21) Левитский С. Д.

The idea of ​​monasticism and the Valaam monastery community. Orthodox Review 1883 February, pp. 238–298; Mar., pp. 584–610. The author undertook the task of “finding out and revealing the idea of ​​monasticism and protecting it from various kinds of attacks” in connection with essays and impressions depicting a summer trip to Valaam and written by the famous writer V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, under the general title: “The Peasant Kingdom.” In these essays, two dominant thoughts and main trends run through them as a red thread. 1) The author of “The Peasant Kingdom” is decidedly not sympathetic to the very idea of ​​monasticism. He sincerely grieves and bitterly regrets that a lot of strength, energy, and labor are wasted unproductively and wasted aimlessly. He is horrified and amazed by the numbness and numbness that he, according to his assurances, observed in the mood of some Valaam hermits. 1359 According to him, “the feat of salvation may be great, but in this deadening situation it seems terrible. To deny the world, from the light, from life - isn’t this the greatest insult to the living God, isn’t it contempt for His creative power, which created this wonderful sky and these slowly rising and falling waves? I have never understood and will never understand asceticism. 1360 2) However, a secular writer noticed the beginning of a decisive retreat from this idea in the life, spirit and direction of the Valaam monastery: the majority of Valaam monks were seized by a practical direction, which was clearly expressed in the amazing buildings and exemplary management of the monastery. Among the hermits themselves, a decisive division in spirit occurred: according to the author, a silent, hidden, but important, fundamental struggle between the spirit of ancient asceticism and the new productive direction, characterized by the dominance of the economic principle over the spiritual and contemplative, began and is taking place. 1361 No matter how alien the contemplative, detached from life, idea is to the spirit of the everyday writer Balaam, he still gives it decisive preference over the new trend, yet he gravitates more towards the type of ancient asceticism, which seems to him much more sympathetic than the newly born practical, economic one. 1362 He fully sympathizes with the complaints of a few representatives of the contemplative movement that under the new order “there is no unity with God,” 1363 since “everything is for convenience and nothing for the soul.” 1364 G. Levitsky, bearing in mind the briefly stated thoughts of Nemirovich, in his article also pursues actually two tasks: to clarify the essence and significance of the contemplative direction in humanity, more particularly in Christianity, and 2) to show that the practical direction, economic concerns, and intense physical labor may not interfere with the implementation of the goals of Christian asceticism, that contemplative life and practical activity can be an expression of the same idea of Christian selflessness, only in different forms. How successfully has the interesting task posed by the author been accomplished, how deeply and truthfully does he resolve this important, fundamental question? G. Levitsky, undoubtedly, did not study the question posed thoroughly and independently, but limited himself to the general information at his disposal. However, his attempt to illuminate this issue should not, in our opinion, be passed over in silence, both in view of the small number of attempts of this kind in our country, which appear only sporadically in our theological literature, in the form of a rare and happy exception, and because in general he quite correctly grasped and accurately expounded the accepted and dominant point of view on the origin, essence and significance of the contemplative life in Christianity. So, let us turn to the consideration of the named article, at least only in its general thoughts and main provisions. With vivid, although not particularly original, features, having outlined the usual course of social life as the dominance of “greed and mutual human hatred”, “the frantic frenzy of all kinds of human passions in 1365, Levitsky tries to derive from this extremely hopeless state of human society “the internal psychological foundations by virtue of which a special type of people called monks has long existed.” 1366 There are people whose religious and moral needs take over their entire being! In their direction, they stand above everything worldly, which is decisively contrary to their spiritual make-up, to which they, therefore, do not feel any interest or attraction and in which, therefore, they cannot take any part. To enter into an active struggle against the evil that exists in society for them means “to taste all the nasty things generated by human passions, one contact with which produces a painful sensation inside them.” 1367 Since the necessary condition for the complete satisfaction of a person’s religious and moral needs is, undisturbed, inner peace, balance of spirit - qualities that cannot be acquired and preserved in the hustle and bustle of everyday struggle, it is quite understandable and natural that people of this mood “hurry to somehow get rid of this sinful, restless world, to get away from it” to a quiet, secluded place. 1368 If a person’s attention cannot properly concentrate on the sublime objects of religious contemplation while he is amid the noise of the vain world, then in solitude he can freely and completely devote himself to contemplation and self-examination. 1369 This goal is served by the fulfillment of the main monastic vows - chastity, obedience and non-covetousness, the “means” of successful implementation of which are, in turn, fasting and prayer. 1370 Chastity (one should say more precisely: celibacy) serves as “a means of acquiring the dominion of the spirit over the desires of the flesh,” so that the spirit can “feed on objects that are completely akin to it, 1371 in complete freedom from worldly cares.” “Obedience serves as a bulwark against the claims of human vanity and pride.” 1372 As for non-covetousness, “a monk in the full sense must be a beggar.” 1373 Fasting is important precisely because it does not give food to the desires of the flesh and helps the spirit to constantly remain on guard of its great cause. Prayer is an activity of this kind, “which is necessarily presupposed by the very characteristics of the monk’s vocation and mood. It is a powerful means of detaching the mind from preoccupation with everyday things and concentrating all attention on the highest Being and the objects of the heavenly world.” 1374 These are the essential provisions of the first group of thoughts of Mr. Levitsky, which determine the origin and essence of the “ancient” 1375 and, of course, the true type of monastic life. Briefly, this specific feature of monasticism, based on the author’s own reasoning, should be designated as undivided contemplation, excluding concentration on anything everyday or practical. But now Mr. Levitsky proceeds to analyze Nemirovich’s reasoning about the distortion of the ideal of contemplation on Valaam by the intrusion there of purely everyday, practical aspirations, according to the consciousness of some hermits, leading to the impossibility of engaging in undivided contemplation, shifting the center of gravity from the spirit to bodily comforts. When discussing these thoughts of Nemirovich, the tone and nature of Mr. Levitsky’s argument changes noticeably, although he himself, in all likelihood, does not notice this sharp change in point of view. Here are its main provisions. “The contemplative way of life and activity of a practical nature, although they usually stand in sharp opposition to each other, may not be mutually exclusive, but may be an expression of the same idea, just not in the same form and, therefore, lead to the same goal.” 1376 The contemplative and active directions “do not mutually exclude each other, but represent only different sides or forms of disclosure of the same idea”... 1377 “Ascetic goals can be achieved equally through a contemplative life - vigil, fasting and prayer, and practical intensive work that requires special exertion of a person’s physical strength”... “Both paths equally lead to the mortification of various kinds of passions nesting in a person, preventing him from devoting himself exclusively to moral and religious interests.” 1378 There is an obvious inconsistency in these arguments. After all, the author previously insisted that complete satisfaction of religious and moral needs, if not exclusively, then is best achieved through contemplation and unceasing prayer. Now it turns out that it is possible to realize religious and moral interests not only in contemplative, but also in practical life. However, “in the practical direction of the activities of monks” 1379 it must be remembered “that this activity is only a means to achieve higher ascetic goals.” 1380 That is, it turns out that practical activity is not the implementation (“form”) of the ascetic principle, but only a preparation, a lower step towards it, a temporary transitory measure. There is no reason, therefore, (from the author’s point of view) to assert “that both of them (i.e., both contemplative and active ways) can equally achieve the same results.” 1381 The question in essence, in depth, remained unclear in the article being analyzed, although some of the author’s thoughts are correct and are not even without some depth. The article under discussion serves as an illustration of the fact that it is not possible, either from a fundamental or a practical point of view, to draw a sharp line between contemplation and activity in the implementation of the Christian ideal and to see the full implementation of this ideal only in exclusive contemplation. Attempts of this kind will always be deeply inconsistent. And in this article, which is not devoid of interest, its beginning, its starting point, is not in harmony with the end, one group of thoughts with another: having begun with a categorical statement of the exclusivity of the contemplative form of life in the implementation of the Christian ideal, Mr. Levitsky ends with the recognition of the equality of the contemplative and active forms of life in this regard. III, p. 585. The struggle between these directions of monasticism is noticed and manifested not only now on Valaam and - undoubtedly - in other Orthodox monasteries, but it also took place much earlier, in the history of, for example, Athos. Here a dispute took place between the desert silent people (hesychasts), “who did not acquire any estates, did not stock up on draft animals, and ate the labor of their hands,” on the one hand, and the teacher. Athanasius of Athos, who “arranged a pier for secular visitors to Athos and folding cages, conducted from the heights. water into his very laurel, he planted vineyards,” etc. “All these innovations gave rise to discontent and murmuring in the non-covetous silent ones, who, having fled from the vain World, suddenly saw in themselves the affairs of the World, contrary to their rules.” Ep. Porfiry. The East is Christian. Athos, part III, dep. I, book. 2, pp. 77–78. It is interesting that the rules drawn up for this occasion, with the general consent of the abbots, called Τυπικόν (the first statute of Athos) spoke out on the subject of this dispute in principle in the sense that both sides were found right in everything, although this will seem strange to someone who cannot deeply and spiritually delve into matters (ibid.. p. 80): εύρέθη κατα πασαν ύπόθεσιν αμφότερα τα μέρη ανεύθυνα (ibid., p. 266.) [Manuscript of the Philoneevsky Monastery]. This charter approved the diversity of monastic life with equal rights on Athos, the life of the monastic cell and the desert-silent life, the life of the community and the solitary. Ibid., p. 102.