … and devising all sorts of schemes’, seek precisely to show us the defects of our guide, whereas we on our side must be alert to their cunning and resist them through our constant obedience.27 St Maximos the Confessor (580–662) confirms the warning of Theodoros not to criticize our guide: ‘Do not permit any abuse of your spiritual father or encourage anyone who dishonours him.’28 24 25 26 27 28

Greek 1. 207, 210; ET 1. 219, 223. Greek 1. 207; ET 1. 219. Century 40, 42: Greek 1. 310; ET 2. 21. Century 42, 44–5: Greek 1. 310–11; ET 2. 21–2. On Love 1. 59: Greek 2. 9; ET 2. 59.

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A work dating probably from the sixth or seventh century, A Discourse on Abba Philimon, mentions an aspect of the spiritual father’s ministry to which we have not yet referred when it speaks of ‘the elder’s prayers’.29 The geron or starets does not merely offer counsel to his spiritual children, but he intercedes on their behalf. His advice is deeply precious, but more precious still are his prayers.30 While the elder intercedes for his disciples, it is the duty (and privilege!) of the disciples also to pray for their elder. He needs their prayers, just as they need his; the relationship is mutual. So St Paisy Velichkovsky (1722–94), editor of the Dobrotolubiye – the Slavonic translation of the Philokalia – says concerning his spiritual children: ‘For the sake of their holy prayers, I the wretched one hope to be saved.’31 Moving on from the second to the third volume of the Philokalia, we find that St Peter of Damaskos (?tenth–eleventh century) reiterates this constant insistence on the central role played by the spiritual guide. In Peter’s eyes, the guide occupies the place of Christ himself; Peter speaks of ‘setting our spiritual father in the place of Christ and referring every idea, thought and action to him, so that we have nothing we can call our own’.32 Here Peter alludes to a fundamental feature in the Orthodox tradition of guidance: exagorevsis, the ‘disclosure of thoughts’ by the disciple to the elder, which in many monastic foundations is practised daily. It is significant that what the disciple brings to his elder in this ‘disclosure’ is not only sins, as in the sacrament of confession, but thoughts (logismoi), inner impulses that have not yet actively emerged as outward transgressions. Whereas confession is retrospective, dealing with actions that have already occurred, the

29 Greek 2. 244; ET 2. 347. 30 On the spiritual father as an intercessor, see Kallistos Ware, ‘The Spiritual Father in Saint John Climacus and Saint Symeon the New Theologian’, foreword to Irénée Hausherr, Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East, Cistercian Studies Series 116 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990), pp. xiv–xv. 31 [Fr Seraphim Rose (ed.)], Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky. The Life and Ascetic Labors of Our Father, Elder Paisius, Archimandrite of the Holy Moldavian Monasteries of Niamets and Sekoul. Optina Version. By Schema-monk Metrophanes (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1976), p. 152. 32 A Treasury of Spiritual Knowledge, Book 1; Greek 3. 65; ET 3. 150.

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disclosure of thoughts is pre-emptive, laying bare our logismoi before they have taken the form of sinful acts. Thus, while exagorevsis and sacramental confession overlap, the former is broader in scope than the latter.33 Peter, in setting the spiritual father ‘in the place of Christ’, recognizes that his ministry is indeed an ‘awesome task’. None should embark on this work unless he has attained ‘total dispassion (apatheia)’. We should become spiritual guides only if ‘we have received a call from God’, and even so ‘one should at first refuse to accept the call’. ‘St John of Damaskos says that he who brazenly tries to assume this status of his own accord is condemned.’ Spiritual fatherhood involves, for those who undertake it, nothing less than the acceptance of inner martyrdom: ‘They will be required, when the moment comes, to enter into an abyss of humility and death for the sake of their spiritual children and their enemies.’34

‘Do not ask for a drink of water …’ All that has been said previously in the Philokalia, by Neilos, Theodoros, and Peter, is drawn together and re-emphasized by St Symeon the New Theologian (959–1022).35 While Symeon speaks, in an immediate and striking way, from his own personal experience, at the same time he bears witness to what has become by the eleventh century a firmly established tradition of spiritual guidance. In common with Peter, he regards the guide as occupying the place of God: ‘A person of pure faith will entrust everything to the decision of his spiritual father as if putting it into the hands of God.’36 33 See Ware, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, pp. 136–7. 34 Treasury, Book 1; Greek 3. 100–1; ET 3. 195–6. 35 See H. J. M. Turner, St Symeon the New Theologian and Spiritual Fatherhood (Leiden: Brill, 1990); Hilarion Alfeyev, St Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 106–20. 36 One Hundred and Fifty-Three Practical and Theological Texts 16: Greek 3. 239; ET 4. 28.

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Obedience to the spiritual father is to be understood in far-reaching terms: ‘Without his consent you will not have any desire to concern yourself with any [human] things, nor will you ask him to allow you anything, great or small, unless he himself on his own initiative either tells you to take it or gives it to you with his own hands.’37 Symeon applies this teaching on obedience in a rigorous and uncompromising manner. The disciple will not give alms without the permission of his spiritual father.38 He will not even drink a drop of water without the blessing of his elder: ‘Even if you are burning with thirst, do not ask for a drink of water until on his own initiative your spiritual father urges you to drink … And if you deserve a drink, God will certainly reveal this to your spiritual father, and he will say to you, “Drink”.’39 Obedience of this kind is required precisely because, as already indicated, for the disciple the elder represents Christ: ‘Whoever possesses unclouded faith in his spiritual father will, on seeing him, think that he is seeing Christ himself; when with him or following him, he will firmly believe that he is with and following Christ.’40 Thus the disciple will never argue with his elder: ‘The demons rejoice when a person argues with his spiritual father.’41 ‘If you believe that your life and death are in the hands of your spiritual guide you will never contradict him.’42 Precisely because he regards his teacher as standing in God’s place, the disciple offers to him a blind obedience: ‘He who looks upon his teacher and guide as if he were God cannot call him into question.’43 From all this it is evident that Symeon is a maximalist: in his own words, ‘a most enthusiastic zealot’ (zilotis manikotatos).44 It has to be

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

Texts 15: Greek 3. 239; ET 4. 27–8. Texts 16: Greek 3. 239; ET 4. 28. Texts 17: Greek 3. 239–40; ET 4. 28. Texts 19: Greek 3. 240; ET 4. 28. Texts 45: Greek 3. 244; ET 4. 33. Texts 39: Greek 3. 243; ET 4. 31. Texts 38: Greek 3. 243; ET 4. 31. Catechesis 21, lines 139–40: Basile Krivochéine (ed.), Sources chrétiennes 104 (Paris: Cerf, 1964), p. 362.

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remembered that he is writing for monks. Would he have imposed such strict demands on lay persons? Certainly he considered that members of the laity as well as monastics can have a spiritual father. He himself came under the direction of his elder Symeon the Studite while he was serving as a courtier in the entourage of the emperor, some years before his entry into the monastic life. Even as a layman, he enjoyed extremely close contact with the Studite, seeing him daily, and there is every reason to believe that he obeyed him implicitly. But may he not have allowed for the possibility that others would enjoy an association with their spiritual father that was not so total and all-embracing as this? Certainly today there are many, both monastics and lay persons, who see their father perhaps no more than once a year; and there are numerous elders who seek to provide their children with general guidance on the meaning of prayer rather than exact prescriptions for daily living. As St Barsanuphios of Gaza (sixth century) said to his disciples, ‘I do not want you to be under the law, but under grace.’45

‘… another angel destroying the firstborn of Egypt …’ With this traditional understanding of spiritual guidance the editor of the Philokalia, St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain (1748–1809), is in full agreement. This is evident from his Exomologetarion or Manual on Confession,46 first published in 1794. Even though in this work Nikodimos is for the most part translating or adapting material by a Roman Catholic author, Paulo Segneri,47 it may be assumed that he is also expressing his own view. Like Neilos, Nikodimos terms the ministry of spiritual fatherhood 45 Questions and Answers 23: François Neyt and Paula de Angelis-Noah (eds), Sources chrétiennes 426 (Paris: Cerf, 1997), p. 210. 46 Exomologetarion: A Manual of Confession, translated by George Dokos (Thessaloniki: Uncut Mountain Press, 2006). 47 On the borrowings of Nikodimos from Roman Catholic sources, see Kallistos Ware, ‘St Nikodimos and the Philokalia’, pp. 90–1 (giving further bibliography).

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‘the art of arts’.48 Agreeing with Peter of Damaskos and Symeon the New Theologian, Nikodimos considers that the elder stands in the place of God: ‘the judgment of the Spiritual Father … is the judgment of God.’49 He has power to ‘liberate’ the penitent, and in assisting the latter to overcome passionate thoughts he is like ‘another angel destroying the firstborn of Egypt’ (see Exodus 12: 23) and becomes ‘like God’.50 ‘In one word, Spiritual Father, Paradise and hell, life and death, the salvation and damnation of souls, lies in your hands.’51 The translator of the Philokalia into Slavonic, St Paisy Velichkovsky, takes the same view as Nikodimos concerning the essential value of spiritual guidance. Early in his life, so he records in his Autobiography, he was given this advice by the superior of the Kitayev hermitage, Fr Feodosy: ‘The beginning, the root, and the foundation of monasticism is obedience true to God and the purport of divine Scripture and the teaching of the holy fathers. All who wish to be deemed worthy of the monastic habit … [must] renounce their own will and discernment and submit themselves to their superiors as to God himself until their last breath.’52 Seeking to carry out this counsel, the young Paisy wandered from one monastery to another in search of a starets, but for a long time his quest was unsuccessful. Although he longed to live ‘in obedience to a man inspired by God in holy Scripture and the teaching of our God-bearing fathers’,53 yet he confesses, ‘Nowhere was I deemed worthy to live in obedience to any father.’54 Despite this, whenever he was given instructions by those whom he encountered in his wanderings, he scrupulously complied with their words. At Kiev, for example, he was told by Schema-hieromonk Ivan never to

Exomologetarion, p. 192. Exomologetarion, p. 137. Exomologetarion, pp. 129–30. Exomologetarion, p. 192. Autobiography, in The Life of Paisij Velyčkovs’kyj, translated by J. M. E. Featherstone, Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, vol. 4 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 14. 53 Autobiography, p. 81. 54 Autobiography, p. 48. 48 49 50 51 52

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touch alcohol: ‘I accepted his counsel, so full of profit to my soul, as from the mouth of God.’55 Of the monk Dosifei, Paisy writes, ‘I listened to his words and joyously accepted them with all certainty, as if from the mouth of God.’56 What inspired Paisy was not only the words of counsel that the startsy imparted to him but equally their total way of life and their very appearance. Confirming the testimony of Neilos, he says of Dosifei, ‘I received no little profit in my soul just from looking upon him.’57 This recalls the story in the Gerontikon about the monk who used to visit St Antony of Egypt every year, without ever asking him any questions. When eventually Antony expressed surprise at this, the other replied, ‘Father, it is enough for me just to look at you.’58 Paisy writes in similar terms in his other writings. ‘One who is zealous to learn this Divine work’, he affirms in The Scroll, speaking about inner prayer and appealing to Symeon the New Theologian, ‘must … give himself over soul and body into obedience, in accordance with the Divine Scripture: that is, give himself in complete cutting off of his own will and his own understanding to a man who fears God, a fervent keeper of his Divine commandments, and not inexperienced in this mental labour, one who can, according to the writings of the Holy Fathers, show the one who submits himself to him an unerring path to salvation, the path of the mental activity of prayer secretly performed by the mind in the heart. This is essential.’59 Here, as in Neilos, we note the appeal to personal experience: this, above all, together with a direct call from God, is what enables someone to be a spiritual guide.

55 56 57 58 59

Autobiography, p. 52. Autobiography, p. 69; compare p. 74. Autobiography, p. 70. Apophthegmata Patrum (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers), alphabetical collection, Antony 27 (PG 65: 84D); compare Ware, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, p. 133. The Scroll, in [Fr Seraphim Rose (ed.)], Saint Paisius Velichkovsky, The Little Russian Philokalia, vol. 4 (Ouzinkie, AK: New Valaam Monastery, 1994), p. 45.

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Monastics, insists Paisy, should ‘give over all their will’ to their spiritual father, and ‘submit to him in everything as to the Lord himself ’.60 Here, as always, the spiritual guide is regarded as God’s representative and spokesman. ‘Receive from his lips as from the lips of God the word which is for the profit of your souls.’61 ‘The disciples for their part should be in the hands of the superior like an instrument in the hands of a master, or like clay in the hands of a potter; they should do nothing without his blessing.62 … He who sows with blessing reaps with blessing.’63 Disciples are to ‘cling to their father as a child to his mother and as sheep to their shepherd’.64 In Paisy’s understanding of spiritual guidance, the primary feature is the ‘disclosure of thoughts’ (exagorevsis), which we have already mentioned when speaking of Peter of Damaskos. Paisy believed that this should be done daily: ‘Every day one should confess his thoughts to an elder.’65 Daily exagorevsis is strongly recommended by St John Climacus (?579–?649).66 While placing great emphasis upon spiritual fatherhood, in an interesting passage Paisy allows also for spiritual brotherhood. In such a case two monks, dwelling together in a small hermitage, practise obedience not to a superior but mutually to one another. Referring to his time on the Holy Mountain of Athos, Paisy writes: ‘Not finding, for many good reasons, a place where I might be in obedience, I thought of undertaking the life according to the royal path, with a single like-minded and like-souled brother, and in place of a father to have God as instructor and the teaching of the Holy Fathers, and to be in obedience to each other and to serve each other, and to have a single soul and a single heart.’67 In terming life 60 Letter to the Fathers in the Lord, of the Monastery of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos of Merlopolyany, in [Rose], Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 131. 61 Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 132. 62 Letter to Hieromonk Sophronius, in Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 136. 63 Letter to the Priest Demetrius, in Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 138. 64 Letter to the Priest Demetrius, in Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 147. 65 Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 106. 66 See Kallistos Ware, Introduction, in John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, translated by Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), pp. 38–9. 67 Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 68.

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in a hermitage with one companion ‘the royal path’, Paisy has in mind the threefold distinction that is made by John Climacus between the eremitic life, the cenobitic life, and the intermediate vocation of ‘the life of stillness shared with one or two others’. Climacus expresses a preference for the third of these, terming it ‘the royal way’.68 In thus allowing for spiritual brotherhood as well as fatherhood, Paisy suggests a possible answer to the question: what should we do if we cannot find a spiritual guide? There can be no doubt, however, that he strongly prefers the situation of obedience to a starets, if such a person can be discovered. In the words of Fr Seraphim Rose, ‘The driving force that runs through the whole of Paisius’ efforts, as is evident from his life and letters, is his quest for the right relationship between spiritual father and spiritual son.’69

To publish or not to publish? Thus far, as regards the value of spiritual guidance, there is substantial agreement between Nikodimos and Paisy. Both are faithful witnesses to the same tradition. But as regards more particularly the publication of the Philokalia, there was a difference of opinion between the two.70 Paisy, who had been making Slavonic translations of Philokalic texts for more than thirty years before the publication of the Greek Philokalia in 1782,71 was unwilling to see these translations issued in printed form, preferring that they should be circulated in manuscript. This was because he considered that such texts, if printed for general circulation, might fall into the wrong hands. In his view they ought to be read only by persons under the 68 The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 1 (PG 88: 641D); ET by Luibheid and Russell, p. 79. Compare Ware, Introduction, p. 3. 69 Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 92. 70 On this, see Ware, ‘St Nikodimos and the Philokalia’, pp. 108–9. 71 See ibid., pp. 100–1.

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guidance of an experienced spiritual father and, indeed, only by monastics. ‘The Patristic books’, he wrote, ‘… are suitable only for the monastic order and not for all Orthodox Christians in general.’72 The problem with a printed book is that a reader, lacking proper guidance, will not be able to discern which parts are applicable to himself and which are not. On the other hand, if a text is only available in manuscript, its circulation can be much more easily regulated, and a spiritual father can release it only to those who are inwardly prepared to assimilate its teaching, and who under his instruction can be told how it is to be applied. So it was only with great reluctance, under pressure from the eminent Metropolitan Gabriel (Petrov) of St Petersburg (1730–1801), that Paisy eventually agreed to the publication of the Slavonic Dobrotolubiye at Moscow in 1793. Nikodimos recognized the reasons for Paisy’s reluctance, but he himself adopted a different approach. As the Greek Philokalia of 1782 states clearly on the title-page, the work is ‘for the general profit of the Orthodox’. He did not consider that the Philokalic texts should be restricted to a monastic readership, but on the contrary he maintained, ‘It is very appropriate to teach those who are in the world about spiritual prayer.’ When St Paul enjoined, ‘Pray without ceasing’ (1 Thessalonians 5: 17), he was issuing ‘a direction to all Christians without exception’; ‘St Gregory Palamas too in many of his homilies encouraged all the Christians to pray spiritually in the heart.’73 Inner prayer – the Jesus Prayer, prayer of the heart – is possible for all: not only for hermits dwelling in caves and forests but for ‘kings and courtiers living in palaces’.74 As for the problem that some readers of the printed Philokalia will lack personal direction from an elder, Nikodimos’s answer is that someone in 72 Letter to Archimandrite Theodosius, in Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 192. 73 Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain, A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, translated by Peter A. Chamberas, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1989), p. 147. Compare Igumen Chariton of Valamo, The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, translated by E. Kadloubovsky and E. M. Palmer (London: Faber and Faber, 1966), pp. 87–8. 74 Nikodimos, Preface to the Greek Philokalia 1. xxii; not translated in the ET of Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware.

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such a position should trust to the direct guidance of Christ himself, present within us through the Holy Spirit. ‘Even if occasionally some people go slightly astray, what is surprising in that? … Trusting in him who said, “I am the way and the truth” ( John 14: 6), let us embark on the task [of inner prayer] with all humility and in a spirit of mourning … You can in this way be united within yourselves and also with God.’75 A similar view was adopted by Fr Nikon (1875–1963), hermit of St George’s, Karoulia, on the Holy Mountain of Athos, when in the early 1950s he gave his blessing to Gerald Palmer and Evgeniya Kadloubovsky to publish extracts from the Philokalia in English translation. He was well aware that many readers of these texts might not be Orthodox or even Christian. But he was willing to follow the precept of the Preacher: ‘Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days’ (Ecclesiastes 11: 1).76

Two troublesome questions Anyone who studies the tradition of spiritual guidance found in the writings of the Philokalia cannot avoid two troublesome questions. First, what is a person to do if he or she cannot find an elder? Second, is there not a danger that dependence on an elder will reduce the disciple to an infantile level? Might not such obedience be understood to exempt the disciple from the need to listen to God in her or his own conscience? ‘If a person places his faith in someone else’, it is said in the Gerontikon, ‘and surrenders himself to the other in full submission, he has no need to attend to the commandment of God, but he needs only to entrust his entire will into

Preface, Greek 1. xxiii–xxiv. See Kallistos Ware, ‘The Spirituality of the Philokalia’, Sobornost incorporating Eastern Churches Review, 13: 1 (1991), 18–20. 76 See Kallistos Ware, ‘Gerald Palmer, the Philokalia, and the Holy Mountain’, in Graham Speake (ed.), Friends of Mount Athos: Annual Report 1994 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 23–9. 75

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the hands of his father. Then he will be blameless before God.’77 Is not such a statement somewhat disturbing, for it seems to relieve the disciple of all moral responsibility, and to make the spiritual father a substitute for God? In answer to the first question, we have already noted the response of Nikodimos: if we cannot find an elder, we should trust to the guidance of Christ himself, speaking in our heart. Others expand this answer by saying that we can also be guided by reading Scripture and the writings of the Fathers. ‘If … a teacher cannot be found,’ advises St Nil Sorsky (d. 1508), ‘then the Holy Fathers order us to turn to the Scriptures and listen to our Lord himself speaking.’78 ‘In the present cruel times,’ laments Paisy Velichkovsky, ‘which are worthy of much weeping and lamentation, so few have such instructors become that, if any zealots among the monks should desire to please God by means of such a cenobitic life, their teacher and instructor must be God himself and the divine writings of [the] Holy Fathers.’79 St Seraphim of Sarov (1754–1833) gives the same advice: ‘If it is impossible to find a spiritual guide … we must be directed by the Holy Scriptures.’80 Turning to the second question, it may surely be argued – despite the words from the Gerontikon that we have quoted above – that the true aim of the spiritual father is not to keep his disciples in a state of infantile dependence, but on the contrary to bring them to full maturity. He does not seek to replace God, but rather he enables his spiritual children to advance to the point where they encounter God for themselves directly and personally. He does not merely say, ‘Listen to me and do what I tell you’, but his message will be, ‘Listen through me to the voice of God speaking in your own conscience, and do what that divine voice tells you.’ The spiritual

77 Apophthegmata Patrum, anonymous collection 290: ed. F. Nau, ‘Histoire des solitaires égyptiens’, Revue de l’orient chrétien, 14 (1909), 376. 78 ‘The Monastic Rule’, in G. P. Fedotov, A Treasury of Russian Spirituality (London: Sheed & Ward, 1950), pp. 95–6. See Ware, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, pp. 147–8. 79 Letter to the Priest Demetrius, in Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky, p. 147. 80 Archimandrite (Metropolitan) Seraphim Chichagov, Letopis Seraphimo-Diveyeskogo Monastirya (new edition, Nijni Novgorod: Brotherhood of St Alexander Nevsky, 2004), p. 139.

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father is not a legislator but an initiator; not a substitute but a midwife; not a surrogate who deputizes for God, but an usher who brings us into God’s immediate presence. The ultimate director, as we have already said, is always Christ himself. There can be no doubt about the preference of Paisy and Nikodimos, and indeed of the Philokalic writers in general. Much the best course is to find a spiritual father or mother. Yet at the same time, as Paisy reminds us, we should not overlook the help afforded to us by our fellow disciples on the Christian way. As well as directors we also have companions; as well as spiritual fathers and mothers we also have spiritual brothers and sisters. Moreover, in the absence of a starets, we should ‘search the Scriptures’ ( John 5: 39) and the patristic writings, even though we may not always be sure which precepts of the Fathers apply to our personal predicament. Above all, we should not neglect the inner light that glows within our heart: ‘The Lord shines into a man’s very soul, searching out his inmost being’ (Proverbs 20: 27). In the words of St Dorotheos of Gaza (sixth century), ‘When God created man, he placed within him a divine seed, a kind of thought or faculty, full of warmth and light, like a spark, illuminating his intellect and enabling it to distinguish good from evil. This is called the conscience.’81 The whole purpose of the tradition of spiritual direction, emphasized throughout the Philokalia, is not to eclipse or bedim this inner light but to enhance and intensify it.

Bibliography Alfeyev, Hilarion, St Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Bingaman, Brock, and Nassif, Bradley (eds), The Philokalia: A Classic Text of Orthodox Spirituality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 81

Instruction 3. 40: L. Regnault and J. de Préville (eds), Sources chrétiennes 92 (Paris: Cerf, 1963), p. 206.

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Citterio, Elia, ‘Nicodemo Agiorita’, in Carmelo Giuseppe Conticello and Vassa Conticello (eds), La Théologie byzantine et sa tradition (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 905–78. Conticello, Vassa, and Citterio, Elia, ‘La Philocalie et ses versions’, in Carmelo Giuseppe Conticello and Vassa Conticello (eds), La Théologie byzantine et sa tradition (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 999–1021. Cook, Christopher C. H., The Philokalia and the Inner Life: On Passions and Prayer (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2011). Dunlop, John B., Staretz Amvrosy: Model for Dostoevsky’s Staretz Zossima (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1972). Golitzin, Alexander (ed.), The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain. Contemporary Voices from Mount Athos (South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1996). Kadloubovsky, E., and Palmer, G. E. H. (trs), Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart (London: Faber & Faber, 1951). ——, Early Fathers from the Philokalia (London: Faber & Faber, 1954). Moore, Lazarus, An Extraordinary Peace: St Seraphim, Flame of Sarov (Port Townsend, WA: Anaphora Press, 2009). Palmer, G. E. H., Sherrard, Philip, and Ware, Kallistos (trs), The Philokalia: The Complete Text, 4 vols (London/Boston: Faber & Faber, 1979–95). Turner, H. J. M., St Symeon the New Theologian and Spiritual Fatherhood (Leiden: Brill, 1990). Ware, Kallistos, ‘Philocalie’, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. 12 (Beauchesne: Paris, 1984), cols 1336–52. ——, ‘The Spiritual Father in Saint John Climacus and Saint Symeon the New Theologian’, in Irénée Hausherr, Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East, Cistercian Studies Series 116 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990), pp. vii–xxxiii. ——, ‘The Spirituality of the Philokalia’, Sobornost incorporating Eastern Churches Review 13: 1 (1991), pp. 6–24. ——, ‘Gerald Palmer, the Philokalia, and the Holy Mountain’, in Graham Speake (ed.), Friends of Mount Athos Annual Report 1994 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 23–9. ——, ‘St Nikodimos and the Philokalia’, in Dimitri Conomos and Graham Speake (eds), Mount Athos the Sacred Bridge. The Spirituality of the Holy Mountain (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 69–121.

FATHERS METHODY AND KIRILL ZINKOVSKIY

Spiritual Guidance in Mount Athos and Russia and the Theological Notion of Person

‘Send me a man, who would know Thee’ — Symeon the New Theologian

In this paper we aim to show that Mount Athos, as a living, natural part of the Orthodox tradition, has given us an abundant experience of the importance of the personal character of the relationship between the one who aspires to certain spiritual achievements and the one who guides him on this way. We do not claim that it is only Mount Athos which has preserved the tradition of spiritual life and guidance throughout Church history. In fact there were unhappy times when Mount Athos was preserving its spiritual treasury more in the manner of a library than as living evidence of a tradition. For example, in the eighteenth century, neither St Paisy (Velichkovsky) nor St Makarios of Corinth succeeded in finding there a true spiritual harbour. However, we do hope to be able to show that the experience of personal spiritual guidance preserved on the Mountain, either in life or in the letter, through the writings of the Church Fathers, has been an inspiring factor for Russian church life through the centuries. In one way or another Mount Athos has acted as a sort of ‘catholic lens’, accumulating the spiritual experience of different Christian ascetics (not exclusively belonging to Athos itself ) and continually inflaming by its spirit anyone who desired to take advantage of these treasures.

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The theological perspective If we wish through the Person of Christ to establish an ongoing personal relationship with all of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity we cannot achieve it without a certain preparation in which we are called to build a subtle relationship with other human persons. But there is a need to select among those human persons a single person as our spiritual guide who, possessing a certain vivid experience of a personal relationship with God, can teach us through our everyday life what this personal relationship ought to be. As Metropolitan Kallistos has put it in one of his works, ‘Orthodox tradition insists upon the need for direct spiritual direction, person to person.’1 ‘The person is a source of absolute singularity’ and at the same time this ‘singularity does not imply withdrawal into self ’. On the contrary, the human person is meant to be open to everything,2 though without any damage to its identity. An authentic spiritual leadership should foster these two seemingly opposite qualities: absolute singularity and all-embracing consciousness. It is important to underline here briefly that balanced personalism sees the human being as a living image of God and considers man to be an ontological unity of his hypostatic-personal, natural-essential, and energeticexpressive elements. In this triangular scheme of intertwined elements in the human being none of them should ever be confused with another or be neglected and not be taken into consideration. However, since the personal, hypostatic element – which can be defined as the bearer of existence – maintains a sort of internal monarchy in the ontological triangular scheme under consideration, it is exactly the

1 2

Kallistos Ware, ‘How do we enter the heart?’ in J. S. Cutsinger (ed.), Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom/Fons Vitae, 2002), pp. 2–23. S. Verchovsky, God and Man: The Teaching about God and His Knowledge in the Light of Orthodoxy (New York, 1956), p. 281.

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personal aspect which will be highlighted in our analysis of the process of Christian spiritual guidance. According to Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), ‘the main principles of personalistic obedience are closely linked with our theological notion of Person.’3 If we add to this that our spiritual route follows the way of the Name,4 we can state that the personal name simultaneously expresses the uniqueness of the person being named and its calling to a dialogue and communion with other persons. It is exactly through naming that we are able to enter into personal communion. And personal dialogue in the process of spiritual guidance receives its uniqueness as soon as the names of the participants are defined. The theology of the Name is closely linked to the theology of the Image. Outside the notion of the Person, images and names threaten to be obtrusive and to impose themselves on the ones invoking them. It is only in the realm of the person that images and names can be evoked constructively without harming – indeed even emphasizing – personal uniqueness and identity.

The purposes of spiritual guidance The idea of spiritual guidance is a necessary part of almost all religiousascetic traditions.5 However, understanding of the purposes of this guidance differs drastically depending on the different theological presuppositions. In pantheistic approaches the final goal is seen as a dissolution of the person. Self-consciousness should be stripped of any unique form of its own and 3 4 5

Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Birth into the Kingdom which Cannot be Moved, ed. N. Sakharov (Tolleshunt Knights: Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1999) (in Russian), p. 177. Kallistos Ware, ‘How do we enter the heart?’, p. 18. Nicholas V. Sakharov, I Love, Therefore I Am (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), p. 199.

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be dissolved in the contemplated ‘essence’.6 In the ‘narrow’ monotheism of Judaism and Islam we encounter ideas of identification of the person being guided with the one who guides or with God Himself according to the formula ‘he is He’, which also results in the oblivion and loss of one’s own self.7 In the Orthodox Christian tradition obedience is required not for the sake of ‘abolition of the Self, but for the sake of mortification of the evil in the Self ’.8 The person of the spiritual director is given to us to help in the activation of our own personal element, teaching us to control our own modes of existence, harmonizing these modes with the mode of existence of the God-Man – Christ. Instead of the situation in which our mode of existence is determined by our nature corrupted by sin, it begins to be coordinated with the person of our spiritual counsellor who is believed to possess a sanctified will co-ordinated with the will of Christ. That is how the idea of obedience to the spiritual father as to the Lord himself arises,9 as well as the greater importance attached to the example of life than to the words.10 We should note here that the early Russian saints have left us little in the way of written works or homilies.11 We take this fact as indicating a certain preference among Russians for the practical aspects of the spiritual

6

S. S. Horuzhy, ‘Constitution of Person and Identity in the Perspective of the Ancient and Contemporary Practices of the Self ’, http://synergia-isa.ru/lib/lib.htm, accessed 20. 11. 2012. 7 G. Sholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 2nd edn. (New York: Schocken Books, 1995). 8 Hierotheos Vlachos, A Night in the Desert of the Holy Mountain, trans. E. Mavromichali (Levadia: Holy Monastery of the Birth of the Theotokos, 2009). 9 St Symeon the New Theologian deemed his spiritual father to be equal to the Apostles and spoke of him as ‘my helper whom I revered as the Lord Himself ’, Basil Krivocheine, In the Light of Christ: St Symeon the New Theologian, trans. A. P. Gythiel (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987). 10 Archimandrite Sophrony, ‘Our Monastic Life’, in Sacrament of the Christian Life (Tolleshunt Knights: Monastery of St John the Baptist, 2009), pp. 45–68 (p. 46). 11 John Kologrivov, Essays on the History of Russian Sanctity (Siracusa: ISTINA, 1991) (in Russian), p. 42.

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life, and an intuitive understanding of the importance of a practical personal adoption of those specific modes of spiritual life which allow us to receive the flow of divine energies without too much abstract speculation on the subject. However, this point has both positive and negative sides to it. The positive side is that there are fewer empty words. For example, St Sergius of Radonezh ‘would utter few words, but rather gave an example to the brethren by his deeds’.12 The negative side is that as soon as the spiritual intuition is weakened, practice without theory might grow into a law of the letter of the misunderstood tradition as happened with the so-called Old Believers. As Christ the Son of God hypostatically subdued his natural human will into obedience to his Father, so it is to foster the development of the personal element within themselves that the holy apostles offered their obedience to Christ, and Christians offer obedience to their spiritual guides.13

Eldership as an ideal of spiritual leadership Clement of Alexandria called God the ‘Eternal Elder’,14 which already implies the possibility of a wise eldership able to pass on a divine teaching. The spiritual director is called an ‘elder’ if he has reached such a state of transparency15 that, rather than overshadowing God by his own person, he

12 13 14 15

Archimandrite Nikon (Rodgdesvenskiy), The Life of the Monk and our Holy Father Abbot Sergius the Wonderworker (Zagorsk: Holy Trinity St Sergius Lavra, 1898) (in Russian), p. 78. Letter of St Paisy Velichkovsky to Protasieva M. The Life and Writings of the Moldavian Elder Paisios Velichkovsky (Moscow: Kozelskaya Optina Pustin, 1892), pp. 239–47 (p. 244). ἀΐδιος γέρων, PG 8. 580 A. Kallistos Ware, ‘Personal Experience of the Holy Spirit according to the Greek Fathers’, Stranitsi, 4: 1 (Moscow: St Andrew’s Biblical College, 1999), 10–23 (in Russian).

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is able to reveal Him and lead the disciples towards Him. He should be an image of Christ,16 as Christ is the image of his heavenly Father. Thus the relationship between a disciple and his teacher follows the same pattern as the relationship between the holy apostles and Christ.17 At the same time, the person of the Christ-like counsellor experiences kenosis, self-emptying, which resembles the personal kenosis of the Holy Spirit, who leads us to Christ but remains personally concealed as he stands by, rejoicing at our encounter with Christ. The spiritual director should become a sort of humble transmitter of the words and images from God that are needed for each of the persons who come to him.18 St Seraphim of Sarov admitted that his counsels could be mistaken when they were said ‘from himself ’,19 out of his own personal reasoning without sufficient prayer. The person of the elder is called on to achieve harmony with the breathing of the Spirit in order to be able to convey through his natural human energies the authentic divine will and to assist in the labour of spiritual perfection.20 We should emphasize here the idea explicitly expressed by Vladimir Lossky and by Metropolitan Kallistos and often implicitly present in the Holy Tradition that ‘initially the divine grace exists within a person in such a subtle way that he is unaware of its presence and does not understand that it is within him.’ And it is specifically through our relationship with our spiritual guide that we are helped to attain this personal awareness of the Spirit’s presence.21 The closer the spiritual director is to God, the better

Life of Hieromonk Nikon (Moscow: Vedensky Optina Pustyn, 1996), p. 317. Kirill Zinkovskiy, ‘Eldership in the Teaching and Life of the Church’, unpublished thesis (St Petersburg Orthodox Theological Academy, 2002), p. 185. 18 Archimandrite Sophrony, On Prayer, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), p. 101. 19 N. O. Lossky, ‘Venerable Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov’, Put’, 2 (1926), 122–4. 20 ’Άνθρωπος μὲν γὰρ ἀνθρωπῳ συνεργεῖ εἰς μετάνοιαν – ‘A man is the other man’s co-worker in repentance’, Anastasios of Sinai, Quaestiones, PG 89. 373 D. 21 Kallistos Ware, ‘Personal Experience of the Holy Spirit according to the Greek Fathers’. 16 17

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he is able to discern in each human being ‘the unique person created in the image and likeness of God’22 and to stimulate the dynamic process of personal development.

The historical overview: Kievo-Pechersky monastery St Antony of the Kievo-Pechersky monastery (983–1073), having returned to Russia from the Athonite Esphigmenou monastery, was not content with the quality of monastic life in Kiev. He established his own monastery where he arranged spiritual guidance for the monks and, though he was not a priest, the monks would confess their thoughts to him.23 That practice of confession to a non-ordained elder had obviously been brought by St Antony from Athos and was quite unusual afterwards in medieval Russia. St Antony’s disciple, St Theodosios (1008–74), unwillingly but by obedience, became the abbot of the monastery and a spiritual father to the monks and would listen to their confessions every morning.24 St Theodosios also became a spiritual father to many of the civil authorities of the city of Kiev. In spite of the quickly growing number of monks, their community remained a large spiritual family which would share both labours and prayers. If some monk would refuse to perform a job of any kind, St Theodosios would do it himself, setting a good example of humility.

Id., ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’ in The Inner Kingdom (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000), pp. 127–51. 23 A. Marchenkov, ‘Kozelsky Vedensky Optina Pustyn in the History of Russian Eldership’, unpublished thesis (Moscow Theological Academy, 1988), p. 27. 24 Leonid Polyakov, ‘Athos in the History of Russian Monasticism, Tenth to Eighteenth Centuries’, unpublished thesis (Moscow Theological Academy, 1969), p. 57.

22

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We cannot agree with those historians who doubt that eldership existed in the Kievo-Pechersky monastery.25 They claim that the authority of the abbot had forced the eldership out and diminished the role of spiritual guidance in the whole of Russia in the high Middle Ages and later on.26 On the contrary, the fathers of Russian monasticism were undoubtedly Spirit-inspired votaries of Christ and authentic spiritual counsellors.27 Their monastery yielded many abbots and bishops to the Church and became a sort of cradle of spiritual leadership which played a significant role in the spiritual life of ancient Russia. A good proof of the respect for spiritual obedience in the Kievo-Pechersky monastery is the story of St Nikita, the bishop of Novgorod, who, as a simple monk in Kiev, disobeyed the abbot, became a recluse instead of serving the community, and was deluded by the demons. And it was not by any administrative order but only through the joint prayer of the brethren that Nikita was eventually freed from his delusion and repented of his wilfulness.28 We should also emphasize here that, partly due to the vastness of the Russian territories and partly because of the natural maximalistic propensity to high ideals, which was also characteristic of Byzantine spiritual culture, the right to administer the sacrament of confession was given to any priest after his ordination,29 as Christians would not wish to remain without the sacrament of confession for too long a time.

25 I. Smolitsch, Russisches Mönchtum, 988–1917 (Würzburg: Augustinus Verlag, 1953). 26 S. Smirnov, Ancient Russian Spiritual Father (Moscow: PSTGU, 2004), pp. 8, 25–6; Nicholas Sakharov, I Love, Therefore I Am, p. 204. 27 Kirill Zinkovskiy, ‘Eldership in the Teaching and Life of the Church’, p. 141. 28 Muriel Heppell (trans.), The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press for the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University, 1989), pp. 143–6. 29 I.  M. Kontsevich, Acquisition of the Holy Spirit in Ancient Russia (Moscow: Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1993), pp. 47–8.

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The hesychast movement, St Sergius of Radonezh and his disciples St Gregory of Sinai (1255–1346), one of the teachers of hesychasm, who spent over twenty years on Mount Athos and gathered many disciples there, has exercised a powerful influence on Russian spiritual life. Because of the spread of Islam he had to move to Thrace, which was inhabited by a large number of Slavs, and his disciples dispersed throughout the Slavic countries, taking with them the practice of the ‘noetic’ prayer and thorough spiritual guidance.30 Under the patronage of Patriarch Philotheos (Kokkinos), hesychasm, which holds the practice of spiritual guidance in high esteem, spread through Russia with the help of Metropolitans Alexis (d. 1378) and Cyprian (d. 1406). The latter was also a disciple of St Gregory of Sinai31 and brought Athonite monks to Russia, in particular the famous iconographer Theophanes the Greek (d. 1410). Of course, there existed other lineages in which spiritual guidance was revered as an extremely important tool of personal development, but we should stress that it is only through certain distinct personalities that this tradition was passed down. And it is not by chance that hesychasm – which is so attentive to words and names as means of prayer, and to the relationship between the human and divine personalities – has always zealously revered the practice of spiritual guidance in which the word becomes a flexible tool. As abbot of the Radonezh monastery, St Sergius was never able to visit Mount Athos, but his links with it are obvious. He had a good relationship with Metropolitans Alexis and Cyprian and Patriarch Philotheos (Kokkinos). St Sergius of Nurom, Greek by origin, tonsured on Mount Athos, became a monk in the Radonezh monastery and a spiritual son of St Sergius. Radonezh monks practised confession of thoughts,32 while 30 Kallistos Ware, ‘The Jesus Prayer in St Gregory of Sinai’, Eastern Churches Review, 4: 1 (1972), 3–22. 31 On Cyprian see Dimitri Obolensky, ‘Metropolitan Cyprian of Kiev and Moscow’, in Six Byzantine Portraits (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 173–200. 32 The Life of the Monk and Our Holy Father Abbot Sergius the Wonderworker, p. 79.

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the abbot himself never attempted to subdue the will of other persons by using his administrative power.33 This absence of strictness in St Sergius could even be regarded as a weakness, but it concealed a great inner force.34 St Cyril of the White Lake and St Paul of Obnora and other pupils of the holy abbot of Radonezh founded many monasteries in the northern and eastern parts of Russia, keeping the practice of thorough obedience combined with intense inner prayer. The fifteenth-century text ‘A Precept of an Elder to His Disciples on the Monastic Life’, dedicated specifically to the principles of spiritual guidance and the relationship of an elder with his disciples, originates from the disciples of St Sergius.35 Spiritual guidance concerned not only the monastic order but also lay people. For example, St Cyril in his Last Spiritual Letter calls Prince Andrew of Mozhaysk his ‘spiritual son who had been confessing his sins to him’.36 St Nilus of Sora, who was tonsured in St Cyril’s monastery and spent several years on Mount Athos, set forth the theoretical fundamentals of spiritual guidance in detail,37 showing his familiarity with Greek patristic literature. It can be said that he established a whole ascetic school which included at least three generations of elders and their disciples who laboured ascetically in the trans-Volga region.38 Among the best-known Russian hesychasts we find also the names of St Stephen of Perm (1340–96), St Andrei Rublev (1360–1428), whose masterpieces are believed to be fruits of the hesychast tradition despite attempts to blame hesychasm for suppressing creativity,39 St Paisy of Moldova, the Optina elders, and St Seraphim of Sarov. 33 34 35 36 37

N. O. Lossky, ‘Venerable Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov’, p. 124. John Kologrivov, Essays on the History of Russian Sanctity, p. 97. Kirill Zinkovskiy, ‘Eldership in the Teaching and Life of the Church’, p. 145. Venerable Cyril, Therapont and Martinian Belozersky (St Petersburg, 1993), p. 187. A. Marchenkov, ‘Kozelsky Vedensky Optina Pustyn in the History of Russian Eldership’, p. 43. 38 I. Smolitsch, Russisches Mönchtum, p. 808. 39 See, for example, O. G. Ulyanov, ‘The Influence of the Holy Mount Athos on the Veneration of the Holy Trinity in Metropolitan Cyprian’s Time (to the 600th anniversary of the saint’s passing away)’, Proceedings of International Scientific Conference 5–6 December 2005, ed. T. V. Chumakova (St Petersburg: Lemma, 2005).

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St Paisy of Moldova and a wave of spiritual revival in Russia Although the Holy Tradition of the Church can never be interrupted altogether, there are periods when it is greatly weakened in its influence on our ecclesiastical life, and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could be judged the worst in Russian history for the practice of spiritual guidance.40 It is through Paisy Velichkovsky (1722–94), who was to become St Paisy of Moldova, that a wave of spiritual revival gradually spread all over Russia. Fr Paisy spent over fifteen years (1746–63) on Athos. Throughout his life he collected and translated the texts of the Greek Philokalia and became, so to speak, the godfather of many Russian elders. His attention was directed mostly to obedience, ‘noetic’ prayer, reading of the Church Fathers, and frequent disclosure of thoughts. These principles proved to be very fruitful. St Paisy’s monastery hosted monks of over ten nationalities and by the end of the eighteenth century41 they numbered as many as 10,000. It was the largest monastery in the Eastern Orthodox Church of that time. The very number of the saints who can trace their lineage back to these holy spiritual leaders is proof of the fruitfulness of their methodology of personal spiritual guidance.42 As a result of the diligent work of St Paisy and his disciples, translations of the Philokalia into Slavonic and Russian were made which spread all over Russia in numerous handwritten and printed copies. St Paisy influenced over 100 Russian monasteries through his more than 200 disciples as well as through the translations which were to drastically change the

40 Innocenty Prosvirin, ‘Russian Eldership and Optina Pustyn’, article in the collection Millennium of the Baptism of Russia (Moscow, 1989), pp. 215–16. 41 In 1790, to be precise. 42 For example, there were over 100 holy disciples descending from St Sergius of Radonezh. The numerous pupils of Optina and Glinskaya elders are also clear evidence of this phenomenon.

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character of Russian monasticism for decades and even centuries ahead.43 For example, the Slavonic translation of the Philokalia became a reference book for Prochor Moshnin who was to become the great Russian saint, Seraphim of Sarov. St Leo, St Makarios, and other elders of Optina, whose number had reached fourteen by the first quarter of the twentieth century, were direct descendants of St Paisy. They practised obedience to each other to their dying day. According to eyewitness accounts, monks would openly look into the Optina elders’ eyes with a combination of reverence and love. Elders would act with simplicity as if they were surrounded by their own natural family.44 The holy elders of the Glinsky monastery were also successors of the school of St Paisy through its famous abbot, Philaret.45 The Glinsky elders loved the Athonite monastic rite and practised the confession of everyday thoughts to a confessor able to understand the benefit of it and to hear them with benevolence.46 The elders of both Optina and Glinskaya performed a great service not only to the monks and nuns but also to a multitude of lay people, simple and aristocratic, rich and poor, who clung to their advice and leadership with the intuition that is typical of the ‘people of God’. The best of Russian bishops understood well that the revival of spiritual life required not administrative orders but experienced spiritual guides and so they supported their activities.47 Metropolitan Gabriel (Petrov) was one of those bishops who helped in the revival of the monastic life in Valaam

43 S. Chetverikov, Starets Paisii Velichkovskii: His Life, Teachings, and Influence on Orthodox Monasticism (Belmont, MA: 1980), pp. 5–6. 44 A. N. Muraviev, Journey to the Holy Places of Russia, Part 4 (St Petersburg, 1863), p. 62. 45 Fr Philaret was a pupil of Elders Basil (Shishkin) and Theodosios of Moldova, who were direct disciples of St Paisy. 46 A. Chesnokov, Glinskaya Desert and Its Elders (Zagorsk: Holy Trinity St Sergius Lavra, 1994), p. 124. 47 Contrary to the Age of the Enlightenment. Life and Works of Reverend Gabriel (Petrov) (Moscow, 2000), p. 201.

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and other monasteries which had been badly damaged by the reforms of Peter the Great and his successors.

The revival of Russian monasticism on Mount Athos If we turn to the history of the Russian monastery on Mount Athos, we can clearly see that its spiritual revival in the nineteenth century was also directly linked to the restoration of personal spiritual guidance. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century (1726) the St Panteleimon monastery accommodated only two Russian and two Bulgarian monks; in the end it was turned officially into a Greek monastery. But after the arrival of Elder Jerome (Solomentsov, 1805–85) and his disciple Abbot Makarios (Sushkin) the number of monks went up very abruptly to 800. Elder Jerome was revered by all the monks on Mount Athos as a wise and loving spiritual adviser. He did not seek this reputation but it was the natural consequence of his ascetic life, spiritual experience, and warm-hearted sympathy for everyone. Again we see that it is due to specific personalities and active personal spiritual guidance that spiritual life flourishes and blossoms forth. As for the holiness of St Silouan, we believe it had been prepared by the labours of Elder Jerome. Here we can quote Fr Sophrony (Sakharov) who stresses the fact that, though Fr Silouan did not become the disciple of any particular elder,48 he profited from the general current of the tradition common to the monastery. Fr Silouan attached a particular importance to internal spiritual obedience both to the abbot and to the appointed spiritual fathers of the cloister, considering it to be a great sacrament and gift of grace.49 48 Either due to the great number of monks at the monastery by the beginning of the twentieth century, or due to the absence of a particular elder who would match St Silouan’s outstanding personality. 49 Archimandrite Sophrony, The Monk of Mount Athos: Staretz Silouan 1866–1938, trans. Rosemary Edwards (Oxford: Mowbrays, 1973), p. 53.

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Archimandrite Sophrony enjoyed the bliss of personal spiritual guidance through a non-ordained but spiritually experienced monk, Silouan. And in spite of the ridicule of more learned monks, he appreciated this personal relationship with a seemingly simple spiritual adviser as a key condition for his own growth in the Spirit. Afterwards Fr Sophrony’s experience and ‘acquaintance with the living ascetic tradition of Mount Athos have prompted a revival of interest in the feat of obedience in contemporary Russian Orthodoxy’.50

Distinctive characteristics of the patterns of Orthodox spiritual guidance We aim to show that the Orthodox tradition of spiritual guidance is not just a set of techniques for passing spiritual experience (whatever it might be) from one human individual to another, not just copying, transition, or induction of a similar mode of inner psychic life, but a manner of awakening the God-given hypostatic element through a very subtle, Spirit-inspired relationship of human persons exercised for the sake of knowledge of God and self-cognition. In order to do this, we have to analyse some different examples of spiritual guidance in order to prove the reality of such specific qualities of human personality as: an inequality of the person to a set of natural phenomena of the human individual; ability of possession of its own bodily and psychic nature and of its energies by the person of an ascetic; catholicity and relativity; freedom of choice; creativity; consciousness; uniqueness; integrity; morality and discernment.

50 Nicholas Sakharov, I Love, Therefore I Am, p. 208.

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Personal relationship and its dynamics in spiritual guidance Metropolitan Kallistos points out that the primary task of a wise and experienced guide consists in establishing between himself and his disciple mutual interpersonal relations.51 The ‘personal dimension’52 is extremely important in the process of spiritual guidance. ‘Eldership consists in maximal individualization of spiritual participation and its minimal generalization.’ 53 At the same time it is important that a man should find his own personal spiritual father, who will help him, possibly throughout his whole life, to aspire consistently to the realization of the purpose of a Christian life which is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. According to Archimandrite Sophrony, ‘without the culture of true Christian obedience a person inevitably will remain a self-enclosed circuit … the opposite of the hypostatic principle of being.’54 And it should be noted that, within the correct personal relationship between the spiritual father and his spiritual child, ‘the Abba grows and changes as well as the disciple.’55 One of the most dramatic examples of a great personal trust in Russian spiritual guidance is probably the story of St Helen (Manturova) of Diveyevo who died by obedience to her spiritual father St Seraphim. St Seraphim just asked her whether she could die instead of her seriously ill brother Michael who had been helping St Seraphim greatly with the affairs of the Diveyevo nunnery. And Helen’s answer was: ‘Yes, as you bless, father.’ Then she grew weak, lost consciousness, and died several days later.

51

N. V. Harrison, ‘Human Uniqueness and Human Unity’, in J. Behr, A. Louth, and D. Conomos (eds), Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), pp. 207–20. 52 G. Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 87. 53 N. O. Lossky, ‘Venerable Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov’, pp. 122–3. 54 Nicholas Sakharov, I Love, Therefore I Am, p. 215. 55 Kallistos Ware, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, p. 146.

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Catholicity and the person’s embracing of other persons St Nilus of Sora, referring to the words of Christ about two or three gathered together in his name (Matthew 18: 20), observes that it is good for a spiritual father and son, assisted by the Holy Spirit, ‘to strive together’. St Nilus even explains the ‘impossibility of constant soaring in the heights of prayerful bliss by the economy (oikonomia) of love’. He speaks of the necessity for the experienced ascetics ‘to care about their brethren and to see to them through the service of words’.56 It can even be argued that Russian spirituality tended somewhat more than the Greek tradition to implementation of the principles of catholicity in spiritual guidance. It was ‘harder’ for the Russian elders to abstain from embracing the new and ever newer personalities that were coming to them. Realizing how great is the mystery of the personal indwelling of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the relations between the spiritual guide and his flock, we should remember that another condition of the catholicity of spiritual guidance is a correct personal orientation on the part of the participants on the human side. The Optina elders emphasized the importance of trust on the part of the inquirers, saying that ‘faith with hope on the part of the inquirers draws upon us the grace of God.’57 The catholic co-presence of the person of the Spirit ‘within’ human relations is not a mechanical phenomenon. The spiritual father is also expected to make a spiritual effort to implement the principle of catholicity. ‘The sophisticated heart’ of the spiritual father and his child ‘becomes susceptible to the subtle voice of God’,58 and their prolonged spiritual dialogue acquires more and more catholic characteristics. The ability of our person to embrace and to incorporate the existence of other persons within its own existence,59 without suppressing them, and,

56 57 58 59

John Kologrivov, Essays on the History of Russian Sanctity, p. 175. Life of Hieroschemamonk Lev (Moscow: Vedenskaya Optina Pustyn, 1994), p. 342. Archimandrite Sophrony, Birth into the Kingdom Which Cannot Be Moved, p. 175. Nicholas Sakharov, I Love, Therefore I Am, p. 216.

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on the contrary, giving them increased freedom of action, constitutes one of the crucial features that distinguish the personal element from the natural one. A good example of the catholicity principle in guidance would be that of St Ambrose of Optina saying to a very ill and poor young woman, who wished to become a nun, but had been brought to him lying on a stretcher: ‘Even rubbish like that – will fit into our flat!’ We have to remember that it was almost impossible for a physically ill and poor woman to become a nun in the post-Peter the Great period. But the elder’s heart could not escape the need to incorporate even such an unfortunate person, although it meant additional burdens upon the nunnery of Shamordino which the elder actually was running financially with the help of his spiritual children.

Irreducibility to the natural element and the element of meta-rationality in spiritual guidance The God of Revelation cannot be ‘taken hold of ’ or ‘grasped’ by any technical means, even if these means themselves are correct in essence. No holy person can give a ‘guarantee’ of success through a specific set of actions and obedience. Correct spiritual institutions may even be at a certain stage an obstacle to spiritual growth. As Fr Sophrony would put it, true obedience is possible only in relation to the personality, not to the rule. And personality can always place us in front of another unexpected face of its uniqueness. Many spiritual things cannot be put in words, but can only be ‘conveyed through a direct personal encounter’,60 yet realized through the communion of personal natural energies. For example, Fr Isidore, an elder of the Gethsemane skete, near to the Radonezh monastery, upon leaving his skete for some purpose without permission of the abbot, having been met by another monk and asked whether he had left by permission or not, answered in a childish way: ‘You’d better keep mum!’ 60 Kallistos Ware, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, p. 146.

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Irreducibility to the natural aspect can also be seen in the fact that, though the purpose of the spiritual path is acquisition of the grace of the Spirit, yet even the grace of priesthood or the ascetic experience of a spiritual father does not become an unconditional guarantee of success in achieving this goal. Only the person who has established a unique hypostatic relation with God is endowed with a full ability to guide other persons in their spiritual growth. Thus in church history ‘confession to the elders was different from the sacrament of confession, since it was based not on the grace of priesthood, but on gifts that were personal and God-given.’61 ‘The history of the Russian Church of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries bears witness to this, when whole companies of devout ascetics, the bearers of great grace, avoided priesthood and monastic tonsure in order to be able freely to give themselves up to their exploits outside the control of the officially established institutions.’62 For example, one of the Diveyevo nuns, St Pelagia, threw back into the face of the bishop the holy prosphora he had given her as a mark of respect. Through this act she taught him that he had taken a wrong decision in the turmoil the nunnery was going through after the repose of St Seraphim. The irreducibility of the personal element to the natural one also accounts for the presence of a certain irrational or meta-rational ‘remainder’ in spiritual guidance. Thus St Ambrose of Optina remarked that, although he had been a cell attendant to his elder Makarios for four years, he was still not able ‘to puzzle him out’,63 i.e. he had failed to solve the mystery of his person. From the Orthodox perspective, despite possible errors on the part of the spiritual father, if his instruction is accepted with faith, paradoxically it adds to goodness. For even if it may inflict a certain ‘technical’ damage on the spiritual child, the latter, not relying on his own thoughts and feelings,

A. A. Tkachenko, ‘Spiritual Father’, Orthodox Encyclopedia (Moscow, 2007), vol. 16, pp. 418–20. 62 Archimandrite Sophrony, On Prayer, p. 114. 63 Ye. Poselyanin, Elder Ambrose. Righteous Man of Our Time (Moscow: Nicea, 2012), p. 85. 61

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perceives the energies ‘proceeding from the heart’, from the innermost being of his guide,64 which is irreducible to the logic of natural thinking.

Freedom in spiritual guidance Personal freedom is both a prerequisite and an ultimate goal of the spiritual path. In its initial state our ‘personality is almost blind and helpless … it does not know how to choose and too often yields to the promptings of nature, which has become a slave to sin.’65 However, even as we embark on our path, God holds in high regard ‘the free inclination of our will to God’.66 St Makarios of Egypt pointed out that the human will is an essential condition of any spiritual progress.67 Obedience, as a seeking of God’s will, is ‘a religious act’, and ‘as such, it must necessarily be free’.68 That is why the best spiritual fathers were said to avoid importunate ‘instructions’, though this did not mean that they gave up their fatherhood or indulged erroneous manifestations of human will.69 Having overcome the conflicts of existence within himself, and having brought the two ‘poles’ of man – the hypostasis and the nature – into

64 Brief Description of the Life and Exploits of Hieroschemamonk Macarius, Elder of Glinskaya Desert (Odessa, 1901), p. 12. 65 V.  N. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), p. 12. 66 Aspiration to Christ. The Spiritual Successor of St John of Kronstadt, Fr. Alexander Ilyin (Moscow, 2001), pp. 161–2, 101. 67 Ἡ οὖν τελεσιουργία τοῦ Πνεύματος ἐν τῷ θελήματι τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ϰεῖται – ‘Since the perfection via the Spirit lies in the will of man’, St Makarios of Egypt, Homily 38, PG 34. 757 A. 68 Archimandrite Sophrony, Principles of Orthodox Asceticism, ed. A. Philippou (Oxford, 1964), p. 495. 69 Nun Silouana, ‘He Saw Christ in Every Man’, in Disciple of Venerable Silouan of Athos (St Petersburg, 2010), pp. 220–8 (p. 226).

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the ‘identity and harmony of eternal life’,70 a true spiritual father helps a Christian to launch out on the path of overcoming ‘the fallen state’ and achieving the restoration of true freedom.71 The elder experiences a personal kenosis in descending to the level of the one who seeks his advice in order to maximize the freedom of this person and at the same time to show him the path of ascent. In his turn, ‘an obedient spiritual child … is granted freedom and peace in God’,72 his soul becomes free from his own selfishness.73 A good example of the decisive importance of personal freedom is that of St Seraphim of Sarov strongly and repeatedly insisting on St Helen (Manturova) not becoming a nun but marrying a husband. St Seraphim was testing her personal intentions as he knew that she had initially decided to go to a nunnery in a moment of great fear and despair which could not result in a free personal decision. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the history of the Church has seen many occasions on which the principle of personal freedom in spiritual guidance has been violated. Thus, for example, in Russia, in the era of Peter the Great, Christians were attached to particular parishes and so prevented from exercising the free choice of a spiritual father.74 And in the pre-Petrine period a Christian who wanted to change his spiritual father ‘was not able to abandon him’ if the latter would not let him go. And no one ‘could help the believer who had the misfortune to choose the wrong or inappropriate spiritual father’.75 Such a ‘legalistic’ approach to the matter of spiritual guidance is directly linked with the rejection of a creative and responsible attitude to the spiritual path. Fr G. Florovsky has warned against this,

70 Archimandrite Sophrony, We Shall See Him as He Is, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Tolleshunt Knights: Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1988), p. 196. 71 Nicholas Sakharov, I Love, Therefore I Am, p. 203. 72 Archimandrite Sophrony, ‘Concerning Obedience’, in Saint Silouan the Athonite, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Tolleshunt Knights: Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1991), pp. 420–2. 73 Nicholas Sakharov, I Love, Therefore I Am, p. 205. 74 A. A. Tkachenko, ‘Spiritual Father’, p. 420. 75 S. I. Smirnov, Ancient Russian Spiritual Father, p. 111.

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seeing in the Fall a desire to submit ‘one’s spiritual life to the physical law of mechanical causality’.76

Creativity and uniqueness in spiritual guidance Since spiritual guidance is aimed at the development of the personal divine image in a human being, it should arouse creative potentialities, which vividly mark out the personal uniqueness of each individual. And consequently personal guidance should be exercised creatively by both participants in the process. A careful analysis of the experience of the Church will reveal quite a wide variety of creative approaches in the efforts of the spiritual fathers to solve different everyday spiritual problems. Some of the approaches of these holy spiritual guides can be called not only totally unexpected in their ingenuity but sometimes even provocative. For example, St John (Kryukov) of the Sviatogorsky Lavra (1795–1867), who started his monastic life in Glinsky monastery,77 having been asked to help a violent man possessed by a demon, brought the man into his cell, closed the doors, and started praying. By the next morning, the monks of the monastery were very worried about Fr John as there was no sign of life in his cell. So they decided to break in and to their amazement they found St John sleeping on the floor next to the man, embracing him with his hand. Upon awakening, the man proved to be absolutely cured. Sometimes spiritual fathers would resort to humour. Thus a monk of the Glinsky monastery, being overcome with grief, went to his spiritual father Arkhip. Having welcomed the depressed monk informally, the elder

76 G. Florovsky, ‘Ingenuity of the Mind’, in Christianity and Civilisation, ed. I. I. Yevlampiev (St Petersburg: Ed. RHGA, 2005), pp. 49–60 (p. 59). 77 He spent eleven years in Glinsky monastery before he was moved by obedience to Sviatogorsky Lavra.

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sat him down to tea and began to recite funeral texts from an epistle of the Apostle Paul. Quite inexplicably, the monk ‘was seized with uncontrollable laughter’ which ‘dispelled all his grief ’, and he ‘was completely comforted’.78 St Ambrose of Optina would often relieve a burdened soul with a funny proverb or a couple of child-like words79 which would even arouse in some Christians doubts about the elder’s holiness.

Humility and morality in spiritual counselling Pride, being an illness of the hypostatic element in man, comprises the core of the spiritual fall80 and only a humble person can ‘heal his fellow brother’.81 A true spiritual father always ‘respects the personality of another man’,82 ‘fearing to hurt his soul, waiting for years for a man to realize his mistakes and shortcomings’.83 The true ascetic aspires to remain in obedience over his whole life despite all his spiritual experience. ‘Antony the Great at the age of 95 would visit Paul of Thebes who was 115’,84 considering himself not worthy of being his pupil. The elders of Optina took advantage of mutual guidance through all their lives. The Russian Athonite Elder Makarios, an elderly abbot of the monastery who had hundreds of monks under his own guidance, ‘bowed like a child who had done something wrong at the feet of his Life of Elder Arkhip the Glinsky Ascetic (Odessa, 1902), p. 50. Ye. Poselyanin, Elder Ambrose. Righteous Man of Our Time, p. 87. Archimandrite Sophrony, On Prayer, p. 101. Our Reverend Father Abba Dorotheus, Edifying Instructions and Epistles with Enclosed Questions and Answers of Barsanuphius the Great and John the Prophet (Zagorsk: Holy Trinity St Sergius Lavra, 2005), pp. 224–5. 82 Nun Silouana, ‘He Saw Christ in Every Man’, p. 221. 83 Abbot Seraphim (Baradel), ‘Disciple and Attendant of the Elder’, in Disciple of Venerable Silouan of Athos (St Petersburg, 2010), pp. 98–104 (pp. 99–100). 84 Anatoly of Optina, Letter of 27 January 1889, in The Life and Teachings of Hieroschemamonk Anatoly (Sertzalov) (Moscow: Ed. Optina, 1994), pp. 211–12.

78 79 80 81

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great spiritual director [Fr Jerome], begging for forgiveness’. Considering Elder Jerome to be his only ‘treasure on earth’, Fr Makarios ‘obeyed Fr Jerome unquestionably and often received reprimands from him’. He was reprimanded even in the presence of strangers and from the ordinary point of view his alleged faults were not only blameworthy, but, on the contrary, were worthy of approval and reward. In Russia the personal relationship of spiritual fathers and their spiritual children had a tendency to bear a ‘moral and family character’.85 Obedience ‘from the first word’86 was expected not by reason of fear, but of humbleness before the person of the spiritual father. With such an approach, even the confession of sins ‘did not break, but consolidated the bond of the moral relations’ between the spiritual father and the penitent child.87 However, it should be noted that the realities of life do not always correspond to the ideal and people who do not understand the meaning of spiritual fatherhood often treat a priest ‘as they would treat God Himself: reject him with a frightening ease, as something indecent, for they are sure that as soon as they have a need for him, they will summon him and he will not refuse to come’.88

Love, integrity, and discernment in spiritual fatherhood Christian spiritual guidance suggests an unceasing growth of personal love both for God and for man. Great spiritual fathers were always burning with a fiery love which attracted people to them ‘as a magnet attracts

85 S. I. Smirnov, Ancient Russian Spiritual Father, p. 111. 86 Agapit (Belovidov), Life of the Reposed Optina Elder Hieroschemamonk Ambrose, 2 parts (Moscow: Ed. the Vedensky Optina Pustyn, 1900), Pt 1, p. 149; Life of Hieroschemamonk Nikon (Moscow: Ed. the Vedensky Optina Pustyn, 1996), p. 325. 87 I. M. Kontsevich, Acquisition of the Holy Spirit in Ancient Russia, p. 38. 88 Archimandrite Sophrony, On Prayer, pp. 105–6.

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iron’.89 It was precisely in the personal character of divine love that they derived the strength and patience needed for the complicated task of the spiritual guidance of Christians. Examples abound. St Daniel of Pereyaslav (d. 1540), ‘as a wise and skilful physician, healed human sinful passions and spiritual wounds with gracious words’, and many addressed themselves to him.90 Another prominent Russian spiritual father said: ‘my heart is full of love to all … I desire to comfort everyone. If it were possible, I would tear myself to pieces for the sake of others.’91 The personal love that exists between the Persons of the Trinity in eternity represents a unifying power through which human persons can be gathered together without their own uniqueness suffering any harm. True elders are such gatherers and ‘living prototypes of the Spirit’s integrity’.92 Their personal prayer acquires ‘cosmic dimensions’,93 embracing the whole world and every man. The integrity and simplicity of their personalities is not thoughtless but takes into account the whole diversity and hierarchy of the states of the human spirit. Such wisdom in love bears the name of discernment. ‘Skill is halfway to holiness’, the Elder Leo of Optina used to say. As a spiritual father discerns the logoi as ‘inner principles’ or ‘purposes of God’ in the spiritual life of his children, he is able to train them not only in such insight but also to prepare their personalities for a rational engagement with the God-given semantic field of logoi. At the same time we must note that the spiritual gift of discernment does not always fit into the framework of natural logic. Being nourished by the personal love of God and of the spiritual man, such discernment exceeds the laws of human rationality.

89 Life and Writings of the Moldovian Elder Paisius Velichkovsky with enclosed introductions to the books St Gregory of Sinai, Philotei of Sinai, Hesychius the Presbyter and Nilus of Sora, composed by his friend and co-faster, the Elder Basil Polyanomerylsky, on sensible abstinence and prayer (Moscow: Ed. Kozelsk Vedensky Optina Pustyn, 1892), pp. 70–1. 90 S. I. Smirnov, Ancient Russian Spiritual Father, pp. 246–7. 91 Anthony (Putilov), Epistles to Various People (Moscow, 1969), pp. 267, 323. 92 N. O. Lossky, ‘Venerable Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov’, p. 122. 93 Archimandrite Sophrony, On Prayer, p. 128.

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Conclusion ‘The grain of the person or hypostasis’ in man is ‘subject to growing and violent threats from the powers of this world’.94 The dynamic and positive development of the human person is almost impossible without the sacraments of the Church and the help of a more spiritually experienced person, which enable the individual to correctly navigate the vast sea of events and phenomena, impressions and words, problems and tasks of our life. The Orthodox Christian tradition has throughout its history, especially on Mount Athos, preserved and developed the principles of spiritual guidance possessing essential personal characteristics which, if properly put into practice, make it possible to foster the personal growth of man along the full length of his earthly existence. The Russian Church has profited greatly from the Athonite tradition of spiritual guidance through outstanding personalities who were able, like wise bees, to collect and implement the nectariferous principles of spiritual guidance in their own lives and in the lives of those who entrusted their souls to them. No wonder that the seventeenth-century Russian book called The Son of the Church, one of the first Russian catechisms, states that if a person dies not having a spiritual father, ‘it would have been better for that man if he had not been born’.95 St Seraphim of Sarov emphasized that ‘there is nothing higher than obedience.’96 However, outside the theology of the human person it is impossible to correctly interpret and implement the principles of the complex process of spiritual guidance and the obedience of one human person to another. 94 S. S. Horuzhy, ‘Athonite Asceticism as a School of the Person and Strategy of Socialization’. Report of the International Conference ‘Athos as a Unique Cultural Heritage of the Contemporary World’, Weimar, 23–6 June 2012, p. 4: http:// synergia-isa.ru/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/hor_talk_veimar2012.pdf, accessed 24.05.2012. 95 Matthew 26: 24. 96 Seraphim (Chichagov) (ed.), Chronicle of the Seraphim Diveyevsky Monastery (Moscow, 2002), p. 324.

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Bibliography Chetverikov, S., Starets Paisii Velichkovskii (Belmont, MA: 1980). Gould, G., The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). Lossky, V.  N., The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976). Sakharov, N. V., I Love, Therefore I Am: The Theological Legacy of Archimandrite Sophrony (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002). Sophrony, Archimandrite, Principles of Orthodox Ascetisism, ed. A. Philippou (Oxford, 1964). ——, The Monk of Mount Athos: Staretz Silouan 1866–1938, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Oxford: Mowbrays, 1973). ——, Wisdom from Mount Athos: The Writings of Staretz Silouan 1866–1938, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Oxford: Mowbrays, 1974). ——, We Shall See Him as He Is, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Tolleshunt Knights: Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1988). ——, St Silouan the Athonite, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Tolleshunt Knights: Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1991). ——, On Prayer, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998). ——, Birth into the Kingdom Which Cannot Be Moved, ed. N. Sakharov (Tolleshunt Knights: Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1999) (in Russian). Ware, Kallistos, ‘The Jesus Prayer in St Gregory of Sinai’, Eastern Churches Review, 4: 1 (1972), 3–22. ——, The Inner Kingdom (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000). ——, ‘How Do We Enter the Heart?’ in J. S. Cutsinger (ed.), Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom/Fons Vitae, 2002).

FATHER MAXIMOS OF SIMONOPETRA MONASTERY, MOUNT ATHOS

Charisma and Institution at an Athonite Cloister: Historical Developments and Future Prospects

It is the general consensus that those who are called to monastic life are not drawn to institutions, but rather to particular individuals in whom they sense the presence of God. In the words of a contemporary Athonite abbot: ‘Monastic life is a life lived with a particular person. It is not the acceptance of an ideology, or the gratification of certain longings; neither is it the application of principles found in a book. Monastic life means: I follow someone. And thus at the centre of monastic life is a particular person, and that person is the elder.’1 In the words of Bishop Kallistos, it is the ‘abba, rather than the abbey’, that draws men to the Mountain.2

1

2

Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Commentary on the Ascetic Discourses of Abba Isaiah (Athens: Indiktos, 2005), p. 2 (in Greek). In subsequent footnotes, the following abbreviations will be used: Arch. = Archimandrite; KL = Katecheseis kai Logoi, 5 vols (Ormylia, 1995–2003); SIAD = Elder Aimilianos, Spiritual Instructions and Discourses, vol 1 (Ormylia, 1999), followed by volume and page number(s). Bishop Kallistos Ware, ‘Wolves and Monks: Life on the Holy Mountain Today’, Sobornost, 5.2 (1983), 64; cf. id., ‘One thing at any rate is beyond dispute: a crucial factor [in the Athonite “reawakening”] has been the presence on the Mountain of elders endowed with gifts of spiritual fatherhood and capable of attracting and guiding disciples’, Foreword to Elder Joseph, Elder Joseph the Hesychast, translated by Elizabeth Theokritoff (Mount Athos: Great and Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi, 1999), p. 18; and Alexander Golitzin: ‘Outstanding elders are certainly the sine qua non of the contemporary Athonite revival’, in id., The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain: Contemporary Voices from Mount Athos (South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1996), p. 18.

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Our assessment of the past, then, and our thoughts about the future, will need to address the phenomenon of charismatic eldership, both as a factor in the revival of life on the Holy Mountain, and as the principal source of its ongoing vitality. The Friends of Mount Athos will know that the recent revival of life on the Holy Mountain was the result of both internal and external factors. We associate the internal source of renewal with Elder Joseph the Hesychast, whose disciples, between 1972 and 1987, repopulated half a dozen monasteries.3 Perhaps less well known are the external sources of revival, comprised of five elders and their disciples, who, between the mid-1960s and 1981, came from various places in Greece and repopulated five monasteries.4 My remarks in this paper will focus on one of these latter figures, namely Elder Aimilianos, abbot of Simonopetra from 1974 to 2000. I begin with a brief biographical sketch, after which my frame of reference will be the extraordinary religious experience that the elder had in the winter of 1961, shortly after his monastic tonsure and ordination to the priesthood. We are fortunate to possess a written account of that event, which we shall 3

4

As follows: (i) Fr Ephraim→Philotheou (1972); (ii) Fr Charalambo→Dionysiou (1980); (iii) Fr Joseph→Vatopedi (1987); (iv) Fr Philotheos→Karakalou (1980); (v) Fr Ephraim (+1984)→Xeropotamou (1980); (vi) Fr Agathon→Konstamonitou (1980). As follows: (i) Arch. Vasileios of Stavronikita (1968; Iviron 1990); (ii) Arch. Aimilianos of Simonopetra (from Meteora, 1973); (iii) Arch. George of Gregoriou (from Evia, 1974); (iv) Arch. Alexios of Xenophontos (from Meteora, 1976); (v) Arch. Gregorios of Docheiariou (from Patmos [Kouvari], 1971). On the renewal of life on the Holy Mountain, see: Makarios of Simonopetra, ‘Iosiph l’Esicasta e il Rinnovamento Contemporaneo della Santa Montagna’, in Atanasio e il Monachesimo del Monte Athos (Bose, 2005), pp. 245–74; George Mantzarides, ‘Joseph the Hesychast and the Revival of Athonite Monasticism’, in id., Travelogue of Theological Anthropology (Mount Athos, 2005), pp. 174–88 (in Greek); Graham Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise, 2nd edn. (Limni: Denise Harvey, 2014); George Sideropoulos, ‘Aging and Renewal of the Athonite Community during the Last Century’, in id., Mount Athos: Studies in Human Geography (Athens: Kastaniotis, 2000), pp. 145–55 (in Greek); and Golitzin, Living Witness, pp. 13–20. For a detailed photographic documentary of the renewal, covering the period from 1972 to 1996, see: Douglas Lyttle, Miracle on the Monastery Mountain (Pittsford, NY, 2002).

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look at rather closely. As we shall see, this was an experience that transformed the elder personally and became the archetype for the innovative vision of monastic life that he put into practice at Simonopetra. In recasting the framework of an Athonite monastery in the fire of mystical experience, the elder skilfully combined the communal, liturgically oriented monasticism of the great Athonite cloisters with the solitary hesychasm of the outlying sketes and cells. The result was a synthesis of personal prayer and corporate adoration that continues to give Simonopetra much of its distinctive character and feel. My paper concludes with some thoughts about the future of this synthesis, the survival of which depends on the choices we make in the present, and thus we will say a word about the elder’s emphasis on the role of freedom in the spiritual life.

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra Elder Aimilianos (Alexandros Vapheides) was born in Piraeus, in October of 1934.5 He took a degree in theology from the University of Athens in 1959, after which he considered ordination to the priesthood, with the intention of becoming a foreign missionary. He took the matter up with an old friend 5

To date, published material concerning the life of the elder is limited, but see the biographical sketch by Hieromonk Serapion, ‘Outlines of a Life’, and the essay by Arch. Elisaios, ‘The Monastic Ladder of Elder Aimilianos’, in Synaxis Eucharistias: A Volume in Honor of Elder Aimilianos (Athens: Indiktos, 2003), pp. 29–38; pp. 17–28 (in Greek); ‘Outlines of a Life’ was reprinted in the magazine Pemptousia, 14 (2004), 107–14, along with sixteen photographs of the elder taken at different stages in his career. See also Arch. Elisaios, ‘The Spiritual Tradition of Simonopetra’, in Mount Athos the Sacred Bridge: The Spirituality of the Holy Mountain, ed. Dimitri Conomos and Graham Speake (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 181–99 (previously published in Sourozh, 90 [2002], 1–14); and, in the same volume, Alexander Golitzin, ‘Topos Theou: The Monastic Elder as Theologian and as Theology: An Appreciation of Arch. Aimilianos’, pp. 201–42. Further information concerning the elder’s life and work as a monastic leader can be gleaned from the pages of Simonopetra: Mount

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of his, Anastasios Yiannoulatos,6 who was supportive, and urged the elder to prepare for such work by spending time in a monastery. Yiannoulatos told him to contact the new Bishop of Trikala, who, he believed, would be able to initiate the young man into monastic life. Thus it was that Alexandros Vapheides was tonsured a monk on 9 December 1960 and given the name Aimilianos. Two days later, he was ordained to the diaconate, and, on 15 August of the following year (1961), he was ordained to the priesthood. After he had spent brief periods of time at various monasteries in the region of Meteora, the bishop finally placed him in the monastery of St Vissarion, in the foothills of the Pindus Mountains. There he seems to have had a kind of spiritual crisis, followed by a profound religious experience, which radically transformed him and left its mark on all his subsequent work. Like the dramatic conversion of St Paul, the elder emerged from that experience a different man, supremely energized, and single-mindedly dedicated to the revitalization of monastic life. In the wake of that momentous event, the elder was appointed abbot of the monastery of the Transfiguration at Meteora, and given additional duties as diocesan preacher and confessor. He was a brilliant, mesmerizing speaker, and soon took the region captive, especially its young people, who flocked to hear him in great numbers. Many of them were attracted to monastic life with the elder, and the first tonsures took place in 1963. Others followed in rapid succession, and the young abbot was soon the head of a large and dynamic community. The growing pressure of tourism, however, made life at Meteora increasingly difficult, and thus in 1973 the elder, along with all of his monks and novices, accepted an invitation from the government of Mount Athos to repopulate the monastery of Simonopetra. The character and meaning of all these events, however, only become clear in light of the elder’s life-changing religious experience. Let us now turn to that decisive moment and consider it in detail.

6

Athos (Athens: Hellenic Industrial Development Bank, 1991); and Ormylia: The Holy Coenobium of the Annunciation (Athens: Indiktos 1992). Currently the Archbishop of Albania.

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To begin, it seems clear that the elder’s sojourn at the monastery of St Vissarion was a time of trial and testing. We can be fairly certain that he felt no great calling to monastic life, which for him was simply a stepping stone to ordination and missionary work. He was a bright, energetic young man with a future, and was not about to spend the rest of his life in a run-down monastery in Thessaly. His monastic colleagues, moreover, offered him little inspiration, and it was not long before he was making plans to continue his studies in Germany. His bishop, however, would not hear of it, and told him that, for the foreseeable future, he was not going anywhere. This was, then, a difficult time, marked by increasing isolation, a sense of loss, and perhaps disillusionment. It was followed, however, by a life-transforming event of enormous magnitude. What exactly happened? The elder’s disciple and successor, Archimandrite Elisaios, tells us the following: At the monastery [of St Vissarion], Fr Aimilianos was granted a revelation of the monastic life, or rather, a profound mystical experience of the light of God, which inundated him at the hour of the Liturgy. Henceforth, his every Divine Liturgy, prepared for by a long vigil, was a sublime experience of God’s glory […]. As a result, he resolutely made up his mind to partake of the ascetic tradition rather than to assume ecclesiastical duties in the world.7

A more detailed description of what happened is provided by the elder himself, in a story he told before a large, public audience in 1983. The story is allegedly about a ‘certain monk he once knew’, although it is in fact an account of the mystical experience that forms the central chapter in the elder’s spiritual biography. As we shall see, it was an event that transformed a twenty-seven-year-old priest-monk into a charismatic elder, and which would dramatically alter the structure and organization of life at Simonopetra.8 7 8

‘Spiritual Tradition of Simonopetra’, p. 189. The ‘Story of a Certain Monk’ has had a slightly complicated history of transmission and publication. It was first told in the context of a talk (‘The Prayer of the Holy Mountain: Yesterday and Today’), given by Elder Aimilianos, on 24 April 1983 in the Metropolis of Drama. The English version of the story, which appears below,

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The ‘Story of a Certain Monk’ Permit me to tell you [runs the story] about a certain monk I once knew. Just as all of us have moments of difficulty, he too was passing through a very critical period of his life. The devil had cast fire into his brain, and wanted to strip him of his monastic dignity, and make him a miserable seeker of alleged truth. His soul roared like breaking waves, and he sought deliverance from his distress. From time to time, he remembered the prayer of the heart, but it resounded only weakly within him, because he had no faith in it. His immediate surroundings were of no help. Everything was negative. His heart was about to break. How wretched man becomes when he is beset by problems! And who among us has not known such terrible days, such dark nights, and agonizing trials? Our monk did not know what to do. Walks did nothing for him. The night stifled him. And one night, gasping for air, he threw open the window of his cell in order to take a deep breath. It was dark – about 3 o’clock in the morning. In his great weariness, he was about to close the window, hoping to get at least a few moments of rest. At that very moment, however, it was as if everything around him – even the darkness outside – had become light! He looked to see where such light might be coming from, but it was coming from nowhere. The darkness, which has no existence of its own, has been translated directly from the original 1983 recording. Note, however, that the ‘Story of a Certain Monk’ was not part of the elder’s 1983 written text, but was delivered ex tempore, and thus it does not appear in the two earliest published versions of the talk, which were based, not on the recording, but on the written text, compare: (i) ‘Le Mont Athos: écrin sacré de la prière de Jésus’, Le Messager Orthodoxe, 95 (1984), 7–18; and (ii) ‘The Prayer of the Holy Mountain’, Hagioreitike Martyria, 3 (1989), 123–32 (in Greek). The English translations of the talk, published in (i) SIAD 1: 301–22; and (ii) Archimandrite Aimilianos, The Church at Prayer: The Mystical Liturgy of the Heart (Athens: Indiktos, 2005), pp. 45–63, are based on the 1995 Greek transcription (= KL 1: 351–76), which, in certain instances, does not accurately represent the 1983 recording. A more accurate translation is available in: ‘La Prière de la Sainte Montagne’, in Le Sceau Véritable, Catécheses et Discours, vol. 1 (Ormylia: Éditions Ormylia, 1998), pp. 309–31.

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had become light, although his heart remained in the dark. And when he turned around, he saw that his cell had also become light!9 He examined the lamp to see if the light was coming from there, but that one, small oil lamp could not become light itself, neither could it make all things light! Although his heart was not yet illumined, he did have a certain hope. Overcome with surprise and moved by this hope, but without being fully aware of what he was doing, he went out into the black courtyard of the monastery, which had often seemed to him like hell. He went out into the silence, into the night. Everything was clear as day. Nothing was hidden in the darkness. Everything was in the light: the wooden beams and the windows, the church, the ground he walked on, the sky, the spring of water which flowed continuously, the crickets, the fireflies, the birds of the night – everything was visible, everything! And the stars came down and the sky lowered itself, and it seemed to him that everything – earth and sky – had become like heaven!10 And everything together was chanting the prayer [i.e. of the heart], everything was saying the prayer.11 And 9

10

11

Compare St Gregory of Nyssa, Funeral Oration on his Brother Basil the Great: ‘One night, there appeared to Basil an outpouring of light, and, by means of divine power, the entire dwelling was illuminated by an immaterial light, having no source in anything material’ (PG 46.809C). The ‘descent of the stars’, and the subsequent union of heaven and earth (resulting in the ‘celestialization’ of the terrestrial), is a kind of hieros gamos, which eliminates the distance between heaven and earth, and embodies definitively what was predestined and pre-existent within God, namely the divine word/name uttered in the prayer of Jesus, to which one may compare the ‘holy city of Jerusalem’ descending to earth ‘out of heaven from God in the splendour of the glory of God’ (Revelation 21: 10). The main ideas in this paragraph bear comparison with Elder Aimilianos’s 1973 remarks on Psalm 18: 1, ‘The Heavens declare the glory of God’ (KL 3: 210–11; 216–17; 224), which deal with the question of divine revelation in and through creation. In what seems an allusion to the courtyard experience, the elder notes that the ‘awesome light, which reveals God as He is – the night which reveals the silent revelation of God – and the mystical “speeches and words” (i.e. the laliai and logoi of Psalm 18: 4) emphasized by Scripture: all of these things fill the world, and you think you’re hearing a single voice which speaks about God.’ In a related passage, the elder associates Psalm 150 (i.e. the lauds of matins) with mystical ascent: ‘I see my mind rising again, even higher, to the summit of a great spiritual mountain, from where I’ll call

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his heart strangely opened and began to dance; it began to beat and take part involuntarily in the same prayer; his feet barely touched the ground. He did not know how he opened the door and entered the church, or when he had vested; he did not know when the other monks arrived, or when the Liturgy began. What exactly happened he did not know. Gone was the ordinary connection of things, and he knew only that he was standing before the altar, before the invisibly present God, celebrating the Liturgy. And striking, as it were, the keys of both his heart and the altar, his voice resounded above, to the altar beyond the heavens.12 The Liturgy continued. The Gospel was read. The light was no longer all around him, but had built its nest within his heart. The Liturgy ended, but the song that had begun in his heart was endless. In his ecstasy, he saw that heaven and earth sing this prayer without ceasing, and that the monk truly lives only when he is animated by it. For this to happen, he needs only to cease living for himself.

12

on all creation, on “everything that has breath” (cf. Psalm 150: 5), to hymn the Lord. With our arms raised aloft, we’ll look around and shout: “Come you plants! Come you birds! Run you rivers! Come you seas! All together, the whole of creation, the whole of nature, praise the Lord!”’ (KL 2: 101–2). On the ‘altar of the heart’, compare St Maximos the Confessor, Mystagogy: ‘The nave is the body, the sanctuary is the soul, and the altar is the intellect (nous)’ (PG 672BC); St Isaac the Syrian: ‘You have made my nature a sanctuary for Your hiddenness and a tabernacle for Your mysteries, a place where You can dwell, and a holy temple for Your divinity’ (trans. S. Brock, The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life [Kalamazoo, MI, 1987], p. 349); St Gregory of Sinai, On Commandments and Doctrines 112: ‘To eat the Lamb of God upon the soul’s noetic altar is not simply to apprehend Him spiritually or to participate in Him; it is also to become an image of the Lamb as He is in the age to come’ (Philokalia, 4: 237; cf. p. 213, no. 7); St Nicholas Cabasilas, On the Life in Christ 5. 9–10: ‘Man is a type and image of the altar … and if he recollects himself and bends in on himself and bows down, that makes God truly dwell in the soul and makes the heart an altar. The ceremonies are signs of these things’ (M.-H. Congourdeau (ed.), Sources chrétiennes 361 [Paris: Cerf, 1990], p. 18; trans. C. J. de Catanzaro [Crestwood, NY, 1974], pp. 151–2).

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Commentary This remarkable narrative provides us with a rare glimpse of how a young monk was transformed into a charismatic elder. Embedded within this same narrative, moreover, is the foundation upon which the elder reconstructed the spiritual tradition of Simonopetra. The story of the monk, therefore, is a document bearing a double significance: on the one hand, it describes what is arguably the central moment in the life of Elder Aimilianos, and, on the other, it contains a kind of diagram for the vision of monastic life he put into practice, first at Meteora, and later on the Holy Mountain. Given its importance, then, it will be worthwhile to spend a few minutes carefully considering its basic features. Perhaps the first thing that strikes us about this story is its biblical character. The progressive unfolding of the monk’s experience closely corresponds to the pattern of divine revelation recorded in the Bible. This pattern, with which our story is deeply marked, is essentially a progression from darkness to light, followed by the revelation of God’s word. The darkness with which our story begins is both physical and spiritual. In it we see a solitary figure descending into the dark night of divine abandonment. This is therefore a kind of passion narrative, a crucifixion scene, during which the sun is blotted out, and we are enfolded in a thick, impenetrable darkness, such as that which settled on Sinai as a prelude to the establishment of God’s covenant with Moses. In the story of the monk, the darkness is suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a divine, unearthly light. In the language of the Bible, this light is the divine ‘glory’ (kavod, doxa), which typically manifests itself prior to the revelation of God’s word. And this is what we see once again in the Sinai theophany, and in the visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, namely: a progression from the vision of glory to the hearing of the word. This same pattern continues in the New Testament, pre-eminently in the Transfiguration of Christ, where the vision of the divine light precedes the sound of the voice of the Father (cf. Mark 9: 2–7; Matthew 17: 1–9; Luke 9: 28–36). And again in the conversion of Paul, which begins with a blinding

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light flashing from heaven, after which Paul hears a voice (Acts 9: 3–4). Our story’s narrative structure, then, which will continue to occupy us, is a movement from primal darkness to the light of revelation, measured in the distinctive cadences of sacred scripture. The second thing that strikes us about this story is its deeply ecclesial character, which brings us to the question of charisma and institution. The movement from darkness to light does not terminate in the revelation of the word, but rather culminates in the communal celebration of the Divine Liturgy. The monk’s experience, therefore, should not be construed as an instance of ‘private mysticism’, set in motion by a psychological struggle resolved by the stars in a mystical union with nature. Like the conversion of Paul, what our monk undergoes is not simply an event in the life of a particular individual, but is rather an ecclesial event with far-reaching implications. The subject who receives God’s revelation is always, and can only be, the Church in its fullness. God’s glory may be revealed to a particular individual, but always for the sake of the larger community: ‘for if one member is glorified (doxazetai), all the members rejoice with it’ (1 Corinthians 12: 26). That the narrative begins in the privacy of a monastic cell, of course, can hardly be denied. Such cells have long been understood as a symbolic projection of the monk’s body.13 Thus the monk’s departure from his cell 13

See St John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent 27: ‘Strange as it may seem, the hesychast is a man who fights to keep his incorporeal self shut up in the house of the body … The cell of a hesychast is the body that surrounds him, and within him is the dwelling place of knowledge’ (PG 88. 1097CD). See also the response of St Silouan of Athos, when asked why he did not relocate to a cave, in order to avoid the trouble and noise created by visitors to the monastery: ‘I do live in a cave: my body is the cave of my soul, and my soul is a cave of the Holy Spirit’ (cited in the Athonite periodical: Hosios Gregorios, 30 [2005], 24). Following Elaine Scarry, the cell/body analogy can be extended to include the furnishings of the cell, which are themselves ‘forwardings’ or ‘projections’ of the self outward: ‘The simple triad of floor, stool, and mat, for example, makes spatially and therefore steadily visible the collection of postures and positions the body moves in and out of, objectifies the three locations within the body that most frequently hold the body’s weight, objectifies its need continually to shift within itself the locus of its weight, objectifies, finally,

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represents the burgeoning ecstasy of his mind; it marks a going outside of himself. (Much in the same way that the figure of Abraham, sitting outside his tent, was interpreted by the Church Fathers as an image of the mind in a state of ecstasy, awaiting the manifestation of God as Trinity.) Entering into the space of the courtyard, the monk sees the night overtaken by a light brighter than day. He beholds, as we said, the glory of God, the glorious majesty, which St Paul said is visible in creation as a whole, for those who do not darken their heart by turning away from the truth (Romans 1: 19–23; cf. Wisdom 13: 5). Precisely at this very moment, however, the divine light flooding the courtyard becomes newly manifest to him, and at a much deeper level. Vision yields to hearing, and the monk listens in amazement, for he hears all of creation praising the divine name, singing the words of the Jesus Prayer. The glorious light of God, which lately dispelled the monk’s darkness, is now revealed to be Jesus Christ himself, the ‘light of the world’ ( John 8: 12). In response to this revelation, the monk’s heart opens, and joins in the chanting of the prayer. The saving name of Jesus Christ, the name that is ‘above all names’ (cf. Philippians 2: 9), now comes to dwell deep within the centre of the monk’s being. He has received the gift of the prayer of the heart. But even this is not the end of the story. As the monk’s progression from his cell to the monastery church suggests, the revelation of the prayer of the heart is an event that does not stand on its own but is connected to the Liturgy. The gift of the Jesus Prayer functions, not as an end in itself, but rather as a prelude, an overture, a rite of passage to the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. The courtyard event, in other words, functions as a kind of matins service, in which creation literally responds to the call of the Psalmist: ‘Praise Him all you stars and the light – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord’ (Psalm 148: 3; Psalm 150: 5, i.e. the lauds, read or chanted at every matins service).

its need to become wholly forgetful of its weight, to move weightlessly to a larger mindfulness’, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 39.

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This liturgical interpretation of the courtyard event finds support in a series of comments the elder made in 1975 regarding the daily celebration of the matins service (orthros). The meaning of that service, he believed, was summed up in the words of its initial, psalmic hymn: The first part of the matins service is strongly marked by the expectation to see God in the darkness. And this is the case until the moment when the words of that beautiful hymn break forth: ‘The Lord is God and has appeared unto us’ (cf. Psalm 117: 27). We must love this hymn, and intensely experience it when we hear it chanted, but within our hearts, because this is the meaning of matins: the vision in light of the God who can be seen.14

In this passage, the inner meaning of the matins service becomes clear in light of the vision of God. Here, instead of undermining or invalidating the rituals of the Church, mystical experience confirms and authenticates them. If we think of the charismatic individual as an anti-institutional radical or revolutionary, we are forgetting that, more often than not, his radicalism is balanced by an equally strong conservatism. In and through his religious experiences, the mystic rediscovers the inner meaning of the sources of traditional authority. In seeking to understand and convey the content of his experience, the mystic finds his way back to language, to devotion, and to liturgy, which is also the way to community. It was thus one of Elder Aimilianos’s most deeply held convictions that mystical experience and liturgy are dynamically related. The liturgy of the Church always implies and includes the living liturgy of the individual’s existence, and thus there can be no ultimate separation of charisma from institution, of spirituality from organized religion, or of private from corporate forms of prayer. In the elder’s own words: ‘It is pointless for me to go to church if I am not continuously at prayer. And it is pointless for me to pray if I have no part in the liturgy and the sacraments … There is no church without prayer and no prayer without church.’ Indeed, prayer and

14

‘Preparation for Worship’ (a spiritual talk given to the priest-monks of Simonopetra, 5 January 1975) (= KL 4. 116).

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liturgy are not simply interdependent, but like ‘faith’ and ‘works’, neither can be said to exist in separation from the other.15 This principle is closely related to the elder’s remarks on the meaning of the daily matins service. There, as we saw, the experience of God in prayer was directly related to liturgy, because liturgy in various ways represents that experience, and in a certain sense is that experience. Liturgy and worship grow directly out of the experience of revelation, because the revelation of God’s glory is always necessarily answered by the glorification of God. As in the eucharist, God’s gift to man, and man’s return of that gift to God, become inseparable.

The elder’s synthesis As we have seen, the mystical experience described in our narrative unfolds as a progression from the cell to the Liturgy. And it was that experience, that progression, elevated to the level of a structural principle, which became the basis for the elder’s renovation of monastic life. In general terms, each monk was now to spend several hours in his cell, devoting himself to the practice of the Jesus Prayer, in preparation for the sacramental encounter with God in the Liturgy. Here, however, the elder had a problem. On the Holy Mountain the great monasteries were not designed to support a life of hesychastic contemplation. For one thing, they were too noisy; there was too much activity, and never enough time: long services, visitors, and various chores consumed most of the day, and often there was barely time left over for a few hours

15

‘Catechism on Prayer’ (given at Simonopetra, on 4 February 1974, shortly before the beginning of Great Lent) (= KL 1. 227, 230; SIAD 1. 196, 198; and The Church at Prayer, pp. 9, 44).

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of rest. Those who wanted to devote themselves to inner prayer normally went off into the Athonite wilderness, either alone, or in the company of one or two like-minded colleagues. The elder, therefore, was faced with the challenge of introducing the intoxicating wine of mystical prayer into the sobering wine-skins of a large cenobitic monastery. The wine was precious, and not a drop of it could be lost, but neither could the skins be broken. In order, then, for both to remain intact, the elder introduced a series of subtle yet significant alterations to the daily programme. The focal points of that reorganization were, in the first place, the monk’s nightly rule of prayer, and, second, the daily, communal celebration of the Divine Liturgy. To begin with, the monk’s rule of prayer was expanded into a lengthy vigil of four to six hours in duration. This had always been the practice among solitaries and small groups of hesychasts, but never in the great monasteries, where the rule of prayer was often limited to rising an hour or so before the morning service, and performing a limited number of bows and Jesus Prayers. Now, however, the bulk of the night was to be spent in prayer and devotional reading. Special attention was given to the spiritual study of the Old and New Testaments. To this could be added: meditation on the hymns from the coming day’s services; the reading of saints’ lives; and the writings of the Church Fathers. The monks also had to perform a large number of ritual bows, often running into the many hundreds, although the exact figure depended on one’s age, health, and the kind of work load that one carried during the day. The main emphasis of course was on the Jesus Prayer, and here, too, the number of recitations varied from monk to monk. Consonant with the principle of progression from the cell to the church, the labour of the nightly vigil was undertaken in preparation for the Divine Liturgy, which was now understood to be the exalted locus of divine revelation. Consistent with this belief, the elder developed a liturgical culture in which worship was a vibrant, dynamic, and joyful experience. Among other things, he liberated church services from various accretions that had added to their length and obscured their primary meaning. For example, readings from the Evergetinos, or the Gerontikon, were removed from the matins service, and assigned to be read by each

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monk in his cell.16 The matins was further streamlined by chanting only a portion of the canon (i.e. the 1st, 3rd, and 9th odes), the remainder being read by the reader. Supplicatory canons to the Virgin were removed from the liturgy and the end of vespers, and chanted on alternate weekdays before the morning meal. The Divine Liturgy itself became a grand affair, chanted every day in the main church by two full choirs, with the entire community present, making every day a kind of feast day. It had been a long time since Mount Athos had seen anything like this. In allowing his mystical experience to be the leaven that transformed an Athonite cloister, the elder’s aim was always the same: to create conditions whereby his monks can have their own experiences of God. And if mystical experience had led the elder to the liturgy, it was now the liturgy that was leading others to mystical experience, understood as a sacramental encounter with Christ. The basic principle was, and remains, clear: ‘the time of liturgy is the time of revelation, in proportion to one’s preparation in the cell.’17 At Simonopetra, the programme established by Elder Aimilianos enables one to learn by experience that the prayer of the heart and the liturgy of the church are located on a single continuum. And this is because the elder’s experience itself was marked by a force that pulled him into the centre of established, public worship, in a manner that took nothing away from contemplation and silent prayer, but which rather showed how they are two aspects of a higher synthesis. Finally, it is interesting to note that the disciples of the Elder Joseph, in moving from their small brotherhoods into large monasteries, also adapted, in their own way, the spirit of hesychasm to the institutional framework of an Athonite cloister. Thus, both the internal and external sources of the Athonite revival had very much the same spiritual aims and faced the same organizational challenges. In 1995 Elder Aimilianos began to suffer from an increasingly debilitating illness, and in the year 2000 he was succeeded as abbot by his disciple,

16 The Evergetinos and the Gerontikon are multi-volume anthologies of instructive and edifying monastic sayings and stories. 17 Arch. Elisaios, from the prologue to KL 4. xiii.

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Archimandrite Elisaios. The elder currently resides at the convent he founded in Ormylia.

Conclusion As we saw at the outset of this paper, there is a general consensus that the renewal of life on the Holy Mountain would not have taken place without the decisive role played by charismatic elders. With the passage of time, however, most of those inspiring figures have left the stage, and we may therefore wonder what the future will be like without them. Simply put, can life go on now that the abba has left the abbey? To this question my answer is both ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ Let us begin with the latter. Some historians believe that monasteries rise and fall on something like a 100-year cycle, from the time of their establishment by a charismatic founder, through a period of initial growth, followed by steady decline. On these terms, the Athonite revival has already reached its peak, and is currently on a kind of plateau, if indeed it has not already begun the inexorable process of decline. Gone (we often hear it said) are all the great pioneers and founding fathers; gone are the enlightened teachers and the visionary leaders. We are now living in the age of their successors. The drama, it seems, has reached its denouement. Shakespeare scholar Marjorie Garber says that, at the end of most of Shakespeare’s tragedies, the audience is left with mixed emotions.18 The great tragic heroes, with their experiences, excesses, their eloquence, passion, and magnificent suffering, are all replaced by figures of lesser emotional scope, though often of far greater practical and political acumen. And thus there remains a sense in which the restoration of the political world brought about by the successors cannot fully compensate for the disappearance of those great figures from the stage. Who, after all, wants Malcolm after Macbeth? 18

Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All (Random House, New York, 2004), p. 110.

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Or who can be satisfied with Octavius after Antony and Cleopatra? Or with the likes of Edgar after King Lear? Mixed emotions, then, along with a diminished sense of life, seem to be the best that humanism can do when faced with the loss of a gifted leader or teacher. In his farewell to Virgil, Dante can only shed tears (Purgatory 30. 49–54). This latter episode suggests that, outside the body of the Church, charismatic authority is a transitory phenomenon, a fleeting experience, against whose traumatic loss there is no antidote. But when we reframe the question from a point of view within the ecclesial community, we encounter a rather different experience of charisma and its transmission across time. To be sure, this community also knows the sorrow of loss, such as that which surrounded the departure of the prophet Elijah.19 But Elijah bestows upon his disciple and successor (whose name in Greek is ‘Elisaios’) something that Virgil could never give Dante, namely: a double portion of his prophetic charisma (4 Kings 2: 1–14).20 This amplification of charismatic authority, from the first generation to the second, would seem to suggest that religious communities do not simply survive the loss of their charismatic founders, but may equally go on to thrive and increase without them. And though inevitably subject to change, they will nevertheless manage to continue the work of their founders. And thus there continue to be Christian communities in Corinth and Thessaloniki, nearly 2,000 years after the death of the Apostle Paul. If charismatic elders were self-appointed figures promoting personal agendas and idiosyncratic views of the world, we would not expect their work to survive long after their deaths. But like prophets and apostles, such elders are called by God, who invests them with a particular mission, and gives them the means to carry it out. Here the connection of mysticism See also St John Climacus, Ladder, Step 4 (On Obedience): ‘False children are glad when the teacher is away, but the genuine think it a loss’ (PG 88. 705D). 20 ‘As they were crossing over, Elijah said to Elisaios, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken away from you.” And Elisaios said: “I pray you, let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” And Elijah said: “You have asked a hard thing; nevertheless, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if you do not see me, it shall not be so”’ (2 [LXX 4] Kings 2: 9–10). 19

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and conservatism that we mentioned earlier comes to the fore. The reception of charismatic gifts is not a threat to institutional religion, but rather an event that is constitutive of community and the source of much of its ongoing vitality. The presence or absence of charismatic figures in any given historical period is probably best ascribed to the mysterious workings of providence, the magnitude of which is ultimately beyond our comprehension. Seemingly out of nowhere, and contrary to all expectation, such figures appeared on the Holy Mountain, where they guided the monasteries through what was perhaps the greatest crisis in the Mountain’s thousand-year history, namely: a critical confrontation with, and response to, the challenge of modernity. And they met this challenge largely by embodying the form of the Gospel that was appropriate, and indeed necessary, to the conditions and circumstances of that particular time and place. In so doing, they served as bridges between the old Athos and the new, between the Mountain’s past and its future, and it is principally because of them that today there continue to be large numbers of young people on the Holy Mountain. Among those God-given elders was Elder Aimilianos, whose aim was not to ‘seek his own’ (cf. 1 Corinthians 13: 5), but on the contrary to ‘cease living for himself ’. Like a Socratic midwife, the elder’s aim was not simply to inspire, entrance, and intrigue, but to help bring his disciples to spiritual birth in Christ, to espouse them to Christ. In the same way that a doctor is not the source of health, but can assist in the recovery and maintenance of health, so too the elder was not himself the source of spiritual birth or betrothal, but rather assisted in relocating others within their relationship to God. He wanted his disciples to have their own experiences of God, and for that he knew they needed to be free. In the words of Archimandrite Elisaios: ‘The elder never used his word to impose upon his disciples stereotypes of the monastic life, or force them to imitate his own manner of approaching God. But in a spirit of exceptional freedom and breadth of mind, he offered them a spiritual education.’21

21

‘Spiritual Tradition of Simonopetra’, p. 195.

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In terms of his educational strategy, the elder’s emphasis on freedom led him, in the first place, to discourage any kind of psychological dependence on his person. On this he was uncompromising. Those who sought to drag him into the arena of their fallen emotional life, or manipulate him by means of their anxious, self-centred dilemmas, were normally told to ‘do whatever they wanted’. He also spoke frequently of his departure, and challenged his disciples to live their lives as if he were already gone, because tomorrow, he told them, he would be.22 To teach is to liberate: to school the disciples for departure. And a valid master should, at the close of the story, be alone. And this is why he would often say that the best thing a spiritual father can do for his disciples is to fail them, so that they may be free to turn directly to God, and place their trust entirely in Him. This was pedagogy for the future. And that this pedagogy was successful became increasingly apparent during the extended interval between the elder’s departure from the monastery in 1995 and the election of a new abbot in 2000. As one can easily imagine, periods of administrative transition, along with the vacuum of power created by the departure of a strong leader, are normally times of tension, divisiveness, and political factionalism. Thus the succession of an abbot is often a time when members leave a community, or when the community ceases to function entirely.23 At Simonopetra, however, events unfolded differently, and the transition took place with relatively few problems and no attrition in membership, even though, as I said, the process took more than half a decade. To many observers, the exemplary behaviour of the disciples was a sign that their teacher was indeed a holy man. Since then, Elder Aimilianos’s vision has continued to flourish under the leadership of his disciple, Archimandrite Elisaios, who, like his biblical 22 Compare St George of Maleon, who predicted his death three years in advance, and prepared his disciples to ‘live without the visible presence of their spiritual father’, cited in Hieromonk Makarios, The Synaxarion, vol. 4 (Ormylia, 2003), p. 323 (4 April). 23 One thinks, for example, of the crisis in community life that followed the death of St Pachomios, on which, see the Life of St Pachomios, in Pachomian Koinonia, vol. 1 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980), pp. 188–97.

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namesake, Elisha, has inherited the mantle of his teacher along with his charismatic authority (cf. 4 Kings 2: 1–14). Whether or not such happy reports will continue through the third and fourth degree of succession is of course another question. But let us not forget that ‘here we have no lasting city’ (Hebrews 13: 14), and we should not seek from the future what eternity alone can give. Freedom, then, is at the centre of the elder’s spiritual pedagogy, and thus we are not surprised to find it at the heart of his synthesis of hesychasm and cenobitic monasticism. Life in a monastery is obviously a life lived in common with others: in that sense it represents the gathering (synaxis) of the Church. But with respect to the monk’s nightly vigil, the elder did not impose a single, uniform rule indiscriminately on all the monks. Instead, the form of the nightly programme was, and continues to be, determined by the needs and abilities of each monk. In his recommendations to the Church of Greece for the renewal of monastic life, the elder maintained that the ‘daily programme should not be a steamroller, expunging people’s characters and quashing their personalities … the person should not be stifled, the personality should be cultivated, the individual understood.’24 The elder’s union of hesychastic prayer with a dynamic, experiential approach to liturgy, is a form of monastic life that surely points in the direction of the Mountain’s future. At Simonopetra the elder’s vision continues to speak directly to young people, who come from all over the world, interested in monastic life. Most of them are seeking to cultivate the inner prayer of the heart in the context of a supportive, worshipping community. In more general terms, the elder’s balance between freedom and community may likewise be the chord that will continue to resonate among future generations, not only on the Holy Mountain, but across Europe and North America, where we live with increasingly unrestrained freedom, and a growing lack of community. We long for community, for a sense of home, of intimate belonging, but we recoil from the slightest suggestion 24 ‘Means of Renewing and Reviving the Monastic Ideal’ (Athens, 23–4 October 1970) (= KL 1. 51; SIAD 1. 37); ‘On the Preparation of an Internal Regulation for the Monasteries of the Church of Greece’ (Athens, 7 February 1973) (ibid., 98/77).

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that our freedoms may somehow be compromised or curtailed. We crave intense, self-affirming experiences, but we want them unencumbered by ethics. Thus we are not likely to be attracted to, and indeed may be repelled by, a religious tradition governed by a seemingly oppressive system of rules established in the Middle Ages. At a practical level, most of us will not be able to assume the degree of bodily discipline and self-denial required, not by Orthodox monasticism, but by the radical message of the Gospel. In order for that to happen, the elder knew that we need first to experience the glory of God and his holiness; to undergo, like the monk in the story, a kind of conversion; a revelation that shakes up our whole person, after which all things become possible. Now I can work, now I can pray, now I can renounce myself and offer my life in sacrifice, because that is how I respond to the revelation of God’s glory, his holiness, and his love. Love makes it possible to forget about ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves; it stops, for a moment, the torrent of our selfhood. It leads us out into the night, into the stillness, and into the light; it opens our hearts as we walk across the courtyard, and with songs of joy it ushers us into the mystery of its spiritual banquet.

Bibliography Christoforou, Basileios, Spiritual Fatherhood according to Saint Symeon the New Theologian (Thessaloniki: Pournaraa, 1977) (in Greek). Gabriel of Dionysiou, Abbot, A Guide for Spiritual Fathers and Confessors (Athens: Publications of the Orthodox Typos, 1990) (in Greek). George of Gregoriou, Abbot, Pastoral Care according to the Holy Canons (Piraeus: Athos, 1976) (in Greek). Golitzin, Alexander, ‘The Body of Christ: Saint Symeon the New Theologian on Spiritual Life and the Hierarchical Church’, Scrinium, 3 (2007), 106–27. Gould, Graham, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). Hausherr, Irénée, Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East, trans. A. Gythiel (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990).

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Kodseie, Basil, ‘The Spiritual Father according to the Philokalia’, PhD dissertation (University of Thessaloniki, 2008) (in Greek). Maximos (Constas), Fr, Introduction, in Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simono­ petra, The Way of the Spirit: Reflections on Life in God (Athens: Indiktos, 2009), pp. xi–xxi. Maximos (Constas), Fr, and the St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, ‘Transfigured in the Night: Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra’, Orthodox Word, 50: 3 (2014), 105–50. Nikodemos, St, Exomologitarion: A Manual of Confession, trans. George Dokos (Thessaloniki: Uncut Mountain Press, 2006). Rieff, Philip, Charisma: The Gift of Grace and How It Has Been Taken Away from Us (New York: Pantheon, 2007). Silber, Ilana Friedrich, Virtuosity, Charisma, and Social Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Speake, Graham, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise, 2nd edn. (Limni: Denise Harvey, 2014). Stewart, Columba, ‘Evagrius Ponticus on Monastic Pedagogy’, in Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West. Festschrift for Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, ed. John Behr, Andrew Louth, and Dimitri Conomos (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), pp. 241–71. Turner, H. J. M., St Symeon the New Theologian and Spiritual Fatherhood (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990). Ware, Kallistos. ‘The Spiritual Father in St John Climacus and St Symeon the New Theologian’, Studia Patristica, 18 (1989), 299–316. ——, ‘The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity’, in id., The Inner Kingdom (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000), pp. 127–51. Weber, Max, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, 2 vols (with continuous pagination), ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 241–5; 1111–81.

FATHER LIVIU BARBU

Spiritual Fatherhood in the World: A Practical Approach

‘And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.’ — 1 John 5: 14 ‘Obedience responds to obedience. When someone obeys God, then God obeys his request.’ — Abba Mios, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

In Orthodox monasteries and churches throughout the world the ministry of spiritual fatherhood or paternity is highly regarded and most necessary in the guidance of the faithful into a life of holiness. The title ‘spiritual father’ is above any other office or ministry held in the Church (1 Corinthians 4: 15). The word of a spiritual father is a spring of ‘living water’ ( John 7: 38) which effects the birth ‘from above’ ( John 3: 3), a ‘second baptism’ through which the disciple experiences the conscious receipt of the Holy Spirit. Through spiritual fatherhood, God’s love is ‘worked out’ in the world. The spiritual father is to radiate God’s love and goodness and to share people’s burdens, ‘enlarging’ his heart so as to contain both the joys and the sorrows of his disciples.1 By taking in the pains and sorrows of many, the 1

He is linked to his spiritual children in such a manner that he would not wish to be saved without them. Like Moses (Exodus 32: 32), Abba Barsanuphios of Gaza (d. c. AD 540) prayed thus: ‘[O Lord] either lead my spiritual son … into eternal life with me, or else wipe me also from your book’ (C 790, in Barsanuphios and John, Letters, vol. 2 [The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, Patristic Series,

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spiritual father experiences Christ-like universality.2 As such, he is an icon of the Good Shepherd, a true disciple of our only Father in heaven, able to draw into God’s fatherhood those who are reborn spiritually as God’s sons and daughters. The centre ground of the Christian Scriptures is the revelation, by Jesus Christ, of the Father to the world. Our adoption as sons and daughters of God, in Christ, the first-born amongst us, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, is the basis of our baptism. The fulfilment of this relationship, between God and His people, is the task of spiritual fatherhood in the Church. This ministry of spiritual fatherhood is thus never divorced from the source of life and grace, the Church, from its head, Jesus Christ, in whom we are adopted by the Father, through the Holy Spirit, who quickens our new-born status and through whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father’ (Romans 8: 15). Through the practices of spiritual direction and formation, which are the focus of spiritual fatherhood, God’s people are formed and reformed on the path of spiritual maturity, from the time Christ is born in them (Galatians 4: 19) until they attain the measure of his full stature (Ephesians 4: 13). This is a continuous, never-ending process of growth and fall, aiming towards God’s fatherly open hands. In the process of spiritual formation, the Son and the Holy Spirit guide us in navigating through the earthly life towards the heavenly one. Those who participate, whether as spiritual fathers or as spiritual sons, are worthy of the heavenly calling to unite as one under God’s all-encompassing fatherhood (Ephesians 4: 6). Christian initiation into and sharing of God’s fatherhood imply the ability to translate God’s love and care into the life of the Church and of each Christian. This is the test of genuine spiritual direction and formation and, no wonder,

2

vol. 114; trans. J. Chryssavgis; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006], p. 292). The late Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov speaks of this primarily as the mystical experience of those who pray for the whole world. Prayer for the whole world is for Fr Sophrony the realization of the human hypostatic principle and ‘the ultimate goal of the ascetic life’ (Nicholas Sakharov, I Love Therefore I Am: The Theological Legacy of Archimandrite Sophrony [Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002], p. 216).

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these practices have been called, for the ‘skills’ required, the ‘art of arts’ and the ‘science of sciences’.3 Since most of the literature on the subject is of monastic origin, my aim is to show that spiritual fatherhood is open to all, whether in a monastery or in the world, single or married, man or woman, child or adult. The roots of this ministry of love and care were firmly established in firstcentury Christianity. Referring to this aspect, the late Catholic scholar Irénée Hausherr asserts that ‘… the first generation of Christians lived in amazement at God’s love for man. And their faith in this love is summarized especially in the name “Father”, which is the proper title of the God of Jesus Christ. […] It was not only the first object of their faith chronologically; ontologically and logically, it was the fountainhead of all things for them.’4 Jesus Christ’s relationship with the apostles is the prototype of any father–son/daughter relationship in the Church, and Christ himself is our spiritual father par excellence. The spiritual father–son/daughter relationship has been embodied in the history of the Church in various forms. This spiritual bond is used by St Paul to great pastoral effect in order to signify the close personal relationship between him and his converts: ‘For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel’ (1 Corinthians 4: 15). St Paul’s claim to fatherhood to his converts is supported by his equally proportionate love and care for them.5 Like St Paul, St Ignatius of Antioch, and other outstanding examples of Church leaders, all share in the one and the same tradition of spiritual paternity. In the early Church the bishop is considered the spiritual father par excellence since he teaches Christians about their Father in heaven, he baptizes and thus raises God’s new children, he forgives them, in virtue of his apostolic commissioning, when they err, and, above all, he nourishes

3 4 5

Gregory of Nazianzus, De fuga 2. 16 (PG 35. 425A); Gregory the Great, Regula pastoralis 1. 1 (PL 77. 14). Irénée Hausherr, Spiritual Direction in the Early Christian East (Cistercian Studies 116; trans. A. P. Gythiel; Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990), p. 16. e.g. Acts 20: 31; 1 Thessalonians 2: 7–12.

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them with the Eucharist.6 This sacramental aspect is complemented by the tender love and care the bishop is to show to all and each of his people as vividly depicted in the letters of St Ignatius of Antioch.7 This approach demonstrates that spiritual fatherhood is the proper medium in which the penitential discipline of the Church could be exercised wisely and compassionately, allowing into play the very ‘human’ face of God.8 The practice of spiritual fatherhood is significantly enhanced in early monasticism, taking on new expressions that made it famous in the centuries to follow. We now have a distinct monastic approach, which nonetheless in essence is not different from the one in the mainstream Church as the concept and practice of spiritual fatherhood have existed from the very beginning of Christianity. In monasticism the importance of spiritual fatherhood grows to a new level. The spiritual father becomes a towering figure, a Spirit-bearer, a prophet who knows the mind of God and the hearts of people. This is the type of spiritual father that we are most accustomed to nowadays. The fame of the monastic heroes spread far beyond their monasteries. The lay Christians’ encounter with monastic spirituality aided the inculturation of monastic ideals into the Church at large as Christians learnt a great deal about spiritual fatherhood directly from the masters of it. There was a two-way traffic: from the desert into the mainstream Church, through the promotion of the monastic heroes’ ways of life as well as by calling them to serve the Church as bishops, and in the other direction

Didascalia apostolorum 2. 7; Constitutiones apostolorum 2. See also Liviu Barbu, ‘The Bishop as Spiritual Father in Early Christian Writings and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition of Spiritual Fatherhood’, Studia Patristica, 52 (2012), 27–33. 7 Ignatius, Polycarp 1. 3 (SC 10. 170. 3). 8 This ‘therapeutic’ approach is a recurrent theme in documents of later date (e.g. Constitutiones apostolorum 2, can. 102 of the Quinisext Council, AD 692). See also Robert Barringer, ‘Ecclesiastical Penance in the Church of Constantinople: A Study of the Hagiographical Evidence to AD 983’ (DPhil thesis, Oxford University, 1979), p. 33. 6

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too, from the Church into the desert as monasticism was never divorced from the life of the Church.9 Soon after the passing of the first generation of monastics, the majority of whom were not ordained to the priesthood, sacramental priesthood becomes a necessity in the desert. It has been argued that this was brought in following a decline in the authority of the non-ordained charismatic spiritual father, which was then backed up by ordination to the priesthood.10 I do not however see this development as a negative influence on monasticism. Given its rapid expansion, there was a great need for an internal organization of monasticism which called for an increased number of monastics to serve their communities as deacons and priests. Charismatic leadership, however, still remains the most treasured virtue in the spirituality of the desert, holiness of life being the first and foremost criterion that qualifies someone as an abba to stand in the tradition of the first fathers of monasticism. An important factor in the welding together of monastic and lay pastoral practices is the confession of thoughts (logismoi), a monastic practice at origin, which becomes widespread among laity in subsequent centuries.11 Thus the penitential practice of the early Church, mainly based on a basic confession of sins, becomes more detailed under monastic influence, though the Christian East never fell prey to the legalistic casuistry of the medieval Western penitentials. In a previous paper Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia put forward some interesting insights about how spiritual fatherhood may have been influenced by the expansion of Christianity and the early Christian practice

9

Critics may see the relationship between the Church and monasticism in a different light, coloured by political manoeuvrings (e.g. David Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995]). Despite the fact that this relationship was, at times, tense, there was no doctrinal, liturgical, or any other type of separation between monasticism and the Church. 10 See Philip Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 56–67, 189–93. 11 See Barringer, ‘Ecclesiastical Penance’, pp. 110, 115.

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of confession of sins.12 Metropolitan Kallistos considers that the exercise of spiritual direction in the Christian East, in the sense we perceive it today (as a one-to-one mentoring relationship), was possibly influenced by a change in the practice of confession of sins in the mainstream Church. According to him, in the third or fourth century, confession became mainly private and therefore it acquired a counselling dimension. This change fostered private counselling: ‘… once confession and the practice of penance became private, then probably the priest appointed to deal with this matter would not limit himself just to imposing a penance, but he would offer some kind of guidance, some kind of healing counsel.’ Metropolitan Kallistos also advances the idea that with the rapid growth of Christian communities, it perhaps became impossible for the bishop to hear personally the confession of all people and therefore presbyters were allowed to undertake this ministry. In this light, we may re-evaluate the relationship between the sacrament of confession and spiritual direction from a historical perspective that has relevance for us today. Some would like to keep direction and confession as two separate practices. I would argue that, although they are distinct, they complement each other. There cannot be effective direction without repentance and healing without appropriate spiritual care. Through confession of sins and repentance one partakes of the fatherly love of God while the role of spiritual direction is to heal the wounds of sin, although its scope goes beyond that. The strong ethos of monastic spiritual direction has deeply penetrated the mainstream Church, influencing and defining the subsequent development of the tradition of spiritual direction in the Christian East to the effect that the present practice of spiritual direction uniquely converges in a common spirituality. The two trajectories, the mainstream and the monastic one, came together and influenced one another, having the same theological basis and sharing the same ideal of spiritual maturity and holiness, achieved

12

Kallistos Ware, ‘Approaching Christ the Physician: The True Meaning of Confession and Anointing’ (lecture, Vézelay, 1999), accessed 21.06.13.

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via different routes, i.e. ‘in the world’ or in a monastery. The spiritual fatherhood exercised by bishops and presbyters and the monastic one, carried out by outstanding charismatic spiritual fathers,13 have gradually led to a unified tradition that reached its apogee in Byzantium and has since lived on in the Christian East. At present, a common corpus of literature on spiritual direction, mostly monastic, made up of both ancient and contemporary writings, aids the unity of the practice. Writings of the spiritual fathers, past and present, coming from different countries and cultures, are widely read across the Orthodox world. The universality of the practice is granted in the fact that all Orthodox Christians share in one and the same spirituality, in which the Holy Spirit unifies and, at the same time, diversifies, allowing spiritual fathers and disciples to season their approach with their own personality.14 The more zealous faithful may seek guidance in a monastery, while in parishes most people would rely on formal sacramental confession as the main source of spiritual counselling. In both the monastery and the parish, the sacrament of confession plays an important part in the preservation and continuation of the practice of spiritual direction. If the above is correct, or at least helps us to enhance the fragmentary picture of spiritual direction in the early Church, we may assert that spiritual fatherhood comprises sacramental as well as charismatic elements.15 Fr Constantin Coman, a speaker at a previous Friends of Mount Athos conference, links the sacramental aspect of spiritual fatherhood to Christ’s high priesthood and the non-sacramental one to the Father.16 However, as 13 14

15 16

Spiritual mothers are also an integral part of the monastic tradition. Iulia de Beausobre, ‘Foreword’, in Russian Letters of Direction 1834–1860: Macarius Staretz of Optino (ed. and trans. I. de Beausobre; Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1994), pp. 18–19: ‘… whoever does such work must need do it in his own way. Not that he interprets the tradition in his own individual manner but, applying the generally accepted interpretation to a unique case, he gives to it the colouring of his own personality.’ The two aspects coincide and coinhere in many ways (see my ‘“Charisma” vs. “Institution”? The Ascetics and the Church’, Studia Patristica, 45 [2010], 3–8). Constantin Coman, ‘The Spiritual Father – An Ecclesiological Reconsideration’, Ziarul Lumina (7 October 2012).

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the Father can never be separated from the Son, nor either from the Holy Spirit, who is ultimately responsible for underpinning the sacraments of the Church as well as the charisma of spiritual fatherhood, the two aspects, although distinct, hold together. As such, the ministry of spiritual fatherhood ideally combines sacramental priesthood (which bestows the apostolic power to ‘bind and loose’ in the name and through the power of God) with various charismatic gifts (gifts endowed by God and embellished by one’s ascetic experience), above all, discernment. It is true that this ideal does not always match reality,17 but the model is there setting a high standard for what is expected of a priest in the Orthodox Church. Sacramental priesthood can and should be appreciated in the light of spiritual fatherhood. In the Orthodox Church, a ‘successful’ clergyman is, in the eyes of most people, a good spiritual father. The priest is not merely an administrator of the divine mysteries. His ministry is placed somewhere between heaven and earth as the liturgical celebration indicates.18 The Church Fathers speak with awe about priesthood and they equate it with spiritual fatherhood as spiritual fatherhood is, in their view, the very essence of priesthood.19 Holy bishops, who themselves epitomized the ministry of spiritual fatherhood, sought to equip every priest with the wisdom of the monastic tradition of spiritual direction.20 This is not to say that all priests become by default, as it were, spiritual fathers upon ordination. Ordination itself is not enough to enable the priest to perform the pastoral duties of a spiritual father.

17

In his paper (above, p. 22) Archimandrite Ephraim warns, with a prophetic voice, about the failure of many priests to act as true spiritual fathers, a fact that leads many Christians to search for one in monasteries. 18 The Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church is envisaged as a concelebration with the one in heaven. 19 See Gregory of Nazianzus, De fuga (PG 35. 408–513); John Chrysostom, De sacerdotio (Sources chrétiennes, 272, pp. 60–362); Ephrem the Syrian, Sermones de sacerdotio, ed. K. G. Phrantzoles (Thessaloniki, 1995), pp. 70–80; Gregory the Great, Regula pastoralis (Sources chrétiennes, pp. 381–2). 20 George Demacopoulos, Five Models of Spiritual Direction in the Early Church (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2007), pp. 80, 130.

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There are some differences in the way the ministry of the spiritual father is considered in the Greek and the Slav traditions. In the Greek tradition, the ministry of spiritual fatherhood is only entrusted to the more experienced priests. An 1887 encyclical letter issued by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople states that the ministry of spiritual fatherhood is to be carried out only by those priests who live an exemplary life, worthy of the priestly office. The rationale of this is in line with an ancient custom mentioned by Sozomen who says that from the beginning, at Constantinople and also at Rome, presbyters who lived a holy life were appointed as confessors.21 In the Slav tradition, any ordained priest can hear confessions, while in the Romanian practice the bishop appoints spiritual fathers through a special service (as in the Greek tradition), depending on their pastoral experience and the particular needs of the community. In both the Greek and Slav traditions a distinction is often made between experienced charismatic spiritual fathers (called pnevmatikoi pateres, elders, startsy) and the more ordinary parish priest-confessors. The ministry of spiritual fatherhood is therefore understood in a general as well as in a strict sense. In the general sense, any priest who hears confessions and offers spiritual advice is a spiritual father, but strictly speaking a spiritual father, like the famous abbas, is a charismatic figure. Any priest, however, is expected to immerse himself in the wealth of the ascetical tradition of the Church and to strive to follow the example of experienced spiritual fathers, past and present. To summarize the above, spiritual fatherhood is priesthood at its best and vice versa. In the capacity of a spiritual father, the priest makes himself a vessel of the Holy Spirit, rivers of living water gushing forth from him ( John 7: 38), enabling him to lead his people to Christ, who is the only and true Shepherd of us all. As St Gregory Palamas put it: ‘A spiritual father has made you […] a son and a disciple not of a man, but of the God-man Jesus Christ, who bestowed upon you the spirit of adoption, and who told you not to call anyone on

21

Historia ecclesiastica 7. 16.

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earth your father or teacher, because you have only one Father and Teacher, namely Christ’ (cf. Matthew 23: 9–10).22

Spiritual direction for all Spiritual direction is the school where one learns the heart of the Gospel, how to love God and one’s neighbour and fulfil God’s will at all times and in all things. If the disciple lives entirely by the word of the spiritual father, he or she then lives according to the Scriptures, fulfilling, as Lorenzo Perrone sees it, ‘the whole ethical and religious message contained in the Bible – an accomplishment of the law on the prophets – and proposed by Christianity through the example of Jesus Christ’.23 It is in this light that we may understand the puzzling anonymous saying: ‘The old men used to say, “If someone has faith in another, and hands himself over to him in complete submission, he does not need to pay attention to God’s commands but he can entrust his whole will to his father. He will suffer no reproach from God, for God looks for nothing from beginners so much as renunciation through obedience.”’24 In what follows, I will try to argue for the need of spiritual direction as an existential one in our fallen condition. Falling into sin, Adam and Eve broke up their immediate relationship with God and lost their natural ability to know God and his will directly, in an unmediated way. In the fallen

22 Gregory Palamas, ‘A New Testament Decalogue’, in The Philokalia: The Complete Text, vol. 4, ed. and trans. G. E. H. Palmer, P. Sherrard, and K. Ware (London: Faber & Faber, 1995), p. 327. 23 Lorenzo Perrone, ‘Necessity of Advice: Spiritual Direction as a School of Christianity in the Correspondence of Barsanuphius and John of Gaza’, in Brouria BittonAshkelony and Aryeh Kofsky (eds), Christian Gaza in Late Antiquity ( Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 3; Leiden: Brill, 2004), p. 145. 24 Systemata 158, in The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers: Systematic Sayings from the Anonymous Series of the Apophthegmata Patrum (Oxford: SLG, 1986), p. 45.

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state, egocentrism, the undue love of self (philautia), affects human beings’ capacity clearly to distinguish good from evil. If we follow, St Maximus’ ascetical theology, we find that his understanding of human freedom is very different from our own, the latter being largely based on a philosophical apprehension of free will or free choice. According to this latter view, we possess an autonomous liberum arbitrium which secures our ability to choose and deliberate and to make rational decisions supposedly free from external constraints. For St Maximus, however, free choice is not humans’ original freedom, but a post-lapsarian condition. This St Maximus calls gnomic (cognitive) will, which is ‘willing in accordance with an opinion, or intention, or inclination’.25 According to him, after the Fall, humans’ mode of existence became fragmented ‘into a multitude of opinions and imaginations’.26 The deliberative will replaced humans’ original natural will which was consonant with God’s will. Through the inappropriate use of their freedom, independent of God’s will, evil is allowed to feed into the gnomic will: ‘evil consists in nothing else than this difference of our gnomic will from the divine will.’27 Not only does the Fall affect human beings’ knowledge of God and His will, but also their understanding of themselves and of the creation. Our true human freedom is then acquired only as we strive to seek, find, and fulfil God’s will. It comes with the need for spiritual guidance, a practice concerned with discerning God’s will in the world and in our life. Spiritual discernment is therefore a paramount Christian virtue.28 The virtue of discernment enables us, as St John Climacus says, to know ourselves, to distinguish between virtue and sin, and, above all, to receive divine illumination and see God’s will in all things.29

25 26 27 28 29

Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 61. Maximus Confessor, De caritate 397A, in Louth, Maximus, p. 87. Maximus Confessor, Opuscula 3, in Louth, Maximus, p. 197. See Abba Antony’s appraisal of it in Cassian, Collationes 1–2. John Climacus, Ladder 26.

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In order to overcome the estrangement of the fallen human will,30 Christians have to engage actively in an ascetic struggle to be able to attain dispassion, contemplation, and union with their creator. One of the most important aspects in the ascetic journey is the ability to renounce one’s own will for the sake of learning God’s will.31 The Christian Scriptures call all to perfection via renunciation of the ways of sin, which can be so subtly welded together with our own egos, with our own selves, our ways of life, that we may not even realize it. We are all enjoined by the Lord to renounce ourselves, to take up the cross and follow him (Mark 8: 34, Matthew 16: 24–5; Luke 14: 26–7; John 12: 25). The egoistic fallen will once crucified, a new world opens before our spiritual eyes, the world of the freedom of God’s children. Through this struggle to overcome ourselves, we find our true self. This is a bloodless martyrdom, not less valuable, perhaps even more difficult to achieve, than a physical one.32 Such renunciation, difficult and painful as it may be, brings about peace, joy, comfort, and confidence. In the ascetical literature, the need for self-renunciation and spiritual guidance is expresed as obedience to the will of God manifested in the advice of the spiritual father. Obedience is considered among the foremost Christian virtues. Those who seek guidance and live in obedience lead an angelic life: ‘O obedience, salvation of the faithful! O obedience, mother of all virtues! O obedience, discloser of the kingdom! O obedience, opening the heavens, and making men to ascend there from earth! O obedience, food of all the saints, whose milk they have sucked, through you they have become perfect! O obedience, companion of the angels!’33

30

31 32 33

Through the exercise of his human will in perfect accordance with the Father’s will, the Incarnate Christ undoes the disobedience of our ancestors and in that he heals and restores our will. Driven by his example and empowered by the Holy Spirit, Christians can, in obedience to God’s will, overcome the estrangement of their fallen will. Doing the will of God is a central theme in the Christian Scriptures and at the heart of the Christian ethos. This type of martyrdom lies at the foundation of monasticism. Rufus 2 (Alphabetical Collection).

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The ultimate aim of Christians’ obedience to God’s will, however, is not submission but theosis, becoming like God through participation in the divine life of communion. Above all, theosis manifests as freedom and friendship with God: ‘I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father’ ( John 15: 15). The enquiring disciple does not rely on his or her own reasoning alone, but he or she is searching out for wisdom. Hence, there is a popular saying: ‘Whoever wishes to be saved, let him or her travel with the question.’ One should not, however, as St Dorotheus of Gaza advises, ask anyone and anyhow. At the end of an arduous search for a true physician, the disciple ought to follow the advice of the spiritual father as if it were coming from the mouth of God Himself. Although we find this view in the Fathers, both ancient and recent, it is a hard saying for most of us. A leitmotif in the ascetic writings is the warning against living according to one’s mind and trusting one’s feelings without consulting a spiritual father.34 The mind and the heart must be integrated together in our spiritual life.35 The ascetical endeavour is directed to their healing in order to enable them to function according to their original purpose, namely to serve a rational and devout way of living. Not many people can be good judges of themselves. Through our relationship with our spiritual father, we learn to see our true self as if in a reflecting mirror. By scrutinizing ourselves with the help of a spiritual father, we avoid living in a spiritual utopia, which is open to either exaggerated self-esteem or self-depreciation. Through spiritual direction, we learn to be realist, to appreciate our true value and put that down entirely to God’s gift (1 Corinthians 4: 7).

34 Antony 37–8; Isidore of Pelusium 9. 35 In the hesychast practice of Jesus Prayer, where the mind should descend into the heart.

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Of equal importance is the fact that our spiritual journey is not accomplished on our own, but in communion with the other.36 The theological concept of koinonia (communion) thus finds a practical expression in spiritual fatherhood as communities are united under their spiritual fathers. The communion with one another is realized at an intimate level between spiritual father and spiritual son/daughter, rather than an institutional one. In this the theology of divine fatherhood finds a very practical application. The communion of the faithful with one another and with their spiritual fathers is thus realized according to the evangelical principle that ‘all may be one’ ( John 17: 21) under the heavenly Father ‘in the same mind and in the same judgment’ (1 Corinthians 1: 10), a recurrent theme of early Christianity. There is in the Eastern Orthodox tradition a universal recognized need for spiritual guidance. Abba Barsanuphios of Gaza advises that ‘there is no one who does not need a counsellor, except God alone, who created wisdom’ (cf. Proverbs 8: 22).37 He also warns that: If one thinks to do something good by oneself without asking the fathers, one is acting outside the law and doing nothing legitimate, whereas acting through a question, one fulfils the law and the prophets. To ask is a sign of humility and a man who does this is an imitator of Christ who humiliated himself going as far as becoming a servant. As a matter of fact, a man without advice is an enemy to himself, since it is written: ‘Do everything with advice’ (Proverbs 24: 71 [LXX 31: 4]) … It therefore is convenient to ask with more humility than to follow one’s own will, since it is God who puts what is to be said in the mouth of the one who is asked, because of the humility of heart and the rectitude of the one who asks.38

There are certainly exceptional characters, those who may not be able to find a suitable spiritual guide to match their spiritual aspirations. 36 37 38

Systemata 112, in The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, p. 34: ‘The old men used to say, “When you see a young man ascending up to heaven through his own will, seize him by the foot and pull him down, for this is good for him.”’ Barsanuphios and John, Letters (C 66), vol. 2 (The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, Patristic Series, vol. 113; trans. J. Chryssavgis; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), pp. 87–8. Barsanuphios and John, Letters, vol. 2 (C 693), p. 241.

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St Paisy Velichkovsky was such a man who lamented to his fellow monks that he was bereft of the angelic life of obedience.39 Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) searched diligently for a proper spiritual guide for a long time before finding the single (‘simple’) minded monk Silouan of Mount Athos. The entire ‘philosophy’ of listening to one’s spiritual father is captured in only a page or two in St Silouan’s writings, as recorded by his disciple, Archimandrite Sophrony.40 Obedience, St Silouan says, is not only useful for monastics, but for all of us. Despite the fact that all people seek rest and joy, not many know the grace of obedience; the one who knows it is great in God’s sight. Obedience brings humbleness which puts at peace one’s soul and opens it up to God’s grace, which in turn bestows ardent love for all. The one who obeys puts all his trust in God and his soul rests in God. Surrendering to God’s will brings about freedom and peace and one is able to pray undisturbed, something that the proud cannot achieve despite ascetic toils since their self-made rules exclude the grace of God. The true listener hates his own will and loves his spiritual father for which he receives freedom and rest. Wisdom and discernment are learnt after a long time and God grants them to the obedient. Our capacity for discernment needs thus to be checked against that of God with the help of a spiritual father. By living in obedience to a spiritual father (to God ultimately), in fact, the disciple cultivates a humble attitude before God, who alone has perfect knowledge. By stripping oneself of self-righteousness, which is like an unclean cloak before God (Isaiah 64: 5 LXX), and following the advice of the spiritual father, one empties oneself of worldly cares, concentrates on God alone, and makes room for divine inspiration, seeing, as it were, with God’s eyes and understanding with God’s mind.

39 See The Life of Paisij Velyčkovs’kyj (Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, vol. 4; trans. J. M. E. Featherstone; Cambridge, MA: Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University, 1990). 40 Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Saint Silouan the Athonite (trans. R. Edmonds; Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999), pp. 420–3. The above paragraph is a short summary paraphrasing St Silouan’s teaching on obedience.

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Now it may be contested that spiritual direction and the practice of obedience in particular are not suitable for the rational, autonomous modern man. The strong meaning of the English word ‘obedience’ suggests submission, but that does not do justice to its spiritual meaning. The Latin oboedire (ob + audire), however, means to listen and pay attention, in other words, to truly hear what is being said by the spiritual father under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Latin verb has also the meaning ‘to agree with’, implying willingness and co-operation, which is far from restrictive imposition. Many of us may also be cautious about being inappropriately guided by all too human spiritual fathers. Impostors, self-styled spiritual directors, delivering a Rasputin-style spiritual direction, can cause personal dramas and immense damage to the Orthodox Church. The late Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Alexei II, issued an encyclical letter condemning the ‘young staretsy/elders’ (mladostarchestvo).41 Because of the fear of being misled or even abused, people may shun or not take too seriously the need for spiritual direction. And indeed, it may not be appropriate today, or perhaps ever, as a general rule, to aspire to a type of spiritual direction in which the spiritual guide ‘plays the prophet’ and demands absolute submission. Obedience to the spiritual father does not take the form of ‘I speak, you listen and do whatever I tell you without reasoning about it’, but that of an open dialogue about one’s life and existential concerns, through which both the guide and the guided decide what is the best course to be followed. The spiritual father only advises and relies on a gentle dialogical relationship in which his means of persuasion is the centuries-old teaching of the Church incarnated in his own experience. As such a lay Christian is not expected to obey de facto a spiritual father. If for a monk or a nun spiritual obedience is a vow, the Church only enjoins the laity to live in communion and communicate with their spiritual fathers through the sacrament of confession and other pastoral means. Hence, the spiritual

41 The document is an attempt to provide Russian Orthodox Christians with ‘ethical guidelines’ for the practice of spiritual direction accessed 3.12.07.

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father is to be regarded as a fellow traveller, a ‘soul-friend’ on the way to perfection, walking together with the people coming to receive advice and spiritual direction from him. The precautions, however, should not outbalance the fruits of legitimate, responsible spiritual direction. To dismiss it altogether by saying ‘I do not have a spiritual father’, or ‘I do not follow the advice of a particular spiritual father because I fear abuse’, may be a rather polite excuse for not wanting to renounce one’s own will and put oneself under the guidance of another. We should remember that, above all, the Holy Spirit is the guide par excellence and, if minimal conditions are met on the part of the disciple (i.e. sincere repentance and a desire to live according to God’s will), as well as that of the spiritual guide (to be humble enough to hear what the Spirit whispers to the disciple and be himself a true disciple of Christ, wholeheartedly adhering to the Church’s teaching rather than putting forward his own), then the act of spiritual guidance takes place in front of Christ – as the preparatory prayer before confession affirms – and in the power of the Holy Spirit. In obedience to the will of the other (of the spiritual father, of God ultimately), the disciple empties his or her own self and his or her personality is formed anew. Obedience therefore enhances one’s personhood contrary to the belief that obedience leads to the loss of personal identity.42 The disciple is becoming what he or she was called by God to be, as the breaking out from oneself opens up his or her spiritual horizon. This type of obedience underlines the very core of our Christian existence, our relationship with God, with our spiritual fathers and fellow Christians. One thus learns to be obedient to all people, to serve the other, to prefer the other’s will, to give attention and precedence to his or her needs and wishes. This is one of the main aims of spiritual direction, to serve and love the other and through that to draw ever closer to God.43 In this manner one’s own spiritual sensitivity is considerably enhanced.

42 e.g. Nikolai Berdyaev, ‘About the New Christian Spirituality’, Sobornost, 25 (1934), 37. 43 1 John 4: 20; Antony 9: ‘From our neighbour is life and death. If we gain our brother, we gain God, but if we cause our brother to stumble, we sin against Christ.’

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In place of a conclusion Spiritual fatherhood is a powerful ‘missionary tool’ for the Orthodox Church, as many God-seekers have found the depths of Orthodox spirituality through an encounter with a man or woman of God in which they experienced a divine touch, God’s soothing love and goodness. An inspired word, spoken out of personal experience and unwavering faith, could be a glimpse of divine inspiration and revelation by which God becomes, in the words of Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, tangible, powerful, living, intense, and true.44 Holiness induces admiration and emulation. The sight of a holy man or woman alone can reveal the greatness of hallowed humanity, as St Irenaeus tells us: ‘the glory of God is a living [holy] man; and the life of man consists in beholding God.’ We all can be, as long as we are firmly set on the path of deification, spiritual luminaries. Hallowing our lives through spiritual paternity, we take part in an uninterrupted thread of personal transmission of faith and experience that links us with early Christianity through a golden chain that has rightly been called another type of apostolic succession.45 Hence, a first-hand spiritual experience becomes available to us in the living practice of spiritual fatherhood that stretches forth from the beginning of Christianity to our own time, bearing the same seal of the Holy Spirit.

44 Archimandrite Aimilianos, ‘The Role of the Spiritual Father in an Orthodox Monastery’, in The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain: Contemporary Voices from Mount Athos (trans., introd. and notes by A. Golitzin; South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1999), p. 165. 45 Symeon the New Theologian, Capita theologica 3.4. See Kallistos Ware, ‘Foreword – The Spiritual Father in Saint John Climacus and Saint Symeon the New Theologian’, in Hausherr, Spiritual Direction, p. vii.

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Bibliography Barsanuphios and John, Letters, 2 vols, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, Patristic Series, vols 113–14, trans. J. Chryssavgis (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006–7). Ephrem the Syrian, St, Sermones de sacerdotio, ed. K.  G. Phrantzoles (Thessaloniki, 1995), pp. 70–80. Gregory the Great, St, Regula pastoralis (Sources chrétiennes pp. 381–2), trans. G. Demacopoulos, The Book of Pastoral Rule (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007). Gregory of Nazianzus, St, De fuga (PG 35. 408–513) in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, vol. 7, ed. P. Schaff (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1893), pp. 205–27. John Chrysostom, St, De sacerdotio (Sources chrétiennes 272, pp. 60–362), in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, vol. 9, ed. P. Schaff (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1889), pp. 33–83.

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The Challenges of Spiritual Guidance in Modern Greece

The title of this presentation refers to spiritual guidance in modern Greece, but I would like to explain something about it before I proceed. First, it is offered at a gathering of the Friends of Mount Athos, because it is impossible to speak about spirituality in modern Greece without including Mount Athos. It would have been possible to give a very similar presentation under the title ‘The Contribution of Mount Athos to Spiritual Guidance in Modern Greece’. Nevertheless, I preferred to take a wider look at this issue, both in terms of the geographical area covered, and also because in this presentation I would like to take a broader view of spiritual guidance and how we can approach it beyond its first level of meaning. Therefore, by ‘spiritual guidance’ here I will not primarily refer to private talks and consultations with an elder – although this is certainly part of it – but foremost to a wider form of sensitization on spiritual matters, privately, also within the Church, and also within the wider social context. In addition, I would like to approach spiritual guidance in terms of the bonds of love, trust, and mercy that define a community and its devotion to the loving, faithful, and merciful God, rather than in terms of a vertical structure of authority.

Mount Athos and Greece Mount Athos is now much more closely connected with the rest of Greece and the rest of the world than ever before. My grandfather, a priest whose name I bear, died about twenty-five years ago having reached the venerable

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age of 100. One of his regrets was that he never managed to make the pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain. For a poor priest from southern Greece, with a family and parish responsibilities, this was not a short or easy trip to make. Today, on the other hand, it is possible to drive from Patras, my home city, to Ouranoupolis in seven hours, about as long as it takes to drive from London to Glasgow. Although my grandfather never made the trip, my father made it at the age of sixty. I was with him, and it was my first time as well. I was in my late twenties. Thus it is easier now to visit Athos than ever before, and an overwhelming number of people do so, and every few years additional restrictions need to be placed on the number of visitors or the length of time they may spend in each monastery, or in the entire peninsula. In addition, many monks and abbots in monasteries throughout Greece have stayed on Athos for some time, and they often bring back something of the Athonite tradition with them. The claim to ‘Athonite monasticism’, at least in style, is something that may be heard all the way to the desert of Arizona. Indeed, the first photographs and the first phrases one sees on the web page of the monastery of St Anthony in Arizona are photographs of the peak of Mount Athos and descriptions of the spiritual bond between the two places.1 To return to Greece, however, the regeneration of Athonite monasteries in the last four decades, and, more recently, the publication of numerous edited collections of writings of Athonite elders – from the letters of Elder Paisios to the discourses of Abbot Aimilianos of Simonopetra and many other similar works – have made the thought of many modern Athonite ascetics widely known. Unfortunately, next to the genuine writings themselves, one can find several less reliable publications – in print or on the internet – based on second-hand testimonies, or sayings that seem to be spurious or simply out of context, usually with a fundamentalist or ideologically anti-ecumenical agenda that claims in this way a seal of approval from Athonite elders, something that often gives a skewed idea of Athonite spirituality.

1

Cf. the website of the monastery of St Anthony accessed 20.04.13.

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On the other hand, it is a mistake to ignore the admirable activity of monastic centres outside Athos, which also play an important part in the spiritual life of Greece. Monasteries such as Sagmata in Voiotia, Makrynos in Megara, St David in Evia, St John the Theologian in Patmos, Annunciation in Skiathos, Longovarda in Paros, Prousos in Evrytania, and many others serve an equally important role. It is hard, if possible at all, to find any spot in Greece that is more than an hour’s drive from an active monastic centre. It may be true that Athos is the capital of the network of Greek, and perhaps even international, Orthodox monasticism, but this capital also has a body, which is in immediate proximity with the population of Greece – something like a network of spiritual hospitals throughout the country and the world. Nevertheless, Athos holds a place of special privilege and authority within Greek spirituality, something that has not necessarily worked in the most constructive way. After the explosion of the repopulation of the Athonite communities in the 1970s, many Athonite monasteries played a very influential role in spiritual matters in Greece, even when these matters did not have much to do with the life of the monk. There was a time, especially in the 1980s, when one gets the impression that a bishop or theologian could not easily express a view on spiritual matters without provoking a critical reaction from somewhere in the Athonite peninsula, in areas as diverse as sacramental theology, bioethics, science, and of course the relationship of Orthodoxy with other Christian denominations. Because of its role as the (welcome or uninvited) protector of Orthodox correctness, Athos has often been referred to as the Orthodox Vatican, and we find numerous occurrences of this expression from the beginning of the twentieth century.

The prophetic voice of the monk However, when considered historically, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The history of Orthodoxy certainly includes many periods and episodes when the faith suffered difficult challenges and it was saved by the dedication and the intransigence of the monks – iconoclasm and hesychasm

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being the most obvious examples, as in both cases the Orthodox tradition was shaped decisively by monks from the monastery of Studios in the first instance, and Athonite monks in the second. There is much that can be said about the prophetic dimensions of monasticism, and certainly the prophetic charisma that we may identify along these lines resonates with the role of the prophets in the Old Testament, who were sent to the people directly by God, so that they would change their ways and return to the path of God – perhaps the ultimate form of spiritual guidance! Of course, ‘prophecy’ and ‘prophet’ in this context refer to the biblical understanding of the terms, and not to the ancient pagan tradition of oracles, whose task was not to speak the word of God but to predict the future. Similarly, we can perhaps trace the roots of monasticism to the wandering prophets that St Paul places next to the apostles of the Church in 1 Corinthians, whose role was to travel from one centre to another, spreading the experience of the entire Church to its smallest members. The monastic community, because of its charismatic character and because of the strong eschatological axis that defines it – the monks and nuns live as if the Kingdom of Heaven is just a breath away – bears a closer resemblance to prophecy as it is understood in its biblical context than other parts of the Church. The prophetic gift that St Paul refers to has not disappeared from the Church. From this point of view, despite the (often justified) criticism that can be made regarding the interjections of Athonite elders or other monastics on matters beyond their immediate attention, the monks certainly have the right to form and to express their opinions about the sins or the logismoi of society. On the other hand, the monk is not an individual source of authority, or a specialist in the ideological purity of Christianity. Quite the opposite: any authority that he has comes from his training and his life of humility and ascetic love. The monk belongs to his spiritual father and elder, but he also belongs to his monastery and ultimately to the wider ecclesial community, and he is subject to it as much as anyone else, if not more. His role is not the same as the role of the bishop or priest, or the teacher: these are distinct spiritual gifts and offices and should not be confused with each other. Even the role of the experienced spiritual guide is not the same as the role of the teacher: St Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians that

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there are many teachers but one father in Christ, distinguishing very clearly between the teaching of faith and spiritual guidance. In addition, it is not his own personal struggle with passions, or his own personal moral renown, that gives the voice of the monk a special authority. After all, this was the case with someone like Arius, who was admired by his followers for his personal piety and his asceticism. The prophetic voice of the monk is not the voice of a pious individual. On the contrary, the authority of the monk in matters that allow him to express the conscience of the body of the Church, springs out of his monastic vows, his obedience, his humility, and his asceticism of love, and yet his vows and his asceticism define his own limits. It is true that the monastic voice is the voice that carries in it the experience of the focused and unceasing spiritual warfare, but the truth of the Church cannot be expressed by only a part of the Church. How does this compare with the enthusiastic praise of monasticism as the highest or most complete Christian way of life, that we often come across in ascetic texts? I believe that this is not something that should be taken literally. I think that first of all this should be seen as a way to encourage people who receive this calling, but also as an expression consistent with the genre in which it was written. Something like that may be seen in the introduction of each tone in the Oktoichos, which consists of a short verse that reveals something about the character of each tone. Reading them separately, one gets the impression that every tone is the best or the most important one. This is similar to the poetic exaggeration that we find in older English texts as well (Shakespeare is a good example), and it should not necessarily be read literally.

Monks and laymen: roles and spiritual guidance The balance between the monk and the layman, or rather the similarity in their respective ascetic struggles, can be seen in some of the earliest texts in the life of the Church. John 17: 14–16, Romans 12: 2, Philippians 3: 20, and several other biblical passages that introduce the idea of the distance

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between Christians and ‘this world’, but also later works such as the Epistle to Diognetus, demonstrate that the principle of the renunciation of the world applies to all Christians. In several of these passages, as in John 17, we can find the contrast between being ‘in the world’ and being ‘of the world’. St Paul in Philippians 3 introduces the idea of ‘celestial citizenship’, which is admirably developed in chapters 5 and 6 of the Epistle to Diognetus. This shows that this sense of distance from the fallen world (a distance that still implied strong love for the world), which today is associated almost exclusively with monasticism, had become a way of life for all Christians by the middle of the second century. Much later, in the eighteenth century, we can see that the same principle is still prevalent, as St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain set out to publish and disseminate the Philokalia for the edification of monastics and lay people alike, even though it was a text that comes out of the monastic practice and experience. Throughout Orthodox Christianity we see that, although life in a monastery and life in a parish are certainly organized with an eye to the different situation and context monks and laymen encounter, the same spiritual principles that define the struggle of the monk also define the life of the layman. Moreover, as they are distinct members of the same ecclesial body, it is perhaps better not to consider monastics and lay people according to a vertical hierarchy, but rather according to a holistic model of completeness. In fact, if we extend the image of the fullness of the Church that St Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians, which includes all the different spiritual gifts, roles, and offices of the Church, we would say that monastics and lay people need each other to bring forth the ecclesial body. Therefore, spiritual guidance can be seen as flowing in both directions. As an example of this horizontal, or rather holistic, model, I can recall a story written by Alexandros Papadiamantis in 1892, entitled The Monk2 – and although there is no way to prove this, it is very likely that this story, like many of the ones Papadiamantis wrote, is based on actual events, on people he knew directly, and therefore it could be read as a true 2

See the English translation by John Raffan in Alexandros Papadiamandis, The Boundless Garden: Selected Short Stories, edited by Lambros Kamperidis and Denise Harvey, vol. 1 (Limni: Denise Harvey, 2007), pp. 148–78.

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story. This story revolves around Fr Samuel, an Athonite monk, who left his monastery for some practical reason and became attached to a parish church in Athens, while still remaining a monk. In the big city Fr Samuel faces some temptations that make his ascetic dedication more difficult, and eventually he decides to leave the city quietly and return to Athos, ‘to the monastery of his repentance’. The person who exercises a gentle form of authority over him, who reminds him of his monastic vows and brings him back to the moment of his monastic tonsure, and ultimately is the one who exercises spiritual authority and provides spiritual guidance to the monk, is Yannis Manaftis, a layman with no unusual characteristics, a fifty-year-old family man, somewhat overweight and somewhat uneducated, who is familiar however with the liturgical tradition and with the sermons of St John Chrysostom, which he quotes often. Nevertheless, this guidance is not given in a way that belittles or marginalizes the calling of the monk, as if implying that voices of reason and moral or spiritual authority can come from the lay people of God as much as from monks, and therefore the monastic way is not necessary. Quite the opposite: Manaftis reminds Fr Samuel that he should not be distracted by the secular world, nor should he try to apply himself according to the calling of laymen, but that he has his own calling of repentance to follow, the way of his cenobitic monastery, which nobody else can fulfil. Manaftis sends Fr Samuel to his monastery, not only because this is good for Fr Samuel, but also because it is good for Manaftis. Papadiamantis gave us an even more dramatic reversal of roles a few years earlier in the longer story The Merchants of Nations. A chapter in that story consists of a confession of a sinful woman who tries to reach and achieve repentance against hope. Yet the honesty of the exploration of her sin and her passion humbles the old, ascetic and experienced monk who hears her confession, so that he realizes that he himself has never confessed in a similar way, and begins to feel as if he is the one who confesses to God a greater sin. Here too we have a unique case of guidance in spiritual matters that may come from outside the natural order and hierarchy.3 3

A translation and discussion of this passage can be found in Andreas Andreopoulos, ‘Alexandros Papadiamantis: The Saint of Greek Literature’, Sobornost, 32: 2 (2010), 19–36.

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Ultimately I believe it is this experiential aspect of the affirmation of the Psalmic verse ‘It is good for brothers to dwell together’ (Psalm 132) that describes the basis of the offering of monasticism to the Church. The thousands of pilgrims who visit Athos do not go there to find an intellectual answer to theological problems, but to participate, even if in a small way, in the liturgical life of the monastery, to live almost as monks themselves for a few days. If there is a need for counselling, for guidance, for intellectual theology, it may follow after the level of experience. But perhaps if I emphasize the level of spiritual experience here, it is in order to stress what spiritual guidance is not. It is important to consider spiritual guidance in the context of this kind of experience, which, of course, is not limited to the continuous services and the atmosphere of a monastery, but also in obedience and humility. The spiritual father – or mother – is a person in whom the wider community recognizes this charisma, rather than someone who is carefully chosen from a young age, educated, and trained in matters of spiritual guidance. For this reason, while a life of humility, obedience, and experience in spiritual struggles cultivates the ground of the soul so that it may accept the gift of spiritual guidance if and when it is given, spiritual guidance in the end needs to be seen as an expression of the Holy Spirit who builds the catholicity of the Church, and therefore also ‘the Church inside us’. This is the source and the fulfilment of the prophetic voice of the monk: a holy spiritual voice is a voice that does not distinguish between one saint and the entire Church.

East and West: the importance of Athonite monasticism While ideology, teaching, and principles can be reified and measured, the same thing cannot happen with spiritual experience. If monasticism often acts as the spiritual guide and conscience of Orthodoxy, it does so precisely because it preserves and cultivates faith in its lived dimensions. It is for this reason that I do not think it is possible to envision a union between

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the Eastern and the Western Churches that does not pass from the level of shared experience and does not include monastics as key players. To be clear, I do not share the line according to which interdenominational dialogue lies somewhere between a demonic deception and a fool’s errand. I am not able to see, however, how a rapprochement and ultimately a union between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic or any other schismatic Church can happen if it does not include the experiential dimension that is safeguarded by all monasticism – especially Athonite. To explain this, let us indulge in an imaginary scenario with two possibilities.4 Possibility one. The year is 2050. Through an increasingly successful interdenominational dialogue between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches, a respectable portion of Catholic and Orthodox bishops and theologians, including the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople, decide that it is possible to find enough common ground in theological and administrative matters and thus proceed to a formal declaration of intercommunion between the two Churches. The main contentious issue of the primacy of the Pope is addressed in a theological solution that satisfies to some extent both traditions. Reaction: a split across both Churches. Athonite Orthodoxy and one of the Orthodox patriarchates – let us say the Church of Serbia – distance themselves from Constantinople. Within the Catholic Church there is also a dissident movement of theologians who are not happy with the compromise that was achieved since, as they see it, the power of the Papacy is compromised. Therefore, some people start looking into provisions that would allow them to annul this union and declare an Antipope. The unified Catholic-Orthodox Church convenes an ecumenical council to discuss the issue, but at the same time the Patriarch of Serbia convenes a pan-Orthodox council on Mount Athos, which decides to break communion with the Uniate bishops. The rest of the Orthodox Churches

4

A version of this idea has been published in Andreas Andreopoulos, ‘Synodality and Local Churches: The Ecclesiology of the Apostolic Church in the Era of Globalization’, Church Studies: Annual Journal of the Centre of Church Studies, 5: 2 (Nis, 2008), 67–79.

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are divided. Although all of them had sent representatives to the interdenominational dialogue, and were thus full participants in it, many priests, laymen, and bishops were nevertheless uneasy with the declaration of union, and since one Orthodox Church has taken exception to the proceedings, let alone the position of the Athonites, many of the remaining bishops also break ranks and decide to oppose the union. The result is quite chaotic across the Catholic and the Orthodox worlds. Possibility two. After prolonged discussions between the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox about the meaning of authority and servitude in the Church, and after they have come at an impasse, the Pope decides to put the message of Mark 10: 43 (‘whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant’) into practice and to connect guidance with humility. He asks to meet with the Orthodox spiritual leader who resists ecumenical dialogue more vehemently (let us assume that this is the abbot of the Karakalou monastery on Mount Athos) and invites him to Rome for an extended dialogue. The abbot refuses. The Pope decides to visit Greece and Mount Athos, but the Athonite monks refuse to allow him to enter the Holy Mountain as the self-declared primate of all Christianity. The Pope then asks to be admitted as a pilgrim for six months in a monastic cell in the Karakalou monastery. The monks agree, on condition that he does not receive any visitors from outside the Holy Mountain and that he is not allowed to take communion or to perform any priestly acts while he is there. The Pope agrees to their terms, and in effect enters Mount Athos as a lay pilgrim. He goes to all the services, he accepts to be dismissed with the catechumens, and he just observes, hears, sees, and experiences the life of the monks. At the end of the six months, although no theological dialogue has taken place, the Pope has gained a new understanding of the Orthodox resistance to the idea of the universal pontiff, while the Athonite monks have been overwhelmed by this unprecedented act of humility, and have gained respect and trust in this particular bishop of Rome. The ecumenical dialogue on the union of the Churches can now begin. I realize that this is a crude and imprecise example. I am fully aware that interdenominational dialogues are conducted much more carefully than that, and that, whenever some convergence is seen, both sides take into account what is feasible and what is not feasible, as well as the possible

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reaction of their bishops, priests, and flock. It may also be somewhat naive to hope that a visit of the Pope on these terms could actually take place. Yet, since the split between East and West is theological only to a certain extent, and psychological for the most part, it is moves of psychological, as well as of theological, significance that may bring about an effective result. In this case what I wanted to demonstrate is the importance of the fullness of the life of the Church – which includes the monastic way, as a necessary component of the expression of the fullness of the Church. Without the experiential aspect of the askesis of love, Christianity is reduced to a philosophical or moral system, or to an ideology. Spiritual authority and guidance, on the other hand, is something that is more completely lived, experienced, and offered freely, rather than taught and argued. I believe that this comes through in many monastic sources, perhaps nowhere more clearly than in the book Hymn of Entry by Elder Vasileios of Iviron,5 a book that describes the liturgical experience of the Orthodox Church and was written as a response to the question ‘why do you believe what you believe?’

Spiritual challenges in Greece: urbanization In our pursuit of spiritual authority as something that flows out of the experience of the community, we need to extend our view to the wider community of modern Greece, outside the walls of the monastery and beyond the family of the parish – at least if by ‘parish’ we refer to the relatively small number of people in Greece with a regular liturgical life from Sunday to Sunday. Thus I would like to say something about the landscape and the levels of community life in Greece that will allow us to understand better its spiritual problems and modern challenges.

5

Archimandrite Vasileios of Stavronikita, Hymn of Entry: Liturgy and Life in the Orthodox Church, translated by Elizabeth Brière (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984).

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Although Greece is still one of the European countries with the highest percentage of Christians, this does not reflect the number of people who go to church with some regular frequency.6 Perhaps something similar can be seen across Europe, but it certainly does not mean the same for Western European countries as it does for a country like Greece, where traditionally it was difficult to distinguish between the body of the faithful and the wider social context, especially in smaller places in rural Greece, where the majority of the population lived until the middle of the twentieth century. It has often been said that the breakdown of the parish is a direct effect of the urbanization of Greece. For a good part of the twentieth century Greece saw a huge amount of internal migration, from villages to big cities, especially Athens. Given that before then it was usual for most people to live within a very short distance of where they were born, the experience of most immigrants when they had just arrived in the big city was naturally devastating. It is surprising, from a certain point of view, how quickly things have changed within only one generation. I remember that the day before I left Greece for Canada, about twenty-five years ago, my father took me aside to talk to me. ‘I am sure it must be difficult for you’, he said. ‘But perhaps I understand how you feel. When I was your age, before I knew that I could get into the medical school of Athens, which is not too far from where we lived (although that too felt like exile for me), I stayed for a month in Thessaloniki. This was for me like going to the end of the world, as it probably feels for you now.’ Indeed, what nowadays is a somewhat difficult trip of ten or twelve hours by plane is still easier than what used to be a difficult trip of ten or twelve hours by train or bus. The experience of the internal immigrants was not necessarily always negative, at least with respect to their spiritual life. Many of them found existing parishes or founded new churches in the places they settled. While the village community was a more or less all-inclusive society, urban neighbourhoods played a very similar role for a long time, even if they

6

Cf. Special Eurobarometer 225, ‘Social Values, Science and Technology’, European Commission (2005). accessed 20.04.13.

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appeared less inviting to the newcomers. After all, there had been an urban parish tradition in Greece for several centuries, something that may be extended back to the numerous neighbourhoods, parishes, and churches of Constantinople. For this reason I do not find the argument about the urbanization of Greece as the main reason for the fragmentation of ecclesiastical life very convincing. It is true, on the other hand, that although the parish structure had existed in urban and in rural settings, the overdevelopment of urban centres, rather than the first phase of urbanization, created many unforeseen problems. More specifically, in the liberated Greece of the nineteenth century, the togetherness of the people, their ‘sobornicity’, if I am allowed to put it like that, was not expressed through the church community any more, as perhaps it had been, for the most part, during the Ottoman years, when in most places the church community was coterminous with the political community, even if it was under the stern eye and the ultimate control of the Ottoman authorities. The higher social classes emulated the imported Western aristocracy or took their cue from the West and tried to follow the intellectual, political, and cultural trends of Western Europe, even if the background that made Voltaire and Rousseau necessary in France did not have much in common with the Greek world. The lower classes imitated much of what the Westernized upper class and the imported Bavarian aristocracy were doing. This was already a serious fragmentation of the Greek political system (if we consider the ‘political’ in its philosophical dimensions). In the following century we can see a further fragmentation of the social unity, with workers’ unions and political organizations that expressed a social and economic eschatology and placed class enemies above national enemies.

The Church and the Left This fragmentation had its counterpart in the Church. There has been a series of influential para-ecclesiastical organizations, essentially pietistic movements, since the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Greece,

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starting with Logos, which was founded by Apostolos Makrakis in 1868, then Zoi, which was founded in 1907 by Eusevios Matthopoulos who had been one of Makrakis’s closest colleagues, and finally Sotir in 1960. These organizations were responding to the Western emphasis on preaching, piety, and morality, by creating similar directions of Eastern denomination, even if they have been repeatedly accused of Protestant moralism. In addition, they were organizing services for separate groups of people – for students, for educated people, and scientists, etc. Although most bishops were wary of such movements, starting with Makrakis himself, whose views were officially condemned in 1878 by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, their survival until recently shows that they responded to certain spiritual needs of Greek society – albeit not necessarily in the best or most constructive way – and that they were symptomatic of this fragmentation that seriously threatened the concept of the Church as a eucharistic and eschatological communion, rather than as a source of moralistic teachings and an edifying, upstanding way of life. In other words, the spiritual landscape of Greece since the foundation of the modern Greek state and until the 1980s included the influence of these powerful groups. Their presence and their influence constitute a very interesting and complex topic which cannot be investigated here,7 but it is sufficient to say that they are indicative of a certain tendency within Greek spirituality, which contradicts the inclusive model of the community of the Church. The model Church of the pietistic organizations was, from the beginning, a model of exclusion on moralist and ideological grounds. On the other hand, the influence of the political Left skyrocketed during World War II. Because of its secretive structure, and as it was experienced in clandestine operations, it was the only organization that was ready to conduct active resistance to the Germans during the occupation, and thus it became the main body of organized resistance at that time. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and another Marxist party of the time, the Agricultural Party of Greece, ran in a joint ballot in the elections of

7

An informative and critical view may be found in Christos Yannaras, Καταφύγιο ιδεών-Μαρτυρία (Athens: Ikaros, 2001).

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1936, and they received 73,411 votes or 5.76 per cent of the popular vote.8 Although it is hard to estimate what the power of the communists might have been if they had taken part in the 1946 elections, it is estimated that the Communist Party numbered close to half a million members at that time.9 It is obvious that Greek society had not become Marxist overnight, but nevertheless the Left gained significant influence during the war, which introduced secular/atheist views to a great extent within Greek society. Even if the majority of the people who had been recruited by the Communist Party in order to resist the German occupation had not severed their links with Christianity, the leaders of the party followed and propagated the official atheist ideology. This introduced another divide between the church community and the social community, resulting in further fragmentation of the spiritual and social life of Greece. Regardless of the roots and the precise conditions under which this fragmentation emerged, it has left large parts of Greek society excluded from the self-identification of the nation around a metaphysical axis – the foundation of the nation as a sacred community, in Eliade’s terms, which would be necessary for the emergence of the Church as a sacred communion of God and the people. In other words, there are pockets within Greek society and culture whose identity is not actively informed by a metaphysical centre. This has not, at least yet, translated into an active or aggressive pursuit of distance from the Orthodox Christian identity for the most part, but rather into the withdrawal of this identity into the folk cultural background and a weakening of the sacramental and liturgical life. What is most tragic about this is that by now there are entire generations of people who pursued the dream of a communal existence, guided by political ideology, by the struggle for social justice and the transformation of society, while a good part of the community they envisioned has been denied to them precisely by their distance from their own spiritual and cultural

8 9

Cf. Georgios Christopoulos (ed.), Ιστορία του Ελληνιϰού Έϑνους, vol. 15 (Athens: Ekdotiki Athinon, 1978), p. 374. Christophoros Vernardakis, ΕΔΑ ϰαι ΚΚΕ στη δεϰαετία του ‘60 (Athens: Papazisis, 2009), p. 368.

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tradition, that had included it in the first place. This was demonstrated in a quite strange event in 1995, when Harilaos Florakis, the man who took an active part in the Greek Civil War after World War II and had led the Greek Communist Party for a generation, visited the Holy Mountain for the first time in his life, when he was eighty years old. After that he said, ‘I wish I had visited Athos many years before. This would have been better for me, as well as for Greece.’10 Shortly afterwards he asked to go to confession. He asked to be given a Christian burial after he died, but the Communist Party did not honour his request. The veteran communist recognized in the monastic community certain elements of the idealized community that were included in the purest part of his ideology, and he was surprised to see that this was achieved without violence or coercion. That experience humbled him. Yet the example of this old leader, this old wolf of communist politics and the partisan system, as well as of his generation, shows some of the complexities of the fragmentation of communal life in Greece. A good part of the appeal of leftist parties in Greece, which rarely came close to any real power even though they have dominated the arts and letters since almost the military defeat of the Left in 1949, has less to do with Marxist economics and more with a vision of social transformation. For many people who followed the Left, this struggle was a demand for a brotherly community, a community that is kept in place by bonds of love. But much of the Greek population had lost the language, the ritual, and the customs that connected them with the Church as a eucharistic community. As Dionysis Savvopoulos, one of the greatest living Greek poets and musicians, somewhat apologetically has said about the leftist leanings of his generation, ‘What can I say about us, when we supported the Left, what was our mistake? Our dream proved to be a nightmare, but our passion was true. That passion was drowned in

10 Cf. Georgios Spiliotis, ‘Florakis in the Holy Mountain’, Resalto, 13 (2007), 16–17; also id., ‘Harilaos Florakis’, Christianikoi Palmoi (October/December 2011), and the account of Fr Athanasios of Simonopetra in and accessed 20.04.13.

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its own right, but it emerged illuminated, on the branches of Faith’ (my translation).11 Savvopoulos here expresses a transition that several people of his generation experienced, from an early Marxism to a mature Christianity, similar in several ways to the transition of people such as Bulgakov and Berdyaev. The difference is that Greek theology did not manage to have a successful dialogue in the twentieth century with ‘outer wisdom’ and the tradition of the Enlightenment, perhaps from the time of St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain until the early 1980s, and the dialogue that included people such as Yannaras, Zouraris, Bitsakis, Moskof, Ramfos, Savvopoulos, but also Metropolitan Ieronymos of Thebes (later Archbishop of Athens) and Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, abbot of Grigoriou monastery.12 Although perhaps this was the time when the dialogue between the Church and the Left was quite substantial from a political, philosophical, and sociological point of view, such attempts at a friendly rapprochement still take place today.13 The reason I have dedicated so much time to the outline of the several strands of thought in modern Greece is in order to argue that the issue of spiritual guidance in modern Greece is compromised right from the start, because of the fragmentation of its social basis. The message and the calling of Christ has always been given personally, by name, but it has also presupposed the existence of a community: the work of Moses preceded the advent of Christ in order to build a people who could then accept Christ as a bride accepts her bridegroom. Today it is perhaps more difficult to speak of Christian nations and Christian peoples – as the modern secular states or federations of states (such as the EU) are defined, it is difficult to see a metaphysical centre of reference or sacred centre in 11 12 13

Σαββόπουλος Διονύσης, ‘Μέρες καλύτερες θα ‘ρθουν’, Μην πετάξεις τίποτα (Athens: Polydor, 1994). Many of these contributions may be found in Petros Makris (ed.), Μαρξιστές ϰαι Ορϑοδοξία: Διάλογος ή Διαμάχη; (Athens: Epikairotita, 1983). Cf. the conference of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in January 2013 entitled ‘The Church and the Left’, accessed 20.04.13.

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them – and yet the Church preserves inside itself the demand for a horizontal as well for a vertical level of communion. This is a problem that has not yet been fully recognized and addressed, and with societies that are unprepared for the clash of the traditional community and the global community of secularization, it is hard to see a way forward. All we can say is that Greece needs now a spiritual compass and spiritual direction more urgently than ever before, and that the Church may need to explore different ways to provide it. The regeneration of monasticism shows this. However, as an indication of the language of the Holy Spirit and how it can build the Church using the most unexpected materials, we also see that most of the people who belong to the new generation of monks, priests, theologians, and faithful lay people have found spiritual nourishment in the literary work of an author, Alexandros Papadiamantis, the so-called Dostoevsky of Greece, who remains largely untranslated and unknown to the West,14 rather than in the pietistic literature that was circulated by paraecclesiastical organizations such as Zoi and Sotir, that have nevertheless been more easily sanctioned and embraced by the official Church for the better part of the twentieth century.

Bibliography Andreopoulos, Andreas, ‘Synodality and Local Churches: The Ecclesiology of the Apostolic Church in the Era of Globalization’, Church Studies: Annual Journal of the Centre of Church Studies, 5: 2 (Nis, 2008). ——‘Alexandros Papadiamantis: The Saint of Greek Literature’, Sobornost, 32: 2 (2010).

14

In addition to some short collections of Papadiamantis’s works that have been published in English translation in the last few years, a good introductory work in English is Anestis Keselopoulos, Greece’s Dostoevsky: The Theological Vision of Alexandros Papadiamandis (Thessaloniki: Protecting Veil, 2011).

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Athanasios of Simonopetra, Archimandrite, in and accessed 20.04.13. Christopoulos, Georgios (ed.), Ιστορία του Ελληνιϰού Έϑνους, vol. 15 (Athens: Ekdotiki Athinon, 1978). —— ‘Harilaos Florakis’, Christianikoi Palmoi (October/December 2011). Kasiouras, Dimitrios, Μαρξισμός ϰαι νεοορϑόδοξοι: Μεριϰές σϰέψεις γύρω από μια συζήτηση (Athens: Sygchroni Epohi, 1986). Makris, Petros (ed.), Μαρξιστές ϰαι Ορϑθοδοξία: Διάλογος ή Διαμάχη; (Athens: Epikairotita, 1983). —— ‘Social Values, Science and Technology’, Special Eurobarometer 225, European Commission, 2005 accessed 20.04.13. Spiliotis, Georgios, ‘Florakis in the Holy Mountain’, Resalto, 13 (2007). Triantafyllopoulos, N. D. (ed.), Αλέξανδρος Παπαδιαμάντης: Άπαντα (Athens: Domos, 1997). Vasileios of Stavronikita, Archimandrite, Hymn of Entry: Liturgy and Life in the Orthodox Church, translated by Elizabeth Brière (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984). Vernardakis, Christophoros, ΕΔΑ ϰαι ΚΚΕ στη δεϰαετία του ‘60 (Athens: Papazisis, 2009). Yannaras, Christos, Καταφύγιο ιδεών-Μαρτυρία (Athens: Ikaros, 2001).

SISTER THEOKTISTI OF THE MONASTERY OF ST JOHN THE FORERUNNER, ANATOLI

The Renewal of Women’s Monasticism in the Twentieth Century through the Guidance of Athonite Monks

Introduction In the last sixty years we have seen an impressive revival in women’s monasticism in Greece; it was a desolate scene until then. In order to do justice to the truth, we must recognize that we owe much to St Nektarios. His foundation of a women’s monastery, in which he himself lived, the monastery of the Holy Trinity on Aegina, was based on Athonite principles. It is through this foundation that we see his substantial contribution to the flowering of monasticism, especially women’s monasticism, in the twentiety century.1 The Bavarian rule in the nineteenth century had a negative influence on Orthodoxy. Monasteries were disbanded, churches destroyed, ecclesiastical and monastic property nationalized, even the spiritual treasures of Greek Orthodox people, which had been passed down by the Fathers, were negatively influenced. Monastics and clergy, committed to spiritual struggle, were persecuted. It tried to cut the umbilical cord between the Greek race and the Orthodox Church, and to import into Greece a very different spirit, attacking Orthodox theology, especially the neptic teaching of the Fathers, and imported enlightenment, scholasticism, and rationalism. 1

For the life of St Nektarios, see Sotos Chondropoulos, Saint Nektarios, the Saint of Our Century (Athens: Kainourgia Ge Publications, 1997).

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Monasticism was considered as backward, mental prayer as meaningless, and tears of compunction as evidence of mental illness. The aim was to eliminate monasticism, the watchtower of Orthodoxy, and to promote the secularization of the Church. When St Nektarios came to Athens in 1894, he found this desolate situation. His presence in Greece constituted on the one hand the spiritual bulwark against the spirit of the time, and on the other hand the tinder for the explosive growth of monasticism, particularly among women, in the twentieth century. His contribution, taken as a whole, encouraged the upsurge of monasticism, because only then, as he said, would Greece accomplish great things.2 St Nektarios, with his way of life firmly grounded in the Holy Fathers and in monasticism, brought to the harshly tried Greek Orthodox Church the flowering of monasticism.

Historical background In order to understand the crisis in monasticism in the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, we must briefly turn to the history of the Church, of Greece, and of the Greek state. The work of creating the Greek state was begun in 1828, by the first Greek governor, Ioannis Kapodistria. This work was interrupted by the civil war and then his assassination in Nafplion in 1831. This was followed by the period of the Bavarian rule, which took on the governance of Greece with a particular mission: to increase the European influence on the Greek state. A very different secular ethos was applied to education, and to the Church. Greek intellectuals and clergy were influenced by the enlightenment. The Church was to serve national purposes and ideology. The following radical measures were made.

2

Ibid., p. 162.

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First: to break away from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This selfdeclaration of the autocephalous Church of Greece, in the summer of 1833, was the idea of a circle of enlightenment thinkers led by Adamantios Korais (1748–1833). It is considered to be based on the developments which followed the beginning of the birth pangs for the Greek Church and for the Greek people as a whole. The most significant consequences of being autocephalous were the domination of the state in Church–state relations and the breaking-up of the unity of Hellenism, because the historical, political, and national bonds, and the key contributor to their unity, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, were marginalized. Secondly: a secular education for clergy and theologians. Education as a whole, and even the study of theology, was dissociated from the Church and was placed under the centralized control of the state. Within this framework, following the prototype of German universities, the University of Greece was organized, and naturally the Theological School as well, with teachers who had received higher education in Germany. Instead of the traditional harmony of study with Orthodox worship and spirituality, which Kapodistria had visualized as developing into the future Theological Academy, there arose the State Theological School, as planned by Konstantinos Oikonomos. It was an amalgam of theological science, cut off from the life of the ecclesiastical body and from the spirit of the Fathers. From then on, the state promoted clerics and theologians not on their relationship with Orthodox theology and tradition, which is preserved in the monasteries, but rather on the titles earned through their theological studies at university. Thirdly: the dissolution of the monasteries. The secularization of the Church would not have been possible to execute if the natural schools of modern Hellenism in the years of Byzantium and of slavery, the monasteries, had been flourishing. Propaganda against monasticism, monasteries, and monastics was immense. The goal was the elimination of the monastic tradition in Orthodox Greece. Those leading this propaganda (e.g. Korais) had not understood that the Orthodox monastery, beyond whatever imperfections of individual people, was the space in which the Greek Orthodox conscience was formed, the space in which the social foundations of the Greek Orthodox were preserved, the space of sanctification, of the

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emergence of New Martyrs – the most sincere opposition to the Turkish regime – but also the place where conversion to Islam and abandonment of Hellenism were both stemmed in the most effective way.3 The core of the anti-ecclesiastical and anti-monastic strategy was the confiscation of monastic property and the dissolution of over 500 monasteries. After the men’s monasteries the women’s monasteries were dissolved as well, with the exception of three: the Transfiguration, Loukous, Peloponnese; Kaisariani, Attica; and St Nicholas in Santorini. Later, after the people of the island of Tinos opposed the closing of monasteries, the monastery of the Lady of the Angels in Kechrovouni, Tinos, where St Pelagia lived, was temporarily added as a fourth monastery. Those monasteries were to be preserved if they had at least thirty nuns over the age of forty. All of the nuns under forty years of age would be required to be persuaded by their local bishop to abandon the monastic life and to return to the world, with his assurance that they would be able to do this without reproach. All of the nuns over forty years of age were free to go wherever they wished: either to be confined to one of the three monasteries to be preserved, or to return to the world. If they remained in the monasteries, they would be required to occupy themselves with women’s handicrafts, to care for the poor, sick, and mentally ill sent by the government to the monastery, and to teach without payment the orphaned and poor girls sent to them by the government. These monasteries were dependent spiritually on their local bishop, but administratively on the Ministry of Education. All of the monasteries’ property and goods reverted to the church treasury, except for an area of 1 to 1.5 acres around the monastery for gardening. In each monastery the Holy Synod designated, with government confirmation, a manager over the age of sixty, with the duties of supervising the nuns and their way of life, holding the keys of the monastery, appointing the confessor, and presiding over a general council of the sisterhood for

3

Χρυσόστομος Παπαδόπουλος, Η ιστορία της Εκκλησίας της Ελλάδος, τόμος Α` (Athens, 1920) (Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, The History of the Church of Greece, vol. 1), pp. 133–43.

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the promulgation of three candidates for the election of an abbess. For these services he was to be paid 100 drachmas and provided with room and board within the monastery without charge. The income from handicrafts was to be contributed towards the maintenance of the nuns; whatever else was required was to be given by the church treasury at the recommendation of the Ministry. The results: of the three monasteries, the first two closed on account of lack of nuns. As far as the monks were concerned, Konstantinos Oikonomos writes that the monks of the disbanded monasteries scattered, with only one cloak and utterly impoverished, many among them extremely aged. Some of them returned to their relatives, while others went down to the villages and lived from their own handiwork.4 The nuns of the holy monastery of St Marina, Andros, remained camping near their monastery. The Holy Synod, with a new composition, during the presidency of Dionysios of Kynouria (Peloponnese), fought courageously on behalf of the holy statutes of the Church. Among their efforts was to seek from the Ministry the preservation, be it temporary, of the monastery on Andros, the nuns of which did not cease to protest about their unjust eviction. They brought victory to the Church concerning the monasteries. It was a victory which opened the road for others. Thus other women’s monasteries were preserved: on the islands of Tinos and Paros and in the Peloponnese. The Synod had found the correct route to demand the rights of the Church. In 1852 two ecclesiastical laws were published, Sigma and Sigma Alpha,5 which in relation to monasticism made provision for the competence of the bishops in the monasteries’ internal issues of order and obedience, and for their collaboration with the state in external issues such as the foundation or dissolution of monasteries; this status quo is in force until today. The government wanted to supervise the monks because it feared their

4 5

Konstantinos Oikonomos, Τα σωζόμενα εϰϰλησιαστιϰά συγγράμματα (Athens, 1864) (Konstantinos Oikonomos, Preserved Ecclesiastical Writings). P. K. Karanicolas, ‘Synodical Legislation and State Ecclesiastical Laws’, Theologia, 52 (1981), 217–27.

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spiritual freedom, their disposition to struggle, and the influence that they exercised on the people. The monastics in the Peloponnese came together and lamented how Greece was in danger of extinguishing the Orthodox faith. This movement (of monastics) was considered a conspiracy against the government, with Kosmas Flamiatos of Kephalonia as their leader. The government sent the army against them. Approximately 150 monks and nuns were arrested and put on trial at Patras, insulted and abused in a variety of ways in prisons, and made to suffer, although the court characterized their treasonable crime – their consecration – as a simple misdemeanour. In spite of this, the Church went forward with actions beneficial for monasticism. On the council of the Holy Synod a royal decree was issued in 1858 concerning the regulation of the monasteries, dealing with matters of administration, use of property, and the life of the monastics. The publication of this regulation constituted a significant step in the advancement of the monastic life and marked the commencement of its spiritual awakening. Unfortunately, however, the spiritual aspect of this possibility remained undeveloped, in spite of the recommendations of the Holy Synod, and matters did not change significantly even with later regulations. The Metropolitan of Dimitriados and later Archbishop of Greece, Christodoulos, writes that we cannot but recognize the good will at least of those who composed the regulations. However, the truth is that the rebirth of our monasticism should not be expected to be brought about in legal documents. Another inspiration, another source of life, is required: experienced spiritual fathers are necessary, who like bees will collect around themselves others as well, so as to devote themselves all together to the worship of God. Monastic tradition and holy spiritual fathers never disappeared. The persecuted Church gathered strength and triumphed. The Kollyvades movement – led by Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain, Neophytos of Kafsokalyvia, Athanasios Parios, and Makarios Notaras – emerged from Mount Athos during the second half of the eighteenth century.6 They

6

Graham Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise, 2nd edn. (Limni: Denise Harvey, 2014), pp. 121–3.

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brought the Athonite charisma of the saints of the Holy Mountain and of the Theotokos to the rest of Greece. Their spirituality, united with the charisma of the holy fathers St Arsenios of Paros, St Savas of Kalymnos, St Anthimos of Chios, and others, made the women’s monasteries they founded workshops of virtue and holiness. At the beginning of the twentieth century, while the Church was still captive to the state, St Nektarios brought about the decisive rebuilding of women’s monasticism and laid the ground for the rebirth of monasticism according to the prototypes of the Fathers. He remained a humble ascetic during his trials and humiliations. In the summer of 1898 he travelled to the Holy Mountain for the purposes of veneration and visiting the libraries of the holy monasteries, with permission from the Ecumenical Patriarchate and a letter of introduction to the Holy Community. He formed a spiritual bond with Hagiorite fathers in mutual respect and love. A contemporary Athonite monk writes: As one can deduce from the above, and from the whole way of life and spiritual teaching of the saint, although he was not an Athonite in terms of place (topos), he was indeed in terms of manner (tropos) and in his heart. He had the basic virtues of the Athonite monk: humility, prayer of the heart, particular adoration toward the Most Holy Theotokos. He was truly a figure of the Fathers in our time.7

His frequent communication with Geronta Daniel of Katounakia and his visits to the Holy Mountain equipped him with the entirety of the tradition, the regulations, and the order of the Athonites, which he consistently applied to his women’s monastery of the Holy Trinity on Aegina. This same spirit was also transmitted by other blessed fathers to women’s monasticism in Greece. Geronta Daniel himself lent his strict rule to the holy monastery of Kechrovouni, Tinos, corresponding with the Abbess Theodosia, as well as with other sisterhoods. The women’s monastery of the Transfiguration of the Saviour on Patmos, founded by St Arsenios, who received the monastic habit on the

7

Γέροντας Δανιήλ Κατουνακιώτης, Αγγελικος Βιος (Mount Athos, 1981) (Elder Daniel of Katounakia, Angelic Life), p. 36.

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Holy Mountain, also breathed this spirit. Another disciple of St Nektarios, Fr Amphilochios Makris on Patmos, was also animated by this same spirit and passed it on to his nuns. On Paros the holy father Philotheos Zervakos continued the tradition. In the first half of the twentieth century the holy Geronta Joseph the Hesychast undertook the care of a women’s monastery, Portaria, on Mount Pelion. The spiritual children of his synodeia on the Holy Mountain contributed decisively to the creation, stabilization, and progress of many women’s monasteries, having Geronta Ephraim of Philotheou as responsible for them. Many monasteries on the Greek mainland (e.g. Serres) bear his stamp, as well as many in the United States and Canada. The former abbot and blessed father Gabriel of Dionysiou began and directed the monastery of the Ascension at Kozani with the typikon of his holy monastery. The monastery of the Holy Forerunner at Tolleshunt Knights in Essex also draws its spiritual origins from the Hagiorite father Sophrony (Sakharov), who was a disciple of St Silouan (d. 1938) and who created a significant work in England which bears abundant and beautiful fruit. There are quite a few Athonite women’s dependencies in Greece which, in the last sixty years, with the flowering of monasticism in the country, have distinguished themselves with their spiritual progress, for example: Ormylia, a dependency of Simonopetra; The Holy Forerunner Akritohoriou, a dependency of the holy monastery of Xenophontos; Kornofolia, a dependency of the holy monastery of Karakalou, and many others which in no way differ from their ruling monasteries in matters of order and schedule. One other contribution worthy of mention, which keeps many women’s monasteries in our country closely connected with the Holy Mountain, is their spiritual direction by Athonite spiritual fathers: the late Geronta Georgios Kapsanis at Panorama monastery in Thessaloniki, and the holy fathers Porphyrios at Milesi in Attica and Paisios at Souroti near Thessaloniki, became the founders and spiritual advisers of women’s monasteries. Still in our days there are many cases of new monasteries that are founded by Athonite fathers, with absolute respect for the ethos and tradition of the Holy Mountain.

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We ourselves, in our monastery of St John the Forerunner on Ossa, had the good fortune to have as Geronta and spiritual father the blessed priest-monk Fr Dositheos Alexandropolis of Dionysiou. Fifty years ago his synodeia supplied abbesses and sisters who formed spiritual sisterhoods at Meteora, on Mount Pelion, in Lavrion, on Mount Kissavos, and on the islands of Corfu and Crete. With the grace of God, today – tomorrow being obscure – women’s monasteries perform their work unimpeded. This flowering is due to the blessing of our Lady Theotokos and of the Holy Fathers. The guidance of the Athonite monks has varied enormously from one monastery to another, with some monasteries following closely the Athos timetable, while others follow more the spiritual guidance and teaching fundamental to monastic life.

Spiritual guidance According to the Fathers, monasticism constitutes the most perfect expression of Orthodox spirituality. The Church has need of monasteries with developed spiritual life. People in the world need monastics who have a living experience of God and are intercessors before God for the rest of the people of God. Of course a monastic is not someone who has simply put on the rasso; he or she must live an intensive spiritual life. If there is not an enjoyment of the presence of the Lord Jesus in the life of each monk or nun, then he or she is on the wrong path. We shall refer to ‘monastics’, meaning both monks and nuns, and to ‘spiritual fathers’, meaning also spiritual mothers. 1.  Monastics have nothing in this life except Jesus The example and teaching of Fr Dositheos showed that a monastic has nothing in this life except Jesus. The atmosphere of the monastery should radiate this on different levels of its existence. The monastic is one who

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strives to love God with all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength, and to love his neighbour as himself. Monasticism is the heart of the Christian Church; it is about living the Gospel without compromise. The silence and stillness of monasteries should be an antidote for a world that is governed by stress, worries, and uncertainty. In the monastery everything happens in its own time and order; stillness and silence are the natural and appropriate language of this life. Silence of the feelings awakens the inner activity of the soul. Communication with the world works in the opposite way: it awakens external feelings, while deadening the inner ones. In the monastery material and bodily goods are not as necessary as the true and spiritual presence of God and a waiting for the Kingdom of God. This is the most important thing in life and here God becomes tangible. Monasteries should be distinguished by voluntary poverty, meekness, and simplicity of life. This gives the best answer to over-consumption and hedonistic materialism. A minimum of earthly comforts and a limited number of words, always one and the same order of actions. Monasticism establishes fine borders for life, far from agitation and restlessness. The atmosphere of life in a monastery awakens the inner world and gives strength to the nature of mankind. Monastic life is founded on the renunciation of the world, and so presents itself as the renunciation of nature for the sake of surpassing it, in order to find what is above nature. A monastery is a single body, a sacramental community of the Church, in which each is present to help the other for his salvation. We are saved as the Body of Christ. The Body is constituted by communion in love: in one mind and heart. The Fathers have taught that one is not saved alone. The only thing one does alone is sin, fall. We are saved together, as a single body, the Body of Christ. Our communion here, not only eucharistic participation, but living bond of love, is a participation in the Kingdom of God. The monastic community is an icon of that Body, a communion of persons, united by one Spirit. What is important is a solid faith, a radical commitment to Christ, and a sense that the world holds nothing for oneself, but that life consists entirely in the love of Christ. It is important to remember that monastic life is about striving for Christ. The only

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reason to join the monastery is for the love of Christ, and the desire to follow him. 2.  Monastics have to force their nature Monastic life is a struggle, a painful and difficult one, forcing nature as John Climacus tells us in the Ladder of Divine Ascent.8 Monastics know the secrets of the human soul, the activity of the passions and the grace of God, the mysteries and difficulty of the spiritual path. Thus monastic life can help the struggle of all the faithful. The monastic is one who has struggled and learned much, who understands the weak, the grieved, the burdened and the betrayed, the hungry and the thirsty, the persecuted and the unjustly insulted. The real ascetic task is to overcome isolation, egoism, self-love, and our concepts of our self and even of God. We must battle to overcome worldliness while living in the world. The Lord calls us to be ‘in the world, but not of the world’ ( John 17: 13–16). A monastery is a place of intense struggle, work, and constant, demanding effort. Monastics often work harder than those who are in the world, living by the work of their own hands, to contribute, to share the burden. The difference is that in the monastery work is sanctified, and work sanctifies the monastic, as his contribution to the life of the whole body. It is a means of serving one another, and of overcoming our selfishness. The spiritual battle with the passions is not so much about dealing with the natural impulses of the body and mind as it is about the habitual ways of dealing with those impulses that have become virtually unconscious. This is a key aspect of monastic asceticism: to deny oneself the gratification of one’s wilfulness and habitual ways of being. This is especially in regard to the will and ‘how things are done’. To overcome the passions means to overcome the established habits of a lifetime.

8

John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), step 26, verse 28.

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One cannot escape problems in the monastery. In contrast to living in the world, where there are distractions to keep us from confronting our problems, there are no distractions in the monastery. There is only the silence, the services, our quiet work, and our prayers. To build a unity in Christ by the Spirit is the common task of the community. It is a life lived in obedience to Christ, in self-denial, and in bearing the cross of whatever suffering God sends to help one work out one’s salvation in a community. Monastic life is repentance, a turning away from a sinful way of life, from the pursuit of vanity and of the world, and a turning towards God and to pursue His will. It is about the radical transformation of life and consciousness and way of life. Part of it is healing, being made whole. Repentance is thus not simply turning away from the world and sin, but a positive turning towards a completely new life in God. Repentance is about detachment. 3.  Monastics see their need for guidance Monastics realize their sinfulness and their need for honesty and guidance by their spiritual father. Spiritual fathers generally think to enter the monastic life young is good because one’s identity has not yet formed, and one is still looking for one’s place in life. It becomes harder as one gets older. A big problem for people joining a monastery is to give up their own wilfulness and independence, and to accept monastic obedience. For older people the ingrained habits of thinking, acting, and deciding present obstacles; from their experience they think they know best. This makes obedience even harder. In the peace and silence of the monastery there is no running away from oneself. This is one of the great challenges facing all newcomers to monastic life. One begins to see oneself in a new light, and it can be a painful, troubling experience. It is not uncommon to hear novices saying, ‘I was much better before I came to the monastery.’ The novices must gradually realize who they really are; they have begun to realize their sinfulness in a way they did not when they were living in the world, and their need for honesty, and guidance by their spiritual father. The initial stages of life

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in the monastery are where we try our vocation, begin our detachment from the world and from our fallen self, and our own will. It is in the furnace of obedience that we come to know whether we are called to this life or not. St Nektarios passed on these principles to the nuns, impressing upon them as with a seal the principle of exercising violence against one’s ego. He followed in the footsteps of the desert fathers, passed the nights in prayer, practised the asceticism of fasting and of being humbled as the least of the monks. His personal credo for monasticism and monastics is this: ‘Truly, what is more valuable or more brilliant than the monastic way of living? In all frankness, I confess my conviction, on account of which I consider the ascetic to be above the bishop.’9 In his letters to his nuns, and through them to all those who came later, he emphasized the same points that he also repeats when addressing the assemblies of the sisterhood: ‘Full and complete submission to the will of God. Flaming divine Eros. Longing for prayer. Self-denial, love and forgiveness. Patience in temptations. Struggle in the Holy Spirit. Communion with Christ.’10 He was convinced that spiritual progress and perfection are accomplished through submission and humility, not through fantasies and trust in oneself. This teaching of his becomes the teaching of all of the monasteries on the Holy Mountain. St Nektarios emphasizes the avoidance of carelessness, the flight from egoism, disobedience, arguments, vainglory, and pride and calls for alertness, humility, understanding and patience, guarding of the heart and resistance to evil intention, because, as he emphasized, where there is true, Christlike humility, there are all of the virtues as well. The Church is guided more by prayer than by words and gains more peace from the prayers of monastics than from the words of even the most Metropolitan Titus (Mathaiaki) of Paramythia, Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis’ Catechetical Epistles Addressed to the Nuns of the Holy Trinity Monastery, Aegina (Athens, 1984), pp. 187–8. 10 Sophocles Dimitrakopoulos, Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis, the First Holy Figure of Our Times: A Historical Biography Based in Authentic Sources (Athens, 1998), p. 230; see also id., Saint Nektarios Kephalas, Metropolitan of Pentapolis, 1846–1920 (Athens, 1985). 9

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talented teachers. This knowledge, the realization of God’s call to us, is the fruit of much prayer. The spiritual father is someone to whom you can open your heart, is the one to whom you will promise obedience, as a means of being obedient to Christ. It is a sacramental relationship: obedience given to the spiritual father for Christ’s sake becomes obedience to Christ. Being obedient means cutting off our own will. Then it becomes all grace, God’s activity within us. Obedience is willing submission in love, but this requires maturity. The relationship between a spiritual father and child is a relationship of love, faith, and respect. Submission to a spiritual father means to enter into a mutual striving for salvation together (1 Peter 5: 5). It becomes that sacramental bond in Christ by the Spirit. Obedience to the spiritual father, working out relationships among the brothers, with work, and the discipline of the monastic programme are the means by which we are trained to overcome our selves and our needs. Then the community can be like a river that takes rough rocks and, by pounding them together against one another, produces smooth stones. It is said that there are very few great elders in the world, but what is even rarer is the true disciple. Confession, opening the heart to the spiritual father, is the way to this deep cleansing of the heart. The spiritual father both encourages and rebukes in order to help the penitent see himself. Obedience is one of the most important ways to expose the passions. Obedience also demands cooperation with the other brothers. We easily co-operate when we want to do something; when we do not, that is the key point in the confrontation with our will. What we strive for is a healthy interdependence, mutual support, and openness in a spirit of love and respect. Christ told us that we will know that we are his disciples by the way in which we love one another. Our love is not in words alone, but in deeds. It is an attitude towards others. In monasticism, one learns to love in a nonexclusive way. Not that we will not have normal human preferences and closer rapport with some than others. The greater one matures spiritually, the fewer blockages to love of the other there are left in one’s soul. Turning away from self-love and growing beyond individual attachments to unconditional love of the other is the real vocation of the monk.

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4.  Monastics become likeness of God through monastic life The monastic gradually changes from being icon of God to become likeness of God through monastic life. This means moving away from worldly approval and challenges the monk to put God before all things and all men. The goal is to grow into one mind and one heart, one spirit and one will, in communion with the Father, as the Son and the Holy Spirit share a unity of will and life with Him. Thus the unity of the community is a sacramental icon of the Holy Trinity: one nature, many persons, united in one will and life. This is also growth into maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. By truly loving God and our neighbour we are purified, illumined, deified. The passions come under our control, subordinated to the love of the other. We become purified of all that focuses us in our self, and becomes a barrier to love. This is what monasticism is: the love of our neighbour. Our deification is realized in becoming perfected in love, embracing the whole creation, as Christ did, and being grounded in his divine Person. Monastic life is the way of spiritual growth. Through monastic discipline, we come to realize our spiritual immaturity, sinfulness, and brokenness, and that the only way of growth is to focus entirely on Christ. The way of spiritual growth is to realize our passions, and the delusions that they cause, and begin to live humbly and in reality. We must begin to realize how self-willed we are, and turn away from it in repentance, and learn obedience. To enter into this communion, to learn to bear the burden of the other, takes a lot of practice. The process of personal transformation and spiritual growth takes years. It requires tremendous patience, love, and constant repentance. How we love our brother is the criterion of how we love God. It has been said that the criterion of how we love God is the degree to which we love the one we despise the most: that is how much we love God. It is the process of learning to love. We cannot learn to love God until we learn to love our neighbour. Then the presence of God manifests itself. And a monastic can gradually become likeness of God through the faithful living of monastic life.

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5. Monastics realize that, ‘If I was still trying to be liked by mankind, I would not be a servant of Christ’ St Paul tells us, ‘If I was still trying to be liked by mankind, I would not be a servant of Christ’ (Galatians 1: 10). There is always the great danger of wanting to please everyone, wanting to accommodate to the norms of worldly politeness, not wanting to hurt people’s feelings. But monastic life is founded on the renunciation of the world, and so presents itself as the renunciation of nature for the sake of surpassing it, in order to find what is above nature. Monasticism contains in itself an element of heroism, of real, genuine life. At the same time, the further one is from this world, the more one is able to help this world. The ideal of the Christian life is a life in common with others of like mind. The common life is the norm and the foundation for all Christians. Even solitaries and hermits have lived the life of a community. Their solitude and separation are only the fruit of their love and solidarity with the rest of their brethren. This is encountered rarely today and offers a special kind of rest for body and soul. 6. Monastics try to live out the words: ‘The vision of angels is God, the vision of monks is the angels, the vision of mankind is the monks’ ‘Angels are the light of monks, and the monastic life is a light to people living in the world.’11 This means that the monastic form of life is itself an example for members of the Church who are struggling in the world. The monastic life offers a measure for the life of any Christian. The Church is guided by a monastic way of thinking. The life of the faithful is supported by the prayers of the monks. This is shown by the very fact that the faithful take refuge in such prayers. Monastics lift up their hands to God for the faithful who are struggling in the world. When human strength and even the advice 11

John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, step 26, verse 31.

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and counsel of spiritual fathers bear no result, then the prayers of the Church, the prayers of the monastics, which stand unceasingly before God, can bear fruit. The monastery becomes the context to work out a new way of relating, with love and respect, in obedience and co-operation. This requires learning how to cut off our wills, our passions, and to give and receive love. We have to be psychologically and emotionally mature before we can begin to consider the real spiritual task. Psychological maturity means basic control over the passions. This means that we are not constantly thrown into inner chaos by every event or comment that does not go our way. It means that we have basic emotional stability. The passions distract us from confronting the real issues that are making us feel fearful, threatened, inferior, or offended: our own deep insecurities and self-conceit. They distract us from communion with God and with others. This battle is the cross of self-denial. It is fought within the arena of obedience. It is precisely this battle that brings one to spiritual maturity. The only way is to grow. As we grow, and gain control over our passions, and our soul is purified, grace illumines our spiritual (noetic) consciousness. We become more aware of God’s presence, more aware of the other. The spiritual father loves unconditionally, and that love is the foundation to learning how to love the other and to accept oneself. Gradually we cannot conceive of ourselves in isolation from God and our brothers. We pray from the heart for them, and for the whole world. We are purified by grace, so that we can love in a purely unselfish way. The essence of monastic spirituality is to enter into the love of God and of our neighbour. Everything in the monastic life is focused around this: the services, the sacramental life, the life in community, the common work, spiritual direction, reading and studies. Monastic spirituality is fully integrated, and is meant to integrate all of life around the Gospel, and by the Gospel. Growth to spiritual maturity means to transcend our isolated individual autonomy and enter into the living communion which is the living Christ, head and body. In the monastery we are called to bear one another’s burdens, be patient, gentle, kind, long-suffering, and forgiving to one another. And in so doing, we not only build the community, but we grow ourselves.

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How we treat one another has direct bearing on how close and integral the life of our community will be, how we will pray together, and how we will work together. Community life is very demanding; it exposes our selfishness, our pettiness and passions, our arrogance, pride, and vainglory. It makes us come to terms with ourselves. But it is also the context in which we work out how to love and be loved, and to elevate that love to a participation in divine love.

Conclusion We our unworthy selves, like all the nuns living in monasteries, have heard this teaching many times, in the above form or in variations on it, from our elder, and yet ‘we have not yet made a real beginning.’ That is, we have not yet made a beginning in repentance and in our struggle. From what we know, all of the women’s monastic communities hold these same views, with perhaps some variation. Perhaps the daily schedules, the practical patterns of life, and the types of occupations vary, depending on the climate, various necessities, and extraordinary conditions. Most Reverend Bishop, Fathers, Sisters, brothers and sisters, through the prayers of our Holy Fathers and through your prayers, for the present, today at least, our holy monasteries are leading their lives in peace, without hostile intervention by the state or the Church. We will be at a loss for any defence if we fail to be pleasing to humans and to angels, if we do not succeed in our purpose, if we do not struggle for the glory of God and the salvation of our souls. Orthodox Christianity and monasticism answered the existential question, as the blessed Fr Theoklitos of Dionysiou notes in his work Between Heaven and Earth: Athonite Monasticism.12 Our highly respected

12

Theoklitos of Dionysiou, Between Heaven and Earth: Athonite Monasticism (Athens: Astir, 1956).

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Metropolitan of Diokleia, Kallistos Ware, observes in his book The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality: ‘The time for Orthodoxy has come’ (as well as, we would add, for monasticism). What impresses ‘is not an aggressive or triumphant Orthodoxy, which attracts like a magnet with the external brilliance of its Byzantine past, but rather a humble and tortured Orthodoxy’, and a monasticism beleaguered by persecutions.13 We in our turn will ask humbly your forgiveness and your prayers for a good struggle, a good end, and an acceptable defence. Forgive us.

Bibliography Greek Γιανναράς, Χρήστος, Ορϑοδοξία ϰαι Δύση, Η Ορϑοδοξία στην Ελλάδα σήμερα (Athens, 1972) (Christos Yannaras, Orthodoxy and the West: Orthodoxy in Greece Today). Διονυσιάτου, Θεοκλήτου, Αγιος Νεϰτάριος αιγίνης ο ϑαυματουργός, ο Βίος ϰαι το έργο του 1846–1920 (Thessaloniki, 1979) (Theoklitos of Dionysiou, St Nektarios the Wonderworker: His Life and His Work 1846–1920). Διονυσιάτου, Θεοκλήτου, Μεταξη Ουρανος και Γης. Αγιοριτικος Μοναχισμος (Athens: Astir, 1956) (Theoklitos of Dionysiou, Between Heaven and Earth: Athonite Monasticism). Κατουνακιώτης, Γέροντας Δανιήλ, Αγγελικος Βιος (Mount Athos, 1981) (Elder Daniel of Katounakia, Angelic Life). Κεϕαλάς Νεκτάριος Μητροπολίτης Πενταπόλεως, Το γνώθι σ`αυτόν, Μελέται ϑρησϰευτιϰαί ϰαι ηϑιϰαί (Athens: Athos, 2012) (Metropolitan Nektarios of Pentapolis, To Know Yourself, in Studies of Religion and Ethics). Μεταλλινός, Γεώργιος Πρωτοπρεσβύτερος, Παράδοση ϰαι Αλλοτρίωση τομές στην πνευματιϰή πορεία του νεωτέρου Ελληνισμού ϰατά τη μεταβυζαντινή περίοδο (Athens:

13

Kallistos Ware, The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality (London: Marshall Pickering, 1974).

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Domos, 1986) (George Metallinos, Tradition and Alienation: Volumes in the Spiritual Course of Modern Hellenism versus Post-Byzantium Period). Οικονόμου εξ`Οικονόμων, Κωνσταντινος, Τα σωζόμενα εϰϰλησιαστιϰά συγγράμματα (Athens, 1864) (Konstantinos Oikonomos, Preserved Ecclesiastical Writings). Παπαδόπουλος, Χρυσόστομος, Η ιστορία της Εϰϰλησίας της Ελλάδος, τόμος Α` (Athens, 1920) (Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, The History of the Church of Greece, vol. 1).

English Chondropoulos, Sotos, Saint Nektarios, the Saint of Our Century (Athens: Kainourgia Ge Publications, 1997). Dimitrakopoulos, Sophocles, Saint Nektarios Kephalas, Metropolitan of Pentapolis 1846–1920 (Athens, 1985). ——, Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis, the First Holy Figure of Our Times: A Historical Biography Based in Authentic Sources (Athens, 1998). Titus (Mathaiaki), Metropolitan of Paramythia, Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis’ Catechetical Epistles Addressed to the Nuns of Holy Trinity Monastery, Aegina (Athens, 1984). Ware, Kallistos, The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality (London: Marshall Pickering, 1974).

Notes on Contributors

FATHER ANDREAS ANDREOPOULOS was raised in Greece and studied psychology, sociology, and theology in Greece, Canada, the UK, and the USA. He is now Reader in Orthodox Christianity at the University of Winchester. His publications include This Is My Beloved Son: The Transfiguration of Christ (Orleans, MA: Paraclete Press, 2012), The Sign of the Cross: The Gesture, the Mystery, the History (Orleans, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006), Art as Theology: From the Postmodern to the Medieval (London: Equinox, 2006), and Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005). FATHER LIVIU BARBU is a Romanian Orthodox priest in Norwich and Associate Lecturer at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge. He holds a PhD on the subject of spiritual formation in the Eastern Orthodox tradition from King’s College London and he lectures and publishes on the topic. ARCHIMANDRITE EPHRAIM has been a monk on the Holy Mountain for a number of years. He formerly served at the monastery of Philotheou and now ministers at the skete of the Apostle Andrew and Anthony the Great, a dependency of Vatopedi. FATHER MAXIMOS OF SIMONOPETRA (Nicholas Constas) has taught patristics and Byzantine Theology at Holy Cross School of Theology and Harvard Divinity School. He is currently Senior Research Scholar at Holy Cross. His most recent publication is a critical edition and English translation of St Maximos the Confessor, On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua to Thomas and the Ambigua to John (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). GRAHAM SPEAKE studied classics at Trinity College, Cambridge, and gained a DPhil at Oxford for a thesis on the Byzantine transmission of

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ancient Greek literature. He is the founder and Chairman of the Friends of Mount Athos and author of Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise (2nd edn., Limni: Denise Harvey, 2014), for which he was awarded the Criticos Prize. He was received into the Orthodox Church on Athos. He served as a publisher in Oxford for forty years and is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. SISTER THEOKTISTI was raised in England and studied psychology, philosophy, and physiology at St Anne’s College, Oxford. She then taught in London before moving to study in Germany. While reading for a doctorate at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome she discovered her spiritual roots in Orthodoxy and especially in monastic life. She is now a nun of the Holy Monastery of St John the Forerunner, Anatoli, Greece. METROPOLITAN KALLISTOS WARE holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford where from 1966 to 2001 he was a Fellow of Pembroke College and Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies. He is a monk of the monastery of St John the Theologian, Patmos, and an assistant bishop in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. His publications include The Orthodox Church (2nd edn., London: Penguin, 1993) and The Orthodox Way (2nd edn., Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995). FATHERS METHODY AND KIRILL ZINKOVSKIY are twin brothers who both graduated from St Petersburg Technical University where they took postgraduate degrees in science. From 1995 to 2002 they attended the St Petersburg Theological Seminary and Academy, taking monastic vows in 1999. Ordained priests in 2002, they now lecture in dogmatic theology and patristics.

Index

Abraham  1, 18, 79 Adam 100 Agricultural Party of Greece  124–5 Aimilianos, abbot of Simonopetra  3, 69–89, 108, 112 Akritohoriou monastery, Serres  138 Alexander the Great  18 Alexei II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia  106 Alexis, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia  51 Ambrose of Optina, St  59–60, 64 Amphilochios of Patmos, Fr  13, 138 Andreopoulos, Fr Andreas  4–5 Andrew of Mozhaysk, Prince  52 Annunciation monastery, Skiathos  113 Anthimos of Chios, St  137 Antony of Egypt, St  9, 12, 22, 35, 64 Antony of Kiev, St  49 Aristotle 18 Arius 115 Arizona 112 Arkhip of Glinsky monastery, Elder 63–4 Arsenios of Paros, St  137–8 ‘art of arts’  2, 26–7, 34, 93 Ascension monastery, Kozani  138 Athanasius, St  9 Athens  117, 122, 132 Balaam’s ass  9 Barbu, Fr Liviu  3–4 Barsanuphios of Gaza, St  12–14, 22, 33, 104

Bavarian rule  131–2 Benedict, St  12 Berdyaev, Nikolai  127 Bulgakov, Mikhail  127 Canada  122, 138 Charalambos of Dionysiou, Elder  23 Christodoulos, Metropolitan of Dimitriados 136 Civil War, Greek  126 Clement of Alexandria, St  47 Coman, Fr Constantin  97 Communist Party of Greece (KKE) 124–6 Constantinople  99, 119, 123 Corfu 139 Corinth  20, 85 Crete 139 Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia  51 Cyril of the White Lake, St  52 Daniel of Katounakia, Elder  5, 137 Daniel of Pereyaslav, St  66 Dante Alighieri  85 deification see theosis desert fathers  1, 143 Desert Fathers, Sayings of the  8, 12, 28, 91 Dionysios the Areopagite, St  18 Dionysios, Bishop of Kynouria  135 Diveyevo nunnery  57 Dobrotolubiye  30, 38 Dorotheos of Gaza, St  41, 103

154 Index Dositheos (Alexandropolis) of Dionysiou, Fr  139 Dostoevsky, Fyodor  8

Hellenism 133–4 hesychasm  3, 51–2, 71, 82–3, 88, 113–14 Holy Trinity monastery, Aegina  131, 137

Eliade, Mircea  125 Elijah 85 Elisaios, abbot of Simonopetra  73, 86–8 Elisha  85, 88 England 138 Enlightenment  127, 131–3 Ephraim, hegoumenos of St Andrew’s skete 1–2 Ephraim of Katounakia, Elder  23 Ephraim of Philotheou, Elder  23, 138 Epistle to Diognetus 116 Esphigmenou monastery  49 European Union  127 Eve 100 Evergetinos  82 Ezekiel 77

iconoclasm 113–14 icons 22 Ieronymos of Thebes, Metropolitan  127 Ignatius of Antioch, St  93–4 Irenaeus, St  108 Isaiah 77 Isidore of Gethsemane skete, Fr  59 Islam  51, 134

Flamiatos, Kosmas  136 Florakis, Harilaos  126 Florovsky, Fr Georges  62 Gabriel, abbot of Dionysiou  138 Gabriel (Petrov) of St Petersburg, Metropolitan  38, 54 Garber, Marjorie  84 Georgios (Kapsanis), abbot of Grigoriou  127, 138 Gerontikon  8, 14, 35, 39–40, 82 Glinsky monastery  54, 63 Greece, Church of  133 Gregory Palamas, St  38, 99–100 Gregory of Sinai, St  51 Hausherr, Irénée  93 Helen (Manturova) of Diveyevo, St  57, 62

Jerome (Solomentsov), Elder  55, 65 Jesus Prayer  3, 17, 38, 51, 53, 74–6, 79, 81–3, 88 John Chrysostom, St  117 John Climacus, St  11, 13, 36–7, 101, 141, 146 John of Damaskos, St  31 John the Faster, St  13 John of Gaza, St  12 John (Kryukov) of Sviatogorsky Lavra, St  63 John (Maximovitch) of San Francisco, St 8 Joseph the Hesychast, Elder  2, 23, 70, 83, 138 Joseph of Vatopedi, Elder  23 Kadloubovsky, Evgeniya  39 Kaisariani monastery, Attica  134 Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, Metropolitan see Ware, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia Kapodistria, Ioannis  132–3 Karakalou monastery  120, 138 Kechrovouni monastery, Tinos  134–5, 137 kenosis  48, 62 Kiev  34, 49–50

155

Index Kievo-Pechersky monastery  49–50 Kissavos, Mount  139 koinonia 104 Kollyvades 136–7 Korais, Adamantios  133 Kornofolia monastery  138 Lavrion 139 legislation, ecclesiastical  135–6 Leo of Optina, St  54, 66 Logos 124 Longovarda monastery, Paros  113 Lossky, Vladimir  48 Makarios, abbot of St Panteleimon  55, 64–5 Makarios of Corinth, St  43 Makarios of Egypt, St  61 Makarios of Optina, St  54, 60 Makrakis, Apostolos  124 Makrynos monastery, Megara  113 Martyrs, New  134 Marxists 124–7 Matthopoulos, Eusevios  124 Maximos the Confessor, St  29, 101 Maximos of Simonopetra, Fr  3 Meteora  72, 77, 139 Milesi monastery, Attica  138 Mios, Abba  91 Moscow 38 Moses  19, 77, 127 Nafplion 132 Neilos of Ancyra, St  2, 26–9 Nektarios of Aegina, St  5, 131–2, 137, 143 Neophytos of Kafsokalyvia, monk  136 Nikita of Kiev, bishop of Novgorod, St 50 Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain, St  33–4, 37–9, 40–1, 116, 127, 136 Nikon of Karoulia, Fr  39

Nil Sorsky, St  2, 40, 52, 58 Nilus of Sora, St see Nil Sorsky, St noetic prayer see Jesus Prayer Notaras, Makarios  136 occupation of Greece, German  124–5 Oikonomos, Konstantinos  133, 135 Old Believers  47 Optina, elders of  3, 52, 54, 58, 64 oracles 114 Ormylia nunnery  84, 138 Ottomans 123 Ouranoupolis 112 Paisios, Elder  2, 12–14, 22, 112, 138 Paisios the Great, St  22 Paisy Velichkovsky, St  2–3, 30, 34–8, 40–1, 43, 52–4, 105 Palmer, Gerald  39 Panorama monastery, Thessaloniki  138 Papacy 119 Papadiamantis, Alexandros  4–5, 116–17, 128 Parios, Athanasios  136 Paros 135 Patras  112, 136 Patriarchate of Constantinople  99, 133 Paul the Apostle, St  9, 20–2, 38, 64, 85, 93, 114–16, 146 conversion of  72, 77–9 Paul of Obnora, St  52 Paul of Thebes, St  64 Pelagia of Diveyevo, St  60 Pelagia of Tinos, St  134 Pelion, Mount  139 Peloponnese 134–6 Perrone, Lorenzo  100 Peter the Great, Emperor  55, 62 Peter of Damaskos, St  2, 30–1, 36 Philaret, abbot of Glinsky monastery  54 Philokalia  2, 25–41, 53–4, 116

156 Index Philotheos (Zervakos) of Paros, Fr  138 Philotheos Kokkinos, Patriarch  51 Poemen, Abba  12 Porphyrios, Elder  138 Portaria monastery, Pelion  138 prayer of the heart see Jesus Prayer Prousos monastery, Evrytania  113 Psalms  79–80, 118 Radonezh monastery  51 Rasputin 106 relics 22 Roman Catholic Church  119–20 Rome  99, 120 Rose, Fr Seraphim  37 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques  123 Rublev, St Andrei  52 Sagmata monastery, Voiotia  113 St Anthony’s monastery, Arizona  112 St David’s monastery, Evia  113 St John the Baptist’s monastery, Tolleshunt Knights  138 St John the Forerunner’s monastery, Ossa 139 St John the Theologian’s monastery, Patmos 113 St Marina’s monastery, Andros  135 St Nicholas’s monastery, Santorini  134 St Panteleimon monastery  55 St Vissarion monastery  3, 72–3 Savas of Kalymnos, St  137 Savvopoulos, Dionysis  126–7 ‘science of sciences’  93 Segneri, Paolo  33 Seraphim of Sarov, St  8, 10, 14, 40, 48, 52, 54, 57, 60, 62, 67 Serbia, Church of  119 Sergius of Nurom, St  51 Sergius of Radonezh, St  47, 51–2 Serres 138

Shakespeare, Willliam  84–5, 115 Shamordino nunnery  59 Silouan, St  2–3, 23, 55–6, 105, 138 Simonopetra monastery  70–89, 138 Sinai, Mount  19, 77 Sophrony (Sakharov), Archimandrite  3, 23, 45, 55–7, 59, 105, 138 Sotir  5, 124, 128 Souroti monastery  138 Sozomen 99 Stephen of Perm, St  52 Studios monastery  114 Symeon the New Theologian, St  2, 11, 13, 31–3, 35, 43 Symeon the Studite  33 Synod of the Church of Greece  124, 134–6 Theodoros of Edessa, St  29 Theodosia, abbess of Kechrovouni  137 Theodosios of Kiev, St  49 Theoklitos of Dionysiou, Fr  148 Theoktisti, Sr  5 Theophanes the Greek  51 theosis  103, 108, 145 Thessaloniki  85, 122 Thrace 51 Torah 12 Transfiguration of Christ  77 Transfiguration monastery, Loukous  134 Transfiguration monastery, Meteora  72 Transfiguration monastery, Patmos  137 United States of America  138 University of Greece  133 Valaam monastery  54 Vasileios of Iviron, Elder  121 Vatican, Orthodox  113 Virgil 85 Voltaire 123

Index Ware, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia  1, 2, 43, 48, 57, 69, 95–6, 149 Williams, Charles  9 World War II  124–5 Xenophontos monastery  138

157 Yannaras, Christos  127 Yiannoulatos, Archbishop Anastasios of Albania 72 Zinkovskiy, Frs Methody and Kirill  2–3 Zoi  5, 124, 128 Zouraris, Kostas  127

graham speake studied classics at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford for a thesis on the Byzantine transmission of ancient Greek literature. He is the founder and Chairman of the Friends of Mount Athos and author of Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise (2nd edn., 2014), for which he was awarded the Criticos Prize. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Speake and Ware (eds)

www.peterlang.com

Spiritual Guidance on Mount Athos



kallistos ware holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford where from 1966 to 2001 he was Fellow of Pembroke College and Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies. He is a monk of the monastery of St John the Theologian, Patmos, and an assistant bishop in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. In 2007 he was raised to the rank of metropolitan.

Spiritual Guidance on Mount Athos

Spiritual guidance is the serious business of Mount Athos, the principal service that the Fathers offer to each other and to the world. Athonites have been purveyors of spiritual guidance for more than a thousand years in a tradition that goes back to the fourth-century desert fathers. The recent monastic renewal on the Mountain is testimony to the Fathers’ continuing power to attract disciples and pilgrims to listen to what they have to say. The papers included in this volume examine some of the many aspects of this venerable tradition, as it has developed on Mount Athos, and as it has devolved upon monks and nuns, spiritual fathers and confessors, lay men and women, in other parts of Greece and in the world. Most of the papers were originally delivered at a conference convened by the Friends of Mount Athos at Madingley Hall, Cambridge, in 2013.

Edited by

grah am s peak e and

m et ropol i t an k al l i s t os ware

Peter Lang