Connection of Byzantine and Russian Hesychasm: St. John Climacus, St. Sergius of Radonezh
-By Roman Atorin
The study of the ascetic practice of hesychasm gains particular relevance in light of the contemporary spiritual situation. The hesychast movement, which spread widely in Byzantium, penetrated Rus’ in the mid-fourteenth century. Hesychasm exerted a significant influence on the ecclesiastical worldview of Ancient Rus’.
The theoretical core of Russian hesychasm is the classical form of its tradition. According to the teaching of the great hesychast ascetic, St. Gregory Palamas, hesychia testifies to the health of the soul and represents “the cessation of mind and world, the forgetting of earthly things, dedication to heavenly things, the laying aside of thoughts for something better, or, to speak more precisely, true activity, an ascent to genuine contemplation, or vision of God,” and ultimately to deification.
Understanding the influence of hesychasm on Russian sanctity is impossible without examining the characteristics of the worldview of Byzantine hesychasts. Let us focus on the spiritual writings of the eminent Byzantine theologian, abbot of the Sinai Monastery, St. John Climacus. His ascetic work, The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Κλῖμαξ θείας ἀνόδου), was written in the sixth century AD as guidance for the monastery’s brethren. The Ladder possesses a powerful force of moral impact. This treatise addresses the inner disposition of the human soul, constant spiritual labor, and profound self-contemplation, as well as the paths to achieving lofty spirituality and the beauty and harmony of the spirit. The author writes about penitential self-knowledge, the positive role of virtues, and the destructive effect of their opposites—passions (anti-values).
The Orthodox ascetic who has attained spiritual heights perceives himself as a partaker of Christ, and the “light of this awareness” is undeniable for him. “Purity is the assimilation of an incorporeal nature. Purity is the desired dwelling place of Christ and the earthly heaven of the heart… He who has been deemed worthy of this disposition, even while still in the flesh, has God Himself dwelling within him, guiding him in all words, deeds, and thoughts. Thus, such a one, through inner enlightenment, discerns the will of the Lord, as if hearing a certain voice, and, being above all human teaching, says: ‘When shall I come and appear before the face of God?’ (Ps. 41:3). For I can no longer endure the force of this desire; but I seek that immortal beauty, which Thou hast granted me before this clay. But why say more? The passionless one lives not for himself, but Christ liveth in him (Gal. 2:20).”
The essence of the spiritual endeavor of the hesychast ascetic, vividly expressed in the teachings of hesychasts, is as follows: he who has sincerely loved God, truly seeks salvation, and yearns for the path to the future Heavenly Kingdom, who deeply grieves over the sins he has committed, who constantly thinks of the Last Judgment, will never love temporal, fleeting things, nor concern himself with material, earthly goods, “let the dead bury their dead” (Luke 9:60). He will set aside all worldly affairs and follow Christ, as the saint said, “My soul hath cleaved after Thee” (Ps. 62:9).
In The Ladder, St. John expounds his experience of self-contemplation and speaks of the practice of self-deepening: “According to the judgment of discerning fathers, there is a difference between a suggestion, a coupling, a consent, a captivity, a struggle, and what is called a passion in the soul. These blessed ones define that a suggestion is a simple word or image of some object newly appearing to the mind and entering the heart; coupling is a conversation with the appearing image, either with passion or without passion; consent is the soul’s agreement with the presented thought, combined with delight; captivity is a forcible and involuntary seizure of the heart, or a prolonged mental association with the object, which disrupts our good disposition; struggle is the equality of strength between the one struggling and the one being struggled against in battle, where the latter either voluntarily prevails or is defeated; a passion is the vice itself, which, through long habit, has become rooted in the soul and, by custom, has become as if its natural property, so that the soul voluntarily and of itself inclines toward it. Of all these, the first is sinless; the second is not entirely without sin; the third is judged according to the disposition of the one striving; struggle is the cause of either crowns or torments; captivity is judged differently during prayer, differently at other times, differently in matters indifferent, that is, neither bad nor good, and differently in evil thoughts. A passion, without doubt, is subject in all cases either to proportionate repentance or to future torment; but he who regards the first (that is, the suggestion in thought) without passion cuts off all the rest at once.”
The Ladder reveals the essence of prayer: “Those whose minds have learned to pray truly converse with the Lord face to face, as if whispering in the ear of the King. Those who pray with their lips fall before Him, as if before the entire council. Those who remain in the world, when they pray, are like those who beseech the king amid the clamor of the entire people. If thou hast learned the art of prayer through thine own experience, then my words are clear to thee.”
The beginning of prayer is “standing before God,” and its culmination is perfect silent presence in the sanctification of the Divine Light. Standing before God is expressed in the attempt to enter the Divine presence—the one praying recognizes himself as unworthy and incapable of beholding God. Spiritual prayer—perfect silence—is a state of abiding in the rays of the Uncreated Divine Light. Through penitential prayer, the human heart opens and becomes one with the mind, whereby the believer fully opens to God, and the Divine Light illumines him: “The ear of the silent one receiveth wondrous revelations from God… The fervor of prayer driveth away sleep, and the raptures of the spirit cause one to lose track of time. True prayer warriors notice this not; it seemeth to them as if they have just begun to pray, yet the day hath already appeared.”
John of Sinai reflects on the ascetic method of silence: “We, being as if bought and enslaved by impure passions, know from our own experience, to some extent, the deceptions, habits, will, and cunning of the spirits that rule over our wretched soul. But there are others who, through the action of the Holy Spirit, which hath delivered them from the tyranny of these adversaries, have clear knowledge of the wiles of demons. Silence of the body is the discipline and order of bodily habits and senses; silence of the soul is the discipline of thoughts and an inviolable mind. The lover of silence hath a certain courageous and strict thought, which standeth vigilantly at the doors of the heart, slaying or repelling incoming thoughts… The spiritually discerning silent one hath no need of verbal instructions; for he is enlightened by deeds themselves instead of words. The beginning of silence consisteth in repelling all the noise of enemies, as it disturbeth the depth of the heart; the end of silence is to remain unaffected by their alarms, abiding without sensation toward them.”
The most crucial ascetic method preached by hesychasm lies in the eradication of sin through the cutting off of thoughts. “The mind that hath attained spiritual understanding is necessarily clothed with spiritual feeling. Whether it be in us or not, we must constantly care for it and seek it within ourselves; for when it appeareth, then the external senses cease in every way to act deceptively upon the soul; and knowing this, one of the wise hath said: ‘And thou shalt find a divine sense’ (Wis. 2:5).”
The stage of attaining “spiritual understanding” in “spiritual feeling” is extremely difficult to achieve. It is followed by the complete cutting off of all thoughts, with the aim of concentrating all spiritual energies for prayer, in which the process of synergy with God the Creator takes place. On synergy with God, we find in St. John: “One thing is the providence of God; another is the help of God; another is His protection; another is the mercy of God; and another is His consolation. The providence of God extendeth to every creature. The help of God is granted only to the faithful. The protection of God is over those faithful who are truly faithful. The mercy of God is bestowed upon those who labor for God; and His consolation is for those who love Him.”
In the process of inner enlightenment, which by its quality surpasseth all human teaching, due to the incomprehensible and immeasurable weight of immortal beauty and the blinding holiness of God Himself, the consciousness must die, yet it findeth a way to perceive subjectively; to perceive, passing into a negative mode of impossible perception, into a mode of blinding by immortal beauty. It must be clarified that this blinding is caused not so much by sensory perception as by the intellectual intuition of the “unenlightened” human mind, which can again be associated with the “darkness of ignorance” of St. John Climacus, which is overcome to varying degrees by “inner enlightenment,” enabling one to discern the will of God, that is, to place it in the foremost position, far relegating one’s own self to the background. “…He who hath been deemed worthy of this disposition, even while still in the flesh, hath God Himself dwelling within him, guiding him in all words, deeds, and thoughts. Thus, such a one, through inner enlightenment, discerneth the will of the Lord, as if hearing a certain voice, and, being above all human teaching, saith: ‘When shall I come and appear before the face of God?’ (Ps. 41:3). For I can no longer endure the force of this desire; but I seek that immortal beauty, which Thou hast granted me before this clay.”
One of the fundamental realities of the hesychast, mystical-ascetic experience is love, the boundless love of God for His creation. St. John Climacus writes: “Love is God (1 John 4:8), and he who seeketh to define in words what God is, blindeth himself in mind, attempting to measure the sand in the abyss of the sea… Love, by its quality, is a likeness to God, as much as humans can attain.”
Absolute Love is possessed by God, but it is also inherent in man and serves as a driving force, an act that directs human consciousness toward value-based perfection through giving and self-revelation. Love establishes the connection between consciousness and being, reveals the essential properties of goods, and contributes to the attainment of complete, defined being and value. Thus, in Climacus: “By its essence, Love is God. By its quality, it is a likeness to God, as much as humans can attain.”
Love is described by another hesychast, St. Maximus the Confessor, as follows: “Love is, if one attempts to encompass it with a definition, an all-encompassing inner connection with the First Good and with the universal Providence concerning the nature of the entire [human] race.”
Love is defined by Byzantine hesychasts through concepts such as mutual interpenetration (περιχωρήσις) and self-giving. The Persons of the Holy Trinity (each of them) live not for Themselves but give Themselves to the other Hypostases. The life of the Divine Persons is defined as mutual interpenetration, where the life of one is the life of another. The being of the Persons of the Trinity is, by its very definition, personal (person-centered) being as such, and thus love is a hallmark of personal consciousness. Moreover, it is the very mode of existence, the self-realization of the person: “Personal being is union in love, where the personal existence of the person is identified with self-giving.”
The ideas of Byzantine hesychasts—St. John Climacus, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory Palamas, and others—were brought to Russian soil. By the late fourteenth century, the practical side of hesychasm found expression in the spiritual life of many Russian ascetics. Favorable conditions for the reception of hesychast principles were established in Rus’. A whole school of asceticism developed, with its main principles being the purification of the heart from passions, “mental doing,” and the feat of contemplation. In Rus’, hesychasm received new creative development, acquiring a distinctive form of personal spiritual endeavor. In the process of the activities of spiritual practice schools, the distinguishing characteristics and features of Russian hesychasm gradually took shape and became more clearly defined.
The flourishing of Russian hesychasm is directly linked to the person and activities of St. Sergius of Radonezh, a pivotal figure in the Russian historical-cultural and social sphere. The name of St. Sergius is associated with the introduction into the spiritual life of ancient Russian society of the profound idea of unity, the aspiration toward the highest ideal—God—and the idea of evangelical love.
The spiritual activity of St. Sergius of Radonezh traces back to the Athonite hesychast tradition, consisting of non-possessiveness, the cutting off of one’s will, obedience, mental prayer, and constant reading of the patristic writings. The essence of spiritual life for him lies in absolute detachment from all earthly goods and is reduced to spiritual purification.
As the hagiographer of St. Sergius writes, “he loved all people equally, never fell into anger, never quarreled, never took offense, nor allowed himself weakness or laughter; but when he wished to smile, he did so with great chastity… And the words of the Psalter were always on his lips, he was always adorned with abstinence, he always rejoiced in bodily hardships, and diligently wore poor clothing. He never tasted beer or mead. Aspiring to the ascetic life, he considered all this unnecessary for human nature.”
For St. Sergius, the goal of ascetic life lies in the salvation of the soul through achieving communion with God and union with Him. This union is accomplished through prayer as an elevated state, inner concentration, abiding in silence, and a state of stillness. Here, a genetic connection can be traced with the spiritual experience of the aforementioned Byzantine theologian, St. John Climacus, who affirms: “Prudent silence is the mother of prayer… The lover of silence draweth near to God and, secretly conversing with Him, is enlightened by Him.”
The primary goal of personal self-perfection for St. Sergius of Radonezh lies in the gradual, continuous approach toward the Holy Trinity. This approach is achieved through the harmonious connection of spirit, soul, and body, and correspondingly through the interaction of reason, feeling, and will. According to St. Sergius, this interconnection is the result of the mutually coordinated activity of the inner faculties of the person, which are employed for the perfection of each of the three principles (reason, feeling, will) that constitute human nature.
The harmony of spirit, soul, and body can be attained by a person under the condition of observing and fulfilling the following principles:
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- Daily physical labor—the development of bodily strength;
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- Systematic engagement in prayer and communion with God;
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- Constant deepening of the spiritual principle within oneself, contemplation of one’s inner world with the aim of identifying and eradicating sinful passions and vices, and forming virtues.