Rubrics and Service of the Great and Angelic Monastic Schema

[Since there has been great interest in our post of October 28, 2005 which contains the text of the vows to the Great Schema, we thought it good to provide the whole service, below. There are still certain omissions which are noted in the translation. —Orthodox Monk]

Rubrics and Service of the Great and Angelic Monastic Schema

The previous evening, all the vestments (garments) of him who is to receive the Great and Angelic Schema[1] which are intended for the purpose are brought and placed in the Holy Sanctuary.

In Orthros,[2] the postulant reads or chants the following canon, of which the acrostic is:

Grant to me who am honoured a good end, O Christ.

...[3]

In the Divine Liturgy.

After the entrance of the Holy Gospel,[4] the priest places the Holy Gospel before the Beautiful Door just in front of the Holy Icon of the Master Christ,[5] also placing upon the Gospel a pair of scissors. He is who going to receive the Holy Schema, standing before the doors of the Church,[6] puts off his head covering and whatever clothing he is wearing, remaining only in his underclothes.[7] The Abbot receives him there and, holding him by the hand and going before him,[8] makes a gesture to him to make—and he makes—one prostration[9] at the time he enters the Church, one in the middle of the Church, one before the Beautiful Doors, one each to the right and left choirs,[10] three each to the Holy Icons of Christ, the Mother of God and the Saint of the Monastery,[11] and one to the Abbot, whose right hand he kisses. The postulant then stands on the Abbot’s left having his arms crossed on his breast.

These things having taken place, after they chant the usual Apolytikion[12] of the Saint of the day and of the Saint of the Monastery, the following Antiphons are chanted [alternately] by the cantors of each of the choirs.

Antiphon 1. Fourth Tone.

Lord, I wished with tears to wipe out the record of my transgressions and to please you during the remainder of my life through repentance but the enemy deceives me and wars against my soul. Lord, before I am completely lost, save me.

Who suffering the buffets of winter and running towards this very harbour is not saved? Or who in pain and throwing himself down in this very infirmary is not healed?[13] Creator of all things and Doctor of the ill, Lord, before I am completely lost, save me.

I am a sheep of your rational flock and to you I flee for refuge, O Good Shepherd. Search me out who has been lost, O God, and have mercy on me.

Glory, And Now.[14] Theotokion.

Blessed Birthgiver of God, preserve your servants from all dangers so that we may glorify you, the hope of our souls.

Antiphon 2. Fourth Tone.

In the mystical fountain of rebirth receiving both adoption as son and redemption, in negligence and in transgressions utterly spending my life, O Good One, I now cry unto you: grant me a fountain of tears of repentance and wash away the stain of my transgressions, all-powerful and most merciful Saviour.

The storm of sins encompasses me, O Saviour, and no longer bearing the tempest I fall down before you, the only Pilot. As to Peter extend to me the hand of your love of Mankind and save me.

Glory, And Now. Theotokion.

Free us from our necessities, O Mother of Christ our God, you who have given birth to the Maker of all things, so that we may all cry unto you: hail, the only protection of our souls.

Antiphon 3. Fourth Tone.

Where is the attachment to the things of the world? Where is the imagination of temporal things? Behold! Do we not see these things to be dust and ashes? Therefore why do we labour in vain? Why then do we not renounce the world and follow behind him who cries out: ‘He who wishes to walk behind me, let him take up my Cross and he will inherit eternal life!’.

Versicle. Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

Come all you who labour and who are burdened down and I will give you repose; take my yoke upon yourselves, and learn from me for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find repose in your souls.

Versicle. I have wandered as a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commandments.

I am a sheep of your rational flock and to you I flee for refuge, O Good Shepherd. Search me out who has been lost, O God, and have mercy on me.

Come let us worship and fall down and weep before the Lord who has made us.

Lord, Lord, look down from Heaven and see and visit this vine and restore it which your right hand has planted.

Glory, And Now. Theotokion.

O only pure and unsullied Virgin who has borne God without seed, intercede so that our souls might be saved.

Kathisma.[15] First Tone.

Your tomb O Saviour...[16]

Hasten to open paternal embraces to me who have prodigally consumed my life; do not overlook a heart which has now become poor, O Saviour, you who look upon the wealth of your mercies which cannot be exhausted. For in compunction I cry to you, O Lord: I have sinned, Father, to Heaven and before you.

This is chanted three times.

Then[17]

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.

Then the priest says this prayer.

May the most compassionate and merciful God, he who opens the undefiled inward parts of his searchless goodness to every one who comes forth to him with longing and ardent love; he who says that ‘a woman will forget her offspring before I forget you’; he who also knows your longing; and he who adds his own strength to your intention, towards fulfilment of his commandments—may he take you up and embrace you and protect you and become for you a fortified wall against the face of the enemy, a rock of patient endurance, a beginning of consolation, a provider of vigour, a resource of good courage, a fellow struggler of courage, he who lies down to bed with you, he who rises up with you, he who sweetens and makes merry your heart in the consolation of his Holy Spirit, he who makes you worthy of the portion of our holy and righteous Fathers, Anthony, Euthymios, Savvas and those with them, with whom you will inherit the Kingdom of the Heavens, in Christ Jesus our Lord. To Whom the glory, the rule and the Kingdom and the strength, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Then the priest seals the head of the Catechumen, blessing with the sign of the cross three times, and, turning to the East,[18] he says the following prayer.

Let us pray to the Lord.

You who are the Master the Ruler of All, the most high King of Glory; you who are with your living and enhypostatized Word and with the Spirit of Truth that proceeds from you; you who are the Lord of all Creation both visible and invisible; God who is seated on the Cherubim and who is hymned unceasingly with the thrice-holy voice by the Seraphim; you on whom attend thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads of hosts of Angels and Archangels—you are the light that enlightens every man that comes into the world, supplicated by the Holy Ever-Virgin Mary who gave birth to God, and all the Church in Heaven of the First-Born in Jerusalem. Look down with gracious eye upon the humility of your servant (so-and-so)[19] who has agreed and confessed utterly before many witnesses. Join to the charism granted to him from his forbears of adoption as son and your Kingdom through Holy Baptism, this unique and Angel-like profession, unshaken, founded on the hewn and spiritual rock of faith in you.

Make him strong in the power of your strength and clothe him in the panoply of your Holy Spirit, for the battle is for him not towards flesh and blood but towards the world-rulers of the darkness of the present Age, towards the spirits of evil. Gird his loin with the power of truth, clothe him with the breastplate of righteousness and exultation, and shoe his feet in the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Make him wise to take up the shield of Faith, with which he will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the Evil One, and to receive the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Holy Spirit, which is your word. Share in the unspeakable sighs of his heart. Number him together with your elect, so that he become a vessel of election, a son of light and of the day, of wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption.

Make him into an harmonious instrument, a delightful harp of the Holy Spirit, so that from now putting off with progress the old man, which is being corrupted according to the pleasure-loving deception of the multiform snake, he may put on the new Adam, who is created according to God in holiness and righteousness. Grant him a sure foundation to bear always the marks of the Cross of Christ in his body, through which marks the world is crucified to him and him to the world. Form him to walk in true virtue and not in eye-pleasing, and in piety, brotherly love and obedience. As he is keeping vigil, working, sleeping, awakening, grant him the grace to mirror you angelically in psalms and hymns and spiritual odes in a pure heart, and to worship you the only living and true God, for the sake of his unspeakable joy.

For yours in the Kingdom and the reign and the authority, and to you is due all glory, honour and worship, to the Father and to the Son and to your Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the Ages of Ages. Amen.

And, turning, the priest says this other prayer over the head of the postulant.[20]

Let us pray to the Lord.

Holy Lord of Hosts, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ bless your servant (so-and-so)[21] whom you have called to your spiritual bridal-chamber and make him wholly worthy to be your holy servant. Make him wise, and pour out on him the grace and understanding of your ruling Spirit. Grant him strength in the war against the invisible enemy, put down with your great power the rebellions of the flesh. Grant him to please you in unceasing praise and doxology, in appropriate hymns, in acceptable prayers, in right counsel, in a humble heart, in the practice of life and meekness and truth. Make him utterly worthy to please you in meekness, in love, in perfection, in knowledge, in courage, and to offer to you hymns and doxologies and prayers in the odour of a fragrant smell. Perfect his life in holiness and righteousness, so that having that continuous and spotless union which is with you, he may be found worthy of your heavenly Kingdom.

Through the Grace and compassion and love for Mankind of your only-begotten Son, with whom you are blessed, with your all-Holy and good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and to the Ages of Ages. Amen.

Then, extending his hand towards the Holy Gospel and addressing himself to him who is being made a monk, the priest says:

Behold! Christ is here invisibly present. Look! For no one is forcing you to come to this Schema. Look! For you of your own free will wish the pledge of the Great and Angelic Schema.

Answer: Yes, Reverend Father, of my own free will.

And after he has agreed, the priest says to him:

Take the scissors and give them to me.

He then takes the scissors from the Holy Gospel and places them in the hands of the Abbot, who gives them into the hands of the priest, who leaves them on the Holy Gospel, from which place the brother takes them again. And this having taken place three times, the priest says:

Behold! From the hand of Christ you are receiving this. Look then to whom you are coming, with whom you are joining, and whom you are renouncing!

And taking the scissors from the hand of the Abbot, the priest says:

Blessed is God who wishes all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, he who is blessed to the Ages of Ages.

He then tonsures him in the form of a cross,[22] saying as follows:

Our brother (so-and-so) is shorn in the hair of his head, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

And there is sung by the brothers the ‘Lord have mercy’ three times.

Then the typikaris[23] enters into the Sanctuary, takes the garments found there since the evening before and gives them one by one to the priest; the latter takes each one of the garments and blessing it gives it to the Sponsor,[24] who then vests the newly-tonsured monk with the garment while the cantors chant for each one of the garments the ‘Lord have mercy’ (three times).

1.

Giving the himation (zostikon),[25] the priest says:

Our brother (so-and-so) is clothed with the tunic of righteousness and exultation of the Great and Angelic Schema, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

2.

Giving the Schema[26] the priest says:

Our brother (so-and-so) receives the napkin of the Great and Angelic Schema, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

3.

Giving the polystaurion,[27] the priest says:

Our brother (so-and-so) receives the analavon, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

4.

Giving the belt,[28] the priest says:

Our brother (so-and-so) is girded in his loin with the power of the truth, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

5.

Giving the pallion,[29] the priest says:

Our brother (so-and-so) receives the pallion of the Great and Angelic Schema, for a garment of incorrupt ion and modesty in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

6.

Giving the footwear, the priest says:

Our brother (so-and-so) is shod with the sandals in preparation of the Gospel of Peace, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

7.

Giving the kalymauchion,[30] the priest says:

Our brother (so-and-so) is covered with the kalymauchion of guilelessness, for a helmet and hope of salvation, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

8.

Giving the veil,[31] the priest says:

Our brother (so-and-so) is clothed with the veil of guilelessness of the Great and Angelic Schema, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

9.

Giving the mandya,[32] the priest says:

Our brother (so-and-so) receives the mandya of the Great and Angelic Schema, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let us say on his behalf the ‘Lord have mercy’.

After these things, the following troparia[33] are chanted by the cantors:

Be clothed with the tunic of salvation, be girded with the belt of chastity, receive the sign of the Cross, arm your intelligible feet with the weapons of temperance and you will find repose for your souls.

My soul rejoices in the Lord for he has clothed me with the himation of salvation and he has enclosed me with the tunic of happiness; as a bridegroom he has placed a mitre upon me and as a bride he has adorned me with adornments.

Then the priest says the following prayers:

Let us pray to the Lord.

O Lord our God who are faithful in your promises and unrepenting in your charisms and unspeakable in your love for Mankind; who have called your creature by a holy calling; and who have led your servant (so-and-so) to your spiritual life—grant him a becoming life, a virtuous and irreproachable mode of life, so that living a way of life of sanctification, he may maintain without stain that Schema that he has put on in your strength, being clothed with righteousness by the tunic, bearing about in himself the mortification of body and chastity by the belt, having placed the helmet of salvation by the veil, being adorned utterly with the Cross and Faith by means of the analavon, so that he might proceed on the way of peace and salvation by the sandals, that he might become fearful to adversaries, invincible to enemies, alien to every pleasure and shameful desire, trained in obedience, participating in temperance, aiming for the canon of asceticism, so that in psalms and hymns and spiritual odes, he might glorify your most honourable and most dignified Name, walking in the footsteps of the great Prophet Elias and of St John the Prophet and Baptist. So that, having arrived at the measure of perfection, he finish the road, he keep the faith, and he be clothed with the incorrupt ion of the Angels, and be numbered in your holy flock, and attain to the presence at your right, and hear the blessed voice: ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’ Of which make us also inheritors in your goodness, O God.

For you are a God of mercy, compassion and love for Mankind, and to you we send up glory, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the Ages of Ages. Amen.

The priest.

Peace to all. Let us bow our heads to the Lord.

And, continuing, this prayer:

Lord our God, lead your servant (so-and-so) into your spiritual court and number him together in your rational flock; cleanse his habit of thought from carnal desires and from the empty deceptions of this life; and grant him to recall unceasingly the goods which are stored up for those who love you, and for those who crucify themselves in their life for the sake of your Kingdom.

For you are the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, and to you we send up glory, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the Ages of Ages. Amen.

...[34]

Then the newly tonsured monk is brought to one of the choir stalls in the left choir while the appropriate kontakion[35] is being chanted, after which, instead of the Thrice-Holy Hymn, the following is chanted:

As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Alleluia.

The Reading from the Apostle

Prokeimenon: The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Versicle: The Lord is the defender of my life.

The reading is from the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians.

(Eph. 6, 10 - 17.)

Alleluia.

Versicle: This poor man called out and the Lord heard him.

The Gospel.

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.

(Matt 10, 37 - 11, 1.)

Then the priest gives the Cross and the komvoschoinion[36] to the newly tonsured monk saying:

The Lord said: ‘If anyone wishes to follow after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and let him follow me.’

Then the priest gives him the lighted candle saying:

The Lord said: ‘Let your light thus shine before men so that they see your good works and they glorify your Father who is in the Heavens.’

Have mercy on us o God according to your great mercy, we beseech you hear and have mercy.

Lord have mercy (three times).

Again we pray for the remission and forgiveness of sins of the servant of God (so-and-so).

Lord have mercy (three times).

For you are a God who is merciful and a lover of Mankind and to you we send up glory, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the Ages of Ages. Amen.

Note: At the time of Holy Communion, the first to communicate is the newly tonsured monk, led by his Sponsor and without removing the covering of his head.

...[37]

Prayer for the Removal of the Veil said by the Priest:

O most merciful Lord, who has granted to your servant (so-and-so) by means of the taking up of the Monastic Habit the veil for a helmet of the hope of salvation, preserve irremovable this grace from his head, securing and cherishing the ruling part of his intellect unshaken from adverse assaults; so that stamping on the head of the most wicked serpent which has been allowed to seize his heel, he raise his intelligible eyes to you the fearsome and only head of all things.

For you are the enlightenment and sanctification of our souls, and to you we send up glory, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the Ages of Ages. Amen.

Peace to all.

Let us bow our heads to the Lord.

And this prayer silently:

Bless, sanctify and set a guard from every harmful influence visible and invisible about him who has inclined his head to you, the head of fire, the invisible and only wise God.

Aloud:

For yours in the Kingdom and the authority and the power, and to you we send glory, honour and worship, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the Ages of Ages. Amen.

Glory, And Now. Lord have mercy. (Three times.) Bless and Dismissal.

---

[1] Schema means habit, hence ‘Great and Angelic Habit’.

[2] In the West, Orthros is known as matins.

[3] We omit at this time the canon of Orthros, as being of secondary importance, and continue at the Divine Liturgy. A ‘canon of Orthros’ is an organized set of troparia (see below) sung with the nine Odes as an integral part of Orthros. The canon of Orthros of the Tonsure to the Great Schema would be integrated by the Typikaris (see below) into the other canons prescribed in the Menaion to be sung at same place in Orthros on the day in question.

[4] This is the usual Small or Lesser Entrance of the Divine Liturgy.

[5] The Icon of Christ referred to is the one immediately to the right of the Beautiful Doors on the Iconostasis, as we look East from the congregation towards the Sanctuary. (All Orthodox Churches are oriented so that they face East.) Ordinarily the Gospel is placed on a reading stand in front of the Icon, with the scissors on the Gospel. At the time of the actual service of tonsure it is moved to the front of the Solea, positioned as though the priest will read from it.

[6] This could very well be the entrance from the narthex to the liti, the liti being the inner narthex between the narthex and the main part of the church.

[7] That is, he would remove his monastic garments from any previous tonsure or novitiate and remain in his underclothes.

[8] I.e. the Abbot and the postulant do not walk side by side but the Abbot goes a little ahead holding the postulant by the hand.

[9] This is a ‘great prostration’ to the floor.

[10] All directions are given as we look East from the congregation towards the Sanctuary.

[11] The Icons of Christ and the Mother of God would normally be those on the Iconostasis to the right and left of the Beautiful Doors. The Icon of the Saint of the Monastery might be elsewhere.

[12] The apolytikion is a short hymn.

[13] We have changed the punctuation a little here.

[14] I.e. the one choir chants ‘Glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit...’ and the other choir completes with ‘...both now and ever and to the Ages of Ages.’ The Theotokion is a short hymn to the Mother of God, the one prescribed for this occasion following immediately.

[15] A type of hymn originally sung during breaks in the recitation of the Psalter.

[16] This is an instruction that the following hymn should not only be in the First Tone but should also follow exactly the melody of the better-known hymn whose opening words are as given.

[17] Up to here we have translated the previously untranslated part of the service (with the omission indicated). What follows is now the original translation of the Vows, unchanged, after which we continue anew at Then the priest says this prayer. with the previously untranslated remainder of the service.

[18] Up to now, the priest, who is vested for the Divine Liturgy and who ordinarily will be the main celebrant, has been facing West towards the congregation (and towards the postulant, here called a catechumen) from the Solea, the step just outside the Sanctuary in front of the Beautiful Doors. The rubric indicates that he now turns towards the altar without going inside the Sanctuary.

[19] Here the name that the catechumen has borne until the present hour is commemorated. [Footnote in original text.]

[20] The priest turns to face the congregation, laying his hands on the postulant’s head.

[21] Here the monastic name is given. [Footnote in the original text.]

[22] That is, he cuts a lock of hair from each of the front, the back, the left side and the right side of the head.

[23] The typikaris is the monk whose service it is in the Monastery to oversee the proper execution of the Church services.

[24] Apart from the Abbot and the celebrating priest (who could be the same person), there is also the Sponsor just as there is in the Baptism of a child. It has been the Sponsor’s duty to prepare the postulant for tonsure. In some but not all cases the Abbot is the Sponsor.

[25] This is the so-called inner rason.

[26] This is the scapular.

[27] This is a braided cord with many braided crosses that is worn over the shoulders and the chest and back. It hearkens back to the habit as described in the Institutes by St John Cassian. It is also called the analavon.

[28] The belt was given as a sign of his oath to the soldier in Late Classical times; it is also attested in the Bible in the case of St John the Baptist as a sign of the ascetical life, in particular chastity.

[29] This is the so-called outer rason which is normally worn by the monk over the preceding garments whenever he is in public.

[30] This is the distinctive brimless hat of the monk.

[31] This is the veil that goes over the kalymauchion. In Russian practice, but not Greek, the veil and the kalymauchion are inseparably joined.

[32] This is the cape.

[33] Troparion (pl: troparia) is the generic term for a one-verse hymn.

[34] Here we omit rubrics for a tonsure outside the Divine Liturgy.

[35] The kontakion is a type of short hymn. In what follows, it is implicit that the tonsure is integrated into the Divine Liturgy that is being celebrated, so that the Thrice-Holy Hymn that is being replaced with the Paschal troparia is the Thrice-Holy Hymn of the Divine Liturgy. Similarly, the readings from the Apostle and the Gospel given here are those of the Divine Liturgy. Normally the readings given here would be the second readings, the first readings from the Apostle and the Gospel in the Divine Liturgy being those prescribed for the day.

[36] This is the knotted Orthodox prayer rope.

[37] Here we omit the rubrics for the greeting of the newly-tonsured monk by the members of the congregation at the end of the Divine Liturgy.

Orthodox Monasticism 21 — Evagrius on the Psychology of Man

To understand Evagrius’ asceticism we must first of all understand his psychology of man as he himself taught it.

Evagrius’ psychology is essentially Platonic, as understood through the lens of the Cappadocians and Clement of Alexandria—one might say neo-Platonic. Man is composed of a mind (Greek: nous) and an emotional part. The mind or nous is capable not only of reason but also of the direct spiritual sight of spiritual things—what the philosophers call intuitive cognition. What this means is that the mind of man not only can reason about things but also can directly see spiritual truths. When a man directly sees spiritual things he has spiritual knowledge. This is important, for the goal of Evagrian asceticism is the spiritual sight of God—a direct spiritual knowledge of God with the mind or nous. What Evagrius teaches is that this sight of God depends both on Grace (the Holy Spirit) and on a natural capacity in man for such knowledge (which knowledge is called in Greek gnosis).

Now the role of the emotional part of man is this. Every man is born with emotional tendencies to sin based on pleasures of the senses. We spoke about this in the last post. These emotional tendencies to sin, because they are connected to pleasures of the senses, tie a man down to his world of sense impressions. This is the ordinary world that we and you live in. The world of cups and saucers.

However, as we discussed in the last post, as long as man is tied down to the world of cups and saucers he cannot ascend to the spiritual sight of God. This is because the sense impressions of the cups and saucers block the spiritual sight of spiritual things, ultimately the spiritual sight of God.

So what to do? We must purify ourselves of our emotional tendencies to sin in order to free ourselves from our enslavement to the sensible world of cups and saucers. The result of this purification is not a freedom from emotion or an emotional emptiness, but an ordering of all our emotional drives to virtue, ultimately with the assistance and presence of the Holy Spirit. The offspring of this condition is Christian spiritual love for all men.

As we pointed out in the last post, this purification from our emotional tendencies to sin so as to free ourselves from the world of cups and saucers emphatically does not mean that we should enter into the world of fantasy. Quite the contrary. We must combat the world of fantasy when it intrudes on us. The world of fantasy presents itself to us as a temptation to a pleasure of the senses—an illicit pleasure of the senses—or else as a mistaken idea of reality, what the Greeks call plani or deception. The world of fantasy is the world inhabited by demons.

This understanding of human psychology is at the heart of the tradition of the Philokalia in the Orthodox Church. It is at the heart of St John of the Ladder’s ascetical theory; it is at the heart of St Hesychios’ hesychasm; it is at the heart of St Maximos the Confessor’s asceticism. Moreover, since this theory is at the heart of the tradition of the Philokalia in the Orthodox Church, it is at the heart of the practice of the Jesus Prayer in the Orthodox Church.

In other words, in the Orthodox spiritual tradition the foundation of the practice of the Jesus prayer is the psychology that we have just given a thumbnail sketch of.

It is interesting to note that this psychology differs in several important respects from the received psychology of Western Christianity as espoused by St Thomas Aquinas. First of all, St Thomas rejected the notion that man has a natural capacity for intuitive or spiritual cognition—except for the most elementary axioms of logic. Man’s mind, according to St Thomas Aquinas, is limited to the intellectual knowledge obtained from logical reasoning about propositions—all that scholastic building of intellectual systems is based on this view. Lest this seem a trivial point, that was exactly the objection of Barlaam, a proponent of Western Scholasticism, to Hesychasm; and St Gregory Palamas was obliged to defend the Orthodox notion of a direct intuitive sight of God, which direct intuitive sight of God could begin even in this life.

Moreover, there is an even more subtle difference between the psychology that underlies the Philokalia and the psychology of St Thomas Aquinas. This has to do with the nature of the emotional drives in man.

Following the received neo-Platonic psychology, both Evagrius and later St Thomas Aquinas (St Thomas formally following the neo-Platonic St Augustine but modifying St Augustine on the basis of his own Aristotelianism) agree that the two basic emotional drives in man are the desire and the temper.

But Evagrius and St Thomas Aquinas have a very different idea of the nature of these two emotional drives and the connections between them. St Thomas treats the basic emotional drive in man as desire and the temper as having to do with the difficulty of attaining one´s desire (i.e. I get angry when I can’t get what I want). Evagrius certainly recognizes that sort of thing but treats the temper as housing autonomous emotional drives that do not depend on the desire. For him the desire has to do with the desire for food or for sex and the temper has to do with the six other emotional drives we mentioned—anger, sorrow, avarice, sloth (accidie), vainglory and pride.

This is important because Evagrius’ asceticism is directly keyed to his psychology: because we have two basic emotional drives, desire and the temper, we have two basic tools to purify our emotional tendencies to sin: temperance and meekness. We exercise temperance to control the desire and we exercise meekness to subjugate the emotional drives related to the temper. This is the foundation of asceticism.

St Thomas´ psychology is quite different. Necessarily, then, a person brought up in Western Christianity who approaches the practice of the Jesus Prayer will be bringing with him, perhaps unconsciously, a quite different idea from the historical tradition of the Orthodox Church concerning ‘how a man is put together psychologically’.

It should be pointed out that Evagrius’ asceticism was taken up by St John Cassian, St Maximos the Confessor and St Isaac the Syrian. These are some of the leading lights of Orthodox monastic spirituality in the tradition of the Philokalia. This ascetical tradition culminates in the Hesychast controversy of the 14^th Century, where the Orthodox point of view is defended, as we said, by St Gregory Palamas against an essentially Thomist point of view defended by Barlaam. In the midst of the controversy were not only the issues that we all talk about nowadays but also the different psychologies of man that Barlaam and St Gregory each understood. It should now be clear why Evagrius’ psychology is important.

Orthodox Monasticism 20 — Evagrius Ponticus on the Inner Ascent 2

It seems to us that a basic problem in discussing the history of Orthodox monasticism is to convey why anyone should be interested. We have finished with Pentecostalism. However, we are left with a question: in this day and age, when, presumably, we could just as well be Pentecostalists as Orthodox monks, why would we become Orthodox, one, and, two, why Orthodox monks? Are we monks fools?

The significance of the inner spiritual ascent is that it is the Orthodox tradition’s answer to the question of what it means to be a Christian. In other words, the Orthodox Church does not teach that Pentecostalism is one way and Orthodox spirituality another way, choose what you will. The Orthodox Church steadfastly witnesses to a single way, that of the Orthodox Church: Orthodox spirituality. Now what we are discussing is the history of Orthodox monasticism: what does that have to do with Orthodox spirituality?

As St John of the Ladder puts it, the monk is the light of the layman and the angel the light of the monk. Orthodox spirituality was being defined in the period we are now discussing. In other words, the ascetics who were defining in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Centuries what it meant to be an ascetic were defining the norm of Orthodox spirituality even for the Orthodox laymen of their time—and therefore even for the Orthodox monks and laymen of today. In discussing the history of Orthodox monasticism, what we are really discussing is what it means to be an Orthodox Christian. However, it is clear that the ascetics were well aware that a layman does not live like a monk—otherwise he would be a monk, not a layman. Still, it is worthwhile to consider this saying of Amma Synklitki:

II, 27. Amma Synklitiki said: ‘Many who were on the mountain but who were practising the acts of townspeople were lost. And many who are in cities but are doing the works of the desert are being saved. For it is possible being among the many to be a monastic in disposition; and being alone to live with crowds in the intellect.’[1]

It is also worthwhile to consider that when St Anthony the Great asked God if there was anyone who was his equal, he was sent by God to a layman in Alexandria, a shoemaker.

Therefore, when we discuss the inner ascent in Evagrius, we are not merely engaging in an intellectual exercise for the lack of anything to do: we are discussing what it means to be an Orthodox Christian.

Certainly in the case of Evagrius there are some aspects of his doctrine, for the most part not on the ascetical plane although impinging on it in places, which have been condemned by the Orthodox Church. We are not promoting those aspects of his doctrine; up to now we have avoided discussing those aspects because they are difficult to understand; and we will continue at least for the present to avoid discussing those doctrines.

However, the basic structure of the inner ascent in Evagrius took hold in Christian East and West, from Spain to Mesopotamia, through the writings of a number of great Christian ascetics, from St John Cassian in the West to St Isaac the Syrian in Mesopotamia, who based themselves on Evagrius.

What is that structure of the inner ascent according to Evagrius?

Basically it is this. A man born on the face of the earth is born with passions, which we can describe as emotional tendencies to sin. These passions are all based on pleasures of the senses, with the exception of one passion, sorrow, which withers all pleasure. These passions prevent the person from seeing the face of God.

In order to see the face of God, a man or woman must first be baptized into the Orthodox Church. That baptism restores the image of God in him or her but does not restore the likeness to God in him or her. The likeness to God is present when a person is permanently full of virtue through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

After baptism, the newly-baptized person is called to work on restoring the likeness to God in himself or herself. St Diadochos is the first writer, writing in the Gnostic Chapters about 450 AD, to discuss in detail the relation between this dynamic of restoring the likeness to God and the Jesus Prayer. That is, a disciple of Evagrius in 450 AD wrote a treatise discussing how the Jesus Prayer is connected to baptism and to the calling of the newly baptized Christian to restore the likeness to God in himself.

Now what does Evagrius himself say about this restoration of the likeness to God? Evagrius defines a spiritual journey to God in three stages. The first stage is purification. As we pointed out, as men born on the face of the earth we are born with emotional tendencies to sin. These prevent us from seeing the face of God, or, put another way, these prevent us from attaining the likeness to God that we are called to. When we are baptized these emotional tendencies to sin are weakened so that we can combat them more effectively but they are not eliminated. We ourselves must make a choice to combat them in our daily lives. This is the spiritual struggle of every Christian.

A person’s baptism does not completely eliminate his or her emotional tendencies to sin. The man or woman must every day through his or her free choice choose the road of virtue over the road of sin that his or her emotional tendencies to sin call him or her to.

Now those emotional tendencies to sin are these: gluttony, fornication, anger, sorrow, avarice, sloth (accidie), vainglory and pride. These obviously cover a much wider range of human behaviour than the merely sexual.

This spiritual struggle to restore the likeness to God entails that the person work on transforming these emotional tendencies to sin to emotional tendencies to virtue. This is the first stage of restoring the likeness to God in the person.

Evagrius talks in great detail about how these passions are combated. He pays particular attention to the ascetic’s thought processes. Usually before someone becomes an ascetic he lives in a coenobium, where he can learn the basics of combating the passions in his actions. The layperson applies this ascetical theory as best he can in the circumstances of his life, usually his married life: in the context of his wife and children. He concentrates on actions suitable to the layperson: almsgiving, justice in his social relations, regular attendance at Church, keeping the fasts and so on. However, each one of these three persons—the ascetic, the coenobite and the layman—is, according to Evagrius, basically doing the same thing: combating his passions.

That is the first stage of the spiritual journey, where the spiritual journey is what we earlier called the inner ascent of the personal Sinai, the personal Horeb. When a person has accomplished this first stage he is full of virtue. Evagrius remarks that Christian love is the offspring of the accomplishment of this first stage. That is, a person who has transformed the emotional tendencies to sin in himself to emotional tendencies to virtue is a man of Christian love. This is not something mechanical in the person’s actions (doing good deeds), but a complete transformation of the person emotionally, crowned by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The second stage, in this day and age, very few attain to, even devout monks. This is the illuminative stage. After the person has been completely healed in his emotional drives, so that they are no longer directed to sin but to virtue, then the person begins to encounter in contemplation the ‘trace’ of God in creation. This trace of God in creation is the essence that each thing has that was created by God. Now this is not the rational discovery of the inner workings of things the way someone might do a philosophy or science course. This is an immediate direct encounter with the essence of a thing as that thing was intended by the Word of God to be when it was created. This is a very high state of spiritual attainment. The monk at this stage views a created object and ‘sees’ directly with the eye of his soul the essence of the thing as it was intended by God. In this, the monk is not praying but contemplating the trace of God in creation as he is viewing that creation. He will pray at another time of the day.

There is a further stage of the illuminative way where the monk begins to contemplate the angels, but this is a dangerous matter to talk about because of the danger of demonic deception.

The final stage is to enter into union with God in prayer. This is where the person both sees the face of God and completely restores the likeness to God in himself.

One of the very basic points in the inner ascent of these three stages as defined by Evagrius is that as the person ascends through the three stages he passes from the data of sense perception to what are called intelligible essences. This is a very difficult area, but basically what it means is this: In daily life, we perceive things with our senses: we see the computer in front of us and so on. As we proceed in the spiritual life, we have to leave the world of the senses behind and enter into the intelligible world of essences. Now it should be clear that this intelligible world of essences is very different from the world of fantasy. The Evagrian tradition is very clear that the world of fantasy is ultimately demonic in nature. In common language, to leave the world of the senses for the world of fantasy is to encourage a psychotic episode in ourselves. What we want to do is surpass the world of senses through purification of our emotional drives to sin so as to enter into the world of essences, from there to ascend through further purification to union with God in prayer. It is intrinsic to this spirituality that the intelligible world of essences is only attainable to those who are completely healed emotionally. The reason for this is that the emotional tendencies to sin, dependent as they are on pleasures of the senses, tie us to the world of the senses, preventing us from entering into the world of intelligible essences, thus preventing us from entering into union with God. It should be clear why Pentecostalist spirituality is preposterous in this context.

The ascent takes decades. Evagrian ascetical doctrine is directed to explaining how we should commence and practise this inner ascent. That is, Evagrius is laying down general principles and explanations about how to proceed along this spiritual road. Hence, spiritual practices which diverged from this theory would have to be treated with caution, lest they be a sign from the devil to overturn the Christian even before he started on the spiritual road. On this blog we ourselves have had this as our scope: in various ways to convey what we ourselves understand to be sound doctrine as concerns the spiritual life of the Orthodox man and woman, whether monk or layman.

This outline of the stages of the inner ascent is very similar to the doctrine in the West of St John of the Cross, with due allowance being given to St John of the Cross’ Roman Catholic background. The reason that the stages are so similar seems to be that St John Cassian introduced Evagrian ascetical doctrine into the West, where it was received into the Benedictine tradition and from there spread throughout Roman Catholicism (although there are certainly other independent formulations of the mystical ascent in Roman Catholicism).

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[1]Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Systematic Collection, Volume I. Introduction, Critical Text… †Jean-Claude Guy, S.J. 1993. Sources chrétiennes N^o 387. Paris, France: Les Éditions du Cerf.

Good Friday

(We originally wrote this on Good Friday, but we were dissatisfied with it and did not post it. We are now posting it.)

The reading from the Apostle for the Third Hour of Good Friday is this:

Brothers, while we were yet weak Christ died at the right time on behalf of impious men. For barely will someone die on behalf of a just man. For perhaps someone even dares to die on behalf of the Good. God recommends his own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died on our behalf. Very much more, then, justified now in his blood, we will be saved by means of him from the wrath. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by means of the death of his Son, very much more, having been reconciled, we will be saved in his life. (Romans 5, 6–10.)

We have been discussing the rather authoritarian approach to the sinner of the Pentecostalist—and indeed of the Right Wing Evangelical. How does the Evangelical understand this passage?

Let us suppose that we are sinners walking down the street who encounter an Evangelical who is witnessing. What the Evangelical wants us to do is to be ‘born again’. This is a very complex affair which requires that we ‘repent’, get down on our knees and pray publicly to be reconciled to God in Jesus Christ (perhaps not on the street—later in a chapel). We are thus ‘born again’. From discussions with persons who have passed through Evangelicalism, we have the impression that sometimes there is a genuine experience involved, but more often than not there is not. Moreover, there is a rather high ‘lapse rate’—higher than one might at first think—of those who are born again.

The next thing is that the ‘born again’ has to accept an ideology. We use that word advisedly. The ideology is ‘sola Scriptura’: the inerrant literal truth of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

Next there is the need to be integrated into the community of believers. This is rather complicated, because it largely entails internalizing the Evangelical ideology and interpretation of Scripture.

If you don’t believe that Evangelicals have an interpretation of Scripture, you are very naïve. Part of the ideology, however, is that they have no interpretation, only the literal text. If you study Evangelical translations of the New Testament against the Greek text—especially the received text of the Patriarch of Constantinople, but even Nestle-Aland—you will see that there is far more interpretation of the text going on than is admitted, the interpretation being hidden in what purports to be a literal translation of Scripture.

However, here is where the whole issue of the rigid superstructure that we discussed in the previous post comes in. We have a person who is walking down the street, a sinner of some kind since all men are sinners. He encounters a witnessing Evangelical. He is persuaded to accept an ideology. He is pressured to accept the ideology as it is being taught by the group to which the person witnessing belongs. Woe to him if he does not. Part of the ideology is the private interpretation of Scripture—so long as it agrees with the group’s interpretation.

Moreover, the legacy of Luther, there is a doctrine of justification by faith, not by works. So there is no effort to cure the passions that are roiling the sea of the sinner’s unconscious. The belief superstructure—the Evangelical ideology—is imposed on this roiling sea of passion. This sets up a deep tension in the person’s personality: he has these drives (passions) that he can’t get rid of but that he’s not supposed to have; he is trying to internalize the group ideology. Enter Ted Haggard. That’s where we came in. Now add to this ‘ecstatic’ Pentecostal prayer meetings. The ‘ecstatic’ prayer meeting relieves the deep tension in the person’s psyche by allowing him to channel his unconscious passions into worship.

This is all very tedious.

Let us now look at how an Orthodox understands this passage. Orthodoxy is person-oriented. Persons meet persons. The first thing that an Orthodox person who practises his religion projects is himself: who he is. If he has love in his heart for others, God will manifest him to the other. The other will understand. This is a matter of deep speaking to deep.

Now the main thing in the case of an Orthodox conversion is for the sinner to meet God in the other, the Orthodox. God is love. As St Paul says, ‘God recommends his own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died on our behalf.’ The sinner can only be converted to Orthodoxy if he meets love in the person of an Orthodox—even if that person doesn’t say a word of overt preaching.

Now in the case of lonely people, an unscrupulous man might manipulate this need for love by good interpersonal skills the same way that an encyclopaedia salesman manipulates lonely housewives and househusbands to buy needlessly expensive encyclopaedias.

However, most Orthodox don’t have such a militant, manipulative approach to witnessing their faith. They simply go about their business and who they are is manifest to the persons they meet.

Now the thing that a person who has met God in another Orthodox and who wishes to become Orthodox must do is meet God in a more direct way in the Orthodox Church. This is very difficult, especially in cases of Christians who belong to other denominations.

In our experience, Orthodoxy is a closed book to Westerners. They just don’t see anything in it. Anything spiritual, that is. The Orthodox seem to be hung up. Ritual. Dressing like the peasants. All that Tolstoy stuff. Whereas we Westerners have the truth…

The Westerner has the truth with his head. The Orthodox have the truth with their soul and body.

Now the norm in a conversion is to be baptized. It is baptism that gives us the Holy Spirit. It is baptism that gives us the reconciliation to God that St Paul is speaking of. Even St Paul believed that. It is in Orthodox baptism that we finally meet God in a definitive way, that meeting being consummated in our first Holy Communion after our baptism. We thus enter into life: ‘For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by means of the death of his Son, very much more, having been reconciled, we will be saved in his life.’

May all men have a good Easter season!
Orthodox Monk

Wherein We Respond to Two Comments

In our recent post ‘Pentecostalism and the Orthodox Tradition of the Philokalia’, we discussed certain aspects of Pentecostalism in relation to Orthodox worship and, especially, Orthodox spirituality. In what for our blog is a raging controversy we received two comments. They were closely linked in time, the one from Australia and the other from South Africa. The one comment, from Les Chatwin, says this:

Thank you for this post. As someone who would consider themselves pentecostal/charismatic you have presented some challenging thoughts. I have to confess that some of the ascetic practices you mentioned are very confronting but, as I process this post, I want to consider how much of this is my innate desire to “quick fix” religious experiences. I appreciate your honest in grappling with these issues.

The other comment, from Steve Hayes, says this:

I tried to comment on this yesterday, but Blogger would not let me, and kept timing out, so I wrote some comments in my own blog at Notes from underground: Orthodoxy as Boutique Religion?

We went to the post mentioned by Mr Hayes’ in his comment and read some of it, downloading it, we thought, for later, more mature, consideration off-line. But we made a mistake and didn’t have the text in front of us when we prepared the basic draft of this post, although we did have some of the posts by other bloggers on which Mr Hayes commented in his own post. We did reread Mr Hayes’ post before we made this post.

We rather prefer Mr Chatwin’s comment. Indeed, we went to his blog and looked at some of it. We were rather interested in Mr Chatwin’s discussion of ‘Altered States of Consciousness’, because, we think, the issue of valid and invalid Altered States of Consciousness is at the heart of an Orthodox discernment of the pentecostal/charismatic experience, as Mr Chatwin puts it.

When we looked at Mr Hayes’ post, insofar as it concerned us, we were struck by two things: First, Mr Hayes is an Orthodox with a background in Anglican/African Pentecostalism/charismaticism; and, second, he once got into trouble putting on a church service similar to the one at the New Life Church that we took such a dim view of. But when we reviewed Mr Hayes’ comments in his post as they refer to us, having reread our own post on which he is commenting, we wondered whether Mr Hayes had really read our post. Moreover, when we went to the other blogs that Mr Hayes was commenting on, especially concerning Orthodoxy the boutique religion, we were left rather cold: nothing spoke to us in the heart.

Let us begin with the comment we prefer, Mr Chatwin’s comment.

First of all, we got into this Pentecostalist thing by accident: we thought that things were getting rather tedious in our endless discussion of the history of Orthodox monasticism and wanted a change of pace. So we chose Ted Haggard—the day before he came out of his three-week intensive. Then, completely independently, someone commented on our post ‘Orthodox Monasticism 14 — The Charism of Discernment’, establishing to his own satisfaction a parallel between the religious experience of a great Orthodox Elder—considered by many a saint just 16 years after his death—and both a ‘Glory Fit’ in the Salvation Army and the ‘Toronto Blessing’. The fellow even gave us an address in Redding, California where we could all go to partake of the ‘Toronto Blessing’ in its newest form. Then we found out that the New Life Church, founded by Ted Haggard, had connections to ‘Third Wave’ Pentecostalism. So here we are talking about Pentecostalism and Orthodoxy without being an expert in the sociology of American religion.

Let us look at some of the issues raised by Mr Chatwin’s comment. He mentions our ‘challenging thoughts’. The way the thing evolved, we would treat as a unity our nine posts from ‘Coercive Christianity’ through ‘Pentecostalism and the Orthodox Tradition of the Philokalia’ to this post. If Mr Chatwin, or any other interested reader, has not read all those posts, then we would ask him to do so.

The next thing that Mr Chatwin says is this: ‘I have to confess that some of the ascetic practices you mentioned are very confronting…’ We are not at all sure what Mr Chatwin means. Let us look at the word ‘confronting’. When we ourselves speak in a general way of ‘coercive Christianity’, what we have in mind is the social organization of a church that is very authoritarian—described in detail, in the case of the New Life Church, in the Harper’s Magazine article we referenced in the post that Mr Chatwin is commenting on, and manifested in practice, we think, in the Overseers’ handling of Ted Haggard. This seems to be hinted at also in Mr Hayes’ own references to the discernment that was going on in the particular African charismatic churches that he discusses in his own post:

At Iviyo conferences, on the other hand, while there may have been 2000 people yelling and jumping and praying in tongues, there would be, out of sight, in the crypt of the church, or a school classroom, a group of about 20, mostly priests and nuns, praying all the time. If anyone claimed to have a revelation from God to give to the main meeting, they had first to take it to those who were praying, who might say that no, that was not a revelation from God, but a spiritual delusion (for which Orthodox Christians have a technical term, plani or prelest).

Some American charismatic leaders were aware of the dangers of this lack of discipline, and to counteract it, people like Derek Prince and others started the "shepherding movement" but this in turn led to excesses in the opposite direction.

In the context of such an authoritarian church social structure, there are confrontations between prophets or pastors, and sinners. These are personal. These can be very damaging to the sinner. These confrontations are essentially fascist, in precisely the sense that they do not respect the personal spiritual freedom of the sinner. These confrontations are coercive: they force the sinner to behave and act in certain ways, not through an organic evolution of his personality but through a rigid psychological superstructure of authoritarian belief imposed on a seething unconscious. We discussed this in the post ‘Coercive Christianity’. We attempted there to delve into the social psychology of this coercion.

Now the only ascetical practice that we as an Orthodox monk can conceive of that might be similarly coercive, or ‘confronting’, is obedience. After all, the Abbot has authority; his monks are under a vow of obedience. However, except in cases of extreme disorder, an Orthodox monastery does not function either like an army or like the Hitler Youth. It’s just not there. The reason is ecclesiological. The Orthodox Church is formed not by charismatics who think, rightly or wrongly, that they have the Holy Spirit and the Truth, nor by charismatic leaders in the sociological sense, where the leader may be an out-and-out charlatan—but by the mysteries of the Orthodox Church, what Westerners call the sacraments. This is important. (It is also a dimension that is completely lacking in the discussions of Orthodoxy and Western Christianity by Arturo Vasquez and his friends that Mr Hayes commented on.)

Now it is possible for a monk or a novice to land in a monastery where the Abbot is mixed-up and thinks that he is Napoleon or whoever. This is in fact written about by St John of the Ladder, who tells the story of a monk, Akakios, who was without reason routinely dealt physical blows by his Abba (Abbot). However, Akakios did go to an Elder with the charism of discernment and the Elder discerned that that was Akakios’ road. Indeed St John of the Ladder explicitly states that the Elder discerned that this way of life was for Akakios not in vain. Such a way of life is considered to be an imitation of Christ who was crucified. In this sense, since we are all called to the cross of Christ, we are all called to this sort of confrontation with our old man. Of course, in the case of Akakios, who is a recognized saint of the Orthodox Church, this was physical martyrdom.

In the case of other ascetical practices, where the ascetical practices are individual (for example, fasting), the monk is confronting himself in a spirit of obedience to his Abbot.

In the case of ascetical practices that are more socially oriented, for example enduring scorn at the hands of others, these are considered to purify the soul.

But to find instances in Orthodox monasticism of outright coercion of the conscience of the other in a rejection of his fundamental freedom as a human being who is an image of God—this is the sort of thing that causes the Church to intervene.

Moreover, if we may be so bold, Mr Chatwin, who has a deep spirituality, has an asceticism that would make most of us quake to consider: he suffers from depression. We would not suggest that Mr Chatwin avoid his medication or his doctors, quite the contrary: he is learning a very deep humility in confronting his illness medically with the help of Christ. And St John of the Ladder remarks that if you see someone reaching dispassion (the goal of the spiritual journey) in a very short time you can be sure that he went by the road of humility. All asceticism is really the carrying of the cross of Christ, Mr Chatwin.

In the particular case of Orthodox monastic asceticism, serious mental illness is considered to prevent the practice of all forms of monastic asceticism. And the reason should be clear.

To speak generally, obedience in the context of the mysteries of the Orthodox Church is not the same as an authoritarian, confrontational social organization.

Orthodox monastic obedience in particular is sweetened and tempered by the presence of the Holy Spirit in both the disciple and the master. And this presence of the Holy Spirit is intrinsic to the monastic calling: Orthodox monasticism was instituted not by man but by the Holy Spirit: St Theodore Studite treats the monastic tonsure as one of the mysteries (sacraments) of the Church.

In the broader sense of general Orthodox ecclesiastical obedience (of the priest to his bishop; of the layman to his parish priest or bishop; even of the wife to her husband), this obedience is tempered not only by a cultural tradition which is not authoritarian in the sense we are discussing but also by the very presence of the Holy Spirit in each of the members of the pair (priest and bishop; layman and priest; layman and bishop; wife and husband), the Holy Spirit entering into the relationship in the mystery (sacrament) establishing the relationship ecclesially (baptism, chrismation, ordination, marriage).

It is here that we wonder about the Pentecostalist spirit: the ecclesiology is prima facie disturbed, as is evident even from Mr Hayes' own defence of Pentecostalism.

Now we would like to turn to the issue that Mr Chatwin raises elsewhere in his blog, that of Altered States of Consciousness.

The problem is this. On Mr Chatwin’s blog there is a quotation from a fellow—evidently an anthropologist—who is observing Guatemalan charismatics who enter into trance states. The anthropologist thinks that the charismatics are encountering God: ‘Only here you can reach out and touch the face of the divine.’ The Orthodox would be a little more cautious.

This is a very complicated issue to deal with in a few words. Part of the problem is the dominant paradigm in American studies of religious experience, the so-called ‘Chicago School’. The Chicago School teaches that all religions are basically the same, merely different means to enter into states wherein we can all ‘reach out and touch the face of the divine’. What must be emphatically understood is that from an Orthodox point of view not all religious experiences are the same or even equivalent. This is not the sort of understanding that the Chicago School instils in its students.

Moreover, the Orthodox do not consider that the only interpretative options are ‘the emotional, the psychotic and the spiritual’. An Orthodox Elder would have no problem saying to someone:

1. That experience is emotional.

2. That experience is psychological.

3. That experience is psychotic.

4. The experience is from the Holy Spirit of the Living God.

5. That experience is neither emotional nor psychological nor psychotic; nor is it from the Holy Spirit of the Living God: that experience is demonic.

Although there are rough-and-ready external criteria in the Orthodox Church for discerning a spiritual experience (e.g. no one in the Holy Spirit curses Jesus Christ), in the Orthodox Church the criteria of discernment are not in the nature of things external. An Orthodox Elder does not have a handbook; he has the Holy Spirit. When an Orthodox monk discusses a spiritual experience with an Orthodox Elder it is not a matter of what the Elder’s teacher told him—although that sometimes plays a role—but of the Elder’s being himself able spiritually to ‘sniff out’ the spirit behind the monk’s experience.

A demonic experience is not necessarily unpleasant (at least in the beginning—the end is a different matter). ‘For even Satan is transformed into an angel of light.’ Hence, saying that an experience was demonic is not necessarily to say that it was subjectively unpleasant. It is to say that what happened—whatever the external manifestations might have been—was not an act of the Holy Spirit but of a fallen angel.

Moreover, it is not even out of the question that an experience with a demon would not only be pleasant but make the person who experienced it zealous for the practice of his religion, even Protestant or other Christian, as the person understood his religion after that demonic experience.

Of course that is what is in issue in the ‘Toronto Blessing’. No one doubts that the fellow who commented on our post ‘Orthodox Monasticism 14 — The Charism of Discernment’ experienced something pleasant and supernatural via the ‘Toronto Blessing’. No one believes that he was merely manipulated emotionally by a nasty fellow out to take his goods into thinking he experienced something supernatural when he didn’t. But was it the Holy Spirit of the Living God that the fellow experienced? Just the same as Elder Porphyrios? We think that it is highly likely that the man was deceived.

It is in this context that the Guatemalan charismatic trance experiences have to be considered. In the study of religion (particularly shamanism) ‘trance’ is actually a technical term with a specific content. One of the rough-and-ready Orthodox rules of discernment is that trance states are demonic. Orthodox spiritual experiences called ‘ecstatic’ in the precise sense of the Philokalia have a completely different character.

The problem of demonic deception is what is also in issue in Mr Hayes’ discussion of the African Pentecostalist/charismatic movements. He especially remarks: ‘The founders of the Iviyo movement, Bishop Alpheus Zulu and Canon Philip Mbatha, were not, as "Orthodox Monk" implies, demonised’—i.e. possessed by demons. How would we know, Mr Hayes?

Particularly interesting to us in this phenomenon is the interplay between the ‘anything goes’ worship for—excuse us, Mr Hayes—the masses, and the disciplined elite discernment team engaged in non-stop prayer and, it seems, authoritarian control of the ‘ecstatic’ masses. We find the interplay between the ‘ecstatic’ (in the sociological sense) Pentecostalist worship and the authoritarian church organization to be both very, very interesting and very, very revealing.

It should be understood that ‘ecstatic’ in the sense of the Philokalia has a completely different meaning from ‘ecstatic’ in the sociological sense. In the precise sense of the Philokalia, ‘ecstatic’ refers to the condition of the mind in certain cases that the Holy Spirit descends on the person and his mind temporarily loses certain functions in the act of being united to the Holy Spirit. In the case of the sociological meaning of ‘ecstatic’, it means ‘out of one’s mind, in an abnormal state of consciousness, freed from the usual norms of internalized social control’.

And here is where we wonder whether Mr Hayes understood our post. For what we contrasted to the dynamic tension between ‘ecstatic’ Pentecostalist worship and authoritarian church social structure was the inward ascent of the personal Sinai, the personal Horeb, in order to meet God in the gentle breeze of the Prophet Elias—and that in the context of the mysteries of the Orthodox Church. It is in the gentle breeze that the Holy Spirit descends upon the mind, perhaps causing the mind to enter into ‘ecstasy’ in the sense of the Philokalia.

In the case of ‘ecstatic’ Pentecostalist worship and authoritarian social control, recall that at the heart of the authoritarian social control is the imposition of a rigid psychological belief superstructure on a seething unconscious. But the ‘ecstatic’ Pentecostalist worship frees the seething unconscious from that rigid superstructure, at least for a time, so that the unconscious content can be acted out. Hence the dynamic interplay between the ‘ecstatic’ Pentecostalist worship of the masses and the disciplined and authoritarian control by the shepherding group. Moreover, members of the one group can oscillate in and out of the other. That is, in common worship a shepherd may enter into ‘ecstatic’ states where he loses for a time his disciplined discernment.

In the case of the ascent of the personal Horeb, what is involved is a calming of the person and the slow removal of the superstructure so that the unconscious can be encountered consciously, thus to be purified and emptied completely. The purification and emptying of the unconscious is considered in the Philokalia to be the presupposition of an authentic encounter with God in the gentle breeze. Hence, an ‘ecstatic’ experience in the sense of the Philokalia presupposes a complete purification and emptying of the unconscious whereas in the case of Pentecostalism it really means a freeing of the unconscious to do as it will.

Is it all the same, Mr Hayes? Does someone get there with Pentecostalist rock worship just the same as he gets there with the Jesus Prayer under the guidance of an Orthodox Elder? What weight do you assign to the witness of the Orthodox tradition?