Sharing and song on the The Jesus Prayer
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Words about the original Prayer Rope
“The prayer rope can be beneficial to us both during the day when we are going about our work, as well as during the time of our personal prayer in private. Often, we have the intention of praying during the course of the day; however, because we are surrounded by various people and distractions, our mind is constantly preoccupied with numerous thoughts, and we forget even to think about God or prayer. In this instance, the mere presence of the prayer rope serves as a continual external reminder inciting us to pray. At opportune moments, we can hold a prayer rope in our pocket and say the Jesus Prayer mentally, without attracting the attention of others.
When we withdraw to pray alone in our room or another quiet place, there are no external distractions. Nevertheless, anyone who has tried to pray will know that to collect one’s thoughts during prayer is a most difficult thing to do. Usually the appearance of different thoughts in our mind becomes even more pronounced at this time. No sooner do we begin praying before we catch ourselves thinking about something else. This is because “the devil extremely despises when someone is about to pray, he employs every means to spoil man’s goal. He does not cease stirring thoughts of different things in our memory and arousing all the passions through the flesh, in order to obstruct this ex-cellent work of prayer and prevent the mind’s ascent to God” (Philokalia, Vol. 1, p. 224).
For this reason, the presence of the prayer rope in our hand is a beneficial aid, as it helps us restrain our mind and return to the words of the prayer quickly. As we sit, stand,or kneel, we hold the prayer rope in our hand between our thumb and our index finger. We say the prayer once: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” and then move to the next knot. We continue to repeat the prayer, proceeding to the next knot after each prayer, until we come to the end of the prayer rope. As we repeat the prayer, it is necessary to keep our mind focused on the meanings of the words of the prayer, undistracted and free of images, while disregarding all other thoughts and concerns. “Cast aside cares, strip yourself from thoughts, and abandon your body; for prayer is nothing other than the detachment from the visible and invisible
world,” advises St. John Climacus (The Ladder, p. 216).
When we reach a marker or the cross at the end of the prayer rope, we become aware if our mind was not following the prayers we were planning to say. Thus we can untangle our thoughts and offer our prayers anew. Praying in this manner, we can be certain that we have said the exact number of prayers that we intended to say.
Similarly, we can use the prayer rope to pray to the Theotokos: “Most Holy Theotokos, save us”; to our Guardian Angel: “Holy Angel intercede for me”; or even to individual saints: “Saint(s)…, intercede for me.” At each knot, instead of the Jesus Prayer, werepeat one of the above phrases.
Let us use the prayer rope at various opportunities throughout the day and night to produce the sweet and everlasting fruits of the Jesus Prayer.”
Excerpt From
The Prayer Rope
St. Nektarios Monastery
“The prayer rope can be beneficial to us both during the day when we are going about our work, as well as during the time of our personal prayer in private. Often, we have the intention of praying during the course of the day; however, because we are surrounded by various people and distractions, our mind is constantly preoccupied with numerous thoughts, and we forget even to think about God or prayer. In this instance, the mere presence of the prayer rope serves as a continual external reminder inciting us to pray. At opportune moments, we can hold a prayer rope in our pocket and say the Jesus Prayer mentally, without attracting the attention of others.
When we withdraw to pray alone in our room or another quiet place, there are no external distractions. Nevertheless, anyone who has tried to pray will know that to collect one’s thoughts during prayer is a most difficult thing to do. Usually the appearance of different thoughts in our mind becomes even more pronounced at this time. No sooner do we begin praying before we catch ourselves thinking about something else. This is because “the devil extremely despises when someone is about to pray, he employs every means to spoil man’s goal. He does not cease stirring thoughts of different things in our memory and arousing all the passions through the flesh, in order to obstruct this ex-cellent work of prayer and prevent the mind’s ascent to God” (Philokalia, Vol. 1, p. 224).
For this reason, the presence of the prayer rope in our hand is a beneficial aid, as it helps us restrain our mind and return to the words of the prayer quickly. As we sit, stand,or kneel, we hold the prayer rope in our hand between our thumb and our index finger. We say the prayer once: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” and then move to the next knot. We continue to repeat the prayer, proceeding to the next knot after each prayer, until we come to the end of the prayer rope. As we repeat the prayer, it is necessary to keep our mind focused on the meanings of the words of the prayer, undistracted and free of images, while disregarding all other thoughts and concerns. “Cast aside cares, strip yourself from thoughts, and abandon your body; for prayer is nothing other than the detachment from the visible and invisible
world,” advises St. John Climacus (The Ladder, p. 216).
When we reach a marker or the cross at the end of the prayer rope, we become aware if our mind was not following the prayers we were planning to say. Thus we can untangle our thoughts and offer our prayers anew. Praying in this manner, we can be certain that we have said the exact number of prayers that we intended to say.
Similarly, we can use the prayer rope to pray to the Theotokos: “Most Holy Theotokos, save us”; to our Guardian Angel: “Holy Angel intercede for me”; or even to individual saints: “Saint(s)…, intercede for me.” At each knot, instead of the Jesus Prayer, werepeat one of the above phrases.
Let us use the prayer rope at various opportunities throughout the day and night to produce the sweet and everlasting fruits of the Jesus Prayer.”
Excerpt From
The Prayer Rope
St. Nektarios Monastery
Excerpts from: Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer and the contemporary spiritual revival of Mount Athos - Master’s Thesis - Candidate: Marius Dorobanțu, Supervisor: Dr.Thomas, Quartier Radboud University, Nijmegen 2016 Google for complete text of the Master's Thesis
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1.2. Hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer
The two terms play a key role in the main arguments proposed in this paper. It is therefore important that, besides the succinct presentation of monastic life on the Holy Mountain already given, this preliminary chapter should also sketch a brief definition of these main concepts, alongside notions of the history of their development, which is so closely connected to the history of Athos itself.
1.2.1. Hesychasm Hesychasm comes from the Greek hesychia, meaning stillness or tranquility. Meyendorff (1974, iii) identifies four uses of the word, which are not mutually exclusive:
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [ is blessed during the Divine Liturgy as an offering for the commemoration of the departed. The two sides involved in the dispute are on the one hand the modernists, who want to allow this blessing to happen on Sundays too for convenience reasons, and on the other hand the traditionalists, who insist on keeping Sunday as a day of rejoicing. They are named Kollyvades to indicate their asscication with the consumption of kollyva (Speake 2014, 122). 17 One of the champions of this movement is St Kosmas the Aetolian. 18 Xenophontos in 1784, Esphigmenou in 1797, Konstamonitou in 1799, Simonopetra in 1801, St Panteleimonos in 1803, Karakalou in 1813, Agiou Pavlou in 1839, Grigoriou in 1840, Zographou in 1849 and Koutloumousiou in 1856.]
A general one, referring to ‘the phenomenon of Christian monastic life, based on eremitism, contemplation and pure prayer‘. A more practical one, pointing to the ‘psychosomatic methods of prayer, formally attested only in the late fourteenth century’. Ware (1992), however, argues that the physical techniques are regarded by St Gregory Palamas and other hesychast masters as a mere accessory, by no means indispensable and that it is wrong to call these exercises “the hesychast method of prayer”. An even more specific and theological usage, designating ‘the system of concepts developed by Gregory Palamas (†1359) to explain and defend the spiritual experience of his fellow-hesychasts, which is based on the distinction in God between the transcendent “essence” and the uncreated “energies” through which God becomes knowable to man in Christ. A socio-cultural one, the political hesychasm, referring to the ideology and artistic trend originated in Byzantium and spread among the Southern Slavs and Russians. Throughout this paper, hesychasm is mostly used with one of the first three meanings. Hesychasm – in its first meaning, that of solitude – traces its origins back to the beginnings of monastic life: the word hesychia does occur in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The label of “hesychasts” has often been given in the Eastern Church to monks who, after spending long years in cenobitic monasteries, set about to live entirely or almost alone, giving themselves to contemplation and prayer (Amand de Mendieta 1972, 96). But hesychasm as a spiritual tradition is only developed starting with the 7th century. St John Climacus, author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, is among the first who explicitly associates hesychia with the name of Jesus and the repetition of short prayers: ‘Hesychia is to stand before God in unceasing worship. Let the remembrance of Jesus be united to your breathing, and then you will know the value of hesychia.’19 St Symeon the New Theologian revives it in the 11th century and St Gregory of Sinai brings it to Athos around the year 1300, where it is picked up by St Gregory Palamas and his contemporaries. This is where hesychasm becomes associated with the repeated invocation of the name of Jesus, known as the Jesus Prayer, or Mental Prayer: ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me.’ 20 According to the Palamite tradition, the ceaseless repetition of this prayer, sometimes combined with some bodily techniques (posture, controlled breathing), enables the one who’s praying to experience visions of the divine, uncreated, Taboric light.
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [ 19 Ladder 27 (PG 88:III2C); tr. Luibheid and Russel, 269-70, cited by Ware 2000, 99. 20 The shorter version is: ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me’, while the longer one is ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner’.]
In what will become known as the hesychastic controversy, Barlaam of Calabria, a Western monk, challenges the claims and practices of the hesychasts, forcing an extensive theological response from St Gregory Palamas, former abbot of the Athonite monastery of Esphigmenou, who lives as a hermit at the time when the controversy bursts. The argument starts from the hesychast techniques rebuked by Barlaam, who calls the Athonites navel-gazers because of their bent posture during prayer, but it soon extends to much deeper theological issues. It culminates with questioning the very possibility of humans to have such materialistic (as Gregory calls them) visions and experiences of the divine. After a series of Constantinopolitan councils between 1341 and 1351, the hesychast party is declared victorious and St Gregory Palamas is canonized in 1368, just nine years after his death. As a result, hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer will develop during the following years and they will be exported to the Byzantine Commonwealth and the Orthodox world. The Palamite distinction between the divine energies, which are accessible to humans, and the divine essence, which remains always inaccessible, is arguably the most important development in Orthodox theology after the period of the Ecumenical Councils and, to this day, a crucial difference in terms of dogmatic between the Christian East and West. During Turcocracy, the hesychast tradition slowly fades away from public attention and is barely kept alive on Athos (Speake 2014, 121). The opportunity to bring it back to light comes with the controversy of the Kolyvades, in the 18th century, through the labors of St Makarios of Corinth and St Nicodemus the Hagiorite. In 1792, they publish in Venice the Philokalia, an anthology of ascetical and mystical texts from a period stretched to more than a millennium – 4th to 15th century – focusing on the theory and practice of hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer. The work is aimed at both monks and lay. Although its initial impact is not impressive, its Slavonic translation (Moscow, 1793) will have a massive contribution to the Russian spiritual revival of the 19th century (Ware 1993, 100). Russians export it to Western Europe in the first half of the 20th century, where Greek theologians pick it up again and re-discover its original Greek version, in the wider trend of returning to the theology of the Church Fathers. The hesychast tradition therefore, despite having its periods of decline and renewal, is kept alive over the centuries in the Athonite hermitages. The present can definitely be considered a time of renaissance for hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer, as they are central to the life in most Orthodox monasteries (Johnson 2010, 47). Their popularity extends today far beyond the walls of monastic dwellings, to many Orthodox lay people and even to some Christians of Western confessions (Johnson 2010, 2). In the words of Ware (1993, 100), ‘The Philokalia has acted as a spiritual “time bomb”, for the true “age of Philokalia” has not been the late eighteenth, but the late twentieth century.’ 13
1.2.2. Hesychia and the Jesus Prayer Although the primary sense of the word is silence, according to Ware ‘hesychia means far more than merely refraining from outward speech’. In his article “Silence in prayer: the meaning of hesychia” (2000, 89-110), drawing mainly on patristic sources, he identifies no less than three levels of hesychia, expressed explicitly in an apophthegm of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Abba Arsenius prays to God, asking what to do to be saved, and a voice answers: ‘Arsenius, flee, keep silent, be still, for these are the roots of sinlessness’21. Thus the three levels of hesychia are: o the spatial level: to ‘flee from others’, externally and physically; o the level of silence: to ‘keep silent’, to abstain from outward speech; o the level of true stillness, or of interior hesychia: to ‘be still’. Hesychasm places a lot of emphasis on the spirituality of the cell (90-92), where the cell is envisaged not only as the exterior framework of hesychia, but ‘above all as a workshop of unceasing prayer’ (91). Through this lens, hesychia represents therefore much more than a physical and outward condition, it is a state of the soul (92), it is ‘to stand before God with the mind in the heart, and to go on standing before Him unceasingly day and night, until the end of life’22. Although the hesychastic quest is most commonly understood as one of separation from the world, the monastery and the other monks, the real journey, according to Ware (92-96), is that of returning into oneself, ‘shutting the door of his mind’. If the hesychast is defined as a solitary living in the desert, it may be said that ‘solitude is a state of soul, not a matter of geographical location, and that the real desert lies within the heart’ (93). Not least, hesychia also implies a kind of spiritual poverty (96-98), understood as a passage from multiplicity to unity. The mind is stripped of ‘visual images and of humanly devised concepts, and so contemplates in purity the realm of God’. The true hesychast, then, ‘is not so much one who refrains from meeting and speaking with others, as one who in his life of prayer renounces all images, words and discursive reasoning’ (96-97). Understanding pure silence as spiritual poverty might look like a negative perspective, but the purpose of emptying one’s mind is not idleness, but to give room to be ‘filled with an all-embracing sense of the divine indwelling’ (97). This effort of emptying oneself just to become open to the touch of divine grace is best echoed by the words of the Baptist referring to Jesus: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’23
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [21 AP, alphabetical collection, Arsenius I, 2 (88BC); tr. Ward, Sayings, 9, cited by Ware 2000, 93. 22 St. Teophan the Recluse, quoted in Igumen Chariton, The Art of Prayer, 63, cited by Ware 2000, 59. 23 Jn 3:30 (The biblical quotations are from the English Standard Version of the New Testament, text edition: 2011).]
What the hesychast is aiming to achieve is, in the words of Ware, entering ‘the secret chamber of his own heart in order that, standing there before God, he may listen to the wordless speech of his Creator’ (97). In its deepest sense, true inner silence is identical to unceasing prayer of the Holy Spirit within us, it is ‘entering into the life and the activity of God’ (98). Inner, non-discursive prayer is obviously connected with the struggle to attain such a state of soul. And the simpler it is, the more effective it can be as a tool to capture the mind’s attention, keeping it safe from the fragmentation caused by the thoughts. Although the path towards inner silence can embrace a wide variety of ways of praying, the Jesus Prayer has proven particularly effective and it has gradually become associated with hesychasm. Firstly, instead of confronting the thoughts, the struggler employs the Jesus Prayer as an ‘oblique method’ of combating them (100): instead of relying on his own power, he turns aside and looks at the Lord Jesus, taking refuge in the power and grace that act through the Divine Name. The repeated invocation helps him detach from the ceaseless chattering, which otherwise subjugates the mind. Secondly, the simplicity of the Jesus Prayer is crucial in the struggle to move from multiplicity to unity: it helps focusing one’s disintegrated personhood upon a single point, gathering oneself at the feet of the Lord: ‘Our prayer, constantly repeated [. . .] begins as a prayer of the lips, recited with conscious effort. At such a stage, again and again, our attention wanders away; and again and again, firmly but without violence, it has to be brought back to the meaning of what we recite. Then by degrees the prayer grows increasingly inward: it becomes something offered by the mind as well as the lips – perhaps by the mind alone, without any physical framing of words by the mouth. Then there comes a further stage – the prayer descends from the mind into the heart; mind and heart are united in the act of prayer.’ (Ware 2000, 82). An explanatory note is needed regarding the various names given to this short prayer: Jesus Prayer, Mental Prayer, prayer of the mind, prayer of the heart. Mental prayer or prayer of the mind has a broader meaning, including any form of repetitive short prayer or psalm verse. The latter, prayer of the heart, represents the most advanced stage of the Mental Prayer. As the mind descends and abides in the heart, the prayer of the mind becomes prayer of the heart. It is no longer something recited, but it is actually a part of one’s being, just as the breath and the beating of the heart are (83). In the Orthodox tradition, the words mind and heart are employed with slightly different meanings than the ones attached to them in the contemporary West, closer to their biblical understanding24.
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [24 ‘By “mind” or “intellect” (in Greek, nous) is meant not only or primarily the reasoning brain, with its power of discursive argumentation, but also and much more fundamentally the power of apprehending religious truth direct insight and contemplative vision. [. . .] Equal care is needed when interpreting the word “heart” (kardia). When St Theophan – and the Orthodox spiritual tradition in general – speak about the heart, they understand the word in its Semitic and Biblical sense, as signifying not just the emotions and affections but the primary]
Returning to the topic of hesychasm, Archbishop Antony Medvedev’s words summarize it best: ‘Essentially hesychasm (literally, silence) is a process of interior cleansing, of uprooting passions from within the depths of the soul, of purifying the heart and guarding the mind in order to prevent the re-entry of sinful thoughts which feed the passions and lead to actual sin. The practice of unceasing prayer – which the Scripture demands of us, is fulfilled by the use of the Jesus Prayer, «Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner», developed under the guidance of an Elder (staretz) (for obedience is both the beginning and consummation of all Christian spiritual labors). The Jesus Prayer fulfilled in obedience to an Elder is the central weapon in the interior struggle.’25 As for the words of the prayer – “Lord, Jesus Christ, [Son of God], have mercy upon me, [a sinner]” – although they are very few, there exist entire books trying to explain the theology behind them. Very briefly, the prayer is said to contain two main parts or poles. The first one, worshipful, implies the recognition of God’s transcendence and role, whereas the second one, penitential, focuses on the acknowledging of one’s imperfection and impossibility to be saved through his own powers. The juxtaposition of both these poles is aimed at leading one to profound humility, yet filled by the convinced hope in Christ’s redemptive power (Johnson 2010, 22). The hesychast pathway towards contemplation ‘is simple, but not easy’ at all, as Fr. T. from Vatopedi once said in a conversation with a group of students. For the struggles to reach a certain degree of success, according to Ware (2000, 101), two conditions should be met. Firstly, the invocation of the name of the Lord (Jesus Prayer) should be rhythmical and regular, uninterrupted and continuous during long periods of the day. Beginners will need the supervision of a spiritual father. The auxiliary methods (usage of prayer ropes26, controlled breathing) can be helpful in establishing the regular rhythm, but are not compulsory. The second condition derives from the need to have the mind as empty of mental pictures as possible. It is therefore optimal to practice the Jesus Prayer in places with little distractions – such as outward sounds or people interrupting – and in darkness or with the eyes closed, hence the hesychasts’ preference for the hermitages and the desert. Last but not least, the very practitioners of hesychasm today – the Athonite fathers – affirm the Evangelical character and universality of this spiritual pathway. Father Makarios of Simonopetra concludes (Cabas 2007, 51): ‘To be a hesychast is, in fact, to be apostolic, evangelical. St Paul was the first hesychast. It would be a mistake to consider hesychasm a “spiritual school”, as . . .
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [center of our human personhood. The heart signifies the deep self; it is the seat of wisdom and understanding, the place where our moral decisions are made, the inner shrine in which we experience divine grace and the indwelling presence of the Holy Trinity.’ (Ware 2000, 61-62). 25 Archbishop Antony Medvedev, The Young Elder, cited by Pennington 1984, 131. 26 Prayer ropes: (in Gr. komboskoini) prayer ropes, usually consisting of one hundred or three hundred knots. At each knot (kombos), one says mentally a brief prayer, especially the Jesus Prayer (Cavarnos 1988, 157).]
. . . Westerners usually do. It isn’t a spiritual school or a trend, it is simply spiritual life, mystical life grounded in the Gospel, in line with the Orthodox monastic tradition. All the hesychast fathers and saints have in common the assimilation of the Evangelical teaching, transformed into a personal experience, which is reflected in one’s relationship with God in prayer, especially in Mental Prayer [noera prosefhi] – inner prayer of the heart, or better of the mind descended into the heart. Hesychasm is just a slightly more technical designation of the process of cleansing the heart, which is attainted through putting into practice the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” 27. This is hesychast life.’
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [27 Mt 5:8]
3.2.1. Jesus Prayer First and foremost, Elder Joseph insists on the importance of the Jesus Prayer. In a conversation with Cavarnos, he encourages everybody, especially his young monks, to try the Prayer and test it through direct experience: ‘Of all forms of prayer this is the safest and best, provided it is combined with inner attention, so that the mind does not wonder off, and that one follows the instructions of an experienced spiritual guide. At first, this prayer should be said orally. Later, it should be said mentally, though even then it should be said orally when one cannot concentrate too well on it. As we practice this prayer, it becomes an inner activity that goes unceasingly. And it gives results. You need not accept this assertion on trust. Your own experience will prove it. Experience proves the prayer of Jesus to be very effective as a means of purifying the heart and mind, of opening up the mind and revealing to it untold treasures.’ (Cavarnos 1959, 204-205). Even when prayer seems ineffective, perseverance is the key. He tells his novice: ‘Persist in this work. Keep hitting and it will break. You’ll have to break the shell of the old self68. [. . .] You’ll then have a growing desire to taste more fruit.’ (Ephraim 2010, 225- 226). When he refers to prayer as work, he really equates prayer with a kind of work, labor, and even profession69: ‘The Jesus Prayer used to be the Elder’s main occupation. He put all his energy in cultivating this prayer. All his activities were organized so that his mind would be free to pray. [. . .] He practiced prayer systematically and diligently. [. . .] The entire day functioned as a preparation for the night prayer.’ (259-260)
.
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [68 Eph 4:22. 69 ‘Mental prayer was more than a monastic duty, it was the main occupation of our brotherhood. It was our weapon, our shield and our continuous struggle.’ (Ephraim 2010, 225). ]
My Notes: You may perhaps think that much or most of the subject of this Master’s Thesis, that has caught my eyes and that I’m sharing now may not be to your advantage to read. Actually it may not be, but I’m not really at liberty to voice such a statement. Reason why? That would be extremely presumptuous on my part on the will and unfathomable wisdom of God. Who am I, nothing! Nothing but a child of the Most High. What God wants to do is not up to me, but all God’s doing.
That noted, I must confess if you are not aware of it yet, is that I am quite partial to the practice of The Jesus Prayer. I have to humbly, and in sincere humility say that this prayer life (actually a relationship with Jesus) has been an immense source of growth over the years (ironically I feel like I know God less). When one dives with Christ into the unimaginable and mysterious (the reason for the irony) depths of each and every Word and word of the prayer, heaven’s door on this side of this life opens the floodgates of the Living Water Jesus promises us.
Although being a lousy history student in college, I did find this history of particular interest. I hope some, if not all of you do. If not, no big deal. God does what God does, and what God does has no implication or bearing on what anyone else thinks about another person’s faith. God is an awesome God and only God Who knows what we may need at the correct time. Personal opinion: None of us are smarter than anyone else as it pertains to God. A lady once said to me that we do not need to “study” God. There is truth to that statement.
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1.2. Hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer
The two terms play a key role in the main arguments proposed in this paper. It is therefore important that, besides the succinct presentation of monastic life on the Holy Mountain already given, this preliminary chapter should also sketch a brief definition of these main concepts, alongside notions of the history of their development, which is so closely connected to the history of Athos itself.
1.2.1. Hesychasm Hesychasm comes from the Greek hesychia, meaning stillness or tranquility. Meyendorff (1974, iii) identifies four uses of the word, which are not mutually exclusive:
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [ is blessed during the Divine Liturgy as an offering for the commemoration of the departed. The two sides involved in the dispute are on the one hand the modernists, who want to allow this blessing to happen on Sundays too for convenience reasons, and on the other hand the traditionalists, who insist on keeping Sunday as a day of rejoicing. They are named Kollyvades to indicate their asscication with the consumption of kollyva (Speake 2014, 122). 17 One of the champions of this movement is St Kosmas the Aetolian. 18 Xenophontos in 1784, Esphigmenou in 1797, Konstamonitou in 1799, Simonopetra in 1801, St Panteleimonos in 1803, Karakalou in 1813, Agiou Pavlou in 1839, Grigoriou in 1840, Zographou in 1849 and Koutloumousiou in 1856.]
A general one, referring to ‘the phenomenon of Christian monastic life, based on eremitism, contemplation and pure prayer‘. A more practical one, pointing to the ‘psychosomatic methods of prayer, formally attested only in the late fourteenth century’. Ware (1992), however, argues that the physical techniques are regarded by St Gregory Palamas and other hesychast masters as a mere accessory, by no means indispensable and that it is wrong to call these exercises “the hesychast method of prayer”. An even more specific and theological usage, designating ‘the system of concepts developed by Gregory Palamas (†1359) to explain and defend the spiritual experience of his fellow-hesychasts, which is based on the distinction in God between the transcendent “essence” and the uncreated “energies” through which God becomes knowable to man in Christ. A socio-cultural one, the political hesychasm, referring to the ideology and artistic trend originated in Byzantium and spread among the Southern Slavs and Russians. Throughout this paper, hesychasm is mostly used with one of the first three meanings. Hesychasm – in its first meaning, that of solitude – traces its origins back to the beginnings of monastic life: the word hesychia does occur in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The label of “hesychasts” has often been given in the Eastern Church to monks who, after spending long years in cenobitic monasteries, set about to live entirely or almost alone, giving themselves to contemplation and prayer (Amand de Mendieta 1972, 96). But hesychasm as a spiritual tradition is only developed starting with the 7th century. St John Climacus, author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, is among the first who explicitly associates hesychia with the name of Jesus and the repetition of short prayers: ‘Hesychia is to stand before God in unceasing worship. Let the remembrance of Jesus be united to your breathing, and then you will know the value of hesychia.’19 St Symeon the New Theologian revives it in the 11th century and St Gregory of Sinai brings it to Athos around the year 1300, where it is picked up by St Gregory Palamas and his contemporaries. This is where hesychasm becomes associated with the repeated invocation of the name of Jesus, known as the Jesus Prayer, or Mental Prayer: ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me.’ 20 According to the Palamite tradition, the ceaseless repetition of this prayer, sometimes combined with some bodily techniques (posture, controlled breathing), enables the one who’s praying to experience visions of the divine, uncreated, Taboric light.
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [ 19 Ladder 27 (PG 88:III2C); tr. Luibheid and Russel, 269-70, cited by Ware 2000, 99. 20 The shorter version is: ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me’, while the longer one is ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner’.]
In what will become known as the hesychastic controversy, Barlaam of Calabria, a Western monk, challenges the claims and practices of the hesychasts, forcing an extensive theological response from St Gregory Palamas, former abbot of the Athonite monastery of Esphigmenou, who lives as a hermit at the time when the controversy bursts. The argument starts from the hesychast techniques rebuked by Barlaam, who calls the Athonites navel-gazers because of their bent posture during prayer, but it soon extends to much deeper theological issues. It culminates with questioning the very possibility of humans to have such materialistic (as Gregory calls them) visions and experiences of the divine. After a series of Constantinopolitan councils between 1341 and 1351, the hesychast party is declared victorious and St Gregory Palamas is canonized in 1368, just nine years after his death. As a result, hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer will develop during the following years and they will be exported to the Byzantine Commonwealth and the Orthodox world. The Palamite distinction between the divine energies, which are accessible to humans, and the divine essence, which remains always inaccessible, is arguably the most important development in Orthodox theology after the period of the Ecumenical Councils and, to this day, a crucial difference in terms of dogmatic between the Christian East and West. During Turcocracy, the hesychast tradition slowly fades away from public attention and is barely kept alive on Athos (Speake 2014, 121). The opportunity to bring it back to light comes with the controversy of the Kolyvades, in the 18th century, through the labors of St Makarios of Corinth and St Nicodemus the Hagiorite. In 1792, they publish in Venice the Philokalia, an anthology of ascetical and mystical texts from a period stretched to more than a millennium – 4th to 15th century – focusing on the theory and practice of hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer. The work is aimed at both monks and lay. Although its initial impact is not impressive, its Slavonic translation (Moscow, 1793) will have a massive contribution to the Russian spiritual revival of the 19th century (Ware 1993, 100). Russians export it to Western Europe in the first half of the 20th century, where Greek theologians pick it up again and re-discover its original Greek version, in the wider trend of returning to the theology of the Church Fathers. The hesychast tradition therefore, despite having its periods of decline and renewal, is kept alive over the centuries in the Athonite hermitages. The present can definitely be considered a time of renaissance for hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer, as they are central to the life in most Orthodox monasteries (Johnson 2010, 47). Their popularity extends today far beyond the walls of monastic dwellings, to many Orthodox lay people and even to some Christians of Western confessions (Johnson 2010, 2). In the words of Ware (1993, 100), ‘The Philokalia has acted as a spiritual “time bomb”, for the true “age of Philokalia” has not been the late eighteenth, but the late twentieth century.’ 13
1.2.2. Hesychia and the Jesus Prayer Although the primary sense of the word is silence, according to Ware ‘hesychia means far more than merely refraining from outward speech’. In his article “Silence in prayer: the meaning of hesychia” (2000, 89-110), drawing mainly on patristic sources, he identifies no less than three levels of hesychia, expressed explicitly in an apophthegm of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Abba Arsenius prays to God, asking what to do to be saved, and a voice answers: ‘Arsenius, flee, keep silent, be still, for these are the roots of sinlessness’21. Thus the three levels of hesychia are: o the spatial level: to ‘flee from others’, externally and physically; o the level of silence: to ‘keep silent’, to abstain from outward speech; o the level of true stillness, or of interior hesychia: to ‘be still’. Hesychasm places a lot of emphasis on the spirituality of the cell (90-92), where the cell is envisaged not only as the exterior framework of hesychia, but ‘above all as a workshop of unceasing prayer’ (91). Through this lens, hesychia represents therefore much more than a physical and outward condition, it is a state of the soul (92), it is ‘to stand before God with the mind in the heart, and to go on standing before Him unceasingly day and night, until the end of life’22. Although the hesychastic quest is most commonly understood as one of separation from the world, the monastery and the other monks, the real journey, according to Ware (92-96), is that of returning into oneself, ‘shutting the door of his mind’. If the hesychast is defined as a solitary living in the desert, it may be said that ‘solitude is a state of soul, not a matter of geographical location, and that the real desert lies within the heart’ (93). Not least, hesychia also implies a kind of spiritual poverty (96-98), understood as a passage from multiplicity to unity. The mind is stripped of ‘visual images and of humanly devised concepts, and so contemplates in purity the realm of God’. The true hesychast, then, ‘is not so much one who refrains from meeting and speaking with others, as one who in his life of prayer renounces all images, words and discursive reasoning’ (96-97). Understanding pure silence as spiritual poverty might look like a negative perspective, but the purpose of emptying one’s mind is not idleness, but to give room to be ‘filled with an all-embracing sense of the divine indwelling’ (97). This effort of emptying oneself just to become open to the touch of divine grace is best echoed by the words of the Baptist referring to Jesus: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’23
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [21 AP, alphabetical collection, Arsenius I, 2 (88BC); tr. Ward, Sayings, 9, cited by Ware 2000, 93. 22 St. Teophan the Recluse, quoted in Igumen Chariton, The Art of Prayer, 63, cited by Ware 2000, 59. 23 Jn 3:30 (The biblical quotations are from the English Standard Version of the New Testament, text edition: 2011).]
What the hesychast is aiming to achieve is, in the words of Ware, entering ‘the secret chamber of his own heart in order that, standing there before God, he may listen to the wordless speech of his Creator’ (97). In its deepest sense, true inner silence is identical to unceasing prayer of the Holy Spirit within us, it is ‘entering into the life and the activity of God’ (98). Inner, non-discursive prayer is obviously connected with the struggle to attain such a state of soul. And the simpler it is, the more effective it can be as a tool to capture the mind’s attention, keeping it safe from the fragmentation caused by the thoughts. Although the path towards inner silence can embrace a wide variety of ways of praying, the Jesus Prayer has proven particularly effective and it has gradually become associated with hesychasm. Firstly, instead of confronting the thoughts, the struggler employs the Jesus Prayer as an ‘oblique method’ of combating them (100): instead of relying on his own power, he turns aside and looks at the Lord Jesus, taking refuge in the power and grace that act through the Divine Name. The repeated invocation helps him detach from the ceaseless chattering, which otherwise subjugates the mind. Secondly, the simplicity of the Jesus Prayer is crucial in the struggle to move from multiplicity to unity: it helps focusing one’s disintegrated personhood upon a single point, gathering oneself at the feet of the Lord: ‘Our prayer, constantly repeated [. . .] begins as a prayer of the lips, recited with conscious effort. At such a stage, again and again, our attention wanders away; and again and again, firmly but without violence, it has to be brought back to the meaning of what we recite. Then by degrees the prayer grows increasingly inward: it becomes something offered by the mind as well as the lips – perhaps by the mind alone, without any physical framing of words by the mouth. Then there comes a further stage – the prayer descends from the mind into the heart; mind and heart are united in the act of prayer.’ (Ware 2000, 82). An explanatory note is needed regarding the various names given to this short prayer: Jesus Prayer, Mental Prayer, prayer of the mind, prayer of the heart. Mental prayer or prayer of the mind has a broader meaning, including any form of repetitive short prayer or psalm verse. The latter, prayer of the heart, represents the most advanced stage of the Mental Prayer. As the mind descends and abides in the heart, the prayer of the mind becomes prayer of the heart. It is no longer something recited, but it is actually a part of one’s being, just as the breath and the beating of the heart are (83). In the Orthodox tradition, the words mind and heart are employed with slightly different meanings than the ones attached to them in the contemporary West, closer to their biblical understanding24.
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [24 ‘By “mind” or “intellect” (in Greek, nous) is meant not only or primarily the reasoning brain, with its power of discursive argumentation, but also and much more fundamentally the power of apprehending religious truth direct insight and contemplative vision. [. . .] Equal care is needed when interpreting the word “heart” (kardia). When St Theophan – and the Orthodox spiritual tradition in general – speak about the heart, they understand the word in its Semitic and Biblical sense, as signifying not just the emotions and affections but the primary]
Returning to the topic of hesychasm, Archbishop Antony Medvedev’s words summarize it best: ‘Essentially hesychasm (literally, silence) is a process of interior cleansing, of uprooting passions from within the depths of the soul, of purifying the heart and guarding the mind in order to prevent the re-entry of sinful thoughts which feed the passions and lead to actual sin. The practice of unceasing prayer – which the Scripture demands of us, is fulfilled by the use of the Jesus Prayer, «Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner», developed under the guidance of an Elder (staretz) (for obedience is both the beginning and consummation of all Christian spiritual labors). The Jesus Prayer fulfilled in obedience to an Elder is the central weapon in the interior struggle.’25 As for the words of the prayer – “Lord, Jesus Christ, [Son of God], have mercy upon me, [a sinner]” – although they are very few, there exist entire books trying to explain the theology behind them. Very briefly, the prayer is said to contain two main parts or poles. The first one, worshipful, implies the recognition of God’s transcendence and role, whereas the second one, penitential, focuses on the acknowledging of one’s imperfection and impossibility to be saved through his own powers. The juxtaposition of both these poles is aimed at leading one to profound humility, yet filled by the convinced hope in Christ’s redemptive power (Johnson 2010, 22). The hesychast pathway towards contemplation ‘is simple, but not easy’ at all, as Fr. T. from Vatopedi once said in a conversation with a group of students. For the struggles to reach a certain degree of success, according to Ware (2000, 101), two conditions should be met. Firstly, the invocation of the name of the Lord (Jesus Prayer) should be rhythmical and regular, uninterrupted and continuous during long periods of the day. Beginners will need the supervision of a spiritual father. The auxiliary methods (usage of prayer ropes26, controlled breathing) can be helpful in establishing the regular rhythm, but are not compulsory. The second condition derives from the need to have the mind as empty of mental pictures as possible. It is therefore optimal to practice the Jesus Prayer in places with little distractions – such as outward sounds or people interrupting – and in darkness or with the eyes closed, hence the hesychasts’ preference for the hermitages and the desert. Last but not least, the very practitioners of hesychasm today – the Athonite fathers – affirm the Evangelical character and universality of this spiritual pathway. Father Makarios of Simonopetra concludes (Cabas 2007, 51): ‘To be a hesychast is, in fact, to be apostolic, evangelical. St Paul was the first hesychast. It would be a mistake to consider hesychasm a “spiritual school”, as . . .
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [center of our human personhood. The heart signifies the deep self; it is the seat of wisdom and understanding, the place where our moral decisions are made, the inner shrine in which we experience divine grace and the indwelling presence of the Holy Trinity.’ (Ware 2000, 61-62). 25 Archbishop Antony Medvedev, The Young Elder, cited by Pennington 1984, 131. 26 Prayer ropes: (in Gr. komboskoini) prayer ropes, usually consisting of one hundred or three hundred knots. At each knot (kombos), one says mentally a brief prayer, especially the Jesus Prayer (Cavarnos 1988, 157).]
. . . Westerners usually do. It isn’t a spiritual school or a trend, it is simply spiritual life, mystical life grounded in the Gospel, in line with the Orthodox monastic tradition. All the hesychast fathers and saints have in common the assimilation of the Evangelical teaching, transformed into a personal experience, which is reflected in one’s relationship with God in prayer, especially in Mental Prayer [noera prosefhi] – inner prayer of the heart, or better of the mind descended into the heart. Hesychasm is just a slightly more technical designation of the process of cleansing the heart, which is attainted through putting into practice the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” 27. This is hesychast life.’
SECTION FOOTNOTES: [27 Mt 5:8]
3.2.1. Jesus Prayer First and foremost, Elder Joseph insists on the importance of the Jesus Prayer. In a conversation with Cavarnos, he encourages everybody, especially his young monks, to try the Prayer and test it through direct experience: ‘Of all forms of prayer this is the safest and best, provided it is combined with inner attention, so that the mind does not wonder off, and that one follows the instructions of an experienced spiritual guide. At first, this prayer should be said orally. Later, it should be said mentally, though even then it should be said orally when one cannot concentrate too well on it. As we practice this prayer, it becomes an inner activity that goes unceasingly. And it gives results. You need not accept this assertion on trust. Your own experience will prove it. Experience proves the prayer of Jesus to be very effective as a means of purifying the heart and mind, of opening up the mind and revealing to it untold treasures.’ (Cavarnos 1959, 204-205). Even when prayer seems ineffective, perseverance is the key. He tells his novice: ‘Persist in this work. Keep hitting and it will break. You’ll have to break the shell of the old self68. [. . .] You’ll then have a growing desire to taste more fruit.’ (Ephraim 2010, 225- 226). When he refers to prayer as work, he really equates prayer with a kind of work, labor, and even profession69: ‘The Jesus Prayer used to be the Elder’s main occupation. He put all his energy in cultivating this prayer. All his activities were organized so that his mind would be free to pray. [. . .] He practiced prayer systematically and diligently. [. . .] The entire day functioned as a preparation for the night prayer.’ (259-260)
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SECTION FOOTNOTES: [68 Eph 4:22. 69 ‘Mental prayer was more than a monastic duty, it was the main occupation of our brotherhood. It was our weapon, our shield and our continuous struggle.’ (Ephraim 2010, 225). ]
My Notes: You may perhaps think that much or most of the subject of this Master’s Thesis, that has caught my eyes and that I’m sharing now may not be to your advantage to read. Actually it may not be, but I’m not really at liberty to voice such a statement. Reason why? That would be extremely presumptuous on my part on the will and unfathomable wisdom of God. Who am I, nothing! Nothing but a child of the Most High. What God wants to do is not up to me, but all God’s doing.
That noted, I must confess if you are not aware of it yet, is that I am quite partial to the practice of The Jesus Prayer. I have to humbly, and in sincere humility say that this prayer life (actually a relationship with Jesus) has been an immense source of growth over the years (ironically I feel like I know God less). When one dives with Christ into the unimaginable and mysterious (the reason for the irony) depths of each and every Word and word of the prayer, heaven’s door on this side of this life opens the floodgates of the Living Water Jesus promises us.
Although being a lousy history student in college, I did find this history of particular interest. I hope some, if not all of you do. If not, no big deal. God does what God does, and what God does has no implication or bearing on what anyone else thinks about another person’s faith. God is an awesome God and only God Who knows what we may need at the correct time. Personal opinion: None of us are smarter than anyone else as it pertains to God. A lady once said to me that we do not need to “study” God. There is truth to that statement.