[ BACK ] How the Orthodox Tradition changed |
[ BACK ] How the Orthodox Tradition changed |
-Your question is critical and your observation very accurate. I am delighted with your conclusion, which you expressed in great pain. Indeed, we have lost our Orthodox tradition, which is specified as the therapeutic treatment or the stages of spiritual perfection: purification, illumination and theosis. Church is a Hospital. And just as in Hospitals there is a special treatment for every condition the same happens in the Church. Just as in the Hospital there are outpatient offices, intensive care wards and wards for convalescence period, so also in the Church. The parish-communities operate as outpatient offices, whereas Orthodox Monasteries are the intensive care units. Passing through the stage of purification, one completes his convalescence period and, finally, he attains cure when his nous is illumined. His cure continues until he reaches the vision-theoria of God and the constant theoria of God. We could say that this tradition often exists and operates as a substratum and background in many people. However, Western tradition has greatly affected our life. The Enlightenment of the West substituted moral life for purification and an intellectual catechism for the illumination of the nous, which is achieved through noetic prayer. Thus in Sunday Schools a rather Western Apologetics and, in general, a Western catechism is usually taught. We experience a wide secularisation nowadays. And I firmly believe that secularisation is not abstract. It is not simply expelling God to heaven, as many people teach today, but it is the loss of the therapeutic treatment of the Church; the loss of the three stages of spiritual life: of purification, of the illumination of the nous and of man's theosis. Even when we speak of these, we do it in a superficial way. We just think that we must become "good people". And when theosis is spoken of, we probably consider it as a communion and union with Christ but in an abstract way. Yet no one can attain to communion with Christ outside the ascetic life, which is purification, illumination and theosis. As we previously mentioned, the vision of God is Paradise for the purified, and Hell for the impure. Just as St.Gregory the Theologian says: "O holy Trinity venerable and long-suffering. O Trinity who will become known to all, to the ones by illumination, to the others by damnation". Christ is the fall and resurrection of many.
-How can it be explained that the ascetic method is traced as a background in our people's life? asked Fr.Philip.
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[ BACK ] Orthodox Monasticism -a manifestation of Orthodox Tradition |
-We must confess that this is due to the great power of our tradition, which is alive, and to the great beneficial effect of Orthodox monasticism. We know that Monasticism developed after the cessation of the persecutions. It would seem reasonable if it developed during the persecutions, when Christians would try to find refuge on the mountains. Yet, on the contrary, when Christianity gained its freedom, secularisation appeared. Then those who wanted to live the genuine life according to the Gospel fled from society. Thus, according to the teachings of the Saints of our Church, we can maintain that Monasticism is a result of the secularisation of ecclesiastical life and the loss of the Church's therapeutic treatment. For this reason the first monks used to ask the laymen who would visit them whether the Church still existed in the world. They did not mean whether there were Temples, or Shepherds of the Church, but whether the therapeutic treatment, and especially faith based on theoria was preserved.
It is observed nowadays as well that many people approach sanctified monks, who practise the therapeutic treatment of the Church, to ask them on matters of spiritual life. The people of our days feel that they must be healed of their passions. They live in the suffocating atmosphere of passions and want to be delivered from them. They are aware that a formal Church attendance is not enough. The appropriate method is also necessary. That is why monks are always the shepherds of the people in a indirect way, although they are not directly such. They do not substitute for the work of the shepherds, but they preserve and use the therapeutic treatment which has been lost in contemporary ecclesiastical life. Or, even if it is not lost, at least, it is replaced by a moral mode of life. However man's soul, which yearns for real communion with God, does not find rest in anthropocentric systems and humanistic methods of therapy. It seeks something genuine and authentic. Monks therefore are the theologians of the Church in the sense which we developed in this conversation. They know God and can guide man unerringly to reach God. Furthermore they distinguish the uncreated from the created and thus they can guide in an Orthodox manner.
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[ BACK ] Life on the Holy Mountain as representing the Orthodox way of life |
-The significance of the Holy Mountain for Greece and the world is, indeed, great, said Fr.Philip. This is why many people visit it and leave comforted. There they see all the practical implementations of Christianity, such as property in common and holy poverty. They see the way in which our societies can be organised and function correctly. They are, thus, the hope of our salvation. For, if the truth exists, then we also have the certainty that we will find it some day.
-I agree with your opinion. The Holy Mountain is the hope of our people, but also of the entire mankind; of all those who belong or would like to belong to the people of God -to the Orthodox- independently of their nationality. Because, without abolishing the particular homelands, we surpass them through life in Christ. Thus the Holy Mountain manifests that Christianity is applicable even nowadays. It is not a utopia. It can give answers to the great contemporary questions of philosophy with its abstract searching; of psychology with its psychological interpretations of spiritual life; of sociology with its interpretations alienated from God. There, on the Holy Mountain one can find all these answers applied to perfection, but only within God and the Church. However the importance of the Holy Mountain is not exhausted only at this point. We also acknowledge that it preserves the way and method of man's spiritual cure. I believe that this is the prime and essential message that the Holy Mountain sends to all of us.
-Yes, but we, women, are treated unjustly. We are not allowed to visit the Holy Mountain and experience its life, said Irene.
-The Holy Mountain is not just a place, but a mode of life. We do not idolise places. Certainly, the environment and the quietness may give the possibility of a greater development of inner hesychia. But everyone who is a dwelling place of God the Trinity can be called a "Holy Mountain". The Theotokos, who became the mother of Christ, is called holy and God-trodden Mountain. Thus every one who becomes "mother of Christ", who begets Christ, becomes also a "theotokos". Because, as saint Maximos says, the Word of God, although begotten once in the flesh, "is always begotten in spirit to those who wish" and becomes an infant, grows up and increases in age. Besides, there are many monasteries which live according to the way of life of the Holy Mountain. You can visit these monasteries and see this manner of life. Each Orthodox Monastery which lives in the Holy Spirit, grows in the Orthodox way and keeps the Orthodox tradition, applies the method of cure which our Church obtains.
-In other words, are the monastics today living the stages of spiritual perfection? asked Constantine.
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[ BACK ] Monasticism and the cure of the soul |
-Most certainly. If we examine monastic life, when, of course, it operates within the atmosphere of Orthodox tradition, we realise that the three stages of spiritual perfection do exist. Every monk passes through these stages. Entering monastic life the monk passes through purification. People who start their monastic life usually have unrestrained crying and deep repentance. They discover the ulcers of their soul and start repenting. Repentance occurs in the stage of the novitiate, yet it is completed throughout a monk's life. Along with it goes obedience to the Gerondas and unceasing prayer. It is in this way that the nous is separated from the reason, as we said a few days ago. I have met beginners in monastic life, novices, who have such a repentance, we cannot possibly conceive of. We cannot grasp the degree of their repentance. They experience the crying of the Apostle Peter. When they pass through the stage of the novitiate, which is associated with the stage of purification, they are tonsured and receive the great and angelic habit. During this service the priest reads in the prayer: "You are receiving a second baptism o brother, today". This second baptism is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is the illumination of the nous. If in passing the former stage he was delivered from pleasure and pain, now in the stage of illumination he is freed from ignorance and forgetfulness of God. If in the previous stage the novice departed from sin, now in the illumination of the nous sin flees from the monastic. He is delivered from the energies of the passions. The Apostle Paul writes: "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6,14). Interpreting this passage St.Gregory Palamas says: "by which the world has been crucified to me" reveals that the novice "crucifies" the world; he departs from the world and the causes that excite his passions. "And I to the world" shows that the monastic life is also "crucified" as regards the world. He acquires dispassion by grace. He is liberated from passions. In the monasteries and especially on the Holy Mountain there are cases of monks who reached the theoria of the uncreated Light. Thus, in the organised monasteries, which are based on the Orthodox tradition and express it, all three stages of spiritual life operate. Each monastery which functions within the Orthodox tradition is an organised apostolic community. For this reason Monasticism is also called apostolic life and the monks are called apostles and martyrs, because they have the apostolic and martyrical grace.
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[ BACK ] Apostolic communities |
-You say that every monastery which functions within the Orthodox tradition is an organised apostolic community. Do you suggest then that the apostolic communities lived monastically? asked Basil.
-Certainly, they did. If we read the first epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, we see clearly that in Corinth all classes of Christians existed. There were Prophets, who were the theologians, because prophecy is identified with theology and theology is identified with prophecy. There were people who had noetic prayer, that is, they had the gift of speaking tongues and there were also those people who had the gift of the discernment of spirits. The Apostle Paul, as it is obvious in this epistle, had both the gift of noetic prayer and the gift of theology. That is why we believe that when a parish lives according to the Orthodox tradition, there are people amongst its members who belong to all the stages of spiritual perfection. Therefore, organising a parish should not only involve social work or other gatherings but it should primarily secure the therapeutic treatment of the Church and make it available to any person who seek it and is badly in need of it.
-Is it possible that one finds in the world such an organised parish, where this therapeutic method is being applied? asked Athanasios.
-This is the experience and teaching of ecclesiastical life. It is undoubtedly possible so long as there are people who express this teaching. Christian life is keeping the commandments of Christ, which refer to the purification of the heart, the illumination of the nous, to repentance in unceasing mourning, etc. Years ago there was a conference held on St. Demetrios. The subject was "Saint Demetrios and the monastic ideal". Certain people criticised this position. They could not see the relation St.Demetrios had with monastic life. Yet, they are mistaken in such a judgement. St.Gregory Palamas, speaking about St.Demetrios, presents him as a monastic. He praises the virtues of virginity, poverty and obedience to the commandment of Christ. Furthermore, if we read the epistles of the Apostle Paul, sent to the Churches which consisted of married people, we realise that he speaks of unceasing prayer, of theosis, etc.
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[ BACK ] Western and Orthodox Monasticism |
-You previously said that when monasticism follows the Orthodox tradition and when the monasteries are organised in the Orthodox manner, then they preserve the therapeutic method. In other words, are there also monasteries which do not function according to the Orthodox tradition? asked Fr.Philip.
-Yes, we also have such cases. The secularisation which exists nowadays among Christians can also be found in the monasteries. There is a clear difference between monasticism of the West and Orthodox monasticism. Western monasticism exhausts itself in social work and external worship, which is intellectual worship. Certainly, there are isolated cases of monks who live an inner life. But even they cannot be freed from a barren ethicology. In Orthodox monasticism a perfect therapeutic treatment exists -consisting of purification, illumination and theosis. Western monasticism was created in their attempt to regenerate the Church. Orthodox monastics are not struggling to revive the Church or to save it, but they are struggling to be healed living within the Church. And this is the offer of Orthodox monasticism. Many people speak of the value of monasticism and the Holy Mountain which has preserved so many treasures and works of art and architecture for so many centuries. Indeed, we can also acknowledge the offer of monasticism at this level. But we consider as its greatest offer the preservation of the Church's therapeutic treatment. For, it is this which gives us hope and the possibility to find this therapeutic method when we need it. And when we reach total despair, hope is activated. We are grateful to the monastics and to the Holy Mountain, mainly for this reason. We are deeply indebted to these sanctified people, who protect the Orthodox tradition.
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