FRIENDS OF MOUNT ATHOS BOOK REVIEWS

© 1996

The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain: Contemporary Voices from Mount Athos. Translated with introduction and notes by Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin). South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon's Seminary Press, 1996. 311 pages. Price p/b £18.75. ISBN 1-878997-48-3. Available in the UK from Orthodox Christian Book Service, 95 Spencer Street, Birmingham B18 6DA.

Here is an anthology of some of the best of modern Athonite spiritual writing. English readers, including this reviewer, may have felt frustrated at hearing that the Holy Mountain is once again functioning as the spiritual heart of Orthodoxy and yet being able to read so little evidence of the fact, at least in English. Our frustration is ended by the publication of this variegated garland.

The volume has been assembled (and most of its contents translated) by Priest Monk Alexander (Golitzin) who was tonsured at Simonopetra and now teaches theology at Marquette University in the United States. Fr Alexander may have left the Holy Mountain in body, but he has surely not done so in spirit. His devotion to his Athonite fathers and brothers and to the paradise that they inhabit shines through on every page. European readers should not be deterred by the book's dedication to the translator's fellow Orthodox in North America: it has a universal appeal. In his Preface Fr Alexander reveals that his motive in preparing the book is to counter the reaction of those readers in the West who question the 'relevance' of an institution that is 'so old and so lacking in apparent social utility' as Mount Athos: 'In a world of Silicon Valleys who needs a Holy Mountain?' The answer is eloquently spelled out on the pages that follow.

An introductory chapter on 'Athos, Past and Present' sets the scene for the spiritual texts that follow. Fr Alexander invites those familiar with the history of Athos and the place of monasticism in the Orthodox Church to skip these preliminaries and proceed directly to the body of the book. He should not be so modest. His 'Capsule History' is highly pertinent to what follows and well worth reading. His defence of the monastic life in a world obsessed with productivity ('Why Monks?') is as cogent as any I have read.

Part One ('On the Way to the Holy Mountain') comprises two chapters, both from the pen of Archimandrite Placide (Deseille). The first ('Stages of a Pilgrimage') is his spiritual autobiography, charting a journey that began with his entry into a Cistercian monastery at the age of sixteen and reached a climax with his baptism and subsequent tonsure at Simonopetra some thirty-four years later. His insistence that he has not 'changed Churches' but rather returned to the 'common source' of the Church of Christ is persuasive. But his plea that the plurality of Orthodox jurisdictions in France today be seen as a unifying factor in the spirit of Athonite pan-Orthodoxy has a hollow ring in the wake of Estonia 1996. His other piece, 'Mount Athos and Europe', can have left his audience (representatives of the EEC) in no doubt as to the vital role that Athos can expect to play in the Europe of today.

Part Two ('The Garden of the Theotokos, Portal of the Kingdom') is a mixed bag consisting of three short documents: an anonymous piece on 'The Garden of the Mother of God'; a biographical sketch of St Simon the Myrrh-Flowing, extracted from the Orthodox Synaxarion compiled by Priest Monk Makarios of Simonopetra; and 'The Tomos of Mount Athos in Defense of the Hesychasts', written by St Gregory Palamas and signed by all the leading Athonites in 1340-1. The last sits a little uneasily in the present collection and does not make easy reading; but it is a fundamental text for all that has happened since, so it is very useful to have it here.

Thus prepared by a lengthy but necessary novitiate, the reader can at last immerse himself in the wisdom of the Fathers, for here, in Part Three, 'we arrive at the heart of the Holy Mountain'. In a piece entitled 'The Light of the Holy Mountain' Fr Makarios of Simonopetra embraces the reader and transports him like a pilgrim to Athos where he is 'no longer alone in the world, but... a member of a vast family... an adopted son of the Mother of God'. This leads naturally into 'A Contemporary Athonite Paterikon' - a compendium of spiritual anecdotes, 'a few pearls of an inexhaustible treasure', wonderfully evocative of the oral tradition of Athonite spirituality that naturally forms part of nearly every conversation on the Holy Mountain. Just to give a taste of it, I quote one paragraph from the stories about Fr Joseph the Hesychast (d. 1959):

During this period, in spite of all his efforts, he could not get past the stage of vocal prayer. As soon as he would stop repeating aloud 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me...', his concentration would break up in different thoughts. One day, as he was looking toward Athos to ask the Mother of God to help him in his distress, he saw suddenly a flash of light, accompanied by a violent wind, burst forth from the chapel of the Transfiguration which is located on the peak of the mountain. The radiance bent in an arc from its point of origin directly to Father Joseph, penetrating right to his heart: 'I immediately felt altogether transformed. I was filled with light and could no longer feel whether I had a body or not. At that point, the prayer began to repeat itself in my heart with the steadiness and regularity of a clock.' He re-entered his cave and sat down, his chin upon chest, to follow the prayer in his heart. But then he was carried off in ecstasy. He felt he had found himself transported to heaven, to a place where there reigned an indescribable calm and peace. One thought alone came to him 'Oh God, make it so that I never return to the world, but stay here always, with you.' From that time on the prayer never stopped resonating in his heart.

In Part Four, 'The Spiritual Father', the reader is at last introduced to Archimandrite Aemilianos, Abbot of Simonopetra, a revered figure and one of the principal movers in the current revival on Athos. Beginning as a solitary hermit at the Meteora, he has become a father to hundreds of monks and thousands more in the outside world. There is no one better equipped to discuss 'The Role of the Spiritual Father in an Orthodox Monastery', an interview given for the film Athos, 1000 Years Are as a Day (1981). His next piece, on 'Martyrdom: Foundation of Orthodox Monasticism', was a conference paper delivered in Thessalonica in 1980. From yet another context follows 'Mount Athos: Sacred Vessel of the Prayer of Jesus', extracts from a sermon delivered at the cathedral of Drama in 1983. These are but the appetizers preparing us for the abbot's pièce de résistance - 'The Experience of the Transfiguration in the Life of the Athonite Monk' - a poetic hymn to light, deeply learned, profoundly theological, a powerful example of charismatic writing - Athonite spirituality at its very best!

Fr Aemilianos is as much loved off the Holy Mountain as on it, and nowhere more so than at the women's monastery at Ormylia. The final part of the book, 'Saint Herman of Alaska: Athos in America, and America's Gift to Athos', demonstrates how, in the life and work of St Herman, the Athonite tradition has travelled not just to Russia but even to the uttermost limits of the earth. Some 150 years after his death the saint has completed the circle of his pilgrimage with the return of his relics to Greece, and the book ends with two sermons by Fr Aemilianos celebrating their reception at Ormylia.

I hope that I have conveyed an impression of the rich repast that awaits the reader of this admirable book. The translator has discharged his role with consummate skill and humility. He writes well himself; and he has the gift of making words written or spoken in another language sound as fresh as when they were first uttered. The annotations are scholarly without being turgid (but the list of monasteries currently directed by disciples of Fr Joseph the Hesychast on p.289 n.18 should include Vatopedi); and the Annotated Bibliography is invaluable. The illustrations, drawn by Fr Tikhon, are delightfully apposite. Anyone wishing to know more about the spiritual traditions of Mount Athos should buy this book.

GRAHAM SPEAKE

Oxford