FRIENDS OF MOUNT ATHOS BOOK REVIEWS
© 1996
Monastic Life as True Marriage.
Translated by Elizabeth Theokritoff. $8.00/£5.00.
ISBN 1-89800-06-8.
Beauty and Hesychia in Athonite Life.
$6.00/£3.75.
ISBN 1-896800-00-9.
Europe and the Holy Mountain.
$8.00/£5.00.
ISBN 1-89800-04-1.
Ecology and Monasticism.
$6.00/£3.75.
ISBN 1-896800-02-5. These three translated by
Constantine Kokenes.
All by Archimandrite Vasileios, Abbot of Iviron Monastery,
Mount Athos. Montreal: Alexander Press, 1996. All are available in the UK from
the Orthodox Christian Book Service, Suite 304, 95 Spencer Street, Birmingham
B18 6DA.
In one of these separately
published essays (the longest is 32 pages) Fr Vasileios refers to an 'incident'
recorded among the sayings of the Desert Fathers which conveys a forceful truth
about the overindustrialized and polluted environment we live in:
'Monk, what are you doing here?' The elder replied: 'I
am keeping this place.' The devil said: 'Leave him alone; he's a bit mad.' But
I think that monk's response, 'I am keeping this place', has a theological
meaning which brings to mind God's command in the Book of Genesis 'to keep'
Paradise. (Ecology and Monasticism)
For
many Christians in the west, the eastern way of seeking the inner life, putting
aside the quest for 'social justice' or the institutionalized pursuit of good
works, is difficult to grasp. Yet moral progress, so the Athonites believe, is
impossible without this spiritual base. Pilgrims to the Holy Mountain will have
noted that, immediately after the appointed Gospel for the day, the visit to
Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42) is often read for good measure. It is of the
essence of hesychasm for monks to choose 'that good part'. And even though we
see them busy about their tasks while not in church or in their cells, they
would not understand the western division of religion into 'contemplative' and
'active' orders. As Elder Vasileios explains:
As a monk, you feel at rest
because, what do you do? In that place, in that monastery, you dwell, you live
and understand that there is a single essence and purpose for both the soul and
the body. You understand that there is a bond between daily life and spiritual
life, that daily life is not separated from spiritual life, and that prayer is
not separated from work. (Ecology and Monasticism)
Archimandrite
Vasileios is one of the most eloquent thinkers on Mount Athos. These
meditations are the product of his travels outside the spiritual arena of
Iviron - to address employees of the European Union in Luxemburg in 1992, or to
Crete the year before, to shed monastic light on the Inter-Orthodox Conference
on Environmental Protection. He remains firmly rooted in the Garden of the
Panaghia, so readers curious about the controversial allegations made on the
Mountain regarding the EU will be disappointed. Fr Vasileios did make an
impassioned plea against totalitarianism, whether of a religious or political
nature, which some (including this reviewer) might interpret as a delightfully
subtle reference to the Vatican's role.
One
is bound to admit that, despite its literary merits, the ecological essay does
not betray any obvious knowledge of, or practical concern for, the natural
world. By a form of reasoning which is not altogether clear to me, Fr Vasileios
concludes that St Isaac would not be worried by a nuclear holocaust: 'St Isaac
says that if heaven fell and flattened the earth, the humble person would not
be perturbed because other kinds of changes have already occurred within him,
changes which are greater and more powerful.' Yes, but what about the less
humble and the animals?
The
Elder tells us that St Isaac says that a pure heart means 'a heart merciful to
all creation' and that a person who prays with tears 'cannot bear to see even a
reptile or the smallest leaf of a plant suffering'. But does not the Abbot know
that cruelty to animals in Greece by no means stops at Ouranopolis? Perhaps the
monk I know who is 'training' his donkey not to bray has not read St Isaac. It
is sometimes difficult not to see such writings as a sort of edifying
propaganda which misleadingly gives the impression that all Orthodox live in
harmony with nature. Some certainly do; but I think it would be a suitable metanoia to face up to the less happy reality from time to
time.
Fr
Vasileios is at his best when writing as a mystical poet. Beauty - or love of
beauty (philokalia) - is the
golden thread running through all four works. Of his return to the peninsula at
sunset he remembers:
The
entire Mountain, Nature, the peak of Athos - the monasteries, forests and rocks
- had all been filled with joyful light and imbued with heavenly beauty. The
Mountain was invisibly revealing itself as being indeed 'Holy'. It was apparent
that the holiness in its name was something inseparable from its very physical
substance. And you felt that if it could be crumbled like a clump of earth,
then from this very dirt would come forth a dazzling light, the very same
fragrance which had filled the universe on the day of Resurrection... The souls
of the saints fly and flutter about, luminous and full of light. The relics of
the saints emit the same uncreated and scintillating light; an indescribable
and uncreated fragrance pours out from their tombs. Everything around is filled
by the beauty of contrition and the fragrance of heaven.
Reflecting
on the beauty of Orthodoxy, Archimandrite Vasileios writes: 'This beauty of the
Church is not an aesthetic category, but a spiritual charism. It is not
acquired through training in fine arts, but in total participation and long
years of life in the Church. It cannot be created, it cannot be composed from
mere combinations of colours, concepts, sounds, forms or movements. It is
simple and uncontrived. It is sent down from above from the Father of Lights
(James 1:17)' (Monastic Life as True Marriage). Perhaps this is why the efforts of non-Orthodox
icon-painters and chanters never come to fruition.
His
thoughts on 'True Marriage' are vigorous, without apology to brethren not
called to celibacy, though his words ring true enough for those who have passed
the first flush of matrimonial passion:
Fleshly
marriage is not marriage worthy of man's nature or his expectations: it means
ultimately becoming one flesh with some other mortal being and producing more
mortal beings, all of them - parents and children - condemned to death. Formed
by God and having the divine breath within him, man has need of God. He wants
to live with Him. It is then that he has a normal relationship with himself,
his brethren and the whole of creation.
Just to live with one's
fellow men, with temporary, fleshly and restricted interests, is a torment: it
is a meaningless coexistence or the jostling of a crowd filled with noise and
loneliness. But 'it is not good for man to be alone': man needs divine company.
Profoundly
theological, Fr Vasileios does not write like an academic theologian; and while
he is not immune to the occasional purple patch, he offers us a rare insight
into the mind of 'the authentic Athonite'.
EVANGELOS PERRY
Zapallar, Chile