The Shepherd, December 2009
The following work, which we hope to serialise, was written in 1941 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, when the author was an Hegoumen. After the collapse of Eastern Europe, he settled in the United States of America and eventually became Archbishop of Syracuse and Holy Trinity Monastery. He was renowned as a homilist and a staunch confessor of Orthodoxy. The Russian original of the present work was then re-published by his monastery with the endorsement below with which he prefaces it.
ON MONASTICISM
By the Ever-Memorable Archbishop Averky
of Jordanville
Dedicated to a reborn Russian Monasticism in a reborn Russia!
A FEW WORDS FROM THE AUTHOR
FOR THE AMERICAN EDITION
We compiled this work in Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, when the believing Russian people had a manifest hope that their homeland would be liberated from the cruel yoke of the godless, and that she might be reborn to a new and radiant life. For this reason it was dedicated to a “reborn Russian monasticism.”
We maintain that the work has nonetheless not lost its significance both for monasticism in the diaspora and for that in a future Russia, if by the mercy of God on account of the repentance of the Russian people, the Lord judge that she might be resurrected, even if, as has been prophesied, only for a short time.
Monasticism has always fulfilled a great ministry in the true Church of Christ, and without genuine monasticism the True Church of Christ is unthinkable. History bears witness to this.
We shall be happy if our work serves even the slightest use in the great labour of the rebirth of monasticism for our afflicted homeland.
+ Archbishop Averky
ON MONASTICISM
“Truly good and pleasant is the monastic life - truly good and pleasant if it is in accord with the regulations and canons which were laid down by its founders and directors, who were instructed by the Holy Spirit.”
Saint Theodore of Edessa (48th chapter of his works),
He was a strict Ascetic and Father of the Church of the ninth century.
THIS WORLD “which lieth in evil” does not bear in mind and value many of the most beautiful things. All the exalted beauty of the monastic struggle is inaccessible to its understanding. Contemporary man, in particular, is too chained to the earth, and therefore devotes all his attention only to material aims. If it has not been completely rejected, for the majority of contemporary people even the spiritual side of life only has any value insofar as it serves for the betterment of material wellbeing here on earth. People today are too coarsely and narrowly utilitarian, in a purely worldly sense. Everything which cannot immediately present itself to their view as of purely practical use, in the sense of furthering their material comfort or their good standing, people here on earth reject without a thought, as being unnecessary, senseless or useless.
It is by this very thing that the main cause of attacks on monasticism is defined, attacks by contemporary man, even by people who consider themselves to be Christian. Nor is it only coarse people and those who are openly and candidly cynical who attack monasticism. They also do not love monasticism, or are not overly fond of it, who although they recognise a spiritual purpose in life, yet in the very depths of their souls, somewhere in their subconscience, feed themselves on a purely materialistic ideology, which thus serves as the basis of their personal life, as the guiding motivation for their actions and their conduct. And so, outwardly, but not deeply and only superficially, they acknowledge its claim to be respected and revered because of its spiritual values, but this diffidence of theirs towards monasticism is of necessity not well-grounded. And so they find only a supposed ideological reason for it.
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