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3the Tension of Hesychia (Stillness) - PEMPTOUSIA

The document discusses the tension between inner stillness and activity in spiritual life. It describes two kinds of stillness - disengaging from external activities, and disengaging from thoughts by surrendering to God. True inner stillness requires a struggle and martyrdom of the conscience. It also discusses distinguishing between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God, and between the kingdoms of this world and God's kingdom.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
69 views5 pages

3the Tension of Hesychia (Stillness) - PEMPTOUSIA

The document discusses the tension between inner stillness and activity in spiritual life. It describes two kinds of stillness - disengaging from external activities, and disengaging from thoughts by surrendering to God. True inner stillness requires a struggle and martyrdom of the conscience. It also discusses distinguishing between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God, and between the kingdoms of this world and God's kingdom.

Uploaded by

RintuMathunni
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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12/11/2020 The Tension of Hesychia (Stillness) | PEMPTOUSIA

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Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou
The Tension of Hesychia (Stillness)

The Tension of Hesychia (Stillness) They feel embarrassed

8 December 2020 1st eSynaxis from Mount Athos with Elder


Ephraim and Russian Speaking Faithful

 In this way, man’s whole being which is now unified, cleaves to God. And whoever cleaves to God, They’ll dwindle
becomes one spirit with Him, according to the word of the Apostle: ‘He that is joined unto the Lord Questions and Answers for the Article
is one spirit.’[13] This sacred activity is the knowledge of thoughts, and the fact that it is ‘an “The Tension of Hesychia”
inviolable mind’ means that, for as long as it lasts, the mind of the Christian remains continually
united with God and nothing can separate it from Him. Photo Gallery
Many people have zeal. They pray and receive grace, but they fail to preserve it because they have The stone bridges of Grevena
not learnt to guard their mind against bad thoughts. For as long as the mind remains unfenced, the 3 September 2020
thoughts freely enter in and grace is lost, until man learns not only to ‘work’ Paradise, but also to
‘keep’[14] it through the guarding of the mind.

The two kinds of stillness are described in simple words in this saying of the Desert Fathers:
‘Confine your body in your cell and your mind in your body.’

The first stillness consists in disengaging from external activities whereas the second in
disengaging from thoughts, by laying aside every reflection and crucifying the reason.

The second presupposes the perfect surrendering of the ascetic into the mighty hands of God and
his continual abiding in His Spirit. This is true inner stillness, and those who have tried to acquire it
have found that it has nothing to do with idleness, but rather requires a struggle unto death.  The
saying of the saints, ‘Give blood and receive the Spirit,’ is not an exaggerated expression, nor the The island of Our Lady of Charon
31 August 2020
fruit of morbid imagination. Inner stillness is the fruit and the crown of inner martyrdom, the
martyrdom of the conscience.[15]

Like Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians, Saint Gregory Palamas makes a distinction between
the fleshly wisdom[16] of the world ruled by the prince of darkness, and the wisdom of God, ‘the
wisdom from above’, which is ‘peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy’.[17] The
first is the wisdom of philosophers, of all the wise and prudent of this world. Whilst the wisdom of
God is spiritual, and in order to acquire it, one does not need a great intellect, nor high education,
but only discipleship to the Cross of Christ. True wisdom is acquired, when man cleanses the image
of God that he bears within and acquires intimacy with Him, that is, when the Giver of knowledge
makes His abode in his heart.  In order to show the pre-eminence of this wisdom, the Lord did not
choose philosophers, but poor, simple and uneducated fishermen as His disciples.

Saint Gregory also speaks about two kingdoms. The first belongs to the prince of this world. The
second, which is invisible, ‘is not of this world, not from hence’;[18] it is the blessed and all-good Video Gallery
Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. When man comes to know that this
Science and Orthodoxy around the World – A
world ‘lieth in wickedness’,[19] He becomes sober, vigilant, discerning. With the help of the
Documentary Film
commandments, he begins the struggle of discerning the Kingdom of God from the kingdom of the
17 November 2020
enemy, for the borderline between the two is not always clear.

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The Kingdom of God is also present in this world, but in a mystical, spiritual way. It manifests itself
only in pure vessels ‘sealed with the Spirit’,[20] made ready to accommodate it, vessels which, like
unto the Holy Virgin, receive the gift of the Lord and seal it, not allowing even the slightest particle
of this treasure to be lost. Christ Himself declared that, ‘the kingdom of God is within you.’[21] The
Kingdom of God is concealed as a pearl of great price in the heart of man, if it is pure and
sanctified.

A great gulf separates the Kingdom of the glory of God from the natural kingdom, and this gulf is
bridged by the kingdom of grace. As a transitional state, the intermediate kingdom is a place of
initiation, of learning how grace acts, how it is acquired and how it is preserved. It gradually
renders the Christian fit for the Kingdom of glory, wherein he will be finally assimilated. Through
the water of Baptism and the tears of repentance, the man who has not yet become a partaker of 3rd e-Synaxis from Holy Mount Athos with
the Kingdom is transfigured and receives the seed of deification, the garment that will grant him Elder Ephraim and ASCOR- IASI, Romania
5 November 2020
entrance into the Bridechamber of the Lord.

After the fall, man belongs to ‘the people which sat in darkness; to them that dwell in the land of
the shadow of death’.[22] His mind is blurred, stained, and his senses burdened because of his
attachment to the visible world. His darkened intellect is in a state of lethargy and does not allow
him to come to himself so as to behold the unapproachable Light.

In his Triads, Saint Gregory Palamas refers to the vision of the uncreated Light, which is given only
to a few in every generation; to those who, hating even their own life, have surrendered
themselves to merciless and inconsolable repentance, and who humble themselves until their soul
cleaves unto the dust.[23] In this way, they become as pure as the sun, able to be penetrated by
the Light of God, pierced through by the uncreated lightning of Divinity.

This Light is God Himself in the form of His energy and, according to Saint Symeon the New Music
Theologian, His radiance heals every wound of the soul and transforms the psychological man into
spiritual, rendering him able to ‘judge all things, though he himself is judged of no man’.[24] ‘At your deathless Dormition’, plagial tone
two (Choir of Vatopaidi)
Impossible to be described by poor human words, this radiance is fulness of life.  It is called Light,
14 August 2020
not because it resembles the light of the physical sun, but because it bears an analogy with it and
gives life to those it illumines.

For as long as the mind is separated from the heart, man is ill.  When, however, he finds his deep
heart, he is healed and ‘set at liberty’,[25] even though he continues to move and live in this
unstable world. The tragedy of contemporary man lies in that he lives outside of his heart,
although often he is even an active member of the Church.  For this reason, the teaching of Saint
Gregory about the union of mind and heart is particularly relevant for our times. The axis around
which modern civilisation develops is comfort and avoidance of every kind of self-restraint.  It is
perhaps for this reason that it is not easy for this generation to make spiritual progress.  The
expression ‘mourning that brings gladness’ seems incomprehensible, since people nowadays reject
every pain and particularly the life-giving pain of repentance.
“Let us celebrate the feast of Pentecost” –
The more man becomes ‘past feeling’[26] by shaking off every pain, the more the mind is darkened Elder Stefanos of the Daniilei Brotherhood
5 June 2020
and fails to acquire spiritual sight. More often than not, the industrious man of our times is not
preoccupied with his heart. He ignores the existence of the spiritual heart and thus he does not
even attempt to discover its wondrous place, so as to enter within and become unassailable in
temptations.

All gifts have come into the world first through the descent of the Son of God on earth and to the
nether regions, and then through His ascent above all heavens.[27] In a way, the same things are
also repeated in man. First, the mind is crucified by the wisdom of the Crucified God through
obedience, the keeping of the commandments and the invocation of His Holy Name. Through the
pain of crucifixion, the mind descends into the heart, first into the fleshly heart and then ‘into those
depths that are no longer of the flesh.’[28] Then man unexpectedly discovers and meets the
Saviour Lord and comes to know His invincible power. In this way, repentance and pain become
precious in the striving to find the heart and become like unto Christ, Who is ‘suffering’ in this
world, as we read in the Book of Acts.[29]

Just as in the beginning of creation the Spirit of God ‘moved upon the face of the waters’[30] and
hatched the abyss of nothingness, from which this wondrous and manifold world suddenly
appeared through the word of God, so also the Name of the Almighty Jesus moves over the chest
of the Christian and ‘hatches’ his heart until he finds contact with the Holy of holies and discovers
his deep heart, so precious to his Creator.

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For the healing of the soul and the union of mind and heart, the Fathers recommend with
particular emphasis spiritual mourning and tears, that is, the extreme pain of inconsolable
mourning, brought about by the awareness of the distance which separates man from his Creator;
the mourning of the man who ‘perishes with hunger’[31] far from the house of his Father and
wallows in the mire of the passions, although he was created for the light and the abundance of
the Kingdom.

When man is healed and his nature unified, power errupts from within him and he begins to
experience ‘ascents in his heart’,[32] the reflections of the grace of God. Then ‘the true man goeth
forth unto his work and to his true labour until the evening.’[33] Another sun rises in his heart,
another morning star, and man becomes a true worker of godliness, knowing how to ‘perfect
holiness in the fear of God’.[34] Then he renders unto God those things that He deserves,
‘whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any
virtue, and if there be any praise’.[35]

This text will be published as a chapter in Archimandrite Zacharias’ next book Alive from the Dead.

[13] 1 Cor. 6:17.

[14] Cf. Gen. 2:15.

[15] See 2 Cor. 1:12.

[16] 2 Cor. 1:12.

[17] Cf. Jas. 3:17.

[18] John 18:36.

[19] 1 John 5:19.

[20] Eph. 1:13.

[21] Luke 17:21.

[22] Cf. Matt. 4:16; Isa. 9:2.

[23] Cf. Ps. 118:25.

[24] Cf. 1 Cor. 2:15.

[25] Cf. Luke 4:18.

[26] Cf. Eph. 4:19.

[27] Cf. Eph. 4:8-10.

[28] Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), Saint Silouan the Athonite, trans. Rosemary Edmonds, (Tolleshunt Knights,
Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1991), p. 47.

[29] Acts 26:23.

[30] Cf. Gen.  1:2.

[31] Cf. Luke 15:17.

[32] Cf. Ps. 83:6 (LXX).

[33] Cf. Ps. 104:23.

[34] 2 Cor. 7:1.

[35] Phil.  4:8.

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