More on the Byzantine Catholic Forum Discussion of Our Post on the Jesus Prayer

After we wrote our post on the response of the Byzantine Catholic Forum to our original post on the Jesus Prayer in the Eastern Rite Catholic Church, we followed the further discussion on the thread on the Byzantine Catholic Forum and decided after what we thought was a wonderful, balanced post by Fr. Kimel to post a reply by means of an email.  Then Fr. Kimel replied with a very hard-line post refuting us.  We submitted another email containing our response to Fr. Kimel to Mr. John Vernoski, the Administrator of the Byzantine Catholic Forum Web Site.  Although Mr. Vernoski was kind enough to print our first email and even to engage in an email exchange with us, he seems to have refused to print this last email.  Instead he has printed a rather dogmatic personal ‘refutation’ of our position that supports Fr. Kimel.  Here is the email that aggravated Mr. Vernoski, and perhaps whomever he consulted:

Dear Mr. Vernoski:

Here is my last remark for the thread.  I will not be posting anything else.  It is a waste of time.

Start here:

We would like to close our contribution to the Byzantine Catholic Forum with these remarks:

Fr Kimel takes a rather hard-line approach to preserve the flock it seems.

He writes:

Here is the critical weakness of Orthodox Monk's argument. Orthodox Monk apparently believes that because Pius X and Benedict XVI strongly commended the theology of Thomas Aquinas that therefore it functions as the infallible touchstone for Catholic reflection. But of course, anyone who is acquainted with Catholic theology knows this is not the case. Thomas Aquinas will always have a special place within Catholic theology, but neither his philosophical principles nor his theological arguments are beyond debate and question. Just ask the Franciscans. Just ask just about any modern Catholic philosopher or theologian.

The Pope in question is Pius XI and the reference to Aquinas is a Papal Encyclical, STUDIORUM DUCEM (On St. Thomas Aquinas), issued in 1923.  It is too long to quote even in part.  It can be found here:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P11STUDI.HTM

Popes have consistently taught over the centuries (see the Encyclical) that Thomism is a normative expression of Roman Catholic theology.  The Encyclical was establishing, inter alia, that Thomism determine  the course of studies in Roman Catholic seminaries [actually it refers to the then new provision of canon law that establishes that Thomism define the course of studies in the seminaries].  Perhaps one can argue that the Encyclical was not an infallible document.  But, guys, you're getting into an area where the only thing you're going to accept is another Vatican Council. Read Lumen Gentium on Vatican I and then Vatican I about the immediate ordinary jurisdiction of the Pope and his pastoral authority.  He's not the President of the United States; he's the Pope.

Fr. Kimel says:

Regarding Barlaam and Aquinas, all that needs to be said is that Barlaam was not a Thomist. His relationship to Western scholasticism is debatable. The dispute between Barlaam and Palamas was an inter-Eastern dispute, a dispute between two Orthodox students of Dionysius the Areopagite.

Here is what the last Pope said.  He's on the road to canonization, guys:

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

(This is the allocution of John Paul II referenced in our original post.  Emphasis added.)

This is hardly an unreserved endorsement of Hesychasm.

Fr. Kimel thinks that Barlaam wasn't arguing from a Catholic point of view.  It would take too long to refute that.  But wasn't one of Barlaam's major arguments a denial of the notion that there could be a difference between energy and essence?  Is this not a Thomist position?  Pope John Paul II didn't have Fr. Kimel's subtlety and seems to suggest that Hesychasm had issues with Catholic doctrine.  So how was this merely an intra-Orthodox dispute?  Based merely on differing interpretations of Dionysius?  Moreover, Fr. Kimel, how is it that Barlaam ended a Roman Catholic bishop?

(Update: 26/08/10:  It seems that Fr. Kimel is rehearsing the arguments of the late Dr. John Meyendorff concerning the nature of the conflict between Barlaam and Palamas.  A refutation of this line of argumentation by the late Dr. John Romanides, quite persuasive, can be found in two parts as follows: part I and part II.  Dr. Romanides does not see Barlaam as a Thomist, true, but he does see Barlaam as very much inserted into Latin theology.  However, the refusal to accept a distinction between essence and energy, and the assertion that only the essence  of God is uncreated and only that is knowable after death, all grace known in this life being created, is certainly a Thomist position.)

My only argument to you people is that you be consistent with your own Catholicism.

Orthodox Monk

We would encourage all our readers to go to the thread on the Byzantine Catholic Forum, to read all the posts carefully and to draw their own conclusions.  However, we should respond to a remark of Mr. Vernoski:

Regarding the silliness of anyone concluding that St. Gregory Palamas is not a saint in the Catholic Church because one does not have a proper quote from a pope specifically stating this, anyone making such a conclusion must also state that both Catholicism and Orthodoxy don't really consider the Twelve Apostles to be saints, that they give them only titles of honor because one can't find on a Google search a link to each Church's formal declaration of sainthood for them (an a reaffirming statement by each succeeding pope, patriarch and bishop). And, of course, this is the same for all saints.

Actually, Mr. Vernoski, things aren’t quite as fluid as all that.  There is an official list of saints of the Roman Catholic Church called the New Roman Martyrology.  You can actually buy a copy from your bookseller.  It’s published by the Vatican.  It’s an official Vatican document.  It lists all the saints of the Roman Catholic Church.  Now we admit that we haven’t checked who’s on it.  We’ll leave that to you.

(Update 26/8/10: But the even more fundamental issue is whether the theology recognized by the Catholic magisterium as normative accepts Hesychasm.  That’s not a trivial matter in conscience.  But if you are merely pretend praying, who cares?  The issue arises if you want to pray in the soul.  Then it matters what you believe.  But this is impossible to understand if you are merely pretend praying.)

For the record, here is our own contribution that was published on the thread on the Byzantine Catholic Forum:

Some Comments on this Thread from Orthodox Monk

We would like to thank the Byzantine Catholic Forum for accepting to post our response to the comments in this thread, a response that we are sending by email.  In reading over the posts on this thread, we were struck by a number of issues to which we would like to respond.  Let us take them one-by-one.

A number of posters have taken the position that as Eastern Rite Catholics they are bound only by the ecumenical councils, the first seven, that are accepted by the Orthodox.  Our understanding of this matter is that all Catholics, whether Roman or Eastern Rite, are bound by all the councils recognized by the Holy See as ecumenical.

Here is what Lumen Gentium says.  This is also called The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church.  It is a document of Vatican II:

But the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head. The pope's power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power. … The supreme power in the universal Church, which this college enjoys, is exercised in a solemn way in an ecumenical council. A council is never ecumenical unless it is confirmed or at least accepted as such by the successor of Peter; and it is prerogative of the Roman Pontiff to convoke these councils, to preside over them and to confirm them.(29*) This same collegiate power can be exercised together with the pope by the bishops living in all parts of the world, provided that the head of the college calls them to collegiate action, or at least approves of or freely accepts the united action of the scattered bishops, so that it is thereby made a collegiate act.

(Chapter III On The Hierarchical Structure Of The Church And In Particular On The Episcopate.  Emphasis added.  All excerpts are taken from translations found on the official Vatican Web Site.)

Now the assertion that the Roman Pontiff must approve a council for it to be considered ecumenical evidently arises out of a situation in the middle ages where a council met in Basel, we believe, and tried to force things on the Roman Church.  The emphasis on acceptance by a Pope for a council to be considered ecumenical responds to this perceived danger.  However, it also seems reasonable to infer from the above that what is also intended is the notion that if the Roman Pontiff says a council is ecumenical, it is.  That is, the list of ecumenical councils promulgated by the Roman Church is binding on all Catholics, whether Roman or Eastern Rite.  This is a matter of formal promulgation.  It isn’t something said off the cuff in a meeting.  The councils considered ecumenical by the Roman Pontiff can be found in any of the standard Roman Catholic collections of councils.  Hence, we understand that all Catholics, whether Roman or Eastern Rite, are bound by all the councils recognized as such by the Vatican, including Vatican I and II.  Now of course it would be necessary to confirm this with a Professor of Dogmatic Theology at a recognized Catholic university—say, Notre Dame.

Let us look here at the issue of the authority of Rome.  Because of our understanding of the binding nature of all ecumenical councils recognized as such by the Roman Pontiff, we understand that all Catholics, whether Roman or Eastern Rite, are bound by the contents of Lumen Gentium.  This passage concerns the primacy of the Roman Pontiff and the magisterium:

This Sacred Council [i.e. Vatican II], following closely in the footsteps of the First Vatican Council, with that Council teaches and declares that Jesus Christ, the eternal Shepherd, established His holy Church, having sent forth the apostles as He Himself had been sent by the Father;(136) and He willed that their successors, namely the bishops, should be shepherds in His Church even to the consummation of the world. And in order that the episcopate itself might be one and undivided, He placed Blessed Peter over the other apostles, and instituted in him a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and communion.(1*) And all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity, the meaning and reason for the sacred primacy of the Roman Pontiff and of his infallible magisterium, this Sacred Council again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful.           

(Chapter III On The Hierarchical Structure Of The Church And In Particular On The Episcopate.  Emphasis added.)

This second passage refers to the role within this framework of the individual Churches, including the Eastern Rite Churches:

In virtue of this catholicity [of the Church] each individual part contributes through its special gifts to the good of the other parts and of the whole Church. Through the common sharing of gifts and through the common effort to attain fullness in unity, the whole and each of the parts receive increase. Not only, then, is the people of God made up of different peoples but in its inner structure also it is composed of various ranks. This diversity among its members arises either by reason of their duties, as is the case with those who exercise the sacred ministry for the good of their brethren, or by reason of their condition and state of life, as is the case with those many who enter the religious state and, tending toward holiness by a narrower path, stimulate their brethren by their example. Moreover, within the Church particular Churches hold a rightful place; these Churches retain their own traditions, without in any way opposing the primacy of the Chair of Peter, which presides over the whole assembly of charity (11*) and protects legitimate differences, while at the same time assuring that such differences do not hinder unity but rather contribute toward it. Between all the parts of the Church there remains a bond of close communion whereby they share spiritual riches, apostolic workers and temporal resources. For the members of the people of God are called to share these goods in common, and of each of the Churches the words of the Apostle hold good: "According to the gift that each has received, administer it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God".(123)

(Chapter II, On the People of God, Emphasis added.)

Now, converts to Orthodoxy from Protestantism, we believe that this is saying that nothing in an Eastern Church that joins to Rome can legitimately be retained which stands in serious dogmatic contradiction to positions of the Church of Rome.  Correct us if we are wrong.  However, if it were otherwise, why would reunion with the Orthodox Churches be so difficult?

If we go to the Decree On The Catholic Churches Of The Eastern Rite Orientalium Ecclesiarum, we find this:

2. The Holy Catholic Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, is made up of the faithful who are organically united in the Holy Spirit by the same faith, the same sacraments and the same government and who, combining together into various groups which are held together by a hierarchy, form separate Churches or Rites. Between these there exists an admirable bond of union, such that the variety within the Church in no way harms its unity; rather it manifests it, for it is the mind of the Catholic Church that each individual Church or Rite should retain its traditions whole and entire and likewise that it should adapt its way of life to the different needs of time and place.(2)

3. These individual Churches, whether of the East or the West, although they differ somewhat among themselves in rite (to use the current phrase), that is, in liturgy, ecclesiastical discipline, and spiritual heritage, are, nevertheless, each as much as the others, entrusted to the pastoral government of the Roman Pontiff, the divinely appointed successor of St. Peter in primacy over the universal Church. They are consequently of equal dignity, so that none of them is superior to the others as regards rite and they enjoy the same rights and are under the same obligations, also in respect of preaching the Gospel to the whole world (cf. Mark 16, 15) under the guidance of the Roman Pontiff.

Hence, what the Eastern Rite Catholic Church retains when it comes into union with Rome is its rite, defined here as ‘liturgy, ecclesiastical discipline, and spiritual heritage’.

However, this passage from Lumen Gentium might be important:

By divine Providence it has come about that various churches, established in various places by the apostles and their successors, have in the course of time coalesced into several groups, organically united, which, preserving the unity of faith and the unique divine constitution of the universal Church, enjoy their own discipline, their own liturgical usage, and their own theological and spiritual heritage. Some of these churches, notably the ancient patriarchal churches, as parent-stocks of the Faith, so to speak, have begotten others as daughter churches, with which they are connected down to our own time by a close bond of charity in their sacramental life and in their mutual respect for their rights and duties.(37*)

(Chapter III On The Hierarchical Structure Of The Church And In Particular On The Episcopate)

Now the issue, clearly, is whether an element of ‘liturgy, ecclesiastical discipline, and [theological and] spiritual heritage’ that stood in contradiction to a dogmatic position taught ex cathedra or even otherwise by the Roman Pontiff could be retained.  It is here that the Hesychast controversy enters in.  For as we pointed out, Thomism was around the turn of the 20^th Century declared an authoritative exposition of the Catholic faith.  But the argument of Barlaam against St Gregory Palamas was a Thomist argument.  And Pope John-Paul II was a neo-Thomist, so his remarks on Hesychasm have to be read in that light.

A number of members of the Byzantine Catholic Forum submitted comments to the posts on our blog that we did not post.  One person taxed us harshly in an ad hominem attack.  When we asked for more reasoned arguments she sent us an article in broken English by someone who had published it on ‘Suite 101’, a paid Wikipedia.  One of her arguments was that we did not grasp that there was a Hesychasm of the West because our definition of Hesychasm was too narrow.  Given that another poster has claimed that the Jesus Prayer had no intrinsic connection to Hesychasm, implying that Hesychasm was some sort of mind-expanding yoga, we are simultaneously being attacked for being too narrow about Hesychasm and, it seems, too broad.

So let us look at what Hesychasm is.  As we pointed out on our blog, there is a historical evolution, broadly summarized by the Philokalia, that might be called the Hesychastic tradition of the Orthodox Church.  When we look at the matter historically, we are necessarily grounded in historical specificity.  That means that the claim that there is a Hesychasm of the West just won’t wash.  There is a mysticism of the West; that we don’t deny, without passing judgement on its validity one way or another.  However, Western mysticism is just not historical Hesychasm.  To see this all you have to do is read St Diadochos of Photiki and St John of the Ladder.  These authors speak of certain techniques.  Certain strategies of what a Westerner might call contemplation.  They also speak of grace.  They have a certain anthropology that underlies their conception of the mystical journey.  St. John of the Ladder speaks of restraining the immaterial mind within the material body.  He also speaks of the Jesus Prayer.  It seems that he intends that the mind be brought into the heart practising the Jesus Prayer and that there the Hesychast practise a mental ascesis of the rejection of tempting thoughts.  Now without saying that the Westerner does not have contemplation, no one in the West has ever practised what these authors are discussing.  Western contemplation is different, even when it is apophatic.  The author that comes closest is St. John Cassian.  And indeed certain aspects of the Hesychast tradition entered into the concrete Western traditions through St. John Cassian.  But by the time we get to the Carmelites or the Carthusians, there is no longer any great similarity between Hesychasm and Western mystical traditions.  This is the sort of historical fact that someone might study in graduate school.

Now Fr. Kimel in his very balanced discussion raises the question as to whether a Carmelite or Carthusian might practise Hesychasm without the theological apparatus of St. Gregory Palamas.  First of all, the distinction between essence and energy (or ‘action’ or ‘activity’) is already found in the Cappadocian Fathers in the 4^th Century.  It is not an innovation of St Gregory Palamas.  Next, the Carmelites and the Carthusians have their own mystical traditions which are in harmony with the teachings of the Roman Pontiff.  Why would they want to try out something new that might not be in harmony?  What we were arguing in our blog post is that to the extent that there is a different underlying anthropology and theology of grace in the method you are using (Hesychasm) from what you believe (Thomism, neo-Thomism, etc.) you are going to create a tension (or worse) in your spiritual practice.  If you are a Westerner, why would you bother?  Do one or the other.  If you are an Eastern Rite Catholic, there is very great room for personal confusion or worse.  And we pointed out what we thought were the three options that faced the Eastern Rite Catholic faced with the possibility of choosing to practise Hesychasm or not.

Pentecostalism and the Jesus Prayer

In our post entitled ‘A Charismatic Question by Email’, we briefly discussed a request from a member of the ‘International House of Prayer – Kansas City’ for information on the Jesus Prayer. We didn’t give a very detailed response and we were harshly taxed in the comments by ‘drinklife’ for being bad. At one point we stated that there are serious issues with taking up the Jesus Prayer outside the Orthodox Church and ‘drinklife’ mocked us, asking whether that was also true of prayer to the Trinitarian God. Given this matter and the matter addressed in the previous post, where we are dismissed by an Eastern-Rite Catholic as a recent convert from Protestantism to Orthodoxy, and where a distinction is made between the Jesus Prayer suitable for Ruthenian Catholics and the yoga-like Hesychasm practised in the Orthodox Church, it seemed good to us to address some of these issues more fully. This is a rather difficult post since we have discussed some of the issues in the previous post and since, regrettably, some of the issues demand a greater level of intellectual and theological sophistication from our readers than either the Ruthenian Catholics or the Pentecostalist who are our interlocutors seem capable of mustering. We would recommend that this post be read after the previous post.

The Pentecostalism practised at the ‘International House of Prayer – Kansas City’ appears to be associated with the movement to restore the five-fold ministry of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher in the Church in accordance with Ephesians 4, 11. This in turn appears to be associated with the doctrine of Dominionism, which intends to implement the physical dominion of the Church over the world. This appears to be what the Reverend Muthee believes who prayed over Sarah Palin, for those who are interested. Now the particular emphasis of this particular group in Kansas City seems to be the prophetic ministry. They also seem to have some connection to the ‘Toronto Blessing’ but, frankly, the interrelationships among all these currents of Pentecostalism are so complex that we are positive we don’t have it down pat. So if we’ve made a mistake, sorry.

Let us first assume for the sake of argument that this expression of Pentecostalism is a valid expression of the Holy Spirit. Let us talk about the practical issues in praying the Jesus Prayer in such a Pentecostalist setting. The member of this group who originally approached us by email states that he participates in the universal prayer ministry at the Church 40 hours a week. By comparison, a monk in a large monastery on Mount Athos is in church 50 hours a week. We are not suggesting that 50 is better than 40; we are merely trying to place the 40 hours a week of corporate Pentecostalist prayer in context.

Let us look a little at the differences in way of life between the Orthodox monastery and the Pentecostalist group. First of all, in church Orthodox monks normally sing a capella (without musical accompaniment). They sing (if they’re Greek) using very old Byzantine plain chant, which is very calming and deepening. For those who don’t know, this is similar to Western Gregorian chant, which is even more tranquilizing in its effects. They are each assigned a personal choir stall where they sit and stand, listening to the services. As we ourselves can attest, such a 50-hour-a-week program of church services has a very calming and deepening and focusing effect. Moreover, the Orthodox Church has a very complex and full annual liturgical cycle which engages the monk or nun psychologically so that over the annual liturgical cycle psychologically they daily relive and participate in the events of the life of Christ and of the lives of the saints. This gives a profound focus to their worship and spiritual lives in general.

In contrast, at a Pentecostalist service, there is the use of a harmonium, sometimes a rock band, sometimes very loud and heavy. This is not a calming experience—it is more deafening. It tends to promote ecstatic worship rather than the calm reflective worship of the Orthodox monk. Obviously, there is no liturgical cycle in the Pentecostalist Church outside of Christmas and Easter.

Next, outside of the church services, the Orthodox monk engages in about 4 or 5 hours a day of manual labour except Sundays and feast days. This helps him to be psychologically grounded in reality. It is not clear what the original questioner does apart from his 40 hours in church; he does not say. We can only ask whether he has something similar in his program.

Next, Orthodox monks normally do not eat meat. They follow an established complex pattern of fasting directly linked to the liturgical calendar. This might seem trivial to those who have not lived the life of the Orthodox monk but we attest that it has a profound effect on the passions—the emotional tendencies to sin—that every person has. It is, again, a calming factor in the monk’s life. The Pentecostalist would have no similar tradition that he could fall back on; his fasting would be ad hoc according to his own discernment and the discernment of his pastor.

The next thing is that the monk is inserted into a monastic tradition that has over the centuries learned about obedience and how it is applied. Here, one might consult the Ladder of Divine Ascent of St John of Sinai, which is a good introduction to the Orthodox monastic life. The monk is also celibate. He is normally living apart from the world with its distractions and temptations.

The monk also participates in the mysterial (sacramental) life of the Church. Confession is very important in this life since it allows the monk to verbalize his interior life with the effect that some problems such as persistent intrusive thoughts disappear, other problems are identified early, and so on. The monk is also nourished by Christ in Holy Communion. There is no such dimension among the Pentecostalists.

Now it is in this context that the Orthodox monk first encounters the Jesus Prayer (we are simplifying). He normally starts off by praying for several hours a day in his cell outside of the cycle of church services and apart from his obligations to manual labour. The Jesus Prayer is presented to the beginning monk as an aspect of a Hesychastic tradition that goes back to the desert of 4^th Century Egypt. That Hesychastic tradition is a tradition of mental ascesis, an ascesis of combating intrusive thoughts that call one to sin. Now the Hesychastic tradition is practised in its full form by hermits, and not many of them. In its full form it is both difficult and dangerous. But the monk is conscious that he is inserted into this Hesychastic tradition even if he isn’t ‘playing in the major leagues’.

Normally, the monk also has a guide who assesses the spiritual experiences he has—whether they are from God or from his own psychology or from the Devil. As we have seen in our sweet short life, you can get into big trouble believing something is from God when it isn’t. It’s dangerous and the downside risk is considerable.

Let us now look at what the Pentecostalist has in this regard. The only thing he has, since we are assuming for the sake of argument that he has the Holy Spirit, is someone to discern his experiences for him. For the rest, he’s just not living a way of life consistent with what the Hesychastic tradition anticipates. Given that the original poster is praying 40 hours a week in the church in the church’s prayer ministry, we assume both that he is zealous for prayer and that he would like to pray the Jesus Prayer in the context of that prayer ministry. That is, we assume that he wants to pray the Jesus Prayer not alone in his room, wherever that might be, but in the midst of the corporate charismatic prayer in the prayer ministry room. We are therefore assuming that his interest is not in praying the Jesus Prayer 40 minutes a day, say, but in praying it several hours each day in the context of his 40 hours a week of corporate Pentecostalist prayer. In other words, we understand that he intends to make intensive use of the Jesus Prayer.

As we have pointed out, the full Hesychastic tradition is both difficult and dangerous in the Orthodox monastic context. What would happen in the completely different Pentecostalist context, we wonder. We just cannot take responsibility for what will happen with the practice of the Jesus Prayer in such a Pentecostalist context. The psychological conditions are too different from what obtains in an Orthodox monastery for us to encourage this. The Jesus Prayer demands calm and inner attention since ultimately the person will bring his mind down into his heart, there to pray the Jesus Prayer and there to combat the intrusive thoughts that call him to sin. The very fact that to a Pentecostalist such a practice of bringing the mind into the heart to pray the Jesus Prayer and combat intrusive thoughts is at best meaningless and at worst deceived is an indication that nothing good is going to come of mixing the Jesus Prayer with Pentecostalism.

Now let us release our assumption that Pentecostalists have the Holy Spirit. We are not prophets with the gift of the discernment of spirits. However, we do know that Elders in the Orthodox Church have never accepted Pentecostalism as being an authentic expression of the Holy Spirit. Hence, there is an even more fundamental problem. To give an indication of the dimensions of the problem, St John of Sinai remarks in the Ladder that the gifts of the Holy Spirit such as healing are reserved for monks since otherwise no one would have to become a monk. But that is precisely what the Pentecostalists believe—that lay people have those gifts. In the Orthodox Church, a St Seraphim of Sarov spends decades in the wilderness silently praying the Jesus Prayer as a hermit keeping a vow of complete and utter silence and living only on snits, a local weed, before by revelation he returns to the world as a great prophet and miracle worker. The Pentecostalists have it easy. Someone goes to a ‘Toronto Blessing’ revival and bam! they’re a prophet. Once they stop laughing. Take it from there. The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.

Update September 2, 2010:  We continue the discussion, looking at the two comments below, in this post.

The Byzantine Catholic Forum Takes on Our Post on the Jesus Prayer

Someone from Eagle River AK who goes by the name of ‘aramis’ submitted a hit-and-run comment on our post from five years ago (!) on the Jesus Prayer in the Eastern Rite Catholic Church. We wondered what to do and decided after reading the series of comments on our post on the Byzantine Catholic Forum to make the following reply.

First let us post the original comment by ‘desertman’ on the Forum:

[link by ‘desertman’ to Jesus Prayer in the Eastern Rite Catholic Church]

I'm looking for some Eastern Catholic responses to this article. It is from an Orthodox blog, which questions the possibility of a Catholic truly embracing the serious practice of the Jesus Prayer and hesychasm without creating serious tension with his Catholic identity.

I'd like to think the author is wrong, but he makes some interesting points.

Someone named ‘aramis’ replied as follows. ‘Aramis’ is the person who wished to comment directly on our blog:

Thing is, it's possible to embrace the Jesus prayer without full-blown hesychasm. Just like one can embrace the Hail Mary without embracing the full cultus of the Dominican Rosary*.

Mind-altering extended prayer (like hesychasts do) can be done with just about any repetitive prayer.

Even the Dominican Rosary can become a mind-altering system of prayer.

The monk writing this is engaging in polemic, as well, intentional or otherwise. St. Gregory is on the calendar of several Eastern Catholic churches.

*The Dominican Rosary is the proper term for the Rosary as commonly used in the Roman Church; it was introduced in its present form by St. Dominic for his friars.

Let’s take the first point that ‘aramis’ makes, ‘it's possible to embrace the Jesus prayer without full-blown hesychasm. … Mind-altering extended prayer (like hesychasts do) can be done with just about any repetitive prayer.”

Correct us if we are wrong, but what we understand ‘aramis’ to be saying here is that:

1. The Jesus Prayer is not intrinsically linked to Hesychasm;

2. The Jesus Prayer can be practised without the practice of Hesychasm; and

3. ‘Mind-altering extended prayer (like hesychasts do) can be done with just about any repetitive prayer’.

Let us look at the historical record.

The first recorded reference to the use of the Jesus Prayer is given in a text dated c.450 AD. This text is the Gnostic Chapters, written by St Diadochos of Photiki, who was a contemporary of St. Augustine. We have posted a complete translation of the original Greek of this text, with commentary, from the sources chrétiennes critical edition. In this text St. Diadochos describes the practice of the Jesus Prayer 24 hours a day, even in sleep, through the Grace of the Holy Spirit. (For our translation go to the archives for August, 2008, and for our commentary go to the archives starting in March, 2009 and ending in May, 2009.)

In one of his articles, the late Professor Antoine Guillaumont discusses archaeological evidence for the use of the Jesus Prayer in 4th or 5th Century Egypt (i.e. among the Fathers of the Egyptian Desert).

This archaeological evidence is borne out by the Conferences of St John Cassian (c. 420), where Cassian describes the practice he learned in Egypt of the repetition of a passage from the Psalms. It is clear that St. John Cassian is describing a practice that is set into the context of late 4th Century Egyptian monasticism in Skete, where he was based during his stay in Egypt.

The lives of the 4th Century Egyptian St. Pachomios (see the Cistercian Studies edition) provide oblique evidence for the practice described by St. John Cassian.

The next explicit reference to the Jesus Prayer is to be found in the Ladder of Divine Ascent of St John of Sinai (7th Century). While that work is largely aimed at coenobites, it has a few sections on Hesychasm. St John of Sinai was himself a Hesychast for 40 years. St John of Sinai clearly treats the Jesus Prayer as a part of the practice of Hesychasm.

There is the work, sometimes called On Sobriety, of St Hesychios of the Burning Bush (8th C.?). This work bases itself on the Ladder, Evagrius Ponticus and on a number of other early ascetical authors to describe a method of Hesychasm which integrates the use of the Jesus Prayer into the practice of mental ascesis in the tradition deriving from the 4th Egyptian desert.

So the first point that ‘aramis’ is making is nonsense. All the historical evidence available shows that the Jesus Prayer started out integrated into the practice of mental ascesis formulated in the 4th Century Egyptian desert. That is what Hesychasm is—a tradition of mental ascesis. The practice of the Jesus Prayer in this context was largely for hermits and semi-hermits. It did not start out as a separate devotion later to be integrated into a method of ‘mind-altering extended prayer’ as ‘aramis’ puts it. If ‘aramis’ has documentary evidence for his assertions that is unavailable to us in our ignorance, we will be happy to follow up on his citations. If he doesn’t, perhaps he could justify on a reasoned basis his implicit assertion that the Jesus Prayer is not intrinsically linked to Hesychasm.

Let us turn the second point of ‘aramis’, that the Jesus Prayer can be practiced without the practice of Hesychasm. Well, it is true that you can do anything you want. If you want to repeat the Jesus Prayer orally 40 times a minute for 20 minutes, or whatever, who is going to stop you? However, the original setting of the Jesus Prayer is the Orthodox Hesychastic tradition briefly sketched above. A witness to that tradition is the Philokalia as collected by St Makarios of Corinth in the late 18th Century and published at the same time through the good offices of his friend, St Nikodemos the Athonite.

We wrote in our original post:

Basically, the Eastern Rite Catholic has these three options open to him: He can pursue Hesychasm and the full form of the Jesus Prayer in an Orthodox way… Or, he can attempt to reinterpret the Jesus Prayer in a Catholic way—most likely by turning it into a Catholic devotion… Or he can drop the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm, and turn to an essentially Western Catholic spirituality. Historically, very few people have chosen the first alternative; more have chosen the second; and most have chosen the third.

It seems to us that ‘aramis’ is advancing the second option as a considered response to ‘desertman’. If he isn’t, then perhaps he could give us a reasoned explanation as to what he is doing. What would the practice of the Jesus Prayer without Hesychasm look like, ‘aramis’?

Let us turn to the third point of ‘aramis’, that ‘mind-altering extended prayer (like hesychasts do) can be done with just about any repetitive prayer’. It seems to us that the strategy of ‘aramis’ is here to dismiss Hesychasm as some sort of yoga that isn’t actually Christian—in other words to make it something that is not only non-essential to the practice of the Jesus Prayer but perhaps even suspect. Proof, ‘aramis’?

We would recommend that interested readers refer to the Gnostic Chapters of St. Diadochos of Photiki. There, St. Diadochos explicitly integrates into baptismal theology the practice in a Hesychastic context of the Jesus Prayer. He ties the continuous repetition of the Jesus Prayer to the grace of the Holy Spirit.

It is true that there is nothing ‘sacred’ about the particular formula, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.’ St Ioannikios used a completely different formula, as did St. Nicholas Velimirovich. But these saints were integrated into the Orthodox monastic and ascetical tradition. St Nicholas Velimirovich used to visit St. Silouan the Athonite at the Russian monastery on Athos. They were contemporaries. However, ‘aramis’ is saying something quite different. He is saying, virtually, that Hesychasm is an abuse of the use of the Jesus Prayer.

Let us turn to the next point of ‘aramis’: ‘St. Gregory is on the calendar of several Eastern Catholic churches.’ This was the substance of the comment that ‘aramis’ wished to add to our post. This may be so, ‘aramis’. The question is whether from within a Roman Catholic context St Gregory Palamas is legitimately on those calendars. We will return to this.

We will continue with the comments of ‘StuartK’ from Falls Church, VA:

…As with many Orthodox polemicists, the author operates under the assumption that Latin Catholicism is normative for all Catholics (something not true since at least Vatican II), and that there is some inherent dichotomy between Latin spirituality and the concept of uncreated energy. Needless to say, his assumptions are wrong and his understanding of Catholic ecclesiology and doctrine hopelessly out of date. It would not surprise me in the least if Orthodox Monk was a recent convert to Orthodoxy from one of the Protestant denominations.

Let us look at these assertions:

the author operates under the assumption that Latin Catholicism is normative for all Catholics (something not true since at least Vatican II)

‘StuartK’, could you argue this with citations from the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, one of the documents of Vatican II? Or even the decree on the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches of the same Council? While Latin Catholicism is not per se normative for Eastern-rite Catholics, Eastern-rite Catholics are still, within the Roman Catholic context, subject to the magisterium of Rome and to the immediate ordinary jurisdiction of the Pope of Rome. Hence you just can’t grab anything you like from Orthodoxy (except the ‘mind-altering extended prayer’ of Hesychasm, it seems) without reference to what Rome teaches.

the author operates under the assumption … that there is some inherent dichotomy between Latin spirituality and the concept of uncreated energy.

Since the Roman Catholic Church has officially taught that Thomism is a normative interpretation of Roman Catholicism, since Eastern-Rite Catholics are subject to the magisterium of Rome and since Thomism teaches that all grace (‘energies of God’) is created, could you argue this point in more fullness on the basis of authoritative Roman Catholic documents and theologians?

Needless to say, his assumptions are wrong and his understanding of Catholic ecclesiology and doctrine hopelessly out of date.

Could you argue this on the basis of the documents of Vatican II cited above, or even other authoritative pronouncements of the Pope?

It would not surprise me in the least if Orthodox Monk was a recent convert to Orthodoxy from one of the Protestant denominations.

Senator Joe McCarthy used to haul people before his Senate committee and ask them if they were or ever had been members of the Communist Party of the USA. Some of them used to take the Fifth. This is what is known as an ad hominem argument. ‘He must be a commie. Don’t listen to him.’

We’re not going to take the Fifth. You’re wrong on both counts.

We glanced at our post from five years ago in the context of the remarks on the Byzantine Catholic forum. It struck us that our article was much deeper than the remarks were allowing for. Perhaps the posters and others should read the article more carefully and respond to the article in good Catholic argumentative fashion on the basis of reasoned arguments that explicitly cite authoritative pronouncements. Otherwise, we’re just fooling ourselves, kids.

Update, August 10, 2010: See also this post on Pentecostalism and the Jesus Prayer and this second post with further comments on the Byzantine Catholic Forum thread.

A Charismatic Question by Email

We have received an unusual email from someone connected with the 'The International House of Prayer -- Kansas City'. The man who wrote wants to learn something about Orthodox prayer to use in his missionary ministry of universal worship and intercessory prayer in the 24/7 prayer room at the House. We did some due diligence and they are third-wave Pentecostalist 'latter rain' types. The House was founded by someone named Mike Bickle. There has been or is some connection to the Vineyard group of churches. We get the impression that in 'latter rain' and 'Joel's Army' circles these things and peoples are fairly well known. We don’t know anything. We are rather bemused by this. The only thing we could suggest is that the party who inquired read the blog post by post from oldest post to newest post. If he gets anything out of it, so much the better. We were rather put off by his email, given that it links to various places all of which have draw-down menus for one-time or monthly donations, not to mention the same thing in the author’s email signature.

Update, August, 2010: See also this post.