St. Gregory Palamas was a true Hagiorite monk, who not only lived on the Holy Mountain for a great length of time as a monk, an abbot and a hesychast, but at the same time lived the true monastic practice. His life, as St. Philotheos describes it, calls to mind great personalities of the monastic life.
Later he was to speak constantly of the monastic life and ways. Thus the homilies intended for monks as well as those spoken to his Flock in Thessaloniki often refer to the monastic life and how it is lived. Therefore in what follows we shall look at his teaching about the monastic way of life.
We should emphasise that we are not going to exhaust the subject here, for in other chapters of the book much will be said about just what the monastic life is and how it is lived. But here we shall stress the fact that the monastic life in reality is a prophetic, apostolic and martyric mode of life, and we shall cite a number of general elements in it which are found scattered through the saint's homilies.
First we make a few general remarks about how monasticism made its appearance, because, unfortunately, some people are dominated by certain erroneous conceptions and views on this subject.
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[ BACK ] 1. Monasticism as prophetic, apostolic and a martyr's life |
The impression exists that monasticism developed in the fourth century, and therefore some people are led to the conclusion that it is a later manifestation of life, which, as they maintain, altered the simplicity of the Gospel. On these grounds the Protestants effaced monasticism from the life of their "Church", as did the protestantising "Orthodox" Christians, essentially denying its value and significance for the life of the Church as a whole.
However, monasticism, although it developed in the fourth century as a special form of life -as anchorites- nevertheless as a way of life it existed from the beginning of the appearance of the Church. The whole of Holy Scripture describes the life of the righteous and the Christians as a monastic life.
The original condition of Adam and Eve in Paradise was essentially an experience of the angelic way of life, of the monastic life. The description given in the Old Testament and in the interpretive analysis by the Fathers shows that Adam and Eve lived in the pure and holy monastic way. St. John Chrysostom gives an analytical description of the life of Adam and Eve as an angelic life. St. John of Damascus teaches that in that first sensible Paradise Adam and Eve experienced even the intelligible Paradise, that they lived in the state of illumination of their nous and of deification. St. Nicetas Stethatos says the same. It is a common patristic tradition that the Paradise of Eden was a blessed place in which Adam and Eve lived in communion with God, having an illumined nous and a vision of God.
Moreover St. Gregory Palamas relates the life of the monks in the monasteries to the life of Adam and Eve in Paradise. In the holy monasteries, which are places of Paradise, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not absent, nor is the evil lecturer, the devil, who is ready to guide the monk into sin, as he guided Adam and Eve then. Therefore he advises the monks to be very watchful, because they may fall into sin as Adam and Eve did, through the cunning of the devil, who took advantage of their carelessness, even if they were not subject to passion, but dispassionate, and went round "in a place free of passions". Thus he advised the monks to avoid the company of worldly people. So the monastic life is the life and condition of Paradise before the fall, and no doubt Adam and Eve were the first monks.
The Old Testament Prophets really lived the life which the monks live today. The circles of the Prophets as they are described in the books of the Old Testament were groups which formed around a man enlightened by God and were being taught about living a life devoted to God. If we give careful study to these groups of Prophets, we shall see that they do not differ essentially from the holy gatherings of monks today, who have an abbot, practise obedience and prayer and are being cured so that they too may be found worthy of becoming Prophets. We know very well that even in the Old Testament one finds the stages of spiritual perfection: purification of the heart, illumination of the nous and deification. So the great prophetic personalities of the Old Testament lived in this monastic way.
The life of the Prophet Elijah was not very different from that of the hermits and ascetics. The only difference is that he lived in the period before the incarnation of Christ, whereas the ascetics today are members of the Body of Christ. Likewise we know very well that the Forerunner, who lived in the desert from an early age, lived in the monastic way. The Evangelist Luke writes plainly: "So the child grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the desert till the day of his manifestation to Israel" (Lk. 1, 80). His life in the desert, when he "was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey" (Matt. 3, 4), his message and his whole way of life, even his death, call to mind the life of monks, and especially of the solitary monks, who sacrifice themselves every day for the love of God, in order to keep the commandments of Christ in their daily life.
The composition and life of the apostolic group calls to mind the monastic communities. The Disciples left everything to follow Christ. Their submission was preceded by leaving their material goods and departing from their families, just as Abraham did, and then submission followed. As we read the Gospels we see the Twelve Apostles and Matthew as subordinates to their great spiritual Father, Christ. For three years they were being purified of their passions, receiving the cure through Christ's words, then a few of them attained the vision of the uncreated glory of God in the human nature of the Word, on Mt. Tabor, and finally all the Disciples were found worthy of Pentecost, received the Holy Spirit and became members of the Body of Christ.
In Christ's teaching the Christian life appears as a monastic life. The beatitudes show clearly that the Christian life is the monastic life. The first beatitude refers to the poor in spirit, to the awareness of the sin and passions within us. The second beatitude speaks of godly mourning, for when through the Holy Spirit a person has become aware of the existence within him of the "old" man, he weeps and mourns. The third beatitude refers to meekness, which is a fruit and result of godly mourning. The fourth beatitude is about hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God, for keeping God's commandments in daily life. The fifth beatitude refers to the sense of God's mercy, for when the Christian weeps for his sins, he experiences God's mercy. The sixth beatitude speaks about purity of heart, which is a fruit of mourning and of the experience of God's mercy. The seventh beatitude refers to peace, which is a fruit of purity of heart. And the last beatitude shows the end of the spiritual life, which is the persecution and martyrdom which the deified person undergoes. This is why the martyrdom of the saints is not a matter of a strong will, but a fruit of seeing God (Matt. 5, 112).
The Christian life is seen in Christ's beatitudes. But this also constitutes the monastic path and way of life. Someone asked me to explain just what monasticism is and what the work of a monk is. I told him that if we read Christ's beatitudes in the interpretive tradition of the Church, we will understand very well what the monastic life is.
The way in which the Apostolic Churches are organised is very suggestive of the way in which contemporary monasteries are organised. Common uses among the first Christians in Jerusalem are reminiscent of the monks' common use, common ownership and total shedding of possessions. Moreover, the renunciation of material goods is for the sake of a person's purification and his attaining an illuminated nous and noetic prayer. It is only in this light that we should examine the problem of common use. It is not simply a sociological fact, but a purely ascetic and spiritual one.
In the Apostle Paul's epistles to the Churches we see clearly the frameworks within which the first Christians lived, and their aims as well. They had to die to the passions, live the Cross of Christ in their daily lives, since it is by the cross that man is made dead to the world and as a result the world is dead to man. Those who had wives should be "as though they had none", and in general all had to keep the commandments of God in their daily lives. Apart from these things in the epistles of the Apostle Paul it is evident that the first Christians had noetic prayer in their hearts: "speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord" (Eph. 5, 19). Likewise it is clear that in the Apostolic Churches there were Christians who belonged to all the ranks of the saved, that is to say they were purified, illuminated and deified. I do not intend to list all the passages which make this reality clear. What I wanted to emphasise is that in the texts of the New Testament the Christian life is presented in the way which we recognise as the monastic life. Essentially the first Apostolic Churches were therapeutic communities in the Orthodox sense of the term, when the Christians were purified of passions, illuminated and climbed the mountain of the vision of God.
If we look carefully into the tradition of the Church, we will find that the testing which one undergoes today in order to become a monk is the same as was the practice for becoming a Christian. The novices of each monastery are the catechumens of the early Church and the monks are the "illuminated" Christians. This is said from the point of view of the interior spiritual life. In the early Church Baptism was preceded by catechism, which in reality was the method for purifying the heart of passions, freeing the nous from the passions, logic and the conditions of the environment. This same thing is being continued in monasteries today by the order of novices. The novice goes through the stage of repentance and purification. When the repentance is completed, then the "second baptism" is received, the person discovers what the coming of the Holy Spirit means, and God permitting, he can ascend to higher degrees of the spiritual life. By studying the order of novices in monasteries today we can be helped to understand how the Catechumens are prepared for membership in the Church. And the study of orthodox monasticism in its genuine expression can guide us to an understanding of the functioning of the first Apostolic Churches.
The monastic life is an evangelical life, a life of repentance and keeping Christ's commandments, an effort towards purity of heart and illumination of the nous. This comes about through God's energy and man's synergy. The life which Christ offered to the world is for all men. Moreover, as we have seen, St. Gregory Palamas lived in a family which had the evangelic-monastic way of life; he grew through prayers and lived essentially as a monk. He had attained the life of a monk before going to the Holy Mountain, while he was living in Constantinople and was still studying. What we are going to say about his teaching should be seen in this light.
The fact that the monastic life is the evangelic life and conduct, and the fact that everyone can live it, can also be seen, among other things, from the teaching of St. Symeon the New Theologian which no one can doubt, because it is expressed by this leading teacher of the Church, and there are many persons in the Bible who confirm it. St. Symeon teaches that it is possible for all, monks and lay people, constantly to weep, repent and pray to God. It is possible to have a wife and children, a multitude of servants, much property and many cares in life, and not only to weep and pray every day, but even to reach perfect virtue.
He writes characteristically: "So it is possible for all men, brethren, not only for monks but for laymen as well, to be penitent at all times and continually, and to weep and entreat God, and by such practices to acquire all other virtues as well". He cites as witnesses John Chrysostom and the Prophet King David, according to whom it is possible for a person "who has a wife and children, men and women servants, a large household, and great possessions, and who is prominent in worldly affairs not only daily to weep and pray and repent; he can also attain to perfection of virtue if he so wishes. He can receive the Holy Spirit and become a friend of God and enjoy the vision of Him". As examples he takes Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Lot at Sodom, Moses, David and the Apostle Peter, who was unlettered, a fisherman and married.
St. Symeon cites the example of a young man by the name of George, who was granted to have an experience of the vision of the glory of God. This was Symeon himself, when he was still young. Living in Constantinople, about twenty years of age, after great ascetic prayer, while he was performing his usual tasks -"during the day he managed a patrician's household and daily went to the palace engaged in worldly affairs..."- he saw the uncreated Light. When he was noetically saying the prayer "God, have mercy upon me a sinner", "suddenly a flood of divine radiance appeared from above and filled the room". He looked around him and did not know if he was standing on the ground. He thought that he himself had become that light. His nous then ascended to heaven "and beheld yet another light, which was clearer than the one close at hand". Referring to this experience, he goes on to say: "Have you learned that living in the midst of the city does not hinder us from practising the commandments of God as long as we are zealous and vigilant, and that solitude and retirement from the world are useless if we are slack and careless?".
So the monastic life is the prophetic and apostolic life, which in reality is the life of repentance, purifying one's heart, keeping Christ's commandments. It is not alien to the life of the Church nor is it a life which developed much later, in the fourth century, and crept into the life of the Church, but it is the new life which Christ brought into the world by becoming man.
In the first apostolic period all the Christians lived like monks, and therefore there was no need to go out of the world and journey to special places. During the persecutions the apostolic life was also expressed in the form of martyrdom, because, as we said before, the end of the beatitudes is persecution and martyrdom for the glory of Christ. So just as the apostolic life is at the same time prophetic and that of a martyr, so also the life of the martyr is simultaneously prophetic and apostolic. However, when after the cessation of the persecutions Christianity became worldly and lost the prophetic, apostolic and martyr's experience, then the Christians who wanted to live more profoundly by Christ's commandments left the world in order to live God's will in the highest degree. So we have the first phase of monasticism as anachoretism with the great personality of St. Antony, the desert teacher. He was followed by other Christians as well, and so the Sketes and Monasteries were created. However, this is not a question of a new form of Christianity, but of living true Christianity by the prophets', apostles' and martyrs' experience. The monastic life, then, is the sequel to that of the Prophets, Apostles and martyrs of the first Church, it is life in harmony with the keeping of Christ's commandments.
The fact that it is only in this light that we can look at monasticism is clear from St. Symeon the New Theologian, who declares that "if instead of being timid, slothful, and despisers of God's commandments, we were zealous, watchful, and sober, we should have no need of renunciation or tonsure or the flight from the world". Therefore, slothfulness, laziness and despising Christ's commandments, and more generally, Christianity's becoming worldly brought renunciation, tonsure and flight from the world. This shows that the monastic life is the life of the Gospel, which can be lived even in the midst of the world if one follows the traditional teaching given by the Church.
Moreover, the homilies addressed by St. Gregory Palamas to his Flock in Thessaloniki manifest this truth. When one reads these homilies one will find that they are distinguished by their theology and their ascetic tradition. He explains ascetic themes to his Christians: how will they get rid of their passions, their thoughts; how will they be cured; how will they experience the hesychastic way of life? They are not at all like some of the spiritless, social and moral sermons of our time. They are homilies which can very well also be read by monks; they can be read in monastic dining halls; that is to say, they meet monastic standards. This makes evident the truth that Christ's teaching is common to all men and that there is kinship between the Christian and monastic lives, since the latter is experience of the former, and the Christian life is in reality a monastic life with appropriate adaptations.
The facts that the monastic life is the evangelic life and that a monk is one who lives evangelically can also be seen in St. Gregory Palamas's homily on St. Demetrios of Thessaloniki, in which St. Demetrios is presented as a monk. Naturally in the time of St. Demetrios there was no monasticism as we know it today, but every Christian who kept the will of God was essentially a monk.
In his homily on St. Demetrios the divine Gregory puts in relief the chastity of his body and soul. He lived in general chastity even though he was the highest officer in the Roman army.
According to St. Gregory Palamas, St. Demetrios was graced with splendid prophetic power and was counted worthy of "the apostolic and teaching diaconate and a high position". He was full of virtues and was not inferior to the saints in asceticism "and in their radiance of life". But he was behind some, was like others; superior to some and surpassing others. He possessed many gifts.
The warfare which St. Demetrios waged within his heart was comparable to the warfare of the great ascetics. He kept his nous pure of any unseemly thought, protecting the immaculate Grace of holy Baptism, had a will that harmonised with God's law "like a book of God and a tablet and plaque engraved by God or a writing tablet written by the finger of God and placed before all for the common use". In this way St. Demetrios was chaste in both body and soul. He had his citizenship in heaven and walked on an equal footing with the angels, having a body as well. So St. Demetrios seems to have had an angelic life and citizenship.
The patron saint of Thessaloniki was "both a teacher and an apostle, wise and chaste and holy, and we may say very beautiful and spotless, and made radiant by nature, zeal and grace".
Comparing St. Demetrios with Job of the Old Testament, St. Gregory says that while Job was blameless, righteous and pious, just as Demetrios was, Job was not praised by God for chastity, something which St. Demetrios had. His chastity showed St. Demetrios to be higher than nature and on a par with the angels.
From this example it can be seen on the one hand that the monastic life is in reality the evangelical life, and on the other hand that the monk who practises chastity of body and soul is a Prophet, Apostle and witness of Christ.
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[ BACK ] 2. The Holy Mountain at the time of St. Gregory Palamas |
We cannot examine the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas about monasticism and monks unless we have knowledge about the Hagiorite monasticism of his time. This will be the subject of this section. We should point out beforehand that in the fourteenth century there was a great flowering of Hagiorite monasticism. This played an important role in the theological writings and in the whole theological movement which took place in the fourteenth century within the area of the then Roman Empire (Romanity)*.
It seems that there was monasticism on the Holy Mountain at a very early time, but in the ninth century we have witness of the presence of monasticism in the person of St. Peter the Athonite. St. Peter is considered the first inhabitant of the Holy Mountain, since there is written evidence and it is confirmed by St. Gregory Palamas in his writing about him.
The Holy Mountain was originally supervised by the emperor, then the supervision was transferred to the Patriarch and from him to the Metropolitan of Hierissos. Finally it was transferred back to the emperor. Thus Mount Athos was sometimes under the Patriarch and sometimes under the emperor. So in the fourteenth century the Holy Mountain was closely linked to Constantinople.
The great peak of Hagiorite monasticism began with the founding of the Great Lavra by St. Athanasios the Athonite and continued with the founding of other Monasteries. The peak of Hagiorite monasticism, which began in the tenth century, continued and grew into the eleventh, during which many monks came to the Holy Mountain and created many monydria*. There were more than 180 of them. At that time the great Monasteries of Lavra, Vatopedi, Iveron, Xeropotamou, Zographou, Docheiariou, Philotheou, Esphigmenou, Rossikon, and Amalphinon were created. Apart from the building of Holy Monasteries, the Hagiorite lifestyle and life were also organised, and matters relating to the administration of the Government of Athos were regulated.
After a period of suspension, during which there were many invasions on the Holy Mountain with dreadful consequences for its monasticism, the growth of monasticism began again, chiefly in the fourteenth century. During this time new Monasteries were built, such as Pantokratoros, Simonos Petra, Dionysiou, Gregoriou, and St. Paul's, and all the holy dwellings of the Mountain were surrounded with walls. The Monasteries built in that time have the form of fortresses, with "tower, fortress, small windows, narrow doors and no drying-yards". Of course this form of construction was largely due to the invasions to which the Hagiorite monks had been subjected from many directions in the preceding ages.
Therefore during the time when St. Gregory Palamas lived on the Holy Mountain there was a burst of building activity, but also intense spiritual life, which made the Holy Mountain a central point in the Byzantine Empire. At that time on the Holy Mountain there were monks with great radiance and intensity of spiritual life. Of course St. Gregory Palamas made all these things productive and developed them further, when he was led by the hesychast monks to express and formulate the life and experience of the Holy Mountain, which is the experience and life of the Orthodox Church. It is worth while to mention among others St. Gregory of Sinai and his disciples, who lived in holy silence on Athos, St. Theoleptos of Philadelphia, who was the teacher of St. Gregory Palamas in Constantinople and introduced him to the mystical theology of the Church, St. Sabbas of Vatopedi, and so forth.
Here we must also mention the first spiritual father of St. Gregory Palamas, St. Nicodemos, who excelled in conduct and in the vision of God. He lived in the Lavra of Vatopedi, to which St. Gregory came in order to practise holy hesychasm. St. Philotheos Kokkinos, writing about St. Nicodemos, whose feast is the 11th of July, writes: "After arriving at the Lavra of Vatopedi, Gregory became the pupil of the noble Nicodemos, a man wonderful in both his ascetic practice and his vision of God, as all but a few of those who lived near him on Athos had discovered, ... who had previously reached the height of every path of virtue and had come later to Vatopedi, where, after for a long time performing the same feats with the same zeal and the same eagerness, he blessedly found there the wonderful and blessed ending of his life for Christ".
This sanctified place with such famous monks, with the hesychastic tradition, was of course to have a great influence on the young saint Gregory, who had already lived this angelic life in Constantinople and had been fed from the springs of the hesychastic life. All through his struggles for the orthodox teaching of hesychasm St. Gregory Palamas certainly received great help from the hesychast Fathers and from the experience which he himself acquired on the Holy Mountain.
We must make special mention of St. Nicephoros the Solitary, who was in his prime a little before 1340 and who in practising noetic stillness and prayer used the psychophysical method of inhaling and exhaling while constantly calling on the name of Christ, so as to concentrate the nous in the heart. It is well known that the philosopher Barlaam opposed this method of hesychastic life, considering it erroneous. However, St. Gregory Palamas fortified this method theologically; it is used chiefly by novices for concentrating the nous in the heart. It is a fact that in the time of St. Gregory there was vigorous spiritual and neptic life on the Holy Mountain.
In this period the Holy Mountain had great authority, chiefly through the theological presence of St. Gregory Palamas but also through the vigorous presence of great personalities who were living the monastic life there. As evidence for this we should mention, on the one hand, the "Hagiorite Tome", an apologia which was signed by the eminent fathers of the Mountain and played an important part in all the phases of the hesychastic disputes. On the other hand we should mention that in the dispute between John Cantacuzene and John Palaeologos a committee of Hagiorite Fathers headed by Isaac, the most important monk on the Mountain, went to Constantinople to reconcile the two factions.
It is noteworthy that from the middle of the fourteenth century until the Council of Florence, almost one hundred years, seven of the ten Patriarchs who ascended the throne of Constantinople were Hagiorites and defenders of the hesychastic way of life. But even before this period hesychasts had ascended the patriarchal throne. And the victory of hesychasm was complete in that almost until the captivity the patriarchs were hesychasts. This was a fine preparation for helping the Greek People endure the long night of Turkish rule, for it is well known that hesychasm sustained our People in the Greek Orthodox Tradition in Romanity.
In this period the radiance of the Holy Mountain extended even beyond the borders of the Byzantine empire. The monks from foreign lands who were living in solitude on Athos and had adopted all its ascetic life, carried to their countries both hesychasm and "all the forms of the Byzantine tradition". Consequently the Holy Mountain "established a focus of radiation and transmission of the social traditions of Byzantium towards the lands of the North. It was a school in which, apart from progressing in spiritual asceticism, people were trained to be translators and transcribers of the products of the Greek Christian spirit into Slavonic, Old Serbian, Middle Bulgarian, Iberian and other languages, enlighteners and leaders of the Orthodox in those lands".
The Hagiorite monk Sabbas laid "the foundations of the ecclesiastical and monastic organisation in Serbia". Almost all the archbishops of Serbia were from the Chilandari monastery. St. Gregory of Sinai brought Hesychasm to Bulgaria. Hagiorite monks brought the monastic life and organised the church life in Wallachia and Russia".
Thus monasticism on the Holy Mountain in the time of St. Gregory Palamas was in great flowering and vigour. The fourteenth century was a period of rebirth, if we can use this expression, for the Holy Mountain. Its authority extended not only to the whole area of the then Byzantine Empire, Greece, but spread beyond it. We can note, however, that Thessaloniki received the greatest influence, which is not unrelated to the fact that it was there that the reaction of the philosophers against the hesychast Fathers was first manifested.
In order to have a small taste of the life of the Monasteries of the Holy Mountain at the time of St. Gregory Palamas, we shall offer some data from the period when the saint was Abbot at the monastery of Esphigmenou, as described by St. Philotheos Kokkinos in the biography written by him.
He was chosen abbot of the Monastery of Esphigmenou by a common vote by the leader and patron of the Mountain (this clearly means the Protos, the head of the Mountain), who resided at Karyes, and by those fathers of the Monastery distinguished by their virtue and their age, as St. Philotheos writes. St. Gregory is believed to have been led in taking up the abbacy of the Monastery "by those from on high rather than by human votes". The common vote of the fathers of the Monastery and the Protos, or Head of the Holy Mountain shows that there was a procedure for selection at that time, but also that St. Gregory was recognised by the Hagiorite monks even before the hesychastic dispute began.
The Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou at the time of the saint's abbacy numbered about two hundred monks. This number is really large in comparison with today, when no monastery on the Holy Mountain has more than one hundred monks. St. Philotheos writes: "When he arrived there and took up the chair and the abbacy of the brothers, whose numbers had risen to two hundred...".
We can also see from the way in which he administered the Monastery that the Holy Monastery was a completely cenobitic community which had divine services and demanded spiritual guidance and general care for all questions. The saint taught the monks, had the care and adornment of the holy Temple, as well as "the holy works and rites of the wonderful and most profound mysteries". He was likewise concerned with raising the level of liturgical celebrations. The monastery was functioning very well as a hospital of the soul, and the monks had found a real father, a physician, and therefore after his departure some sought greater stillness and others more exact obedience and asceticism. This shows that during the Abbacy of St. Gregory, the Monastery was a real spiritual dispensary, a school of virtue and a sacred place.
As Abbot of the Monastery of Esphigmenou St. Gregory also performed three miracles.
The first miracle was that he cured a monk who had fallen into delusion. This monk was engaged in noetic prayer, attempting to concentrate his nous, but since he was not watchful, the devil led him into deceit, presenting him with apparitions and deceptive images, suggesting to him that he should think they were holy. Soon he had him seduced, and he would shortly have led him into madness and ultimate withdrawal from God, "if Gregory with that divine wisdom and those medicines of the Spirit had not been present". The devil had convinced this monk, who was called Eudokimos, that Gregory was great and wonderful in learning and culture, but he was completely ignorant and lacking in any "mystical vision of God and moral virtue of his own". St. Gregory cured him, sometimes using holy teachings, patristic instructions and advice, sometimes mystical prayers and tears, and sometimes common prayers and supplications of the Church on behalf of the ailing brother, prayers led by the saint himself. The deluded monk Eudokimos was freed from his error and was very successful in his monastic life through the Grace and power of the Holy Spirit.
The second miracle which he performed had to do with the miracle-working discovery of oil. The monks had no oil for their food. Because there was a need, he asked them to take him to the storeroom where the empty vessels were. He stood beside one jug of oil, prayed fervently to God - Who created all things out of nothing - and after blessing it with his hand with the sign of the cross, he repeated the miracle performed by the Prophet Elijah: the vessel was not empty of oil for the whole year, although he and the other monks gave generously to those both inside and outside the Monastery.
The third miracle was related to the preceding one. When he had been informed that the shortage of oil was due to a disease of the olive trees, he went to the olive grove to pray with the elders of the Monastery and the monks. First he prayed, blessed the trees in the form of the Precious Cross, and sanctified the area "with holy supplications and entreaties and sprinkling of holy water". After the litany and the blessing he spoke to them about how they should avoid barrenness of soul, as the Worthy Forerunner had done. Then he returned to the Monastery. When the fruit-bearing season came, the unhealthy plants produced fruits beyond all hope. In order that the miracle might shine more brightly and that the power of Christ might act in the divine Gregory, God permitted more fruits to be borne by those trees which he came near as he passed or stood nearer in conversation or under whose shade he sat.
This small presentation of extracts from St. Gregory, the way in which he directed the Esphigmenou Monastery and guided the monks, as well as the miracles which he performed, demonstrate the life of one Monastery on the Holy Mountain in St. Gregory's time. The hesychastic life of the monks, the litanies and prayers, the sanctifications on the premises of the Monastery, the patristic teaching, and so forth, were the spiritual atmosphere of the Monks of the Holy Mountain. Of course they were not without errors, which were the result of egoism and pride, but also of the work of demons who, however, were opposed by discerning fathers.
All the things that we have mentioned in this section are necessary for the understanding of what is said in this book about the value of the Holy Mountain, monasticism and the hesychastic tradition. It is true that St. Gregory Palamas found a suitable climate, he became more of a man on the Holy Mountain, he lived its hesychastic atmosphere and life, but it was he who lifted it further and made it known, because he developed theologically the hesychastic method of the monks and safeguarded it through the church tradition. This is why the title of Hagiorite is eminently fitting for the divine Gregory.
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[ BACK ] 3. Monasteries and the monastic life |
In all his works, in his polemical works, his letters, the confessional works, his homilies, St. Gregory Palamas is only presenting the monastic life in its authentic expression. Indeed he links the monastic life with the theology of our Church, for as we know, theology in the Orthodox Church is not logical knowledge and thought, but experience and life, and consequently it is closely linked with asceticism. In what follows we shall emphasise general points about monasticism and the monastic life as St. Gregory Palamas presents them, for we shall make extended analyses of this topic in other chapters.
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[ BACK ] a) Naming of the places of ascetic exercises |
In his homilies he calls the Monasteries holy frontisteria. The word 'frontisterion' is used in the early church tradition to refer to monasteries where the monks are learning to practise ascetically the life in Christ. This term was also used in ancient Greece for the school of Socrates to mean a workroom for the concerns or thoughts of the reading room. Since asceticism in the Christian life is philosophy par excellence, because it unites man with God, that is why the monasteries are called holy frontisteria. In one of his homilies he writes: "Therefore we flee the world and find a refuge in these institutes devoted to the God of virtue".
The monk who flees to these frontisteria does not do it in order to lead a carefree and indifferent life, but in order to learn how he can be united with God. The true monk is "one who loves to be with God". He takes refuge in these holy places in order to make his way from the image to the likeness. He calls them holy sanctuaries, that is to say holy enclosures, holy sheepfolds. "We are surrounded by these holy enclosures". In one of his homilies to the monks, on the subject of the Entrance of the Most Holy Mother of God, he refers to them by the following phrases: "Forward, then, army of God, holy theatre, chorus harmonised by the heavenly spirit...". In another homily he calls the holy Monasteries "holy sacred places".
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[ BACK ] b) Monks and those in the world |
While the Christian life, the attaining communion with God, is common to all men, yet, as the divine Gregory teaches, there is a difference between the anchorite and the man in the world as to his manner of living.
In speaking of dispassion -that it does not consist in mortifying the passionate part of the soul, but transforms it- he says that those who have come out of the world have more time to acquire communion with God with an unclouded nous, since they will free it from the refuse of the evil passions and thus arrive at real love. Those living in the world use the things of the world, but they force themselves to do it in conformity with Christ's commandments".
So there is this difference in their way of life: those who have come out of the world abandon everything in order to arrive at love through purity of their nous, while those living in the world arrive at love through keeping Christ's commandments, using all the material goods of the world ascetically.
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[ BACK ] c) Two categories of nuns |
In a homily of St. Gregory we find an interesting detail, which shows the catholicity of the monastic life. He refers to two categories of nuns. First, to those women who chose the monastic life from the beginning, and second, to those who came from married life to a common life in chastity. In both cases the essential precondition is that they desire to live in repentance, which is the basis of monasticism.
He writes incisively: The virgins and those who have promised themselves to the monastic life and those of you who have done well to come back from marriage to a common life in chastity, and in general all you who through a longing for repentance have chosen to live in community...".
This passage shows a long tradition of the Church, according to which even married women are accepted into the monastic way of life, either after the death of their husband or by common consent. To be sure, this must be done with great care so as not to create other problems. In any case what St. Gregory says is important, that those who have come back from marriage are coming back "into living a common life in chastity". Thus they too can acquire spiritual chastity.
The term spiritual chastity can create some doubts and hesitations. In a conference someone said to me that the term spiritual chastity is not found in the Fathers, but that we find the term chastity of soul. And it is true that there are many texts in which the term chastity of soul is used, but we know that no chastity can be considered right without the presence of the Holy Spirit. Therefore the true chastity of soul is and is called spiritual. Moreover the Epistles of the Apostle Paul speak of the natural man, which is the man of flesh, and of the spiritual man, which is the man who partakes of the Holy Spirit. Thus since chastity of soul comes only by the energy of the Holy Spirit, that is why it is called spiritual chastity.
It is significant that when he refers to the nuns who have chosen the monastic life from the start, and to those who became nuns after coming out of married life, St. Gregory exhorts them to live in prayer, compunction, and so forth, so as to be "holy and chaste in both body and soul" in both their senses and their minds, "and in everything showing themselves to be spiritual and chaste in both thought and community life". Thus the thought and community life of the true nuns is characterised as both spiritual and chaste. Universal chastity, of body and soul, is a work of the Holy Spirit and is therefore a spiritual gift.
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[ BACK ] d) Monks and education |
One of the topics which occupied St. Gregory Palamas in his dialogue with Barlaam was that of the two wisdoms, the two educations and the two knowledges. He said that there is godly education on the one hand, and worldly education on the other. This distinction arises because Barlaam maintained that the philosophers were higher than the Prophets and that the monks should learn human wisdom and knowledge. Developing this theme, St. Gregory said that we do not hinder those who have not chosen the monastic life from learning worldly education, but still we do not advise anyone to devote himself entirely to it. And this is because it can teach no one anything sure about God. So we forbid anyone to expect any precise information about divine things from outward education.
From this it is clear that the monks are acquiring divine wisdom throughout their life. The knowledge of God is not a fruit of rational occupations, but a revelation of God Himself. The monks should not expect anything from outward education, particularly not from philosophy. If before becoming a monk anyone wishes to take it up and inform himself about it, it is not forbidden, but certainly it should not be made an absolute and deified.
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[ BACK ] e) Different types and methods of asceticism |
In the works of St. Gregory Palamas we find that there are many ways of living the monastic life. In fact we see this even today on the Holy Mountain. There are cenobitic monks who live in the Monasteries and practise obedience and the common life. There are skete monks who live in Sketes in communities, and there are hermits who live alone in inaccessible areas, in what they call the desert. All are struggling to do the will of God, but each in a different way.
Among these modes of living there are other forms as well, such as living in a type of hermitage called a kathisma, living in a kellion in cells as 'kelliots', and so forth. St. Gregory says that the monks who imitate the Worthy Forerunner renounce the world, and some of them have "dwelt in the desert and attracted to it many from later generations", and others "trained themselves within the walls of holy enclosures and held spiritual gatherings in them". Thus there is a variety of forms of ascetic practice, but the method is the same.
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[ BACK ] f) The purpose of withdrawal |
Withdrawal from the world is not out of self love and timidity about taking up worldly responsibilities, but from a holy desire for a heart purified of passions. Men withdraw from the world in order to remove themselves from what incites the passions, for through that comes the death which separates them from God. Death enters "through the doors in us, that is to say the passions". It was through these doors that Adam also died. Eve in Paradise "saw, suffered passion, ate, died, attracted the man, shared with him the tasting and the fall". The monks try to avoid that death, which comes from all the passions and allurements which exist in the world.
St. Gregory teaches that if a monk has property which he has brought from the world or has acquired in the Monastery, he actually never withdraws from the world. And indeed St. Gregory maintains that even if that monk is still living on the Holy Mountain in the Monasteries which represent the heavenly realm, he is in fact defiling the place.
These words of the saint are dreadful to hear. When the Hagiorite's life is not in keeping with the evangelical and monastic life, he defiles the Holy Mountain. He himself practically loses the possibility of becoming a saint. So it is not a matter of living in a place, but of a way of life.
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[ BACK ] g) The way of monastic life |
St. Gregory Palamas attaches great importance to the way of the monastic life. It is not enough to live in the Monasteries, but one must live in the way of the holy Fathers. The monastery resembles the first Paradise, where Adam and Eve dwelt. Just as there was the tree of knowledge of good and evil there, and just as there was the cunning devil, it is the same now in the Monasteries. So the monks are in great danger of falling, even within their holy walls. Therefore constant readiness and attention are needed.
The aspiration of the monk is to make the inner man a monk. An outward sojourn in a holy place is not enough, but what is needed is an effort to live monasticism inwardly. The saint asks: "how could the inner man become a monk" if he did not first overcome the acquired world and all human learning? This is symbolised by the tonsure, cutting the hair of the head. Likewise St. Gregory has preserved information that is still true even today among many ascetic Fathers who are wholly devoted to God: some Fathers even do not allow baths and forbid receiving help from medical science in cases of illness. Of course they do this not out of scorn for medical science, but out of deep faith in God. Therefore they do not consider outrageous those monks who do not attain such a height of faith as to rest their cure upon God alone.
Of course this will have to be done with discrimination and humility. It is necessary for the monk to have spiritual guidance, because it is possible that he will be led astray by the tempting devil. An essential prerequisite for the monk in this holy struggle, especially for the novice, is that he has a spiritual father to guide him on his spiritual journey. He cites the example of Nicephoros the Solitary, who practised holy hesychia. He chose the strictest life when he came to the Holy Mountain. He began his struggle by doing obedience to the most distinguished of the Fathers. And after having given them the experience of his humility for a very long time, he received from them "the experience of the art of arts, that is to say of stillness, and became a leader of those struggling in the world of the mind to battle against the spirits of cunning...". As a result, since he saw that the novices could not even moderately support the unsteadiness of their nous, he also proposed a special method, which is the psychotechnical method.
The monastic life, as we said in the beginning, is an apostolic way of life. The asceticism in the Monasteries is like the asceticism and life of the early Christians. In Jerusalem the Christians "were continually in the temple persevering in prayer and entreaty". In this way those early Christians were "clarifying beforehand and actually describing this truly monastic, heavenly and most holy life". The monks do this. They try by their way of living to remove all distraction and fantasy from their lives, and through the unifying commandments to rise to the unique theosophy, which is higher than any philosophy. This is the all-holy life and way of the monks. They do nothing else but follow the life of the apostolic men.
The method, as it is described in many places by St. Gregory, is the method which the true monks still follow today. The lover of union with God enters the sanctuary of holy stillness, when he withdraws from the blameworthy life. This means that when he first liberates his soul from every bond, he then joins his nous to God with unceasing prayer, and in this way his nous enters his heart and from there finds the ineffable path to heaven and is granted the divine and holy vision of God in the Light.
We shall analyse this liberation and ecstasy of the nous in other places. Here we simply point out the basis of the monastic life, which is liberation and illumination of the nous.
This struggle is common to monks and nuns. There are not separate commandments for men and women. Therefore in one of his homilies he enjoins the nuns to follow the same manner of life in order to live in the true evangelical way. The nous should be turned to God alone: "look to God alone, make Him your only delight, rejoicing in hope, patient in affliction, obedient to those in charge, serving one another, seeing to the peace among you, always being devoted to attention and prayer and compunction of soul, to psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, being holy and chaste in body and soul, in all your senses and your mind, and manifesting what is spiritual and chaste with all your mind and conduct".
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[ BACK ] h) Monks and reading |
The anti-hesychasts accused the hesychast fathers of advising the monks "to give up all reading of Holy Scripture as wrong, and to devote themselves to prayer alone". In answering this accusation St. Gregory Palamas said that this advice is given to novices. To be sure, there are many Fathers, such as St. Diadochos of Photike, the Great Philemon, St. Neilos, St. John of the Ladder, who advised novices "to keep silence from long reading and give their attention to prayer of a single phrase", until they acquired the habit of praying unceasingly, even if their body was doing something else. However, this does not mean that they regarded reading Scriptures as useless and wrong.
Therefore the novices chiefly devoted themselves to prayer in order to fasten their nous to God, without overlooking the Scriptures. Thus, when they acquired an illuminated nous, they could better understand the spirit of the Scriptures, the deepest sense of the scriptural passages, because they had spiritual kinship with the Apostles and Evangelists.
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[ BACK ] i) Moving of monks in the world |
We have said before that St. Gregory called the Monasteries "the institutes devoted to God", because the monks in them are instructed in godly wisdom and come to possess knowledge of God. In one of his homilies on the passage about the curing of the man possessed, which he apparently spoke in the Temple of St. Demetrios, as it seems from the sentence "let us too approach well and rightly "the spring of aromatic oils which God has granted us and is poured forth, as you see, by the reliquary from the body of our native martyr for Christ", he was directing his words to the monks who were leaving the institutes devoted to God and running to the cities. It seems that St. Gregory saw many monks coming into Thessaloniki without a reason and putting themselves to the test of the various temptations.
The saint advises: "But let us also, especially the monks, flee from association and life with the swine in the wilds. And he goes on to say: "What is the use of your fleeing the world once for all and seeking out the institutes devoted to God as your refuge and then going out of them, back and forth into the world every day? How, tell me, when you go around in the market places will you escape the fomentings of passions through which comes the death of the soul that separates man from God?".
The monks who left the world chose the path of purity of the senses, reason and imagination. Thus there are many dangers in uselessly going out of the Monastery and especially in moving about every day without the blessing of the Abbot.
This is natural, because, as the discerning spiritual fathers know, when a monk lives for a time in purity of the senses and before he is yet confirmed in this life, he is subject to temptations. Prayer, and especially inner prayer of the heart, doing away with thoughts and fantasies makes the heart of man sensitive, and this can be an occasion for falling into sentimental states, which are occasions of great temptation. That is why great care is needed and especially blessings from the spiritual father, the Abbot, for these movements.
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[ BACK ] j) Imitation of the Forerunner |
In his homilies St. Gregory Palamas often emphasises the truth that the monastic way of life is an imitation of the life of the Forerunner, the Baptist of Christ. In his homily on the Forerunner he says that the Fathers who fled to the wilderness did it in imitation of John the Baptist: "Therefore the fathers imitating the forerunner of grace renounced the world and left the company of those near them, either to live in the desert or in holy walled enclosures".
In the same homily he advises the monks to strive to imitate the life of the Forerunner, since the monks' life approaches in some way the solitary desert life of the Forerunner. He writes: "Let us hasten as best we can to imitate the forerunner of grace, and most of all those of us who have a monastic life, whose life is secluded from the customs and things of the world and in some way approaches the solitary desert life of the prophet and baptist". He says particularly that the Forerunner, since he foresaw, Prophet that he was, that the monks would some day be able to imitate him in some measure, let his head be cut off, suffering not out of godliness but out of virtue, so that the monks might be ready to stand up against sin unto death, knowing "that he who puts the passions to flight through virtue will receive a martyr's crown". And here too we see the element of martyrdom in the life of the monks.
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[ BACK ] 4. Conclusion |
In conclusion we can say that monasticism is not alien to the Church, it is not a life which came in much later, but it is the prophetic, apostolic and martyr's life. Every true monk who belongs to the Tradition of the Church is at the same time a Prophet, Apostle and Martyr of Christ, who lives the life of Christ, gives witness of the new life which Christ brought into the world and is ready to endure martyrdom for the glory of Christ. Moreover, the true monk bears witness to the struggle for purity of heart and soul and to the fight against the demons.
The monastery is "the sacred places", the institutes of virtue in which the monks practise holy hesychia, which is the real road to participation in the deifying energy of God. Thus the monks preserve the authentic life of man, his natural journey and life, but also they offer true knowledge of God to the people.
In speaking of monasticism St. Gregory Palamas places it within the Orthodox theological framework. Orthodox monasticism is not enclosed within an abstract ascetic practice nor in a rational knowledge about God, but it breathes real theology. It is the theological life and conduct par excellence. And this is seen from the fact that the whole monastic life, as also St. Gregory Palamas expresses it, answers the basic questions: what is God, what is natural man, to what did man come through the fall, what sort of ruin did he suffer, where should he be led and how will he be cured in order to attain union with God, which is the deepest purpose of his existence. The theology of Orthodox monasticism seems to have answers to these questions. The orthodox monk is intensely occupied with this problem. Therefore he is authentic.
We see this also in the contemporary Hagiorite monks. Some of them may be illiterate and uneducated in the way of the world, but as they have the Holy Spirit, they are Apostles of Jesus Christ. As St. Gregory the Theologian says, the Apostles do not theologise in an Aristotelian way, that is to say, by thinking, imagination and logic, but as fishermen, with the experience of Pentecost. So also contemporary Hagiorite monks who are in the orthodox ecclesiastical tradition are prophets, apostles and martyrs of Jesus Christ. Since they are prophets and apostles, they bear witness to the life which the Church has. That is why they are a light to the men of the world, a spiritual boundary mark, pointers of the way to spiritual perfection.
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