Comments on the Vows of the Tonsure to the Great Schema

We here provide some comments on the vows of the Great Schema. It should be understood that the Great Schema is the rule by which monks are measured in the Orthodox Church: it is the perfect state of monasticism, and all other states of monasticism (the Small Schema and the Rasophore) are lesser approximations to the Great Schema. This is the position of St Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain (Mt Athos). In the Orthodox Church there are no temporary vows, only solemn, perpetual vows.

The Priest catechizes the postulant, speaking as follows:

Open the ears of your heart, Brother,

A monk in the Orthodox Church is addressed as Father, just as a priest is. This practice goes back to Fourth Century Egypt. Brother is used only for a novice, or here, for the postulant giving his vows.

and hear the voice of the Lord saying: ‘Come to me all who are toiling and who are burdened and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find refreshment in your souls.’ Therefore, render now to God with fear and joy the proper answer to each of the questions. Know surely, then, that our Saviour himself is here present,

Sometimes the presence of God during the tonsure is quite tangible.

with his most-hymned Mother and his Saints, listening to the words which are coming forth from you; so that, when he comes to judge the living and the dead, he may render to you, not according to what you are about to renounce and profess, but according to whether you guard what you profess.

This is similar to the Western adage that the habit does not make the monk. However, here it is a matter of a solemn injunction that the monk will be judged on the basis of how well he has ‘performed’ his vows.

Now, therefore, if you are coming in truth to God, with care answer us what you are about to be asked.

Then the Priest inquires of him, saying:

Question: Why have you come, Brother, falling down before the Holy Altar,

The monk is consecrating himself to God.

and before this holy Brotherhood?

And he is doing so as a member of a concrete, specific monastic brotherhood. There are no monks that are general monks of nowhere in particular.

Answer: I desire the life of asceticism, Reverend Father.

In the formal questions and answers—which are much like a contract—the postulant explains the goal of monasticism: asceticism. There are three homilies by St Basil the Great which treat monasticism along the dimensions of: the soldier of Christ (the active dimension); the consecration of the postulant to Christ (the offering of a soul to God); the life of repentance (the ascetic dimension: asceticism as the actualization of repentance).

Question: Do you desire to be worthy of the Angelic Habit and to be enrolled in the choir of the Monastics?

‘Choir of the Monastics’ suggests a place in the Church for the monk, for him who lives alone. The monk has an ecclesiastical identity. The ‘Angelic Habit’ is the habit of the monk of the Great Schema; all other monastic conditions in the Orthodox Church have incomplete habits which do not have all the elements of the habit of the monk of the Great Schema.

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

The Priest:

Truly, you have chosen a good and blessed work, but only if you complete it. Good things are acquired with toil and achieved with pain.

The Orthodox Church is emphatic on the necessity of perseverance in the monastic state in the face of its inevitable great difficulties. There is nothing in the Orthodox Church’s attitude to monasticism that makes it an easy way out.

Question: Do you come to the Lord of your free will?

It is very important in a contract that the person have the capacity to make a contract.

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Not from any necessity or violence?

This speaks to the possibility, in an age when such things occurred, of a forced tonsure.

Answer: No, Reverend Father.

Question: Do you renounce the world and the things which are in the world, according to the commandment of the Lord?

This particular vow is what distinguishes the monk of the Great Schema from the monk of the Small Schema (the monk of the Small Schema does not make this vow) and the Rasophore (the Rasophore does not make formal vows at all). (There is some dispute whether a Rasophore is a monk (bound for life) or a novice (bound at his own and his monastery’s discretion).)

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Will you remain in the Monastery and in the ascesis up to your last breath?

In the Orthodox Church, a monk must be written into a concrete monastery somewhere. Monks can change monasteries. But they cannot leave the monastic state. There is no generally accepted practice in the Orthodox Church of laicizing monks. A monk cannot be ‘defrocked’: he is bound by his vows until death.

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Will you preserve unto death obedience to the Superior, and to the whole Brotherhood in Christ?

Obedience is both to the Superior and to each member of the brotherhood, but only a simple and naïve monk would not realize that the obedience owed to each member of the brotherhood who is not the Superior is different from that obedience owed to the Superior.

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Will you endure every affliction and deprivation of the Monastic life for the sake of the Kingdom of the Heavens?

To the extent that there is an explicit vow of poverty in the Orthodox Church, and there really is not, this is it. What this vow is really saying is this: will you willingly endure every difficulty both in the things that happen to you (say, persecution) and in the things missing from you (say, no food) for the sake of the Kingdom?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Will you preserve yourself in virginity and chastity and piety?

Since married men can become monks, ‘virginity’ means chastity, not formal virginity. The word translated ‘chastity’ (sophrosyne) also means ‘prudence’. ‘Piety’ does not mean sentimental piety, but being religious, having a fundamentally religious orientation.

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

And the Catechism is immediately begun by the Priest, as follows:

See, child, what agreements you have given to the Master Christ.

This is a contract.

Angels are here invisibly present recording this your profession, which is going to be required of you in the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Orthodox Church there is no dispensation from monastic vows. That is why it is necessary that the postulant be thoroughly tested.

I am now narrating, therefore, the most perfect life, in which the way of life of the Lord is shown forth, bearing witness what things it is necessary for you to embrace and what things you must avoid. This renunciation, then, for him who has made it is nothing other than a profession of the cross and death.

In Byzantine law, the person who became a monk was deemed to have died.

Know, then, that from this present day you have been crucified and put to death to the world through the most perfect renunciation. For you have renounced parents, brothers, wife, children, forefathers, relatives, associations, friends, habits, the tumults in the world, cares, possessions, goods, empty and vain pleasure and glory;

This a pretty thorough-going renunciation. This catechism is sealed with a vow of acceptance just below. The catechism is itself part of the contract.

and you are renouncing not only those things which have just been said, but even yet your own life, according to the voice of the Lord which says: ‘Whoever wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ If therefore you truly seek to follow him, and if without lies you ardently desire to be called his disciple, from the present moment prepare yourself not towards ease, not towards freedom from care, not towards sensual pleasures, not towards anything else of those pleasures and enjoyments which are on the earth, but towards spiritual struggles, towards temperance of the flesh, towards purification of the soul, towards mean poverty, towards the good grief, towards all the sorrowful and painful things of that life according to God which brings joy. For you have to hunger and to thirst and to go naked and to be reviled and ridiculed, to be reproached and persecuted, and to be tempted in many sorrowful things, in which things the life according to God is characterized.

This is asceticism.

And when you suffer all of these things, ‘Rejoice,’ it is said, ‘for great is your wage in the Heavens.’

The above is a description of what the monastic life is and is not about.

Rejoice therefore with joy and exult with exultation, for today the Lord God has selected you,

God himself choses the monk. The monk is consecrated to the service of God.

and set you apart from life in the world, and has set you, as before his face, in the post of the Monastic order, in the service of the angelic life,

‘Post’ appears to be a military term, as does ‘service’. The monk is set before Christ the King in the King’s bodyguard.

in the height of the life which imitates Heaven, to worship him angelically, to serve him wholly and completely, to seek those things which are above. ‘For our way of life,’ according to the Apostle, ‘is in the Heavens.’

St John of the Ladder remarks that the light of the monk is the angel and the light of the lay person is the monk.

O the new call! O the gift of the Mystery! You are receiving a second Baptism today, Brother,

This doctrine of the second Baptism is more or less repeated in medieval Catholicism, which taught that the monastic tonsure purveyed the forgiveness of all previous sins.

in the wealth of the gifts of God who loves mankind, and you shall be cleansed of your sins, and you shall become a son of Light, and Christ himself our God rejoices together with his holy Angels over your repentance, slaughtering for you the fattened calf.

The ‘fattened calf’ that is slaughtered is the grace that the tonsured monk receives.

Walk worthily therefore of your call; rid yourself of the attachment to vain things; hate the desire that draws you towards those things which are below; turn your own ardent desire towards Heavenly things; by no means whatsoever turn back, so that you not become a pillar of salt like the wife of Lot or like a dog returning to its own vomit, and the word of the Lord be fulfilled in you: ‘No one putting his hand to the plough and having turned towards the rear is fit for the Kingdom of the Heavens.’

This is a call for stability in the vocation.

For the danger for you is not little, having now professed that you will guard all the aforesaid things, afterwards to make little of the profession or even to run back to the previous way of life, or to separate yourself from the Father and the Brothers who are engaged with you in ascesis, or, remaining, to live your days contemptuously. For you will have weightier responsibilities than previously before the unerring tribunal of Christ, as much as you now enjoy more grace.

This grace is quite real and tangible.

And it would be better for you, as the saying goes, not to vow than to vow and not to render your vow.

This is very important.

And again, do not at all think that in the previous time of your sojourn in this place that you have adequately struggled against the invisible powers of the Enemy, but know rather that from now there will succeed to you greater struggles in the battle against him,

This is not vain words but the sober truth.

but that he will in no way prevail against you if he finds you fenced about by a strong faith and love for him who is guiding you and by sincerity in your obedience and humility.

For this reason, put away from yourself refusal to listen, contradiction, pride, strife, jealousy, envy, anger, clamour, blasphemy, secret eating, boldness of manner, special friendship, talkativeness, wrangling, grumbling, whispering, personal acquisition of any miserable thing and all the other sorts of vice through which the wrath of God comes on those who practice them and the Destroyer of souls begins to take root in them.

These are monastic vices.

Rather, then, instead of those things acquire those things which are fitting to Saints: friendship, stillness, leniency, piety, meditation on the divine words, reading, keeping of the heart from filthy thoughts, labour according to strength, temperance, patient endurance up to death, and perfect confession of those things which are in your heart to the Father to whom you previously gave your vows, as the divine testaments relate: ‘They were baptized,’ it says, ‘confessing their sins.’

These are monastic virtues.

The tonsure foresees that the monk will have a spiritual guide to whom he will have revealed the depths of his soul. This is very important; it is only on this basis that the spiritual father can guide the young monk.

Question: Do you thus profess all these things in the hope of the strength of God and do you agree to persevere in these promises until the end of life, by the grace of Christ?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

This catechism, which in English is over 900 words long, is sealed by a vow of the same weight as all the other vows.

Vows of the Tonsure to the Great Schema

[Update, May 14 2007: A complete translation of the service of the Tonsure to the Great Schema is now available at our post here. We comment on the meaning of the vows presented below in this post and discuss their broader implications in this post.]

We here provide that part of the service of the Tonsure to the Great Schema which comprises the vows, including the catechism. We hope to provide at some time a complete translation of the service. We will in subsequent posts comment on the vows. It is important to consider the following text in light of the fact that monasticism is an ascetic battle against the eight passions that we have surveyed in the last week or so. The catechism teaches the postulant not only the goal of the monastic life but also some of the ascetic means.

The Priest catechizes the postulant, speaking as follows:

Open the ears of your heart, Brother, and hear the voice of the Lord saying: ‘Come to me all who are toiling and who are burdened and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find refreshment in your souls.’ Therefore, render now to God with fear and joy the proper answer to each of the questions. Know surely, then, that our Saviour himself is here present, with his most-hymned Mother and his Saints, listening to the words which are coming forth from you; so that, when he comes to judge the living and the dead, he may render to you, not according to what you are about to renounce and profess, but according to whether you guard what you profess. Now, therefore, if you are coming in truth to God, with care answer us what you are about to be asked.

Then the Priest inquires of him, saying:

Question: Why have you come, Brother, falling down before the Holy Altar, and before this holy Brotherhood?

Answer: I desire the life of asceticism, Reverend Father.

Question: Do you desire to be worthy of the Angelic Habit and to be enrolled in the choir of the Monastics?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

The Priest:

Truly, you have chosen a good and blessed work, but only if you complete it. Good things are acquired with toil and achieved with pain.

Question: Do you come to the Lord of your free will?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Not from any necessity or violence?

Answer: No, Reverend Father.

Question: Do you renounce the world and the things which are in the world, according to the commandment of the Lord?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Will you remain in the Monastery and in the ascesis up to your last breath?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Will you preserve unto death obedience to the Superior, and to the whole Brotherhood in Christ?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Will you endure every affliction and deprivation of the Monastic life for the sake of the Kingdom of the Heavens?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

Question: Will you preserve yourself in virginity and chastity and piety?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

And the Catechism is immediately begun by the Priest, as follows:

See, child, what agreements you have given to the Master Christ. Angels are here invisibly present recording this your profession, which is going to be required of you in the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am now narrating, therefore, the most perfect life, in which the way of life of the Lord is shown forth, bearing witness what things it is necessary for you to embrace and what things you must avoid. This renunciation, then, for him who has made it is nothing other than a profession of the cross and death.

Know, then, that from this present day you have been crucified and put to death to the world through the most perfect renunciation. For you have renounced parents, brothers, wife, children, forefathers, relatives, associations, friends, habits, the tumults in the world, cares, possessions, goods, empty and vain pleasure and glory; and you are renouncing not only those things which have just been said, but even your own life, according to the voice of the Lord which says: ‘Whoever wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ If therefore you truly seek to follow him, and if without lies you ardently desire to be called his disciple, from the present moment prepare yourself not towards ease, not towards freedom from care, not towards sensual pleasures, not towards anything else of those pleasures and enjoyments which are on the earth, but towards spiritual struggles, towards temperance of the flesh, towards purification of the soul, towards mean poverty, towards the good grief, towards all the sorrowful and painful things of that life according to God which brings joy. For you have to hunger and to thirst and to go naked and to be reviled and ridiculed, to be reproached and persecuted and to be tempted in many sorrowful things, in which things the life according to God is characterized. And when you suffer all of these things, ‘Rejoice,’ it is said, ‘for great is your wage in the Heavens.’

Rejoice therefore with joy and exult with exultation, for today the Lord God has selected you and set you apart from life in the world, and has set you, as before his face, in the post of the Monastic order, in the service of the angelic life, in the height of the life which imitates Heaven, to worship him angelically, to serve him wholly and completely, to seek those things which are above. ‘For our way of life,’ according to the Apostle, ‘is in the Heavens.’

O the new call! O the gift of the Mystery! You are receiving a second Baptism today, Brother, in the wealth of the gifts of God who loves mankind, and you shall be cleansed of your sins, and you shall become a son of Light, and Christ himself our God rejoices together with his holy Angels over your repentance, slaughtering for you the fattened calf. Walk worthily therefore of your call; rid yourself of the attachment to vain things; hate the desire that draws you towards those things which are below; turn your own ardent desire towards Heavenly things; by no means whatsoever turn back, so that you not become a pillar of salt like the wife of Lot or like a dog returning to its own vomit, and the word of the Lord be fulfilled in you: ‘No one putting his hand to the plough and having turned towards the rear is fit for the Kingdom of the Heavens.’ For the danger for you is not little, having now professed that you will guard all the aforesaid things, afterwards to make little of the profession or even to run back to the previous way of life, or to separate yourself from the Father and the Brothers who are engaged with you in ascesis, or, remaining, to live your days contemptuously. For you will have weightier responsibilities than previously before the unerring tribunal of Christ, as much as you now enjoy more grace. And it would be better for you, as the saying goes, not to vow than to vow and not to render your vows. And, again, do not at all think that in the previous time of your sojourn in this place you have adequately struggled against the invisible powers of the Enemy, but know rather that from now there will succeed to you greater struggles in the battle against him, but that he will in no way prevail against you if he finds you fenced about by a strong faith and love for him who is guiding you and by sincerity in your obedience and humility.

For this reason, put away from yourself refusal to listen, contradiction, pride, strife, jealousy, envy, anger, clamour, blasphemy, secret eating, boldness of manner, special friendship, talkativeness, wrangling, grumbling, whispering, personal acquisition of any miserable thing, and all the other sorts of vice through which the wrath of God comes on those who practice them and the Destroyer of souls begins to take root in those who practise them. Rather, then, instead of those things, acquire these things which are fitting to Saints: friendship, stillness, leniency, piety, meditation on the divine words, reading, keeping of the heart from filthy thoughts, labour according to strength, temperance, patient endurance up to death, and perfect confession of those things which are in your heart to the Father to whom you previously gave your vows, as the divine testaments relate: ‘They were baptized,’ it says, ‘confessing their sins.’

Question: Do you thus profess all these things in the hope of the strength of God and do you agree to persevere in these promises until the end of life, by the grace of Christ?

Answer: Yes, God helping me, Reverend Father.

The Meaning of Asceticism

The meaning of asceticism is to combat the eight passions that we have just discussed over the last few days. There is no other reason to engage in asceticism except to conquer the eight passions and to acquire the virtues which negate them. If your asceticism is not directed to these two goals, then there is something wrong with it. There is no other way to attain to the higher states of the Jesus Prayer except by making serious progress in conquering the eight passions and by acquiring the corresponding virtues. This is fundamental: It is not by breathing exercises that we make progress in the Jesus Prayer. It is by negating the eight passions and by acquiring the virtues. It is this Christian virtue that attracts the grace of the Holy Spirit to help us pray.

So for both the monk and the lay person, the ascetical goal is to conquer the eight passions and to acquire the corresponding virtues.

This requires a guide, and for several reasons.

First, we are not always able to understand what our passions really are. The guide, even if he or she is imperfect, sometimes has insight into what our problems really are.

Next, St John of the Ladder points out that we each have our governing passion. It is this passion that we must fight against most of all. There is no point concentrating on heavy bodily asceticism if our ruling passion is vainglory: vainglory is treated in another way. Similarly for the other passions.

Third, each of the passions has certain specific therapies. Only another person can prescribe the right therapy and the amount of it to the beginning ascetic. The beginning ascetic does not yet have the God-given discernment necessary for this.

Next, some passions are healed by inserting the ascetic into certain social situations, including in some cases the necessity for the monk or lay person to be subordinate to another: obedience is the main treatment, at least in the beginning, for pride and vainglory. Similarly, some monks need to be in a coenobium for the sake of their passions; some in other monastic settings. In general, the very act of subordinating our judgement to that of another is the beginning of the healing of our pride, the worst of all the passions.

In the case where the monk or lay person is in psychotherapy for whatever reason, he is going to have to discuss very, very seriously with both his confessor and his therapist his ascetical program. There is a danger here of the therapist and the spiritual director pulling the monk or lay person in different directions. The therapist and the spiritual director are going to have to come to some sort of agreement about what their program is going to be.

Next, along the way there are various temptations and thoughts that arise for the monk or lay person. Only a guide drawing on his own experience can correctly guide the beginner.

Pride

The passion of pride is the desire to make yourself equal to god, to make yourself God.

The end of pride is to beat your chest shouting, ‘I am God,’ while the men in white coats take you away. Pride brings on hallucinations and every sin.

Pride is the devil’s disease.

Pride does not confess that God is its helper, that it is weak.

Pride violates every law because it is above the law.

Pride seeks for power.

Pride is the source of every blasphemy.

The temptation of Adam and Eve in Paradise was the temptation of pride, to make themselves equal to God. The devil tried to infect them with his own disease.

Vainglory

The passion of vainglory is the desire for the glory that comes from men.

Vainglory is the desire for honours and glories. It is the desire to be seen by others to be doing the right thing—even when you are doing the right thing. It is the desire to be seen on television. It is the desire for status, even the status of a halo within the Church. It is the motivation of the ‘saint’ who has no love for man but only a wish to be seen and officially recognized as a saint.

Vainglory wants to be chief not for power but to be seen to be first. It wants the Nobel Peace Prize.

Vainglory brings in its train all the other passions.

Vainglory is the beginning of pride and pride the end of vainglory. The difference between them is that vainglory seeks for honours while pride seeks for power. Vainglory isn’t so interested in power; it just wants to be seen as the most powerful. Pride isn’t so interested in being seen as the most powerful (sometimes it is quite happy to hide) as in being the most powerful. However, the end of vainglory is pride, and the beginning of pride is vainglory.

Vainglory is the passion that boasts about having conquered all the other passions. A monk motivated by vainglory conquers all the other passions and seems to be an accomplished ascetic, but he has merely been hoodwinked by vainglory: he is very far away from the goal of asceticism, which is virtue, and very far from the daughter of asceticism, which is spiritual love. Lay people who engage in asceticism in the world motivated by vainglory find that when they enter the monastic life where no one can see them, then they lose all the ‘progress’ they had in the world before they entered the monastery.

Accidie (Sloth)

The passion of accidie (sloth) is the desire for the pleasure of doing nothing.

Accidie is a spiritual passion, and although it can present itself as a desire to sit around doing nothing at all, it is primarily a passion for doing nothing spiritually. The passion of sloth reminds you, just as soon as you've started to pray, that you have a whole pile of things that have to be done right now, that just can't wait.

Hesychasts have a lifelong battle with accidie. Monks living in coenobitical monasteries have much less of a problem.

St John of the Ladder remarks that monks conquered by accidie are often quite industrious in their worldly works—even to the point of being maniacal.

Lay people are affected by sloth in various ways: by being lazy in the obvious sense, but also by not having enough time for prayer or by being too tired to read the Bible, a spiritual book and so on.

Anger

The passion of anger is the desire to revenge ourselves on those who have hurt us.

In the beginning, when we feel the anger welling up, we are able if we are monks to intercept this beginning and to cut this anger off. But we have been injured, perhaps only in our self-esteem, and we want to protect ourselves, even if it is only in our self-esteem, and we allow the anger to continue. Having enjoyed, then, the pleasure of anger, we are agitated, sometimes for a day or three.

In modern terms, anger has much to do with conflict: conflict with other people, conflict with the elements, conflict with God. Characteristic of the demons is their anger. Characteristic of man is desire (sexual desire). Characteristic of the angels is mind or nous: the angels are always engaged in contemplation, a matter of the mind or nous. What the monk must do is head for the angels, not for the demons.

Sorrow

Sorrow is the only passion that is not the desire for a certain kind of pleasure. It is the withering of all pleasure.

The way sorrow is described by the Fathers, it contains elements of what we would call depression and grief.

Evagrius states that sorrow is an impediment to the eremitical life while it lasts: there is a danger that the person will not withstand isolation. We add that anyone who suffers from sorrow (or depression or grief) should be cautious about engaging in the Jesus Prayer, also anyone who suffers from bipolar syndrome (manic-depression) or has a family history of it.

It is interesting that the Fathers treat sorrow as a passion like all the other passions. The Fathers treat sorrow as something that we are tempted to engage in, someone that we must fight against.

This is quite different from the orientation of modern psychiatry and psychology, which make the person a passive sufferer. The patristic attitude is that we struggle against these things as against a temptation.

Let us hasten to remark that we do not deny that some or many psychiatric or psychological disorders have a biochemical basis. We are not suggesting that anyone stop their medication or their therapy in order to battle against sorrow in the proper patristic way. That’s silly. Don’t do anything rash or foolish.

However, the Fathers nowhere foresee a spirituality that contains elements of Weltschmerz, that romantic ‘weary of life’ sadness that is sometimes taken for a spiritual state of consciousness. Orthodox spirituality is free of sentimentality, and hence free of Weltschmerz, which is essentially sentimental, although eros for God does enters into the Orthodox spiritual way.

Avarice

The passion of avarice is the desire for wealth.

It is the love of money.

What’s wrong with that?

St Paul calls it ‘idolatry’. In St Paul’s book, that’s the worst possible thing.

St Paul also says that avarice is ‘the root of every evil’.

Judas betrayed Christ for money.

If the passion of fornication turns people into instruments of our pleasure, the passion of avarice turns them into instruments of our wealth. In fornication, instead of having a relationship of love with the other person, we have an instrumental relationship of sexual exploitation. We use the other person sexually.

In avarice, instead of loving the other person, we use him or her economically. We exploit him or her, the image of God, for our own wealth. We start to have a calculating attitude towards our friends and relatives. With dollar signs in front of our eyes, we start to look at what we can get out of others.

St James in his epistle in the Bible points out that avarice is the cause of wars among men.

In the case where one nation exploits another, the masters often exploit the servants in both ways: both economically and sexually. This is an example of how one passion (avarice) when it has reached its full flower can bring on another passion (fornication). Avarice in full flower also brings on pride.

We once met someone completely free from avarice. He was as free as a bird. He had a great charity, a great spiritual love for all men. God gave him everything he needed, sometimes by outright miracle. That is why avarice is idolatry: we no longer trust God; we think that the words of the Bible about God’s providence are just words, nothing more; we put our confidence not in God but in stocks and bonds.

Fornication

The passion of fornication is the desire for sexual pleasure.

So what’s wrong with that? That’s the question that immediately comes to mind in this age of license. Let’s start with an extreme case of fornication.

We were once scanning blogs for entries on the Jesus Prayer. There was an entry in a blog that caught our interest. The reference to the Jesus Prayer wasn’t exactly correct, and the blog was accompanied by a photograph of the blogger with bare torso. In our naïveté we wondered, now why would he have a bare torso? We followed up to the blogger’s profile. It turns out that he lives, in his own phrase, in ‘Sodom by the sea’. He has some remarks about his sexual preferences: He doesn’t mind if his partners use ‘herbals and recreational drugs’ to increase their pleasure, so long as they don't talk on and on. He prefers to be on top, but ‘an obedient boy’ can do him ‘until the cows come home’. He’s into certain kinds of bondage. There’s more. Persons interested can email him to discuss a meeting.

Here we see sexual pleasure pursued for its own sake. We see the use in a certain subculture of ‘herbals and recreational drugs’ to increase that pleasure, along with certain ‘kinky’ practices (we wonder: now just what does he mean by ‘an obedient boy’?).

This is, we hope, an extreme case. However, it indicates just what the passion of fornication is in its essence: a desire for sexual pleasure which treats others as objects (willing or unwilling) to be exploited to obtain that sexual pleasure.

Gluttony

The passion of gluttony is the desire for the pleasure that comes from eating.

St Dorotheos distinguishes two types of gluttony: the gluttony that wants to fill the stomach and the gluttony that, while it may not want to fill the stomach, wants to have very tasty food.

The first leads to fat monks; the second, to gourmet monks.

St John of the Ladder remarks that gluttony is something that is with the monk until he dies, since he can never stop eating entirely.

St Silouan the Athonite remarks, according to his disciple, Fr Sophrony (Sakharov), that the measure of eating too much is whether after eating, our memory of God is disturbed. If someone is praying the Jesus Prayer twenty-four hours a day, this is easy to gauge.

St John of the Ladder draws a connection between gluttony and fornication. He remarks that the demon of gluttony hands the monk off to the demon of fornication with a smile when the monk takes a nap after overeating. Here, St John is following Evagrius, who writes on the connection between gluttony and fornication, insisting that you cannot become victim to thoughts of fornication if you have not first become a victim to gluttony.

Although the early fathers emphasize the connection between gluttony and fornication, later writers also emphasize that overeating clouds the mind, that fasting assists the mind to engage both in mental prayer (the Jesus Prayer prayed silently) and in mental ascesis (the purification of the soul through repelling tempting thoughts).

However, St Maximos the Confessor, and those following him, teach us that we must subordinate our bodily ascesis to our mental ascesis, concentrating on mental ascesis. An excessive bodily ascesis is quite dangerous. Here we must have sound guidance and not follow our own will.

Relaxation

There is a story associated with St Anthony, probably in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, that a visitor was scandalized to see St Anthony ‘playing’ with his disciples: relaxing and engaging in repartee. St Anthony replied that the bow that is continually tensed will break.

Here is the fruit of our relaxation:

Autumn

The day is full of sun.

I ate a pomegranate and a persimmon.

At night, the full moon.

The fleeting beauty of the owl’s cry pierces my heart.

Later, we will discuss gluttony.

The Passions

There are eight passions: gluttony, fornication, avarice, sorrow, anger, accidie (sloth), vainglory and pride. Hence, when we begin to look at our ascesis, our pilgrimage towards God, in a systematic way, we begin to look at the role of these passions in our behaviour.

Thy Will Be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven

Who can pray the Our Father from the heart?

Who can turn himself over to God in his soul to pray in truth: ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.’?

The Old Monk

The old monk in rags said: ‘Repentance is everything. Everything else is in vain. “Vanity of vanities.”’ And he blew some imaginary dust off the palm of his hand.

The Necessity of Ascesis

The first renunciation is the renunciation of the world. The second renunciation is the renunciation of our passions: we change so as to become virtuous. In the West this is called the ‘conversion of morals’. In the West, the ‘conversion of morals’ is taken from the second renunciation of St John Cassian. We are here following Cassian’s teacher, Evagrius, in our formulation of the three renunciations.

What is the second renunciation, the conversion of morals? Both in our behaviour and in our thoughts, we purify our soul from the tendencies to sin we have inherited from Adam. We are given Grace in Baptism, but our passions, our tendencies to sin, have not been completely eliminated. We ourselves must work on eliminating our passions, on changing our habitual tendencies to sin to habitual tendencies to virtue. This requires both our own efforts and the Grace of Jesus Christ, the grace of the Holy Spirit. It requires that we be baptized, so as to receive the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

This active purification of the soul from the passions for the acquisition of virtue is the basis of all our asceticism. However, seen from this point of view, our asceticism is no longer pointless or aimless: we can consciously discuss or discern what our passions might be; we can discuss or discern how we might then eliminate those passions. This elimination of the passions and this acquisition of virtue is our pilgrimage to God. There is another stage of the pilgrimage, the stage of contemplation. This is the third renunciation. We will discuss it another time.

What is a Monk?

The word ‘monk’ comes from the Greek μοναχός which means ‘alone’. A monk is someone who lives alone. Are all people who live alone monks? No. Do all monks live alone? No. Then what does the word ‘monk’ mean?

In the Orthodox service of consecration of a monk, the person about to become a monk is asked: ‘Why have you come here falling down before the Holy Altar?’ You see, a monk is someone who consecrates himself to God. The answer that the would-be monk gives is this: ‘I desire the life of asceticism.’ The person consecrating himself to God desires the life of asceticism. The life of asceticism is the road to God. St John of the Ladder (also known as St John of Sinai) writes that a monk is he who denies nature in order to attain to that which is above nature. The officiant asks: ‘Do you wish to be enrolled in the choir of those who live alone?’ The person answers: ‘Yes.’ The monk is he who lives alone because he gives up marriage. St Paul teaches us that he who is married must please his wife whereas he who remains unmarried can devote himself to pleasing God. Next, the officiant asks: ‘Do you renounce the world and the things in the world?’ The would-be monk answers: ‘Yes.’ Evagrius teaches us that the renunciation of the world is the first movement towards God, the foundation of all progress in asceticism. The service continues with the more particular vows of the monk; we will discuss them at another time.

In the Orthodox Church, the service of tonsure, of consecration of a person to God as a monk, is exactly the same for men and for women. There is no difference.

The Tempting Thought

One of the most fundamental concepts in Hesychasm is the ‘tempting thought’ (from the Greek, λογισμός or ‘thought’). Mental ascesis is the practice of refusing tempting thoughts. This mental ascesis is ordinarily practised with the mind in the heart and in coordination with the repetition of the Jesus Prayer. The goal is to attain to a practice of the Jesus Prayer in which the mind is in the heart and free of images. This practice of the Jesus Prayer in the heart free from images is called the ‘guard of the mind’. It is a state of peace. It is a drinking from the silence of God.

A ‘tempting thought’ is a thought that invites us to one of the eight sins. It begins with the formation in the mind of an image of a sensible object. When the image of a sensible object arises in our mind, we ‘converse’ with the image, which invites us to partake of the sin that the image suggests. Hence, the notion of the tempting thought. ‘The temptation of the monk is the thought that arises from the passionate part of the soul and darkens the mind; the sin of the monk is the consent to the forbidden pleasure that the thought suggests.’ (Evagrius.) That is why in the guard of the mind there are no images in the mind, only the repetition of the Jesus Prayer: the monk has been purified of the tendencies to sin in him and immediately refuses any tempting thoughts that come to him. He is now ready to contemplate God and his creation.

The Jesus Prayer in the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches

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UPDATE August, 2010: Readers coming here from the Byzantine Catholic Forum should go to this post and to this second post for our discussion of the comments on that thread.

We have been asked by an interested party to comment on the practice of Hesychasm in the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. We are reluctant to do so since this web log was never, repeat never, intended for ecclesiastical controversy, even as a means to attain notoriety. However, the practice of the Jesus Prayer (or, Hesychasm) in the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches does fall within the scope of this web log. So we will speak to this spiritual matter, since from our discussion our readers might be able to grasp something of the nature of the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm.

The Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, in a few words, came about in this way. When the Orthodox Church and the Western branch of it came to go their separate ways, the papacy developed a theoretical dynamic (theology) of reunion with the papacy: this is intrinsic to the self-understanding of Roman Catholicism. This dynamic took many forms. After the Fourth Crusade there was an attempt through the Council of Lyons (13^th Century) to unite ecclesiastically with the papacy a Byzantine Empire recently conquered by the armies of nations under the jurisdiction of the papacy. That failed. There was another attempt at ecclesiastical union with the independent but failing Byzantine Empire in the Council of Florence (15^th Century). This failed. However, in the 15^th Century, originally in what is now the Western Ukraine, there was a movement towards union that took another route: through the agency of the Jesuit order, certain Orthodox prelates were induced to sign accords of union with the Roman Pontiff. The treaties spelled out certain rights and obligations for members of the dioceses that were to be united with Rome in this way. Thus were born the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. We are not historians and we may have some details in the above sketch wrong.

Now what interests us is the spirituality practised in the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. It can very easily be verified that as a historical fact these Churches, especially the Eastern Rite Churches that arose in the present-day Western Ukraine, are very heavily Westernized in their everyday spirituality. Some of the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, for example the Melkite Churches, are less Westernized in their spirituality. An honest Eastern Rite Catholic cannot deny these things. For verification, one need only visit an Eastern Rite church, look around and talk to a parishioner. However, there is always the question: was this intrinsic to the dynamic of union, or a historical accident?

So that what we are saying makes sense, let us give a few examples. The Basilian Order in the Ukrainian Catholic Church was constructed by the Jesuits out of what they found. Hence, the structure of the Basilian Order is essentially Western. The Order of Studites (monks) in the Ukrainian Catholic Church founded by the Schiptitsky brothers before World War II in the present-day Western Ukraine (please forgive our lack of historical precision; we do not have the sources immediately available) has a rule which is essentially Western. At a house of that order the spirituality was mainly a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and, perhaps, the reading of the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. All of this, of course, in the context of the celebration in the Byzantine Eastern Rite Catholic Churches of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom with a change that shows the influence of Roman Catholic theology: the Epiclesis is transposed to before the words of institution, because, contrary to the Orthodox teaching, the Roman Catholic Church believes that the consecration takes place at the words of institution, not at the Epiclesis (Invocation of the Holy Spirit). Moreover, although the articles of union permitted the Orthodox practice of a married secular clergy, in the West this was abrogated so as not to cause scandal. (We understand that a married clergy is now permitted in the West in at least some cases.)

Now the devout Eastern Rite Catholic can argue that these are all historical accidents. Indeed, now that the extant Byzantine foundational typikons have all been published, it is to be expected that a new Eastern Rite Catholic monastic foundation would include elements of those typikons. However, is it so simple? Or does Roman Catholic theology (not to mention a historical tendency to a theoretical Latinism that treats the Eastern Rite as a transitional dispensation to be gradually replaced by full Latinization) play a role?

Let us turn to the issue that we want to address, treating all of the above merely as a necessary historical introduction. There are serious differences of opinion between Roman Catholic theology and Orthodox theology concerning the nature of God, the knowability of God, the nature of grace and the nature of man. These are the presuppositions of any mystical psychology. The Orthodox theology has very deep roots, going back even to St Basil the Great and his brother St Gregory of Nyssa (4^th Century). The Roman Catholic theology concerning these things was largely formed in the scholastic period, especially by the work of St Thomas Aquinas. Thomism has had a pervasive influence on Roman Catholic theology ever since its formal acceptance by Rome. True, since Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church has made an effort to return to its patristic sources. However, the men and women who are going back to those patristic sources have had their mentality, their outlook, formed by centuries of scholastic, primarily Thomist, theology.

As concerns the practice of the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm, the differences between Roman Catholic and Orthodox theology came to a head in the Hesychast controversy of the 14^th Century, in the disputes between St Gregory Palamas and Barlaam, and later Akyndinos. The theology of St Gregory Palamas was vindicated in the Orthodox Church, and his opponent, the originally Orthodox Barlaam, imbued with Western scholastic theology, ended up a Catholic bishop in Italy. To this day, the Roman Catholic Church has been uneasy with the theology of St Gregory Palamas. In any hypothetical union, it is doubtful whether the Roman Catholic Church would accept to have St Gregory on the church calendar as a saint, even as a local Orthodox saint. Hence, it is extremely doubtful that an Eastern Rite Catholic is ‘on track’ if he accepts Palamite theology. That is, as a member of the Catholic Church, he is obliged to accept the teachings of the Roman Pontiff. However, it is extremely doubtful if that allows him to accept Palamite theology.

The fellow who asked us to comment directed us to this quotation from Pope John Paul II:

The hesychast controversy marked another distinctive moment in Eastern theology. In the East, hesychasm means a method of prayer characterized by a deep tranquillity of the spirit, which is engaged in constant contemplation of God by invoking the name of Jesus. There was no lack of tension with the Catholic viewpoint on certain aspects of this practice. However, we should acknowledge the good intentions which guided the defense of this spiritual method, that is, to emphasize the concrete possibility that man is given to unite himself with the Triune God in the intimacy of his heart, in that deep union of grace which Eastern theology likes to describe with the particularly powerful term of “theosis”, “divinization”.

Pope John Paul II's Angelus Message, August 11, 1996

This indicates to us that Pope John Paul II did not accept Palamite theology: ‘There was no lack of tension with the Catholic viewpoint on certain aspects of this practice. However, we should acknowledge the good intentions which guided the defense of this spiritual method,…’ When a Roman Catholic speaks of admitting the good intentions of someone, he wants to say that the fellow was wrong, but at least he meant well. We concede that a Roman Pontiff has never pronounced infallibly, so a member of an Eastern Rite Church might be able to claim that he is not bound in conscience, but that is his own affair with his own conscience. In our view, a member of an Eastern Rite Catholic Church has to clarify within himself just what his theology is, and how it is to be constrained by the principles of Roman Catholic theology. Otherwise he is in danger of a ‘cafeteria Catholicism’ of the right: a picking and choosing without regard to consistency with his own basic principle of allegiance to the Pope. Hence, just how consistent is it for an Eastern Rite Catholic to quote the Abbot of an Athonite monastery? And, indeed, when the Abbot is himself quoting St Gregory Palamas? Are we not just fooling ourselves?

Let us get to the heart of the matter: the role of these theological difference in the practice of the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm.

Let us first point out that the serious practice of the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm is a rather isolated event in the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. By the ‘serious practice’, we mean, the way that it is practised, say, on Mt Athos by Hesychasts. We recognize that some people pray the Jesus Prayer for an hour a day, either vocally or silently, as a devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus or because of high blood pressure, or even to ask mercy from the Lord.

The first problem is the interpretation of the expression ‘bringing the mind into the heart’. A study of Roman Catholic theology will make it clear that this expression has no meaning in Thomist psychology. It is an absurdity. It can at best, in Thomist psychology, be treated as a metaphor for praying with feeling or intention—for praying with the sentiment—or as a description of a somatic practice. The Orthodox do not mean ‘praying with the sentiment’ when they speak of bringing the mind into the heart, and they do not treat the Jesus Prayer as a somatic practice. There is much more to Hesychasm, and the Orthodox monk means that his mind descends to the physical region of his heart. How is the Eastern Rite Catholic who is being consistent with his own theological principles going to bring his mind into his heart? Is he not just picking and choosing what he wants to hear?

We find this description of Hesychasm in the above remark of Pope John Paul II, who was a neo-Thomist: ‘In the East, hesychasm means a method of prayer characterized by a deep tranquillity of the spirit, which is engaged in constant contemplation of God by invoking the name of Jesus.’ Let us concede that Pope John Paul II was speaking to a general audience and that he might have had a much deeper knowledge of Hesychasm. While the invocation of the name of Jesus (which taken in and of itself is a well-known Roman Catholic practice) is part of the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm, there is much more to the Orthodox practice than that. The practice of Hesychasm involves a very delicate mental ascesis in conditions of isolation based on refusing tempting thoughts, the result of which mental ascesis is a purity of soul identified by St Hesychios, for example, with the ‘purity of heart’ of the Gospel. Moreover, the reason we bring the mind into the heart is to engage in this mental ascesis in the heart, with our consciousness centred in the heart. This mental ascesis is combined with the uninterrupted repetition of the Jesus Prayer 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When in this way the Hesychast has attained to a practice of the Jesus Prayer in the heart without images—recall that he is through mental ascesis refusing tempting (indeed, all) thoughts—then he is said by St Hesychios to be engaged in the ‘guard of the mind’. It is from the ‘guard of the mind’ that the Hesychast is raised to contemplation. But these concepts simply do not make sense in the context of Roman Catholic mystical psychology. What is the Eastern Rite Catholic to do?

Finally, Pope John Paul II finishes his remark by saying: ‘…that is, to emphasize the concrete possibility that man is given to unite himself with the Triune God in the intimacy of his heart, in that deep union of grace which Eastern theology likes to describe with the particularly powerful term of “theosis”, “divinization”.’ Now as far as it goes, that is the meaning of theosis or divinization. But there is a problem. In Roman Catholic theology, grace is created. In Orthodox theology, grace is uncreated. Moreover, there are serious issues between Roman Catholic theology and Orthodox theology concerning the nature of the union with God given in mystical experience. Hence, there is implicit in Pope John Paul II’s remark a reinterpretation of the Orthodox concept of divinization into Roman Catholic theological terms. What is the Eastern Rite Catholic going to do?

Basically, the Eastern Rite Catholic has these three options open to him: He can pursue Hesychasm and the full form of the Jesus Prayer in an Orthodox way, at the cost of a deep tension between his spiritual practice and his Catholic identity. Or, he can attempt to reinterpret the Jesus Prayer in a Catholic way—most likely by turning it into a Catholic devotion, since reinterpreting the full Orthodox form of Hesychasm in a Catholic way would require very great theological talent. Or he can drop the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm, and turn to an essentially Western Catholic spirituality. Historically, very few people have chosen the first alternative; more have chosen the second; and most have chosen the third.

For these reasons, and others, we think that the reason that the Eastern Rite Catholic churches manifest such a Westernized spirituality is not merely historical accident, but an inner dynamic of conformity to Roman Catholic theology and practice.