Some Questions on the Jesus Prayer

We have received a very charming email from a woman we will call Janice Gaines. She is considering becoming Orthodox and has some questions. Here is the anonymized email, slightly edited for style:

Dear Orthodox Monk:

Providence has been indeed Divine these past few months.

Long, super long, very long story short: Orthodox Christianity has this born and raised Roman Catholic, though lapsed for decades, seriously interested and in consideration of conversion.

My journey has been fortuitous as it has led me to on-line places and videos rich with information, tradition, music, and serenity.

Finding your blog, quite by accident, earlier this evening had me reading page after page after page and finding a treasure trove of answers, further reading materials, meticulous writing (style), and a sense of humour I very much appreciate.

I am considering you, and of course, your blog, my blessing for the day.

Dear Orthodox Monk, I do have a question regarding the Jesus Prayer: In my on-line travels, logging thousands of pages already, I recall an older, mentor monk speaking about the Jesus Prayer being ‘dangerous’ for a novice (monk).

How can a prayer, especially one so tender, offered by a sinner to the Lord Jesus Christ, and begging His mercy, be considered dangerous?

If the Prayer is ‘dangerous’ on the lips of a novice, am I ‘safe’ in its recitation?

My Russian pronunciation is improving by leaps and bounds and I have found the greatest comfort in chanting the Jesus Prayer along with the Valaam Monastery Choir's twenty-one minute video (YouTube)—switching the last syllable to the feminine of course.

Too, in the pages of your blog, a young man remarked that in Greek Orthodoxy, the Jesus Prayer, at least to him, was considered a great ‘secret’ he feared would become trademarked if the true power of the Prayer were known.

I am confounded, dear Orthodox Monk, and I hope you will illuminate.

With sincere appreciation for your learned responses and the time and effort you expend on your blog, I thank you for considering my question for a reply.

God bless you.

Janice

Let us take the questions about the Jesus Prayer first. There are a number of stages in the practice of the Jesus Prayer, from simple group recitation perhaps with a YouTube video 20 minutes once or twice a day, to 24-hour a day, 7-day a week recitation in solitude a cave. At the latter stage the recitation is automatic even in sleep; the Prayer is repeated with the mind in the heart; the practitioner may be practising breath control. It should be clear to Janice that this advanced form of the Jesus Prayer is dangerous for the novice monk—and perhaps even for the advanced monk. So there is a spectrum of practice of the Jesus Prayer and cautions have to be understood in the context of where on the spectrum of practice the cautioner is positioning the practitioner. Moreover, no one can say where precisely on the spectrum the Jesus Prayer ceases to be safe and becomes dangerous. Many factors concerning the person praying enter into question—their personal history, their ecclesiastical situation, their medical health, whether they have a guide, whether they are leading a moral life, whether they go regularly to confession and communion, their family and work and economic situation and so on. For a healthy individual, there is much less danger repeating the Jesus Prayer 20 minutes a day than repeating it all the time in solitude. Similarly, risk in practising the Jesus Prayer is reduced for a member of the Orthodox Church without mental health problems who is leading a moral life. Similarly for someone who is getting along with their family, has a job they like, is economically self-sufficient and is generally not under stress.

We might make some remarks on factors that enter into the question of dangers of the repetition of the Jesus Prayer. However, we can only issue general guidelines; Janice needs a personal guide if she wants personal guidance.

There are several reasons why the Jesus Prayer might become dangerous. First of all, it is the repetition of a short sentence. The repetition itself necessarily stresses the brain. If there are genetically-based mental illnesses involved that stress might precipitate a crisis. This should be clear. But risk is increased if the person is under stress. This should also be clear.

Moreover, the formula of the Jesus Prayer is a formula which in Roman Catholic parlance is an act of repentance or contrition. In the healthy individual, no problem. But in a person with emotional problems, such an emphasis on repentance and contrition might provoke an emotional crisis—or, more likely, exacerbate an existing emotional crisis or condition.

Next, the Jesus Prayer is a prayer that arises out of Orthodox Egypt in the 4^th Century. It is very heavily contextualized by that fact in its historical development. Decontextualizing the Jesus Prayer—say by treating it one form among many of yoga—is fraught with spiritual and emotional and intellectual danger. It behoves Janice to make an effort to understand the Jesus Prayer from an Orthodox point of view, so that she prays it in an Orthodox way. This is indeed a general caution for all those practitioners, such as Eastern-Rite Catholics, Western-Rite Catholics, Protestants and others, who practise the Jesus Prayer ‘without the Orthodox mumbo-jumbo.’

And here we might remark on the trademarking of the Jesus Prayer that Janice alludes to. We don’t recall the passage in the blog she is referring to but the problem is that in America everyone wants the ‘quick fix,’ the easily used and marketed product. That seems to be what the person was referring to. However, the problem is that because of the contextualization of the Jesus Prayer in Orthodox tradition such a packaging is necessarily going to bastardize the practice of the Prayer. On the one hand, the purchaser gets watered-down adulterated goods; on the other hand the adulterated goods might be (spiritually) dangerous or even poisonous.

In this regard we might make a remark in passing that one ordinarily prays the Jesus Prayer in their native tongue. While we laud Janice on her studies of Russian and on her repeating the Jesus Prayer in Russian (necessary if she is going to be repeating it along with a video from Valaam Monastery), she should understand that in Elder Sophrony (Sakharov’s) monastery in Essex (Monastery of St John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights), the Prayer is repeated in a group setting in English even though Elder Sophrony was Russian, Athonite and a disciple of St Silouan the Athonite, also Russian.

Next, ultimately the practitioner of the Jesus Prayer is entering into conflict with the powers of darkness in a battle over their own soul. This is not the sort of language that is popular but it is the Orthodox tradition. Elder Sophrony’s book St Silouan the Athonite is good on this. The problem here is that the foolhardy practitioner might out of pride or conceit enter into battle without the support of the Great General, the Holy Spirit. Another metaphor might be that until you know how to swim, don’t jump in the deep end. So this is a caution saying that if you head for the more advanced end of the spectrum of practice before you are ready, you are in great danger: the downside risk is losing the battle and being possessed by a demon.

Next, because the advanced practitioner is entering into spiritual battle, their free will necessarily comes into play. An advanced practitioner of the Jesus Prayer is continually making choices as they deal with their ongoing thought processes in a conscious psychological state where they are faced with accepting or rejecting thoughts that come to them. They might make a mistake. Hence, before they enter into such an intense interior battle, they have to have their judgement trained.

Finally, advanced practitioners of the Jesus Prayer have visions. They might be real. So far so good. But they might be temptations. If the practitioner accepts the temptation, disaster. Again, St Silouan the Athonite is good on this. After an authentic vision of the risen Christ, St Silouan was over the years twice deceived by false visions while praying the Jesus Prayer in an advanced way.

Now let us turn to the broader issue of Janice’s possible conversion to Orthodoxy. First of all, a rule of thumb is that if she decides to remain Roman Catholic then she should practice a Roman Catholic form of spirituality. It simply doesn’t work to transplant an Orthodox tradition into Catholicism.

We would certainly encourage Janice to become Orthodox, but we would like to make the following remark. Orthodoxy, unless the person is drawn by the Holy Spirit, is a closed book. Even pious members of non-Orthodox Christian denominations can’t get past the surface of Orthodoxy, the ritual. They don’t see anything there beyond the ritual. Only from the inside of Orthodoxy is the mystagogy that is embedded in the ritual alive. And ultimately that is what Janice wants.

However, to make a genuine conversion to Orthodoxy, Janice must find Orthodoxy. This is not as easy as it might seem, there being in the United States a plethora of jurisdictions with all kinds of different issues—from rampant secularism to conservative ritualism and formalism. Janice has to pray for God to guide her steps.

Prelest and Positive Thinking

Those of our readers who want to know why we’ve been silent may be pleased to see that we have taken time off from our current time-consuming project to answer an email we have just received.  There are a number of other emails that are in the queue but we have been too busy to deal with them.  We hope to get to them in due time.

Someone, let us call her ‘Martha’, has written to us.  We replied to her as follows:

Our policy is only to answer emails publicly on the blog.  We remove all information that could be used to identify you.  We also edit for clarity and style.  Is this acceptable to you?

To which Martha replied:

Sure, as long as you keep my identity private!  Thank you!

Here is Martha’s email, extensively edited for clarity:

Hi Orthodox Monk,

I’m curious to know why you guys are promoting the ‘positive thinking’ idea that your neo-elders are teaching.  Such as in the books

Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain

The Gurus, the Young Man and Elder Paisios

and the book Wounded by Love.

These teachings are nothing more than ‘New-Age’ and ‘Occult’ terminologies as well as practices!  They have never before been used by true orthodox elders and none of the holy fathers spoke about such things nor are they found anywhere in the Holy Bible.  To me this indicates that Orthodox Christianity is being blended in with the Occult, and thus slowly taken us away from God.  Are we not supposed to trust God in all matters?  Not our own self, and our positive or negative thoughts, given us through our own man-made power?  To attract this or that from energies or within ourselves (a power or energy that we do not possess) yet Elder Paisios claims that we do.  This is a demonic and completely un-Orthodox teaching!!!

Are these new elders in prelest?  Maybe you could shed some light as to why it is not only being promoted but encouraged for spiritual enlightenment.

And while we’re on the topic of enlightenment, here is my next question: why and how do all of Elder Ephraim’s Abbots and Abbesses obtain the gift of clairvoyance so easily?  Isn’t this supposed to be given (maybe) only to those who have accomplished great ascetic struggles in extreme humility, and only if God wills?  Not every elder obtains all the holy gifts or even seeks them, yet the Ephraim monastics work in a way opposite to this.  This is the exact same way that the Charismatic Protestant movement goes about obtaining the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Anyway I didn’t mean to upset anyone; I’m only inquiring so as to obtain true answers and knowledge for myself (I hope in fact that you are a real monk).

Asking you to please keep my identity private.

Thank you, and waiting for your response.

Martha

Let us take the issues one by one.

First we didn’t realize that we, Orthodox Monk, were promoting the ‘positive thinking’ that is found in the books that Martha lists.  Also we didn’t realize that we were promoting the ‘neo-elders’ that Martha speaks about.  Indeed, as near as we can make out we have made a serious effort over the years not to promote or to denigrate one or another elder.  Guess we weren’t as careful as we thought we were.

Now, let us run through these books to make sure that we’re all on the same page.  The first book, Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain, was written by Hieromonk Christodoulos who at the time he knew Elder Paisios was a monk at the Monastery of Koutloumousiou, a short walk from Elder Paisios’ cell or house.  We understand that Hieromonk Christodoulos met with Elder Paisios a number of times and that he took notes of his conversations as soon as he returned to Koutloumousiou after speaking with the Elder.  Our friend George who knows far more about Mt Athos than we do says that the conversations that Hieromonk Christodoulos presents ‘ring true’ as presenting the real Elder Paisios.  We ourselves have not read the next book,  The Gurus, the Young Man and Elder Paisios, and have no comment on it.

The third book, Wounded by Love, is the English translation of an early edition of a book called in Greek Bios kai Logoi.  That book came about as follows.  Elder Porphyrios permitted two of his disciples, now nuns, to record a number of conversations with him.  The transcripts of those conversations became the book in question.  So the book is really just the transcripts of a number of conversations or discourses of Elder Porphyrios with two of his disciples.  It is not a ‘set-piece’ theological work by the Elder.

We will discuss Elder Paisios, Elder Porphyrios and Elder Ephraim separately.

Now the first point to make is that Elder Paisios wrote a number of books himself, which are to be found in English translation.  It might be useful for Martha to find these books and read them so as to get direct from the horse’s mouth what Elder Paisios thought and taught.  Here is a list of those books (all available in English):

Saint Arsenios the Cappadocian

Elder Hadji-Georgis the Athonite

Athonite Fathers and Athonite Matters

Epistles

These books are published by the Holy Hesychasterion of St John the Theologian, Souroti, Greece.  That is where Elder Paisios was buried in accordance with his own wishes.

There is also a series of books published by the Holy Hesychasterion of St John the Theologian that have been constructed after the Elder’s death by assembling on a thematic basis notes and recordings of sayings by Elder Paisios collected by the nuns of the Hesychasterion, who are the Elder’s disciples and formal literary executors.  While these books are certainly of some weight in understanding Elder Paisios’ teaching, they would rank second to the books actually written and edited by Elder Paisios while he was alive.  The volumes presently published are (all available in English unless otherwise noted):

Spiritual Counsels 1: With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man

Spiritual Counsels 2: Spiritual Awakening

Spiritual Counsels 3: Spiritual Struggle

Spiritual Counsels 4: Family Life

Spiritual Counsels 5: Passions and Virtues (not translated)

In the third rank would be books written by someone who knew Elder Paisios and decided to write a book about him.  Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain by Hieromonk Christodoulos, discussed above, would belong to this category.  Among such books, the best in our opinion is the one by Elder Isaac called Elder Paisios of Mount Athos.  Elder Isaac, since deceased, was a personal disciple of Elder Paisios.

It should be noted that when we recommend a book, we recommend it in the original language.  We have no opinion one way or another on the quality of a translation.  A translation is an interpretation of the author’s meaning, and in the case of a group translation, an interpretation by a committee.

Now let us begin with Martha’s criticisms, as near as we can make them out.  First of all, we were rather surprised to be taxed with teaching the doctrine of Elder Paisios on positive and negative thoughts.  We didn’t think we had addressed the issue.  Be that as it may, we understand Elder Paisios’ teaching to be as follows.  A monk or nun or layperson would come to Elder Paisios and express dissatisfaction with their elder, their abbot, their abbess, their spouse, their children, their parents, their job and so on.  Often, we imagine—we weren’t there—these people would be depressed and would want to ‘vent’.  Forgive us, Martha, but your remarks seem similar.  Now what Elder Paisios would say—as we understand it!—to these people is that they were allowing themselves to be swept up in negative thoughts.  What they should do, Elder Paisios would say, was concentrate on positive thoughts.

Martha thinks this is wrong, New-Age and Occult if we understand her correctly.  Certainly not to be found among the elders of old and not to be found in Scripture.

The basis of Elder Paisios’ teaching is to be found in a tradition in the Philokalia that goes back to very early times.  The great systematizer of this method as it entered into the Orthodox Hesychastic tradition is Evagrius Ponticus (344 – 399) but the method is also found in Neilus of Ankara (died 430) and Mark the Ascetic (5^th Century), of whose works it was said, ‘Sell everything and buy Mark.’  The method is referenced in Diadochos of Photiki (5^th Century) and other writers of the period; the fullest discussion is perhaps to be found in the Ladder of Divine Ascent by John of Sinai (7^th Century).  It is an integral part of the Hesychastic program of Hesychius of the Burning Bush (8^th Century).  It is referenced by the Gregory Palamas (14^th Century).  So the foundation of what Elder Paisios is saying is certainly Orthodox and certainly taught by some very big names in Orthodox spirituality.

In brief what these authors discuss is the genesis of an impassioned thought in the mind.  Normally the cause of such an impassioned thought is a temptation by a demon, although Evagrius for example recognizes that people can quite often get on with a tempting thought without a demon on the basis of their own emotional tendencies to sin.  One of the demons is specialized for sowing thoughts of sorrow (depression) but there are other demons of envy, malice, rancour and so on.  And the demons would have no work if we didn’t have emotional tendencies to sin that corresponded to their specialties.

The best treatment of the emotional tendencies to sin and the evolution of a tempting thought is found in the Ladder of Divine Ascent.  John of Sinai’s treatment is largely based on Evagrius although he produces a much more refined analysis.

So basically what Elder Paisios was saying to these people is that they were allowing themselves to engage with tempting thoughts sown by a demon or by their own emotional tendencies to sin.  Since that was not healthy and interfering with these peoples’ lives, better for them to make an effort to think positive thoughts instead of the negative thoughts sown by a demon, their own passions or even on account of some biochemical imbalance.  (Since Elder Paisios on occasion sent people to see a secular psychiatrist he would surely have recognized the possibility that there might be an organic issue that needed medical attention.)

We ourselves would remark that there are people who always look on the dark side, always focusing on what can go wrong.  There are also people who always look on the bright side—the personal executioner employed by the late Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, was said to be a jovial fellow with nary a depressive bone in his body—and that is probably preferable to being depressive.  However, to make a serious decision it helps to be realistic, neither unrealistically depressive nor unrealistically optimistic.

Now this is our interpretation and we see nothing wrong with counselling people not to succumb to the temptation to think negative thoughts.  Now Martha is correct that for most people the only way for them to resist such negative thoughts is to pray.  We doubt that Elder Paisios would disagree.  However his point, we think, is that unless you recognize that you are being foolish in accepting to think such negative thoughts it’s not even going to occur to you to ask Jesus to save you from them.

Now for the rest, we do not know what Martha thinks that Elder Paisios taught that is so objectionable about inner powers and so forth.  We are quite sure, however, that Elder Paisios was quite Orthodox.

Now, as for Elder Porphyrios.  We are not aware of a similar teaching about negative thoughts by Elder Porphyrios, and certainly not in Bios kai Logoi.  What we recall from that book is a discussion of the eternal Church, Elder Porphyrios’ reliving of the Apocalypse to John on Patmos and so on.  Of course we could be wrong.  It’s been a while since we read the book.

Now is Elder Porphyrios teaching New Age and Occultism?  We hope not.  He was just made a saint of the Orthodox Church by the Ecumenical Patriarch at the beginning of December, less than a month ago.  So it’s not Elder Porphyrios any more, it’s Saint Porphyrios.

Next, Elder Ephraim of Arizona.  Martha’s complaint does not seem to be with Elder Ephraim himself, who George tells us is highly respected on Mt Athos, as having been a major factor in the renewal of Mount Athos by the disciples of Elder Joseph the Hesychast.  Martha’s complaint seems to be that all of Ephraim’s Abbots and Abbesses are also clairvoyant.  Too easy she thinks.  We ourselves have no doubt that Elder Ephraim is a holy man.  We ourselves do not doubt that he is also clairvoyant.  However, we have no information on his disciples, if they are clairvoyant and if so where they got it.  The statement in the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St John of Sinai, that it is shameful for an elder to pray that a disciple receive a charism that he himself does not have, says to us that if Elder Ephraim’s disciples are genuinely clairvoyant it is because Elder Ephraim prayed for them to receive the charism.  However, as we said, we have no opinion on the matter.

What Martha could do is ask Elder Ephraim.

Now what about us?  Orthodox Monk?  Martha is worried that we might be a disciple of Elder Ephraim.  Well, again, she could always ask Elder Ephraim.  For how would she know if we were telling the truth if we said we were?  Or if we said we weren’t?

We said all we have to say on our monastic state and affiliation in a post called Who is Orthodox Monk?.

Martha replied with two emails, which she has also given us permission to discuss publicly.

Here they are, again edited extensively for clarity:

[1^st Email:]  Thanks for posting in reply, but let me correct you, Orthodox Monk.  I never said or implied that I was worried about your being affiliated with Elder Ephraim.  I only asked you to which monastery you belong (meaning name and country).  I did also ask from curiosity if you were under Ephraim (which you still have not answered).  Please do not confuse my words.

Secondly you made it sound like I was attacking the elders, which clearly I wasn’t!  If you read the books I mentioned you would clearly see where I got my questions of concern.  As for the Ephraimites I am sure you have heard all the rumours circulating about them, especially the death of Scott Nevins.  Now why couldn’t Elder Ephraim save his life?  And have helped him since he lived there 7 years?  That is, if Elder Ephraim is not in prelest?  Before you judge anyone on your blog or accuse them of criticizing, just remember that just because it didn’t happen to you, it doesn’t make it any less true.  I thank you for your response but obviously you are with world orthodoxy (ecumenism) so I expected no less.

[2^nd Email:]  Also one more thing: There are many cults and false elders out there.  There is nothing wrong with people doing their own homework by asking questions to learn and to discern the spirit of the times.  If this troubles anyone then this is an indication that they are trying to mask something.  True Orthodox Christian people should be proud of those who ask questions and want to learn the true meaning of things.  They should encourage questions and not oppose them, and not expect only blind obedience to whoever claims to be an elder or even Orthodox.

Here’s our answer:  Martha, first of all, no one is obliged to read our blog.  If you don’t like it you don’t have to read it.  We have written several hundred thousand words on the blog (enough for a number of books) and everything is there for anyone who wants to read it.  Our views should be quite clear.  No, we haven’t given you a direct answer whether we are or are not affiliated with Elder Ephraim.  To do so one way or another would be to say more about ourselves than we care to.  If that bothers you, then stop reading the blog.

Next, of the three books you mentioned, we have read two; we haven’t read the Gurus book.  It was admittedly some time ago that we read the two books but we don’t remember any questions arising in our mind of the sort you are posing.

Next, no we are not up to date on ‘the Ephraimites I am sure you have heard all the rumours circulating about them, especially the death of Scott Nevins’.  By and large we avoid that.  Sorry.  In particular we have not studied what happened in the case of Scott Nevins and have no intention of doing so.  Nor do we intend to spend any time on the possibility that Elder Ephraim is in prelest.  It’s just not who we are, Martha.

Next, you write ‘Before you judge anyone on your blog or accuse them of criticizing, just remember that just because it didn’t happen to you, it doesn’t make it any less true.  I thank you for your response but obviously you are with world orthodoxy (ecumenism) so I expected no less.’  We are not sure what you mean.  Do you mean that we are criticizing someone else or that we are criticizing you?  Our strongest criticism of you was that you have a tendency to listen to your bad thoughts.  If it is you that you mean we have been criticizing, then ‘because it didn’t happen to you, it doesn’t make it any less true’ suggests that you have had some bad experience, unless we completely misunderstand what you are saying.  If you have had a bad experience, then we suggest you speak to a clergyman face to face.  A blog is not the place to sort out personal bad experiences.

Martha replied.  We will let her have the last word:

I did not have nor do I have any intention to read your blog.  I only wrote a simple email on the ‘positive thinking’ idea, which you took way out of proportion to my intent, in cold heartless replies.  No, I have not had any bad experiences and even if I had that would not excuse the fact that the Ephraimites are in prelest!  Moreover, there are many complaints about them from thousands who have had similar experiences.  You can choose to cover up for the wrongdoings of the Ephraimites but just don’t forget that people are not stupid!!!  The truth always comes out in the end!  And I don’t even believe that you live in an Orthodox monastery let alone that you are a tonsured monk, just going by your cold accusatory, assuming replies.  I am done talking with you!

Martha later sent us another email:

Dear Orthodox Monk:

I have realized that I made a terrible mistake with regard to my ‘positive thinking’ query and about Elder Ephraim being in prelest.  I did some more research and I have found out that I was terribly wrong.  Thank you.

A Comment on our Post ‘A Charismatic Question by Email’

We have received a comment on our post ‘A Charismatic Question by Email’. We think that it is worth discussing this comment by ‘Commodus Firmus’ in a blog post. We have edited the comment for clarity.

Hi, the use of the name of Jesus is never in vain and what seems out of place and incompatible today might be a perfect fit tomorrow. If anyone wants to use the Jesus Prayer only good will come of it.

I grew up in Greece. On the one hand, I was steeped in Orthodoxy and the Jesus prayer from a very early age (I discovered the prayer when I was 8-10 and then when I was around 13 I tried it for the first time).

On the other hand, however, the institutionalized Orthodox Church of Greece (as a social structure) was so irrelevant and so unsuccessful in communicating its message that it was (and for many is) just repulsive. For years I was just one more ‘nominal Christian’. The Jesus prayer was the only indication that underneath the rather repulsive visible institutionalized ‘state religion’ there might be hiding a ‘pearl of great price’.

Then I met Protestants—some (nominally) still Greek ‘Orthodox’ but with evangelical tendencies—and also Pentecostals. In sharp contrast to the state church, these people looked as if they practiced what they preached and they taught me to read the Bible too. I was still trying the Jesus prayer every now and then, never ‘breaking’ its secret yet on every occasion I was left with the impression that there is a secret in this short repeated prayer. So I always returned to it. First every 2-3 years, then every 1-2 years, then even more often, until 30+ years after I discovered the Jesus Prayer it became a regular part of my life and returned my heart to the Orthodox Church. I still feel ashamed of the quality of leadership of the Orthodox Church—but then, am I any better? Yet every time some (over?)zealous Orthodox—seemingly out of petty antagonism—speaks ill of other denominations it pains my heart because I learned good things from them. Wasn’t it the Lord who said, ‘from their fruit you will know them’? Well, they are not perfect. It pains my heart too to see some of the doctrinal errors of the non-Orthodox, yet I see the good fruit as well and close my mouth.

The bottom line of all this: If some people want to practice the Jesus prayer, let them practice it—even help them to practice it—be they atheists, Buddhists or Protestants or whatever. The Name of Jesus has a power of its own to work unexpected wonders in the hearts of those praying, no matter who or what they are. Thank God no one has copyrighted the Jesus Prayer and no one has trademarked it! If fact I sometimes think that it works a ‘secret operation’ to bring people back to Orthodoxy. I don’t fear that the Jesus Prayer is something people can exploit commercially but see it more as a cornerstone that can be the foundation for the return [to Orthodoxy? to Jesus?] of those who will put their trust on it or a stumbling block that will crush those who will try to exploit it.

This comment is interesting for its clear expression of a person who although nominally Orthodox is a Protestant in spirit.

Looking at Orthodoxy

We have received another email, this time from John Smith in Cleveland, Ohio (name and location changed). John indicates that we can discuss his email on the blog. Here is the text of his email:

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Dear Orthodox Monk,

Thank you for your web log. It has become a source of great inspiration for me in my own spiritual struggles and striving towards God. I pray that you might be willing to offer some advice. I am 41 years old. Most of my life I have been seeking spiritual fulfillment, even from an early age. My home life was stable growing up. My family loved me and there were no major difficulties (no violence, no abuse, etc). Yet something that was missing was spiritual direction. My Father is completely secular. My Mother self identifies as Christian but has no religious practice with the exception of prayer (not a prayer rule, but her own private prayers). She does not participate in church services, does not study Holy Scripture, does not know about Holy Tradition, etc. So as a youth I began to explore on my own. I have searched far and wide, studied many different paths, both Christian and Non-Christian. I have a teenage son who lives with his mother and her husband. Until quite recently I have worked in the heart of “Corporate America”, the very antithesis of the desire and longing of my soul for a contemplative life. The greed, pride, selfishness, competition, deception – it is a miserable environment indeed. Satan is strong in the business world. I removed myself from that environment. I could no longer justify my being in the midst of such a situation for the “security” of a weekly paycheck. As our Lord has said, “You can not serve both God and Mammon.” (Matthew 6:24).

So now I find myself without a job. I am currently supporting myself from the modest savings gathered while I was working. This will not last and I need to make a decision about the direction of my life. I have no desire to return to the business world. It even pains me to consider it. While I was there I felt like all of my energy was being chewed up and spat back out. And for nothing. For an empty hollow illusion. And I knew all along it was an illusion. I knew all along that there was nothing of substance, nothing of value, nothing meaningful, yet I persisted as I felt it was my duty to do so. I needed to survive. I needed to pay the bills, to have shelter, to have food, to provide for my child, etc. I have lived a modest life (materially speaking). I don't own a house. I rent a small space. I don't have many material possessions, just some necessities – simple clothing, books for study, a computer to research and communicate. I don't have a TV. I own a phone which I use only when necessary. I spend a lot of time in silence, study and prayer. I am thankful for the extra time I have now that I am not employed. My current situation has allowed me to devote more time to things that really matter. But I know the end of this will come. I will run out of money and will have to seek employment. I don't want to go back to my previous life. I don't want to enter into the world of business. I was never one to buy into that lie. Even while I was in the midst of it, I knew “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15-17). I did what I did to survive, yet all along, I felt a call to a more contemplative life. Still, I waver. Sometimes I think perhaps I could do it, that I could embrace a life of renunciation, a life in utter and complete devotion to God. Other times I think that this a crazy idea, that there would be no way for me to do it, that I would fail, or that I would not be able to decisively take the next step.

About 7 years ago I began to study Orthodoxy. My studies have been private. I do not currently participate in a local parish although I have researched and found there are several Orthodox parishes in my area (Greek Orthodox, ROCOR, Antiochan Orthodox and others). I hesitate to visit as I am not sure that my calling is to parish life. And if it is, I am not sure which parish would be my spiritual home. Are these all Orthodox? Is there corruption in the Church? I read about different issues – this Metropolitan did such and such; this synod rejects that synod; this communion persecuted that communion; and so forth. It seems at times that the world itself has entered even into the very Church that Christ has built. No man is without sin. The devils assail us. What is one to do? Kyrie Eleision. Lord have mercy.

In part due to these misgivings, I have not joined a parish, which means I have not received any of the Mysteries of the Church. Monasticism might be the path for me, yet I am uncertain. Would I really be able to do it? Could I, who have been in the world for so long, really take that step? And if I did take that step, would I be able to follow through? These are questions I ask myself. These are questions I pray about. How do I discern what God wants?

Is there a spiritual practice I can do at home that would reflect the life of a monk? What I mean is, can I train – to a greater or lesser extent – to live a contemplative life, to see if this is something I would be able to do? Are there layman's vows I could take? Can you recommend anything for me at this stage of my life? I know historically (and I believe it still to be the case) that Orthodox monasticism has both cenobitic and ermetical paths. Perhaps my calling is one of a hermit? Any insight you feel led to share would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

John

P.S.

Please feel free to post this message on your blog, but please do not share my real name or email address. Thank you.

First of all we would like to point out that while we like responding to emails on the blog, there is a serious danger of inadvertently injuring the author of the email. Sometimes the author of the email is sensitive and misunderstands what we are saying. So we have to emphasize that we can only respond to the general issues that are raised in each email. We can’t respond on a personal level. So what we are going to say is for John in a general way and thus for all our readers generally; we don’t know John and can’t assess him spiritually to give him specific guidance. He is going to have to meet an Orthodox priest or Elder face to face to get Orthodox personal guidance. Moreover, we avoid making comparisons among the various Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States so we generally avoid giving specific instructions on the blog of the form: go to that jurisdiction.

That having been said there are serious issues that John is raising.

Before we look at the issues raised by John’s leaving his employment and living on his savings, let us look at the issue of Church membership.

John remarks that his mother has some sort of personal spirituality but nothing that is connected to any church at all. John, it seems to us, is at risk of repeating his mother’s mistake. We wonder in fact whether there is not a tendency in the family to a sort of asocial life: we all know the sort of person that doesn’t make friends easily and tends to live an isolated life. Indeed, we all know the image in American culture of the ‘hermit’ living in a shack in the woods, a little eccentric but largely harmless. We wouldn’t want John to end up as that sort of American folk icon.

As we remarked in our last post, from the Orthodox point of view, salvation begins with a social act: entry into the Church. Normally this is accomplished by baptism and we are of the view that baptism is the proper way to receive all converts to Orthodoxy. Baptism is formal entry into the society of believers, described by Paul the Apostle as the Body of Christ.

This is not just a matter of being enabled to receive the Mysteries (Sacraments) as acts of personal devotion to Christ. We don’t receive Holy Communion individually; we receive it with others in a social act during the social act of the Divine Liturgy. For all the Mysteries (Sacraments) of the Orthodox Church are social in nature: there is always a priest present, and in most cases, such as in the Divine Liturgy, other lay members of the Church. However, while group confession was practised in the early Church it has fallen into disuse; only in rare cases is it used today. Notwithstanding that, in the Orthodox Church serious sins are to be confessed to the priest so there is a fundamental social dimension to repentance. Of course, to be baptized, or even to be received into the Orthodox Church by any other means, there must be a confession of previous sins to the priest. This confession cannot be avoided in any serious Orthodox setting.

Now the next thing to look at is the position of Christian monasticism in the above. From the Orthodox point of view, monasticism is both a calling from God to a member of the Orthodox Church and a personal election to adopt permanently a way of life (celibacy) by a member of the Orthodox Church. Hence, from the Orthodox point of view it is a basic error to consider that monasticism is an alternative to entering an Orthodox parish. Monasticism is an election by a member of the Orthodox parish to a life consecrated to God: the vows are given to God in a service in the Orthodox Church (again, a social act), normally in a monastery. As the service of tonsure makes clear, the monastic, whether male or female, is entering into a special category of members of the Orthodox Church, the ‘choir of those who live alone’. Because of these facts, monasticism is regulated by the canons of the Church. Moreover, from the Orthodox point of view the monk must be properly inserted somewhere in the Orthodox Church: he must be written into a recognized monastery somewhere in the Orthodox Church and that monastery must be under the immediate jurisdiction of some Orthodox Bishop.

For the service of tonsure, which John should read carefully for what it says about what monasticism is, including the above points, see here.

We will turn to the issue of cenobitic vs eremetical monasticism below. For now let us turn to the issue of work. John has had a very bad experience with his previous work and he has stopped working. However, he doesn’t tell us anything about what happened except that he was working at the heart of corporate America.

Now for better or for worse we do not think that the Gospel imposes the values of Republican economics espoused by the Tea Party, or the theories of Ronald Reagan; or the economic values espoused by the Democratic Party; or the economic values espoused by Karl Marx; or for the most part the economic values espoused by anyone. There are some values in the Gospel which constitute divinely instituted natural law—the right to private property for example—and we are not denying those basic values. However, we do not think the Gospel teaches either Keynesianism or Monetarism. We think that the Author of the Gospel is silent on these things and that it is possible to be a good Orthodox Christian without believing or disbelieving in these things. What the Orthodox Church teaches us that we must believe in order to become members of the Orthodox Church is the Nicene Creed, for which see our translation and discussion here. For a deeper understanding of the Gospel, many people recommend St John Chrysostom’s commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew, which addresses many social and economic issues from an Orthodox point of view in addition to providing a classic Orthodox interpretation of the Gospel.

Because of these things, we think that it is possible to critique modern corporate America from any number of points of view. The person making the critique might be right; they might be wrong. We don’t think it is an Orthodox dogmatic issue. So we can well believe that John could legitimately be disgusted with his experience of corporate America.

However, when writing to the Thessalonians the Apostle Paul makes clear that Christian believers are expected to engage in some kind of fruitful labour—Paul says ‘ work with their hands’, which is interesting. Let us suppose that John enters an Orthodox parish. He’s going to have to work at something. At what? Is he required to return to the corporate world? No. If he doesn’t like it he can do something else. What? We don’t know. We don’t know what he was doing in the corporate world so we have no idea what he might do outside it. At an extreme, we suppose, John could use the remainder of his meager savings to open a truck garden and, getting a pickup truck, sell his produce at the local market. Perhaps he is trained as a lawyer and he could open a sole-practitioner office, doing a lot of pro bono work. We have no idea. But he has to do something; he has to work.

If John does have a vocation to prayer he might want to take up a manual trade that allows him to repeat the Jesus Prayer all day long while he works. This is possible but should only be done under the guidance of an expert in the Jesus Prayer. What manual trade? Maybe John could become a skilled furniture maker. A lute-maker. We don’t know, really.

But, John says, maybe he should become a monastic. This is not an alternative to the above scenario; it is a subsequent evolution of the above scenario. This is important to understand. First John enters an Orthodox parish. He works, simultaneously engaging in a spiritual way of life. He attends the Mysteries regularly, including Confession. He discusses with his Confessor how he is doing as a lay member of the parish living the Gospel. He discusses whether there are any indications that he might have a vocation to the monastic state.

At the same time, as a member of the Orthodox parish John sorts out his social obligations. This includes his legal responsibilities for the upbringing of his son. John is unclear about his legal responsibilities in this matter but his phrasing suggests that he was never married to the child’s mother. Such things happen; they are forgiven in confession; they are washed away in baptism. However that emphatically does not mean that we escape our social and legal responsibilities. Does John have a child support judgement outstanding against him? He is going to have to honour it. For a discussion of the Orthodox monk and the law, see here. For a discussion of whether a divorced man can become an Orthodox monk, see here. No one is going to accept John until this is sorted out, perhaps when the child reaches the age at which John is no longer obliged to support the child (or even the mother, as the case may be).

So let us suppose that John’s Confessor encourages the lay member of the parish John to consider monasticism. What happens next? John has to go to an existing Orthodox monastery and discuss with the Superior the possibility of becoming a monk. The Superior might be interested; he might not. If he refuses John but John and his Confessor believe that John has a vocation, then John has to keep knocking on monastic doors. Everyone is tested before being made a monk and one of the tests is being refused everywhere until we’re fed up. Then we understand whether we have a vocation.

Let’s suppose that John enters a monastery. Then he has to work cleaning toilets. For years, until the Abbot is impressed with his humility. Then the Abbot might let John put on an old habit as a habit-wearing novice

Here are three books that treat of Orthodox monasticism: Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, Wounded by Love and St. Silouan the Athonite. In these books, John, issues arise as to the nature of Orthodox eremeticism, usually understood as Hesychasm. You will see that in all these three cases of eminent Orthodox monks of Mount Athos—Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, Elder Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia and St Silouan of Panteleimon Monastery, all from the 20th Century—the monk experienced both incredible Grace and incredible trials but in no case did he really live as a hermit. The eremitical life is a very advanced stage of the monastic life, a calling only to a very few. The eremitical life presupposes considerable previous progress in the spiritual life as a regular cenobitic monk.

Here is a book about an Orthodox eremetical saint, St Seraphim of Sarov.

Elder Paisios (Eznipedes) was a 20th Century Athonite Elder whose life is very interesting; he lived for a time as a hermit. Information on obtaining the English translation of his life can be found here.

We think that is enough.

Aspects of the Orthodox Monastic Vocation

We have received an email from Gordon Philips (not his real name) from London, UK (not his real address). The email reads:

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Just came across your blog this evening. Here is my question, please forgive my long-windedness!
My son expressed an interest in monasticism at a very young age and I laughed about it, thinking, “You don't know what a monk is...” However, one of my closest friends, a Serbian priest, who is quite a kidder himself, chastised me for laughing at this. I was taken aback at the time when he said, “You don't know what God has put into his heart, even at such a tender age! Never laugh at such things.” This having been said, my son is now 13 and we are looking at high school, preparing for college, etc. The other day, he told that he saw himself being part of the clergy. His mother and I are both professional musicians, so I had hoped that he would make the most of his talents; I also hoped he would be chanting with me in the strana more... however, each time he tells me he wants to visit the monastery, I remember the little boy saying, “I want to be a monk.” I know that the Lord calls whom He calls, but what would you recommend I do as a father to neither artificially promote this nor inhibit it?

To which we replied:

Our policy is only to discuss emails we receive publicly on the blog after removing all identifying information. Is this acceptable to you? Thank you very much.
Orthodox Monk

We received a positive reply.

Now we believe that Gordon is not a member of the Orthodox Church. So the first issue is, ‘How could your son become a Christian monk, or even a Christian priest, without first being a member of a Christian church which has a monastic or priestly order?’ And if you are not Orthodox, how will you prompt your son to become a monk or priest in the Orthodox Church? If it’s good enough for your son, isn’t it good enough for you and the rest of your family? Or is it all the same? A Christian cafeteria? The Orthodox Church makes claims about being the true Church founded by Jesus Christ on Pentecost; properly it does not treat all Christian denominations as being on the same dogmatic plane. Your Serbian Orthodox priest friend certainly knows this—if he is following the teachings of the Serbian hierarchy—and certainly can explain these matters to you and even to your son.

So the first issue is to clear up the confusion surrounding your present Church affiliation and your own dogmatic beliefs. And saying, ‘We don’t have any dogmatic beliefs; we only have Jesus’ is a dogmatic belief in itself, and indeed not one that the Orthodox Church holds. If this is your position, sending your son blithely to the Orthodox Church to become a monk while believing ‘It’s all the same whether he’s Protestant or Orthodox’ is going to be a personal disaster for you and the son and the rest of the family. Because it’s just not going to work and he’s going to wonder why you prompted him to go down such a treacherous and slippery path. Because when he wanders off to become a monk he’s ultimately going to encounter the teachings of the Orthodox Church and he’s going to be split between what you taught him and what he suddenly grasps is the historical dogmatic position of the Orthodox Church. This could cause serious damage to him, and in consequence of his distress, to the Orthodox Church. We could foresee an evolution where in his anger and despair the son ended up a Tibetan Buddhist monk.

So what’s the solution? After your Easter and after Orthodox Easter, have a serious conversation with your Serbian Orthodox priest friend about what it means to become Orthodox.

Would it make any sense to try to keep your son Protestant, avoiding discussion about monasticism and ridiculing his interest in monasticism or otherwise trying to keep him within the orbit of your own confession (which we understand to be anti-monastic in its historical origins)? This has never worked; it has only led to martyrdom and distress and family explosions.

Start with your position vis à vis the Orthodox Church.

Let us now continue with an email from John Collins (not his real name) from Paris, France (not his real address). The email reads [material in square brackets added by Orthodox Monk]:

Hello Orthodox Monk,
I honestly stumbled upon your blog and have read a few of your entries. Last April, I entered into the Roman Catholic Church and arrived there from Reformed Protestantism from Atheism. During that time, I have tried to find a spiritual director and have found it to be a challenging endeavor because of my desire for doctrinal orthodoxy. I suffer from OCD [Obsessive Compulsive Disorder] and as I became more committed to Christ and the Church, I found this to have manifestations of scrupulosity [in Roman Catholic spiritual theology, scrupulosity is an over-attention to minor details, something clearly related to OCD]. I eventually acknowledged this as being unhealthy and began seeing a Catholic psychologist who would be able to help me through psychotherapy to navigate these manifestations. Several months ago, I was encouraged by a dear friend (who I consider to be of solid doctrinal mooring) to speak with a priest at my local parish because she understood him to be doctrinally sound. I did so, and explained to him my mental state and the recent manifestations of my OCD, after which he recommended a book to me, Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird. In this book, Fr. Laird seeks to reconcile the concept of contemplative prayer with the spirituality of Western mystics and the Hesychastic tradition. His emphasis is on silence coupled with a detachment from the recursive “videos” we play in our heads. I have taken the advice of my priest and the book and have attempted to daily practice this silence while utilizing breathing techniques and repetition of the phrase, “Lord Jesus Christ.” I have experienced profound peace of mind and have had experiences of profound pleasure while doing this. I am concerned, however, that because much is made in your posts about the contradiction between Thomistic spirituality and the traditions of the Eastern Churches, that I am not faithfully honoring the Roman Catholic Church. I am also concerned that I have a sort of patchwork bastardization of The Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm and could be potentially causing myself serious spiritual damage. If you find you have the time at some point, your thoughts and insights would be much appreciated. May God bless you in your walk with Him.
John

To which we replied:

Our policy is only to reply to emails publicly on the blog after removing all identifying information and, perhaps, correcting for grammar, syntax, spelling and style. Is this acceptable to you?
Orthodox Monk

We received a positive reply.

Now we had never heard of Fr. Martin Laird, OSA, Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University, Villanova PA, USA. This site seems to indicate that Professor Laird teaches a form of Centering Prayer, founded by Fr. Thomas Keating OCSO and related to the system of the late Dom John Main, OSB. We discussed the system of John Main in post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5, and post 6 in the order given.

From the little that John Collins writes and the little we’ve seen in the last few minutes browsing the Internet for information on Professor Laird and his system, we would think that what Professor Laird is teaching might or might not be good and might or might not be suitable for members of the Roman Catholic Church but it’s a bastardized form of Hesychasm if any claim is being made to a connection to the tradition of the Orthodox Church called Hesychasm.

So this brings us back to the email above from Gordon Philips, which discusses his son’s interest in monasticism. What is monasticism? What connection does it have to the things that Professor Laird is teaching? In other words, do we go to the monastery to practise a form of Centring Prayer with greater assiduity? Now, clearly, in his email John Collins has expressed no interest in becoming Orthodox and no interest in becoming a monk. So we’re not suggesting that that’s why he’s interested in Professor Laird’s system. Quite the contrary, he’s interested in it because of his problem with OCD.

But here’s the point. In America today there is such spiritual confusion that we don’t know why we go to a monastery. We don’t even understand what sound doctrine means as a concept—much less where we might find sound doctrine. And that extends right up to spiritual practice. We think that we can abstract a few key concepts from Evagrius and package them into a system for modern Americans thirsting for God.

John Collins writes: ‘I have experienced profound peace of mind and have had experiences of profound pleasure while doing this [i.e. practising Laird’s system of contemplative prayer].’ Now we’re not God and we can’t judge another person’s experience and we don’t doubt at all that John Collins has had those experiences. But we wonder whether they have anything to do with what the Orthodox understand to be the pursuit of God in the Hesychastic tradition.

In this we would suggest that John Collins very carefully read the Gnostic Chapters by St. Diadochos of Photiki together with our commentary (look for Diadochos under ‘Topics’ in the right margin of the blog.). We have passed our translation over to someone else and he has improved it, but John Collins will we hope be able to find something relevant in our own translation and commentary. The main thing is that St. Diadochos is very clear that spiritual experiences that involve the senses are suspect. This would take a long time to develop analytically and Professor Laird might object; however we would be willing to debate him on the matter.

There is something quite different going on with the Jesus Prayer in the Orthodox Church than what we understand Professor Laird to be teaching.

John Collins wants our advice what he should do. Well, he’s got a Roman Catholic priest; he’s got a Roman Catholic psychotherapist. Where’s Orthodox Monk going to fit into all of that? We’re not knocking it—John is being very prudent and very careful; we felicitate him—but how many advisors can a man have? That having been said, our own view is that if John Collins wants to be Roman Catholic he should stick to a traditional Roman Catholic method of prayer. There are Carmelite third orders; there are Cistercian monasteries; and so on and so forth. He should leave these syncretistic Roman Catholic systems based ultimately on a faulty understanding of the relationship between Christianity and Oriental religions (vis à vis contemplation) and stick to something Roman Catholic. But if he’s interested in the Jesus Prayer in and of itself, then he should start with a conversation with an Orthodox priest about what the Orthodox Church teaches. In other words, if he wants to be Roman Catholic he should leave this stuff alone but if he wants to get involved with the Orthodox aspects of it for their own sake then he should consider becoming Orthodox.

But this again returns us to Gordon Philip’s email. Let us look at what is implied by the above about the spiritual atmosphere of American Christianity. Religion among many American Christians has become experience-orientated. Whence Pentecostalism and the charismatic renewal; whence Centring Prayer and similar. Now there is nothing intrinsically wrong or even remarkable with this shift in cultural mood. But an over-emphasis on experience leads to an indifference to dogma—so-called cafeteria Catholicism extended to an experiential cafeteria Christianity. And it leads to an approach to religion and even monasticism as the pursuit of one more experience. But as Diadochos teaches, such a path is fraught with serious danger. The cultivation of spiritual experience received by the senses (and this is technical terminology in Diadochos) leads to opening oneself to false spiritual experience.

Much of what is happening on the Christian Right in America can be understood on this plane: spiritual experience that is not based in spiritual reality. To give an indication of just how serious this can get, before he announced his candidacy for President, Rick Perry was given a prophecy that seemed to say that he was called to be President of the United States of America, and his wife was later recorded on video as strongly encouraging other Christian candidates for President to drop out of the Presidential race because Rick had the true and real anointing to be President. Moreover, it seemed to us that Mrs. Perry was conflating ‘Christian’ with ‘conservative’—i.e. it seemed to us that the two words were synonymous in her mind. For better or for worse Rick ultimately dropped out of the 2012 Presidential campaign. The prophecy? Well, maybe it was misunderstood. This is the road of spiritual experience without discernment: fraught with serious and present danger.

To return to a more personal level, if Gordon Philip’s son is formed psychologically (i.e. raised by his parents) with this or a similar point of view and goes to an Orthodox monastery, two things are possible. One he won’t be able to hack it because they don’t pray in tongues (we’re being a little sarcastic but the point is valid); or two they will pray in tongues and the son will waste his life and soul in spiritual deception.

It is important to realize that in the Orthodox Church, monasticism and spiritual experience are grounded in Orthodox dogma and participation in the Orthodox mysteries (sacraments) starting with baptism. And there are two thousand years of the experience and teaching of Saints and Fathers of the Church that inform Orthodox monasticism’s understanding of these matters.

Let us now look at another email, from Ronald James (not his real name) from Ajax, Kansas (not his real address). The email reads:

Hello
I suppose all I want to ask is, How does someone know if they should become a monk?
I have had thoughts about it and mentioned it to my spiritual father and he advises me. I am obedient to him, is that all I can do? Will I know if it is what I am called to? Thoughts that go through my head are things such as if I'm not married by the time I'm 30 then that's when I should become a monk, or I shouldn't waste another moment and seek it out as soon as possible.
I suppose my mixed up thoughts are a sign that it is either not for me or I am not ready.
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.Wishing you a glorious and fruitful Lent.
Confidentially,
Ronald James
Ajax, Kansas

To which we replied:

Our policy is to answer emails only publicly on the blog after we have removed what we think are all identifying marks that would tie the email to a specific person, also correcting the email for what we think is good grammar and spelling. Is this acceptable?
Orthodox Monk

To which Ronald replied positively. So we put his email in the hopper for processing.

And here’s what we thought. Ronald writes: ‘Thoughts that go through my head are things such as if I'm not married by the time I'm 30 then that's when I should become a monk, or I shouldn't waste another moment and seek it out as soon as possible.’ Now this is a dead give-away that Ronald is being tempted. This is not the form of a vocation but the form of tempting thoughts (Evagrius again). This does not exclude a vocation but it is not how a vocation works. So the Devil is up to something in putting these ideas about monasticism into Ronald’s head. By definition the Devil is up to no good, so there’s something wrong here with this enticement to monasticism. As we said, this does not exclude a vocation but this is not it. Ronald should confess the thoughts to the confessor and be strictly obedient to the confessor. If the confessor makes a mistake, God will protect Ronald, especially if he does have an underlying vocation that the Devil is monkeying about with.

Then we got this second unexpected email from Ronald:

Hello
I am writing a second email regarding a separate topic. I feel that I am alone in my sin.
Last week I was off work for the whole week so that I could attend the daily services of my parish. First week of Lent is such a crucial time. The week went well and I did much reading. On Sunday on the way home from church I started having thoughts of monasticism. Yesterday was my first day back at work and in the “real” world. I work in a supermarket and I found myself looking at every single pretty woman that came into the store. I don't think I had an actual improper thought. Later that night I had to send an email to my brother using the family computer (my old computer from university) and I had a thought about some pornographic videos I had downloaded years and years ago. I did a search of the computer’s content and found them. I ended up committing the sin of self abuse and then I cried. My question is this. This sin, before I returned to my Father's house, was part of my every day life. This has made it very difficult for me to reject the thought of doing it. All this and the fact I even had thoughts of monasticism the day before make me very sad. I suppose I want advice on how to combat such a deep rooted passion that I was so mindlessly committing on a regular basis less than two years ago. Also I suppose I also want to know what would happen if a monk committed this sin? Is it something that would never happen? Please please please post this email.

First of all, one such instance of this particular sin does not preclude, exclude or forbid a subsequent monastic vocation, or even, for that matter, a priestly vocation. However, putting the two emails together we have the following remarks. Ronald is clearly going to have to spend some years stabilizing his moral life before he even considers a monastery. He is going to have to learn to live in chastity as a lay member of the Orthodox Church. We realize that this can be difficult, especially if there is a previous history of enslavement to a passion. However, we believe that with Christ’s help all things are possible and doable. Usually an isolated sin like this occurs—if we understand St John of Sinai in the Ladder of Divine Ascent correctly—because of pride. That of course would lead to the question of whether pride and vainglory entered into Ronald’s concentration on the spiritual in the first week of Lent. We don’t have an answer to this; this is something that he should discuss seriously with his confessor. In the years that Ronald will have to live as a maturing Orthodox layman, he will have to assess with his confessor how well he can control his urges. If he cannot control his urges, no visions or voices or dreams or whatever can constitute a vocation to the monastic life: he must get married. This is not something that should distress Ronald. He should in such a case have the humility to recognize that God has not called him to the monastic life and that he is called to marriage. Moreover, as we pointed out a single fall such as Ronald documents is not in itself a barrier to a monastic vocation. However, the question has to be raised—and will be raised in the monastery when he presents himself as a postulant—whether Ronald can control himself in a vocation to life-long chastity. Monks retain free will and can be tempted, although the consequences of a sin against chastity for a monk under vows can be dire, as St John of Sinai documents in the Ladder. As the service of tonsure itself says, better not to vow than to vow and not to fulfill. You’re better off being a moral married layman and going to Heaven than an immoral tonsured monk and going to Hell.

So let us go back again to Gordon Philip’s email about his son wanting to be a monk. We can see that becoming an Orthodox monk is a serious business, one not to be trifled with. Gordon and his son should think about what an Orthodox monastic vocation entails. It is not a matter of practising Centring Prayer with greater dedication. It is a matter of being an angel of God. It’s a serious business. As the Gospel says, you must count the cost.

Here is what we said on the topic some years ago; since we think it's very relevant to the emails we are discussing today we repeat it below in full:

The central problem of the monastic life is the nature of the passions, the nature of the battle against the passions and the nature of dispassion. This has nothing to do with the proper way to meditate.

When the modern reader reads the Ladder, he is ‘freaked out’ by the severity of the Prison. What we should understand is that the passions are very deeply rooted in the human person, that their eradication is very difficult and that the spiritual damage sin does to a Christian is greater than realized.

Why would anyone become a monk? After all, he could, presumably, repeat ‘Maranatha’ twice a day in the married state.

The angel is the light of the monk and the monk of the layman. The ideal of the monk is the angel; the ideal of the layman is the monk.

In the monk, the movement from passion to dispassion—in Western terminology, the ‘conversion of morals’: the passage of the soul through the purgative stage, then the illuminative stage, then into the unitive stage of the mystical life—is a passage, ideally, from an ordinary human condition to the condition of an angel. This is explicit both in Evagrius’ Monk and in St John’s of Sinai’s Ladder.

It is not by accident that in the late step of the Ladder that discusses Hesychasm, the Hesychast is described as ascending through the angels until he reaches the Seraphim.

Consider again St John’s definition of the monk:

1, 10 A monk is the order and condition of the bodiless powers accomplished in a material and sordid body. A monk is he who has only the commandments and words of God in every time, place and thing. A monk is continual violence to nature and a faultless guard of the senses. A monk is a purified body, a cleansed mouth and an enlightened mind. A monk is a soul full of pain that is occupied in the uninterrupted memory of death both awake and sleeping.

Contrast this to the instructions that St John gives to laymen:

1, 38 I heard some men who were settled in a negligent state in the world asking me: ‘How can we, living together with spouses and surrounded by public cares, follow the monastic state?’ I replied to them: ‘All things good that you can do, do. Revile no one. Steal from no one. Lie to no one. Be arrogant with no one. Hate no one. Do not separate yourselves from the services of the Church. Be sympathetic towards those in need. Cause scandal to no one. Do not approach the portion of another and be satisfied with the wages that your wives can give you. If you do thus, you are not far from the Kingdom of the Heavens.’

St John views the monastic state as violence to human nature so as to attain to what is above human nature, the angelic state. He views the lay state as a matter of attending Church and living a just life. This is very similar to Jesus’ advice to the rich young man: If you want to inherit eternal life, keep the commandments. You have done all these since your youth? Then if you want to be perfect, sell all that you have, give to the poor and come follow me. St John of Sinai is emphatic that it was not for the sake of baptism but for the sake of the monastic vocation that the rich young man was called upon to sell his possessions and give to the poor.

The monastic calling is a calling of perfection. The monk works at eradicating his passions so as to become angelic. Here we understand ‘passion’ to be an emotional tendency to sin founded on a pleasure of the senses. Our Episcopalian reader is right: it is our desires that are at the root of the passions; and we cure our passions by refusing desire. However, in the classic analysis of the Orthodox monastic Fathers (articulated originally by Evagrius but enunciated by many other Fathers, especially including St John of Sinai), it is the demons that excite the passion, awakening desire in us. In the practice of the Jesus Prayer, the inception of a tempting image in the mind is due to the demon that has approached and excited our passion, our desire. This is true of any of the eight passions. It would be impossible to understand the School of Sinai, especially St Hesychios, St John of Sinai’s disciple, without understanding this analysis.

The ‘fundamental theorem’ of this school, recapitulated by St Maximos the Confessor in his ascetical writings, is that you cannot see God before you have eradicated your passions. In the Monk, Evagrius says this:

61 The mind will not advance nor depart that good departure and come to be in the land of the bodiless [powers] if it has not corrected what is within. For the disturbance of the familiar [parts of the soul] is accustomed to return it to those things from which it has departed.1

What Evagrius is saying is that the monk will not be able to enter into the illuminative stage of the mystical life (here identified with ‘the land of the bodiless powers’, i.e. the condition of the angels) until he has passed from his impassioned state to a state of virtue. That is what it means to have ‘corrected what is within’. The ‘disturbance of the familiar parts of the soul’ is the disturbance the monk experiences in his consciousness due to passions that he has not yet eradicated. Evagrius is saying plainly that a person who enters into contemplation before he has got rid of his passions will be obliged to return to the earth, to his impassioned reality, because of disturbances of soul caused by his uneradicated passions.

It is not easy for us to eradicate the passions.

In the doctrine of St John of Sinai in the Ladder, the layman does not attempt to eradicate his passions; he attempts to live a just life. We might say a virtuous life.

But someone might object: well, that’s just what Evagrius says in the precondition for me to enter into contemplation.

Not quite.

Evagrius has a doctrine of purity from the passions, and of virtue, that goes far deeper than anything that could be expected of a layman. The virtuous layman continues to have a residue of the passions within. Indeed, in his married state he can work on a complete eradication of the passions only if he voluntarily accepts to live with his wife in chastity. But that is not a condition for his salvation and it is not imposed on him by the Church.

When we are discussing the eradication of the passions we must understand that the ideal is the monk who has become the equal of an angel: he no longer has any passions at all. He has a complete accession of virtue.

Most monks start off in the coenobium. The Ladder itself is intended for coenobites and not for Hesychasts, even though its author was a Hesychast for forty years. If we think that the Ladder is severe even though it is only for coenobites, we should consider the standard that St John of Sinai is setting for Hesychasts. Absolute purity, including in thought.

The steps of the Ladder are intended to purify the coenobite of his passions. They prescribe largely external means. By and large they do not enter into the issue of purifying the coenobite in his thoughts. That is reserved for the Hesychast.

Now it might be thought that St John of Sinai was ignorant. He didn’t know that with an oriental method of meditation with a Christian mantra he could enter into direct contact with God, surpassing self, in the married state.

However, poor old St John is the originator of the following remark: ‘The practice of stillness (hesychia) is the constraint of the immaterial mind in the material body, a most remarkable thing.’ He is the originator of this statement: ‘Let the Jesus Prayer cleave to your breath and you will know the benefits of stillness (hesychia).’ He has some very explicit instructions on the practice of Hesychasm. He was a Hesychast for forty years. But, strange thing, he doesn’t think that the Jesus Prayer is going to do everything in no time flat for the layman or for the monk in the coenobium. How could he be so deluded?

Eradicating our passions in our actions, which is the task of the coenobite, is hard. It requires ascesis. That is why a layman might choose to become a monk: he might decide he wants to become perfect and that he will take the hard road.

Eradicating our passions in our thoughts, which is the task of the hermit or Hesychast, is even harder. It is for those few monks who are able to carry through the Hesychast program.

Again let us quote this passage from Evagrius:

40 The mind would not be able to see the place of God in itself not having become higher than all [mental representations] which are in [sensible] objects. It will not become higher, however, if it does not unclothe itself of the passions, which are what, by means of the mental representations, bind it together with the sensible objects. And the passions it will lay aside by means of the virtues; the mere thoughts, then, by means of spiritual contemplation; and this [i.e. spiritual contemplation], again, when, during the time of prayer, that light shines upon the mind that works in relief the place which is of God.2

Starting from Evagrius and continuing with St John of Sinai and the other members of the School of Sinai, the precondition of having ‘that light shine upon the mind that works in relief the place which is of God’—of being divinely illuminated—is complete purification from the passions even in thought. Hence, normally in the Orthodox tradition, it is only the Hesychast who has this experience. This is at the heart of the Hesychast controversy on Mt Athos in the 14th Century.

Part of the Hesychast program in the Orthodox tradition is the repetition of the Jesus Prayer, but there is much more to the Orthodox tradition of Hesychasm than just the repetition of the Jesus Prayer. The tradition contains explicit instructions for combating the passions in thought so as to attain to that complete purification from the passions even in thought which is necessary for divine illumination. The end-result is called by St John of Sinai dispassion.

When he is addressing coenobites, St John of Sinai changes somewhat the traditional formulation of the goal of the monk. He makes the goal of the coenobite deep humility, not divine illumination. He leaves divine illumination to the Hesychast in the cave.

This should make us realize not only just how difficult the monastic vocation is, but just how difficult is the further vocation of the monk to Hesychasm.

1The Psychological Basis of Mental Prayer in the Heart, Fr Theophanes (Constantine), Vol. II, The Evagrian Ascetical System, p. 27. 2006. Mt Athos, Greece: Timios Prodromos.

2The Psychological Basis of Mental Prayer in the Heart, Fr Theophanes (Constantine), Vol. II, The Evagrian Ascetical System, p. 178. 2006. Mt Athos, Greece: Timios Prodromos.