Старческое окормление

The evil one rebels against nothing so much as at the care of the elderly 5: it destroys all his strength. Everywhere he tried to extinguish it - and extinguished it. There are monks who live regularly, but they know nothing about the revelation of thoughts, about eldership. Therefore, without eldership, in many monasteries there was only one form of monastic life, one appearance. Nowadays, rarely does anyone say the Jesus Prayer, and what is monasticism without the Jesus Prayer? Under Catherine II, the enemy initiated persecution of elders. She directly closed the monasteries; the elders and disciples fled, some to Athos, some to Western Orthodox states. One of them, Paisiy Velichkovsky, fled to Athos... His disciples again planted eldership here and in other monasteries after they were allowed to return to Russia again. And the elders flourished... And now they have faded away everywhere, forgotten. You might be interested in: