Monasticism E-Book

Archimandrite Zacharias (Zacharou)

• Herausgeber: Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

The truly charismatic monk flees any honour as fire, knowing that it will extinguish the flame of love for God burning in his heart and stop the current of the divine will from flowing through him and guiding him. He would rather do everything to remain hidden from the eyes of this world so as not to be seen by men, but to be under the gaze of God’s eyes alone, ‘who seeth in secret and rewardeth openly.’ Neither does he seek consolation or support from this world but puts his only hope in the Lord, ‘which hope he has as an anchor of his soul’, leading him into that which is ‘within the veil.’

Leseprobe

 

MONASTICISM

The All-embracing Gift of the Holy Spirit

 

Archimandrite ZACHARIAS (Zacharou)

MONASTICISM

The All-embracing Gift of the Holy Spirit

An Approach to the Monastic Legacy of Saint Sophrony

STAVROPEGIC MONASTERY OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST ESSEX 2021

 

Digital Creation-Design

website: www.presence.gr

email: [email protected]

 

MONASTICISM – THE ALL-EMBRACING GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRITAn Approach to the Monastic Legacy of Saint Sophrony

© 2021 The Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex, UK

ISBN 978-1-909649-52-1, Paperback edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, withoutthe prior permission in writing of the Monastery.

Published by The Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights, by Maldon, Essex, CM9 8EZ, UK

Printed in Greece by Lyhnia A.E.

CONTENTS

Foreword

INTRODUCTION

THE TRUE DIMENSIONS OF THE GOSPEL IN MONASTICISM

The Inverted Perspective of Monastic Life

Charismatic Theocracy

CHARISMATIC ASPECTS OF MONASTIC LIFE

Thirst for God

The Name of the Lord Jesus – the Breath of the Monk

Inconsolable Repentance

Fattening the Soul of the Monk through the Bread of Tears

New Beginnings, New Mercies, New Songs of Gratitude and Love

Prophetic Life in Monasticism

The Word Born in the Heart of the Man Who Repents

Thanksgiving and Spiritual Sonship

Constantly ‘Rubbing’ against God’s Energy

Christ-like Vulnerability

Spiritual Tension in Times of Affliction

COMMENTS ON PHILOKALIC TEXTS ABOUT VIGILANCE

The Thought of Hell in Saint Isaiah the Anchorite

Stillness in Saint Hesychios

Positive Asceticism

Vigilance – the Science of Sciences and Art of Arts

EPILOGUE As Alive from the Dead

INDEX OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES

 

Foreword

In the history of monasticism, the word of God has always been of the utmost importance. From Saint Anthony the Great and the Pachomian Koinonia to Saint Theodore the Studite and, later on, the monastic tradition of Mount Athos, we continuously see monks congregating around an Elder to receive a ‘portion of the word’. This phenomenon is not only due to the fact that in times past monks did not have the luxury of books and so had to receive their education exclusively from their Elder. The reason for gathering around an Elder is rather spiritual and much more profound.

In His eternal Gospel, the Lord bears witness: ‘For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ When an assembly occurs in the name of Christ, the word becomes a vehicle of grace and the listener receives spiritual renewal, being continually enriched in God.

Just as there is no creature that is not manifest before the Lord, but ‘all things are naked and opened unto His eyes’, thus also His living and active word is like a two-edged sword ‘able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.’ The illumination activated by the energy of the word of God reveals Christ’s spotless love ‘unto the end’ and begets a blessed awe, filling the soul with gratitude: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.’

A short while before His Passion, the Lord said to His disciples: ‘Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.’ We see the same mystery at work in the word of our Fathers. When the word of God is born in the silence of prayer and springs forth from a heart wounded by love, it becomes a plank of salvation, since it is full of the uncreated energy of Divinity and brings healing, pouring out living streams in the hearts of men and imparting the illumination of divine knowledge. Then, the ministry of the word becomes a liturgical act, wherein an exchange of lives takes place, when the speaker utters a word with love and the hearer listens with desire for God and trust in the speaker.

The Saints who came to know the spotless love of Christ by the Holy Spirit, bear witness that ‘to pray for mankind means to shed blood.’ We dare add that this ‘blood of the heart’ is also demanded in the ministry of the word, if the speaker is to conceive a living word by which he can transmit renewal and grace to ‘those who hear’.

The chapters contained in this book of our Reverend Father and Elder, Archimandrite Zacharias, originate from meetings of our community, and are the fruit of obedience and the fulfillment of a commandment he received from the founder of our Monastery, Saint Sophrony the Athonite.

During the last four years of his earthly life, Saint Sophrony spoke regularly to the community every Monday morning. From 1991, he assigned Father Zacharias to be his helper and successor in this work of ministering the word to the community. Consenting to the thirst and desire of the brethren, Archimandrite Zacharias continues until this day in this ministry so precious to us.

The Church of Christ is a communion of gifts, and God distributes His gifts to the benefit of all the members of His Church. Therefore, our Monastery presents this publication with the humble prayer that this book may bring spiritual renewal in all the faithful.

Profound and fervent gratitude towards our Father springs forth from our heart, as he has cared for us for so many years in the ‘nurture and admonition of the Lord’, labouring ‘in word and doctrine’ to impart to us from the abundance of his heart. It is impossible to describe the grace of the Divine Liturgy in words, and, in a similar way, it is difficult to describe the experiences engraved for so many years upon our hearts during our meetings. While preparing this prologue, the words with which our Holy Father Sophrony described his contact with Saint Silouan came instinctively to my mind:

‘It seemed sometimes that through prayer the Staretz was given the power to influence those who conversed with him.

Talking with the Staretz was always a very simple matter. There was never any sense of constraint or embarrassment, or fear of blundering, yet at the same time, one’s soul was tautened, as it were, in a devout effort to be worthy to breathe the spirit with which he was filled.

Entering a fragrant place, one automatically expands one’s chest to breathe in deeply and fill one’s lungs with the fragrance. So it was in the presence of the Staretz–one’s soul was possessed of a quiet, peaceful but profound longing to inhale the fragrance of that atmosphere of the spirit of Christ in which it was given him to live.

What an especial and particular spiritual joy is found in conversing with such a man!’

The Hegumen of the Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex Archimandrite Peter

 

INTRODUCTION

Everything that is instrumental for receiving God’s incorruptible grace is a sacrament. In this sense, we could say that our entire Church is a sacrament. The monastic profession never sought to be acknowledged as one of the sacraments of the Church, as this would put its charismatic character at risk. Monasticism is the closest imitation of the path of Christ – of His kenotic descent and humiliation, and His glorious ascent above the heavens, by which all the gifts of the Holy Spirit came down as rain upon the earth. For this reason, institutionalisation would only occasion vanity and pride, as sometimes happens with holy priesthood.

By avoiding being recognised as an institution, monasticism remains hidden from the eyes of this world, and this allows it to keep its perfect and absolute freedom to exist purely on the spiritual plane, governed exclusively by the power of the Holy Spirit. If monasticism were to become an institution, it would cease to be a life ‘outside the camp of this world;’1 it would lose its charismatic power of humility and its prophetic and paradoxical character, whereby it maintains the knowledge of God on earth.

The abundance of life contained in the bosom of monasticism and the very power of its culture becomes manifest through humility and is established through the mystery of obedience. Although obedience may appear insignificant when looked at externally, there is a sublime principle behind it that leads to the longed-for state of the union of the heart with the Spirit of God. Monasticism is a strange event, and its paradox lies precisely in the mystery of obedience, as Father Sophrony used to call it: ‘ἱερὸν ἀπόρρητον’, ‘a sacred mystery’.2 When obedience is taken seriously as the foundation of monastic life, it renders monasticism truly prophetic, so that it witnesses to the indescribable humility of Christ.3

In The Sayings of the Desert Fathers we find a striking example of the monastic ethos. When brother Zacharias was asked to give a word, he threw his hat on the ground and trampled upon it, saying ‘Unless a man stamps upon his own self like that, he cannot be a monk’.4 This shows the inner strength of the virtue of humility, which is gained when the monk strives to mortify his passionate desires. Monasticism is indeed a phenomenon which ‘is not of this world’.5 It implies both an exodus and an entrance: an exodus, whereby the world dies unto the monk, and an entrance – into the mystical chamber of the deep heart, the antechamber of the Kingdom – where by the monk dies unto the world.6

The paradoxical phenomenon of monasticism is not easily understood, not even by all monks. A true monk puts himself below every creature, verifying Christ’s words: ‘If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all,’7 and ‘He that serves is greater than he that sits at meat.’8 Who of the children of this age would be so foolish as to desire to put himself lower than all and become ‘a nothing’? But the children of light, who have tasted of immortal life and are led by the Holy Spirit, gladly accept to follow Christ in His descent, which is more wondrous even than His ascent above the heavens. Only those who have tried out this ‘foolishness of Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God’9 and were confirmed therein through grace, can muster enough courage to pursue this supernatural exploit.

In the life of Saint Mary of Egypt, there is an instance which demonstrates perfectly the prophetic aspect of monasticism. When by divine providence Saint Zosima and Saint Mary met in the desert, they each competed in humility to put themselves below the other, that is, each one desired the other to give the blessing first. Seeing the gift of priesthood in Saint Zosima, Saint Mary asked him to bless. However, perceiving through his true prophetic spirit that the supernatural gift of grace in Saint Mary was by far superior to his own gift, Saint Zosima besought Saint Mary to bless first.

Monasticism is prophetic by nature not only because of its truthful character which attracts the Spirit of Truth, but also because the prophet of God has no place in this life, just as ‘the Son of man had nowhere to lay His head’,10 not even in the Synagogue which had been founded in His Name. However, the word of God loves the heart of the prophet for he has God as his only refuge. It runs through his heart freely and without hindrance as a stream of living water, so that his heart becomes a precious vessel filled with words of eternal life.

The truly charismatic monk flees any honour as fire, knowing that it will extinguish the flame of love for God burning in his heart and stop the current of the divine will from flowing through him and guiding him. For this reason, the monk does not have the desire to teach, unless he receives a commandment or delegation by the Church. He would rather do everything to remain hidden from the eyes of this world so as not to be seen by men11 and ‘receive a greater condemnation’,12 but to be under the gaze of God’s eyes alone, ‘who seeth in secret and rewardeth openly.’13 Neither does he seek consolation or support from this world but puts his only hope in the Lord, ‘which hope he has as an anchor of his soul’, leading him into that which is ‘within the veil.’14 The Most Holy Mother of God excelled in this virtue; the sublimity of Her humble presence bore silent witness in a way which was by far more articulate than any doctrine.

For the same purpose, monasteries are built in remote places so as not to be influenced by the mind of this world which is incompatible with the Spirit of God and thus be hindered from maintaining a prophetic spirit. Yielding to the mind of this world would compromise the spirit of monasticism, leading it to secularisation and its final ruin. Day and night the monk strives to obtain passionlessness, which, according to Saint Sophrony, ‘is the light of new life, inspiring in man new feelings and thoughts, a new light of eternal understanding; it is the resurrection of the soul before the general Resurrection of the dead.’15 Once this new life is inaugurated within him, the monk’s heart expands and embraces in his prayer the entire world in Christ-like universality. It is this universal or hypostatic prayer for the salvation of all men which sustains and glorifies the Church and preserves the entire universe from total destruction. As we read in Saint Silouan, once this prayer ceases on earth, the world will come to an end.16

Thus, the power of monasticism lies in nothing external but only and entirely in the gift of God. The external gifts of the monk should not make an impression and he should not be promoted in any function on their account. Otherwise, instead of adhering to the charismatic way, monasticism will be guided by our earthly reasoning, just as it happens in any other institution of this world. What should indeed amaze us is a monk who has attained humility and obedience; such a one has proven himself trustworthy to be assigned the care of responsible tasks. Having learnt the way of humility, which has led him to stability, he ‘will be able to help others also,’17 and minister unto their salvation with discernment. This is the principle which runs throughout the entire structure of the monastic life.

Monasticism has the specific character of the supra-cosmic ‘otherness’ of the ethos of Christ. This ‘otherworldliness’ of monastic life is the manifestation of the inverted perspective of the Gospel. Its divine otherness proves the Gospel to be of divine origin which is precisely what convinces the heart of its authenticity. It crucifies the mind to the evangelical truth, thereby leading man to repentance. People desire to see this mark of authenticity in the Church, especially in the life of monks. The monk is both a living reflection of Christ’s truth on earth and a silent witness of the transience of this world. If Christians living in the world perceive in the monk a living implementation of the Gospel, ‘a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people’,18 they themselves can be confirmed and strengthened to walk steadfastly in the path of the commandments.

Indeed, monasticism is a peculiar phenomenon, a culture which reflects the life of the future Kingdom and is governed by the Holy Spirit. When we comprehend it in its true dimension, we exclaim with the Holy Church on the day of Pentecost: ‘The nations of the city of David have seen strange things today.’

The monk is a true image of the Resurrection inasmuch as he has made the ‘passage from death unto life’,19 and of Pentecost when he bears alive in his chest the flame of the Paraclete.20 The witness of his presence speaks a most eloquent word to his contemporaries, convincing them with compelling authority of the eternal truth of this ‘great mystery of godliness: God made manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit…’21

1 Heb. 13:13.

2 Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Truth and Life (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 2016), p. 83.

3 Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Saint Silouan the Athonite, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1991), p. 431.

4 The Desert Fathers, Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, trans. Benedicta Ward (London: Penguin Classics, 2003), p. 153.

5 John 17:14,16; 18:36.

6 Gal. 6:14.

7 Mark 9:35.

8 Cf. Luke 22:27.

9 Cf. 1 Cor. 1:18-24.

10 Cf. Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58.

11 Matt. 6:1-6.

12 Cf. Jas. 3:1.

13 Cf. Matt. 6:6.

14 Cf. Heb. 6:19.

15 Saint Silouan the Athonite, p. 177.

16 Ibid., p. 223.

17 Cf. 2 Tim. 2:2.

18 1 Pet. 2:9.

19 Cf. 1 John 3:14.

20 Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), We Shall See Him as He Is, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 2004), pp. 147, 168.

21 Cf. 1 Tim. 3:16.

 

THE TRUE DIMENSIONS OF THE GOSPEL IN MONASTICISM

 

The Inverted Perspective of Monastic Life

‘That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.’1 One of the elements that gives Christianity its unique character is the inverted perspective of the Gospel. The Lord’s descent ‘to the nethermost parts of the earth’2 inspires the spirit of the Apostle Paul and ravishes all those who love the spotless and blameless ethos of Christ, Who made His way to His voluntary Passion ‘as an innocent lamb led to the slaughter’.3

Saint Sophrony’s whole teaching is permeated by the inverted perspective of the Gospel, and this is particularly evident in his theory of the inverted pyramid. He compares the structure of cosmic being to a pyramid. At its base is the lowest class made up of the masses, the poor and the downtrodden. At its peak are the princes of the nations who, according to the Lord, ‘exercise lordship and authority over them’.4 Man is created in God’s image and likeness, and so this hierarchy does not correspond to man’s innate desire for justice, equality and freedom. The Lord revealed a hierarchy of another kind, according to which ‘he who serves is greater than he who exercises authority and sits at meat’.5 He therefore overturned the pyramid of hierarchal structure of this world and placed Himself at its apex, bearing the entire weight of its injustice, taking upon His shoulders the sins and the curse of the whole world.6 There, at the summit of the inverted pyramid, we remark a quite especial life, a quite especial light, an especial fragrance.7

Saint Sophrony’s most striking gift was the word proceeding from his lips, which was clothed in the beauty of the evangelic ethos and shook to the core those who approached him. His word conveyed the inverted perspective of the Gospel, as the Lord expresses it through the mouth of His Prophet: ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways… For as far as the heavens are from the earth, so are my ways from your ways, and your thoughts from my mind.’8

In this life, man’s path aims to ascend to a certain social, economic or professional sphere; to rise to pre-eminence, mastery and power. By contrast, the path of the Lord is a descent, even to the nether regions; it is keno-sis, pain, suffering, disgrace according to the standards of this world. The path of fallen mankind is carved by human reason and its offspring, all the philosophies and beliefs that developed throughout its history. Christianity alone is beyond reason, surpassing every mind and intellect. It is a revelation from above and is permeated by God-inspired reasoning. The dogma of the Holy Trinity demands the crucifixion of the mind a priori, as does the Incarnation and Crucifixion of Christ.

The inverted perspective of the divine word was revealed already in the Old Testament. The revelation of God to Moses, ‘I Am that I Am,’9 abolishes the gods of the philosophers, crushes all arrogance and ‘shows cunning disputants to be fools’.10 When in his youth, Saint Sophrony wondered if the Absolute could be personal, he received the following revelation, which crucified his mind and his thoughts:

He Whom I had discarded as ‘unnecessary’ did not turn away from me altogether, and Himself sought an occasion to appear to me — suddenly He put before me the Bible text, the revelation on Mount Sinai: ‘I AM THAT I AM’. BEING is I. God, the absolute Master of all the celestial worlds is PERSONAL – I AM. With this Name distant prospects were revealed to me which stretched into the unattainable. Not in the form of abstract thinking but existentially this Personal God became overwhelmingly evident to me. The whole structure of my spiritual life was transformed.11

Without the grace of the Holy Spirit, the vision of divine glory is unbearable to human nature, and so it both requires and leads to self-abasement. The paradoxical way of the Cross that leads to the depth of the inverted pyramid was prophetically foreshadowed in the lives of the Righteous of the Old Testament. During the vision of the Seraphim encircling the throne of the glory of the Lord and crying ‘one to another... Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of Thy glory’,12 the chasm between God and man was revealed to the Prophet Isaiah, who cried out with contrition: ‘Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.’13

The inverted perspective is revealed in its true dimensions through the coming of the Lord Jesus to earth and the descent of the Holy Spirit, when ‘the faith was delivered once and for all unto the saints’.14 The Orthodox faith is not the offspring of man’s logical ability. It is a revelation from above which turns everything upside down. Accepting it requires the crucifixion of the mind, but when grace descends on us, it bears witness in the heart that ‘we have found the true faith’, according to the word of the Lord: ‘If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.’15

Giddiness perplexes the mind and imagination fails when the horizons of divine love and condescension open up before us. Then, as Saint Sophrony writes, ‘The mind falls silent by the very fact of its entry into a new form of life.’16 Through Christ we received ‘exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think’.17 As Saint Silouan writes: ‘When man is introduced by the action of God into the world of the Uncreated Light, there are no words to express his wonder, no words, no sighs to tell of his gratitude.’18

The Apostle Paul also expresses the view that it is unprofitable and even unfeasible for human reason to explore the mysteries of God saying: ‘But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? That is, to bring Christ down from above. Or, Who shall descend into the deep? That is, to bring up Christ again from the dead. But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that is, the word of faith, which we preach’.19 In other words, we ought to crucify our mind and cease rational analysis because this

will have no benefit, as human reasoning does not apply to God. ‘If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved,’20 or in the words of Saint Silouan: ‘the Holy Spirit will bear witness in your soul to salvation.’21

The grace of God directs like a signpost towards the depth of the inverted pyramid. Sometimes this grace touches man through the perception of eternity in its negative aspect which is called the memory of death. This form of sensation of eternity in the terrifying ‘place’ where God is absent, is so acute, that it becomes a Gospel of life. It provokes an unquenchable thirst for God, a pursuit for His Countenance with all the powers of the soul. The knowledge that every human being is under the same condemnation of death, begets strong compassion for all humanity, yet at the same time, one is not crushed by it.22

The Lord takes upon Himself the entire weight of the curse and sin of all humanity. However, as Saint Sophrony writes:

Christ in no way typifies tragedy… He lived the tragedy of all mankind; but in Himself there was no tragedy. This is obvious from the words He spoke to His disciples perhaps only a short while before His redemptive prayer for all mankind in Gethsemane: ‘My peace I give unto you’… Likewise, the Christian who has received the gift of Christ’s love, although he might be conscious that he has not attained its fullness, avoids the tragedy of all-destructive death. He is compassionate, he grieves and prays with tears, but he does not become a victim of the impasse of despair, of irrevocable catastrophe.23

Moreover, everything that appears to be an impasse to man, caged as he is in the suffocating confines of this world, is brought to resolution by the monk and by all those who have beheld, be it only once, the Light of the eternal world. Every kind of antimony ceases and their converse henceforth is with Heaven. Reason is no longer a barricade to obtaining knowledge of God. On the contrary, such experience allows them to use the mind’s natural gifts as wise stewards, so as to transmit the truth revealed to them to others. They bring ‘forth out of their treasure things new’, the uncreated energy of which they partook by grace, ‘and old’,24 their natural gifts with which God endowed them. Under the shelter of the divine Light they become fearless, and while they discern clearly the tragedy of their fellow men and pray for them, they themselves do not suffer on a psychological level. Their pain and anguish are metaphysical, as they hunger unto death for the eternal God.

Saint Sophrony was himself a paradoxical image of Pentecost. He learned to tread the downward path like his Father in God Saint Silouan: to keep his mind steadfastly in hell and despair not. For this reason, he was vouchsafed unspeakable gifts. For those around him, he was ‘a pattern of faith and an image of meekness’, a ‘sweet spiritual savour’, ‘the savour of life unto life’.25 However, a short while before his departure he said, ‘I am afraid that I will fall into eternal oblivion’, ‘I do not know what cup awaits me at my last hour’26 and he prayed that ‘the Lord would not abandon him at that unknown moment, nor reject him from the footstool of His throne because of the multitude of his sins’.27 He learned to ‘wrestle’ with God about the fate of this world28 and yet to rejoice when he was defeated by Him:

He was victorious in my dispute with Him. At first, I was all bitter shame for my mad pride – as though I were more compassionate than God! Shame led to the self-condemnation of repentance…29 I was unrestrained in my frantic prayers, audacious even, but He responded softly, gently, without putting my ignorance to shame... The Lord conquered both them and me. Strange – for the first time I knew the unspeakable joy of being vanquished.30

Saint Sophrony learned to surrender himself into the holy hands of the Lord. As he himself describes, ‘It was a delight to discover my own impotence and my mind would smile at the Father, in the way a child in the cradle smiles at its mother’.31 His thoughts always revolved around Christ’s words, which are heard as ‘hard sayings’32 and invert every approach, such as, ‘He that serveth is greater than he that sitteth at meat’33 and ‘Resist not evil.’34 Through the vision of the Uncreated Light that imparted to him ‘the mind of Christ’,35 the infinite dimension of a twofold consciousness stretched out before him: that of the incomprehensible love of God and of the tragedy of the inner man.

Every word of Holy Scripture conveys this inverted perspective because it is not of this world. It is given by the Holy Spirit Who is all-good and Whose presence within us inspires the courage to follow the Lamb of God ‘whither-soever he goeth’.36 The evangelic word crucifies the earthly mind, the ailing will and psychology of man. However, wherever there is a cross, there light begins to gleam and the grace of the Resurrection to act. Whoever receives and embraces this word with all his soul, receives an inner illumination that becomes the first fruits of genuine, ontological repentance which renews the mind and sanctifies the whole man.

This inverted perspective so fascinated Saint Sophrony because, in essence, it is the only thing that can crush human arrogance and humble the spirit so as to attract grace that will prompt within us the struggle of repentance. It is able to cause a crack in the brass wall that man erected between himself and God through his self-will, and it can even demolish it. From beginning to end, the Gospel speaks about repentance which means ‘change of mind’, renunciation of every desire and thought, of every philosophical sophistry, however ingenious it might appear, so that, with a free heart, we might ‘become as little children’,37 and with unwavering trust look to our Father, Who, even when He chastises, does it ‘that we might be partakers of His holiness’.38

Already in the Old Testament the mystery of repentance was a commandment of God from the beginning: ‘For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it? Therefore, also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God.’39 ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved.’40

After Pentecost, the great Apostle Peter called his compatriots who crucified Christ to repentance with the words:

‘Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.’41 The other chief Apostle Paul defined his work as the evangelisation of men so that they ‘might turn from these vanities unto the living God’.42 Furthermore, man’s understanding that he is unable by his own strength to offer to God the repentance that He deserves, turns into prayer to God that He may give him strength, and the right thoughts and expression in words to approach His throne: ‘Turn us again, O God, and cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.’43 Only through the transformation of the mind and by turning all our being towards that which is the will of God, can the new birth from above be possible, the bestowal of ‘the abundance of life’ that Christ came to bring upon the earth. We are fashioned from the soil of the earth and do not ordain for ourselves the course of our salvation. However, it is the Lord’s good pleasure to establish us as His co-heirs and, as the One ‘Who knoweth the hearts of men’, He sets the contest for us, as Saint Sophrony writes:

Now I know from my own experience: He hungers for our perfection. In sanctioning our grievous struggle against the enemy and against our own selves in our fallen state, He would have us victorious. If we do not abandon Him in the worst moments of our humiliation by the enemy, He will most certainly come to us. He is the conqueror, not we. But He will attribute the victory to us, because it is we who have suffered.44

Saint John the Baptist called the Hebrews ‘children of vipers’. However, by crushing their arrogance, ‘he comforted the people’.45 In the same way, spiritual Fathers suffer anguish to form the image of Christ in the hearts of their disciples. They struggle not to reduce their spiritual tension and are always vigilant to take hold of their hand, if the paradox of the inverted perspective and the hurricane of temptations frightens them and makes them hesitate in their spiritual path ‘upon the waters’.46 Particularly in our proud and wild age, spiritual Fathers are forced to first crush the high-mindedness of those who ask for help and humble their spirit so that they might impart a spiritual gift to them. In the process, they often have to draw upon natural and supernatural gifts which they would have liked to conceal. Saint Sophrony wrote in a letter to David Balfour:

I have confused you with my letters. You understood nothing and you were perplexed; but that is just what I wanted. You had to recognize your ignorance. You had to hold firmly to the ground of an unshakeable faith on the one hand, and on the other you had to lose your footing completely. Doubts and fear had to torment you.47

In the New Testament, the Beatitudes of Christ are a synopsis of the Gospel, expressing its inverted perspective. Their every word, if applied, ‘makes wise unto salvation’48 and exhorts us: ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.’49 The Beatitudes are a ladder that leads to Christian perfection. The first fundamental step is the awareness of our spiritual poverty. Saint Sophrony writes that just as someone who studies higher mathematics can never forget basic arithmetic, so also in spiritual life, each spiritual ascent can not but strengthen the consciousness of our poverty, our nothingness, our unworthiness. By their nature, the Beatitudes are paradoxes. They speak about poverty, mourning, reproach and martyrdom, yet at the same time, they also speak about incorruptible consolation and the bliss of entering into the blessed Kingdom.

Christ said: ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’50 Likewise Saint Sophrony wrote: ‘To live a Christian life is impossible. All one can do as a Christian is “die daily”.’51 He wonders, furthermore, how to speak to his contemporaries about holy mourning,52 about the deep suffering that is undergone by those who follow the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world and how to refer to the pain of the soul, when in her struggle to keep the commandments, she perceives her abomination? Saint Sophrony writes:

The one who knows by experience the sublimity and the difficulties of the Christian way is rent in two. On one side there is the burning desire for all men to know the True God and the light of eternal life; on the other, fear lest those who are called be unable to sustain the heavy ordeal. This is why he generally prefers to turn to God and pray for the salvation of one and all, rather than preach. True Christianity is hardly ever preached in the world – the preaching surpasses man’s strength.53

The Lord never ceased to be one with the Heavenly Father, because the awesome mystery of obedience united them inseparably from before all ages. ‘And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.’54 These words are experienced as a tangible reality in monasticism in particular, when the disciple crucifies his mind and does not fear embracing the life-giving cross of obedience. He becomes like ‘an irrational animal’ who lays his burden on the strong shoulder of his Father in God. As a meek beast does not answer back to his master who binds and yokes him, so also the disciple, with an obedient soul, ‘follows wherever he is led; though sent to the slaughter, he could make no protest’55 because he has a cymbal resounding in his heart, saying that his Elder loves him with the tender love of Christ and is leading him into the bliss of His presence.56

The Cross of Christ is both His shameful death and the breadth and length of the downward path which He voluntarily walked in obedience to the will of the Heavenly Father.57 As He Himself clarifies, ‘My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work,’58 ‘And this is the Father’s will… that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing… but that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day’.59

As the Lord’s prayer infers, there is only one will accomplished by the Angels in Heaven and to which the Saints of the earth surrender. All those who give themselves over to this divine will enjoy the unspeakable glory of the Countenance of God, just as Adam in Paradise lived within the perspective of this will. However, when he broke the bond of communion with God and followed his own will, he was bereft of the bliss of abiding in the presence of the Lord. Adam’s descendants were encaged in the chaos of their wills that led them to tragic iniquities, such as the fratricide of Cain and the ambition of erecting the tower of Babel. Persisting in this deluded ignorance of the unique will of God and His luminous path, all Adam’s descendants found themselves exiled from Paradise.

The salvation of the world was the will of the pre-eternal council of the Holy Trinity, given to the Lord Jesus as a commandment from the Heavenly Father. ‘Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again... I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.’60 ‘And I know that his commandment is life everlasting.’61 ‘But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence’62 to the ‘Place of the Skull’. The Lord fulfilled the will of the Heavenly Father ‘unto the end’ through His Passion, Cross and Resurrection, so as to glorify His Name and save the world.

For those who desire to follow Him and be His disciples, the Lord ordains a cross. He Himself is the greatest Cross-bearer, Who leads the way towards the fulfilment of the commandment of the Heavenly Father. After He accomplished the work of the salvation and sealed it with His Precious Blood, He ‘passed into the heavens’63 and entered into the Holy of holies, the place of His eternal repose, ‘to prepare a place’ for His chosen.64 Thenceforth, all those who accepted the word and commandment of God were enlightened with the desire to follow Him. Whereto? To the place of His holy presence where they are initiated into His perfect will. Whether this place is called hell, because of suffering and repentance, or Paradise because of His grace, it teaches them to abide eternally with Him. Saint Sophrony writes:

The soul, having beheld Christ in the Light of His love, is drawn to Him. She cannot, she would not wish to resist this impulse. But He is Fire consuming us. Every proximity to Him involves painful stress. It is natural for us in our fallen state to recoil from pain, and we falter in our determination to follow after Him. But to remain outside His Light is likewise abhorrent.65

Our holy Fathers Silouan and Sophrony thirsted for Christ-like humility day and night, but they distinguished it from the ‘false humility’ engendered by pride, which thrusts us into the pit of despondency, and slays our innate yearning and eternal calling for union with the Holy of holies through the ‘unjust thought’ that, ‘this is destined only for the elect and not for me.’66

All the struggle of those who follow the Lord Jesus in faith, is their labour to conform their will to the holy, great and perfect will of God, and to find the way to surrender and remain ‘caught in the net’ of the will not of the devil, but of God67 because, as the Apostle writes, this will bring them sanctification.

When man has surrendered his heart to the will of God, he bears the marks of His good pleasure, which testify to his hallowing. For this reason, the purpose of the Lord’s disciples is to ‘snatch’ the word of God, to understand His will and to perform it ‘from their heart’.68 Then not only are they saved, but they also become co-workers of God in the marvellous work of universal regeneration. If the faithful, and especially the monk, are to let themselves be ‘captured in the net’ of the will of God with all their heart, they must continually capture ‘every thought to the obedience of Christ’,69 and their inner work on their heart for its cleansing and illumination must become the ultimate activity of their life. Then they will become friends of the Cross of Christ and partakers of its blessedness.

Every word of the Lord Jesus expresses the inverted perspective of His teaching and so it falls hard upon our ears. It is a calling to foolishness and weakness, a calling to take up our cross, entrusting everything to the power of His word, which cannot be put to shame. Yet, ‘the power of the Lord is perfected in weakness’70 and ‘His foolishness is wiser than men.’71 This is why the Apostle Paul proclaimed with boldness: ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe.’72 However hard it may seem in the eyes of the world, His word is Light, it is the voice of the Lord. Even the mere fact of hearing it reveals what is concealed and transforms the inmost parts of our being. When we embrace it, ‘search it out and keep it with our whole heart’,73 we are enriched with the grace of salvation.

The Lord said: ‘If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.’74 The Lord does certainly not command us to hate our immortal soul, the image of His beauty, but whatever has become a sinful soul to us and covers it like a ‘hideous mask’,75 living as we are in a world that ‘lieth in wickedness’. For Saint Sophrony, the holy self-hatred that springs from love for God is the ‘great mystery of godliness’76 given ‘by revelation’,77 which remains, however, always ‘impenetrable, inviolable, indescribable’.78 Having felt to the marrow of his bones the energy of the word of Christ exhorting us to hate our own soul, he explains:

The law of sin is still active in us, and with anger and detestation towards ourselves we condemn ourselves to hell-fire, since there is no other fire that could extinguish the working of the passions in us. And what happens? … When awareness of our corruption plunges our spirit into hopelessness, suddenly new strength descends on us from on High and clothes the soul in incorruption. When thick darkness fills us with dread, in some inexplicable manner the wondrous Light turns night into bright day, lifts us on high and leads us like sons into the Father’s house.79

In monastic life, the mystery of the Cross and the inverted perspective of the Gospel take on a very particular form. In the tonsure service, the presiding priest addresses the candidate with the following words: ‘So when once thou hast set forth upon the road that leadeth to the heavenly kingdom… be thou ever mindful of the saving passion and quickening death of our Lord Jesus Christ... If thou hast truly chosen to follow Him and if thou longest to be called rightly His disciple, prepare thyself from now on, not for comfortable and careless living, not for pleasures… but for spiritual struggles… for blessed mourning, for all the sorrows and toil of a joy-giving life in God. For thou shalt know hunger and thirst and nakedness; thou shalt be mocked and spitefully entreated, reviled and persecuted, and compassed with many other afflictions… And when thou sufferest all these things, rejoice for great is thy reward in heaven.’80

As centuries of monastic life and Christian life in general confirm, the man who tries to preserve his dignity and good name fences the way towards his own spiritual progress and will never know the bliss of holiness, though he may be ethically blameless. By contrast, torrents of grace are poured down on the man who is courageous enough to endure injustice, who suffers while blessing the Name of the Lord and continuously gives thanks for His holy Providence, which allows all things unto salvation.

A central event in the awesome dispensation of God is the descent into hell of the Lord Jesus, so that He might ‘fill all things with Himself’.81 Those who are drawn to follow Him strive to search out the entire length of His path, to know Him more deeply and love him more ardently. The most effective means to remain in the inverted perspective is self-accusation, considering ourselves even ‘offspring of hell’,82 worthy only to be consumed by fire, while keeping our faith in God’s goodness and never falling into despair. As Saint Sophrony writes, ‘Those who are led by the Holy Spirit never cease going downwards, condemning themselves as unworthy of God.’83 The solution to the seemingly obstinate impasses of our times is simple according to the inverted perspective of the Gospel and the teaching of the Saints:

We must condemn ourselves to hell as unworthy of God but we must ‘despair not’. This ascetic effort will lead to victory over the world [cf. John 16:33]. It will bring us to the ‘kingdom which cannot be moved’ [Heb. 12:28]. Is there a limit to this noble science on earth? We have the answer in Christ Who ‘conquered death by death’.84

Christ’s words are clear and revelatory, even if we dismiss them in our complacency, satisfied as we are by performing our religious obligations: ‘He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.’85 In these hard sayings that teach us self-condemnation to outer darkness, we find the core of the inverted perspective of the Gospel. The Desert Fathers used to say: ‘First we must demolish everything, in order to build something.’86 Likewise, Saint Sophrony spoke about the necessity of making ourselves ‘the nothing of humility’, because then ‘we become material which God can create from’.87 And being God, He will create something wondrous: the hypostasis that encompasses the fullness of God and man. If man does not explore even the depths of hell, then his hypostasis will not be complete, for he will not have come to know the whole extent of the path of Christ. ‘Detest yourself because of love for God, and you will embrace all that exists with your love!’88

Christ and His Saints reveal paradoxes, through their lives, as well as through their every word, in order to assimilate us into the inverted perspective of indestructible divine life. Thus we find contact with the Spirit of God, which crucifies and at the same time illumines the mind and renews the heart. Having crucified his mind and all his being through faith in God, Saint Sophrony descended voluntarily into ‘the hell of repentance’. The Lord, however, shed His Light abundantly upon him, transporting him over into the ‘hell of love’,89 purifying his heart and enlightening his mind, enabling him to apprehend His mysteries and discern the paths of salvation for himself and his fellows. For this reason, his word awakens the heart from lethargy and inspires fervent prayer. The words of Saint Sophrony’s sorrowful prayer which we have inherited as a priceless treasure, ignite fire even in our lukewarm hearts, and as much as our small measure permits, they become our own:

If Thou wilt not come and abide in me, I perish... Come and transform the infernal darkness of my pride into Thy humble love.90 Do Thou strengthen us to follow Thee, whithersoever Thou goest, so that we may become a new people, a royal priesthood, interceding without condemnation for the whole race of Adam, from the beginning till the end of the world.91

1 Luke 16:15.

2 Eph. 4:8-10.

3 See Jer. 11:19 (LXX).

4 Cf. Luke 22:25.

5 Cf. ibid. 22:27.

6 See Saint Silouan the Athonite, p. 237.

7 Ibid., p. 39.

8 Isa. 55:8-9 (LXX).

9 Exod. 3:14.

10 Ikos Nine, Akathist to the Mother of God.

11 We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 28.

12 See Isa. 6:1-3.

13 Ibid. 6:5.

14 See Jude 1:3.

15 John 7:17.

16 Cf. We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 167.

17 See Eph. 3:20.

18 Saint Silouan the Athonite, p. 175.

19 Cf. Rom. 10:6-8.

20 Ibid. 10:9.

21 Saint Silouan the Athonite, p. 302.

22 See Rom. 5:18.

23 See Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), His Life is Mine, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977), p. 39.

24 See Matt. 13:52.

25 2 Cor. 2:16.

26 Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Τὸ μυστήριο τῆς χριστιανικῆς ζωῆς, Ἱερὰ Μονὴ Τιμίου Προδρόμου, Ἔσσεξ Ἀγγλίας, 2011, p. 419.

27 See ibid., p. 425.

28 See Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), On Prayer, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1996), pp. 34-35.

29 Ibid., p. 36.

30 We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 84.

31 See ibid., p. 151.

32 See John 6:60.

33 See Luke 22:27.

34 See Matt. 5:39.

35 See 1 Cor. 2:16.

36 Rev. 14:4; see We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 102.

37 See Matt. 18:3.

38 See Heb. 12:10.

39 Joel 2:11-13; Deut. 30:2-3 (LXX).

40 Isa. 45:22.

41 Acts 3:19.

42 Ibid. 14:15.

43 Ps. 80:4.

44 We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 84.

45 See Luke 3:7-18.

46 See Matt. 14:25-31.

47 Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Striving for Knowledge of God,Correspondance with David Balfour (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 2016), p. 168.

48 See 2 Tim. 3:15.

49 Phil. 2:5.

50 John 12:24.

51 Saint Silouan the Athonite, p. 236.

52 We Shall See Him as He Is (Greek edition) Ὀψόμεθα τὸν Θεὸν καθώς ἐστι, Ἱερὰ Μονὴ Τιμίου Προδρόμου, Ἔσσεξ Ἀγγλίας,31996, p. 76.

53 Saint Silouan the Athonite, pp. 219-20.

54 John 8:29.

55 Cf. See Saint John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Boston, Massachussetts: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1991), Step 24:31, p. 179.

56 Cf. Ps. 72:22-24.

57 Ps. 39:8-9; Heb. 10-9.

58 John 4:34.

59 Cf. John 6:38-40.

60 John 10:17-18.

61 Ibid. 12:50.

62 Ibid. 14:31.

63 See Heb. 4:14.

64 See John 14:2.

65 We Shall See Him as He Is, pp. 58-9.

66 See Truth and Life, p. 132.

67 Cf. 2 Tim. 2:26.

68 Eph. 6:6.

69 2 Cor. 10:5.

70 See 2 Cor. 12:9.

71 See 1 Cor. 1:25.

72 Rom. 1:16.

73 See Ps. 119:34.

74 Luke 14:26.

75 Saint Gregory Palamas, ‘To the Most Reverend Nun Xenia’, in The Philokalia, The Complete Text, trans. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1995), Vol. 4, 54, p. 313.

76 1 Tim. 3:16.

77 See Eph. 3:3.

78 We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 139.

79 See ibid., p. 80.

80 See Monastic Tonsure Service.

81 See Anaphora, Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil and Saint John Chrysostom.

82 See We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 144.

83 Cf. On Prayer, p. 174.

84 We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 94.

85 Matt. 10:39.

86 The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co. Ltd; USA: Cistercian Publications, 1984), p. 30.

87 We Shall See Him as He Is, p. 124.

88 Ibid., p. 199.

89 See ibid., pp. 35-36, 154.

90 See ibid., p. 130.

91 On Prayer (Greek edition) Περὶ Προσευχῆς, Ἱερὰ Μονὴ Τιμίου Προδρόμου, Ἔσσεξ Ἀγγλίας, 1993, p. 242.