An Offering to Modern Monasticism

Approaching the end of my earthly journey, I considered it my duty to make a spiritual testament for the spiritual benefits with which the right hand of my God has rewarded me. I call a soul-saving word a testament: the executors of this word come into possession of spiritual benefits. I present my testament as a gift to my beloved fathers and brothers, to modern monks. I call monasticism a spiritual good that embraces and combines other blessings, to which I have been called since childhood by a wonderful calling and ineffable grace. I was not allowed to sacrifice my life to vanity and decay! I was taken and taken away from the wide path leading to eternal death, and placed on the narrow and regrettable path leading to the stomach. The narrow path has the deepest meaning: it lifts you up from the earth, leads you out of the darkness of vanity, leads you to heaven, leads you to paradise, leads you to God, places you before His face in the unfading light for eternal bliss. In order to make the will as satisfactory as possible, it was necessary to set it out in a book. The book contains rules for the outward behavior of monks and advice to them about spiritual feats or activities. With all fairness, I can call this work my mysterious confession. I ask you to accept confession with attention and Christian condescension! She deserves both. The teaching I propose is completely borrowed from the holy teaching of the holy fathers of the Orthodox Church, who became theoretically and experimentally familiar with the teaching of the Gospel and internalized this teaching. My omissions and hobbies, insufficiently firm and unswerving adherence to the instructions of the fathers, the lack of a gracious leader, frequent, almost constant meetings with leaders who were sick with blindness and self-delusion, voluntary and involuntary dependence on them, the environment everywhere with objects of temptation, and not edification, attention to teaching, to which the world, hostile to God, gave shine and importance to the highest wisdom and holiness, which, being darkness and filth, deserved only contempt and rejection, was the cause of many shocks for me. The shocks that I experienced were bitter, and heavy, and cruel, and stubbornly, painfully long. Shocks in the external situation, in the judgment of my conscience, mean nothing in comparison with the shocks to which the soul was subjected. The waves of the sea of ​​life are fierce; it is dominated by darkness and darkness; storms are constantly raised on it by fierce winds - rejected spirits; the ships are deprived of pilots; reliable harbors turned into whirlpools, into disastrous abysses; “every mountain and island moved from its spiritual places” (Apoc. 6:14); sinking seems inevitable. It would have been inevitable if God’s incomprehensible providence and equally incomprehensible mercy had not saved his chosen ones. “My soul has come many times” (Ps. 119:6), not finding a true refuge either outside or within itself. “The coal miner is in the dark of the depths, and there is no constancy” - the correct and firm mood of the soul, unshakable in virtue - “I came to the depths of the sea, and the storm drowned me. My voice has become weary, my throat has become silent, my eyes are lost from my hope in my God" (Ps. 69:3-4): "for the enemy has driven away my soul, he has humbled my belly to eat, he has made me sit in the dark to eat" (Ps. 143:3). “Like water poured out, and all my bones crumbled, like my strength became weak” (Ps. 21:15-16), “mortal diseases overpowered me, and the sweat of iniquity crushed me; the diseases of hell have overcome me, having preceded me to the snares of death” (Ps. 17:5–6), “my spirit is depressed within me, my heart is troubled” (Ps. 142:4). From this state I give a voice to my fathers and brothers, a voice of caring warning. This is what a traveler does who has suffered terrible disasters on a difficult and long journey! He passes on his notes, a precious treasure, to those who intend to undertake a similar journey or have already embarked on the journey without knowing it or having become familiar with it only superficially from outdated descriptions. Changes are indicated here, changes not in the essence, but in the environment that has a significant impact on the essence; here it is indicated how one should use the writings of the ancients and apply them to modern times, avoiding the false position with its consequences into which anyone who does not understand and does not notice the need for application is placed. Saint John Climacus says that some, walking through swampy places, got stuck in the mud and, covered with it, told how this happened to them to others who passed there, in order to save them. For the salvation of their neighbors, the Almighty delivered from the swamp those who, having fallen into it, warned their neighbors from falling into it. “Create the right course for your feet, and straighten your paths: do not deviate either by hand or by foot; turn your foot away from the path of evil. For the Lord knows the ways of the right hands, but those who are on the right side are corrupt: He makes your course the same, and makes haste in your walks in peace” (Prov. 4:26-29). Amen. You might be interested in: