The Hesychast renewal of Romanian monasticism, brought about by the tireless work of Saint Paisie of Neamț, led to an unprecedented expansion of patristic translations into Romanian, but above all an intensification of the practice of the prayer of the heart in communal monasteries. The Jesus Prayer has been a spiritual reality present in Romanian monasticism, without interruption, since the 14th century; however, it was associated primarily with hermitic and ascetic monasticism, and to a lesser extent with communal monasticism. It was Saint Paisius who strengthened cenobitic monasticism in the Romanian Principalities in the 18th century, introducing monological prayer into the order of communal monastic life: ‘This Hesychasm, brought into the community and into communal life, formed the strength of Orthodox spirituality in those times and in those parts of the Romanian lands’1 Thus, through all his labours, he succeeded in establishing in the monasteries of the Romanian Lands, as well as in Ukraine and Russia, the Athonite patristic tradition of practising the Jesus Prayer not only in hermitages, but also in monastic communities, ‘at a time of great trial for Christianity, faced with a major spiritual crisis across almost the whole of Europe’2). Thus, it is no surprise that Paisianism has also been analysed as a cultural and spiritual movement that emerged as a counterbalance to the Enlightenment, which sought to make human reason autonomous, isolating it from the divine Logos, from the divine Light: “It is worth noting that 18th-century Orthodox Hesychasm, cultivated with great intensity within the international monastic community at Neamț Monastery (Romanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians) as if in a laboratory for the descent of Heaven into the world and of the mind into the heart, represented, in Voltaire’s rationalist century, a significant distinction and demarcation between the isolated human reason of Western culture and the prayerful reason, in divine-human communion, of Eastern spirituality’3
The monk’s principal task, as ordained by the Venerable Paisius, was the ceaseless recitation of the prayer of the heart: ‘In their cells, the brothers must live in the fear of God and according to the tradition of the Holy Fathers, preferring prayer with the mind above all other ascetic practices, as it is performed in the heart through the love of God and springs from the virtues, as many God-bearing Fathers teach concerning this. In addition to prayer, they should also devote themselves to the singing of the Psalms, the moderate reading of the Old and New Testaments, and the writings of the Holy Fathers4”.
The Venerable Paisius of Neamț wrote two apologetic works in defence of the prayer of the mind; both writings served a specific pastoral purpose and were preceded by a treatise, composed during his stay on the Holy Mountain, as a reply to a letter from the Moldavian abbot Athanasius of the Kavsokalivia hermitage, who accused him, amongst other things, of having replaced part of the established liturgical services with the Jesus Prayer. Thus, in several chapters, he defended the practice of this prayer. The correspondence with Athanasius of Moldavia appears to date from 1757–1758, “when the Paisian community was still at the hermitage of Saint Constantine, completing the construction of the cells there, and before Abbot Paisie was ordained a priest in 1758”5. Saint Paisie’s letter to the abbot of Kavsokalivia reveals, in the person of the Venerable Paisie, an abbot of exceptional theological learning, already at the height of his spiritual maturity.
His biographer, Serghie Cetfericof, writing about the theological dispute between the two monks, noted: ‘But at the same time, enemies arose against the abbot, who envied his fame, or suspected him of not observing church rules. Among them was a certain Abbot Athanasius from Moldavia, who lived with his disciples at the Capsocaliva hermitage: a pious man and zealous for the faith, but not sufficiently informed about Paisius’s teachings and way of life. The accusations levelled by Athanasius against Paisius were as follows: that Paisius did not respect and was undermining the rule of prayer established by the Church for monks; that he misinterpreted the writings of Saint Gregory of Sinai; that he did not follow the guidance of his spiritual father; that he resembled the Pope of Rome, who acknowledges the Church’s commandments in word but tramples them underfoot in deed; that he had substituted his own rules for those of the Church; that he perceives errors amongst the Greeks; that he forbids the excommunication of heretics, claiming that this right belongs solely to the bishops; that he relies confidently on Greek manuscripts and replaces ecclesiastical rule with the Jesus Prayer. Athanasius urges Paisius to repent and not to depart from the communal practice of the Holy Mountain”6
It is certain that this correspondence took place in Romanian, for, unlike other writings by Paisius, both Athanasius’s letter to the Venerable Paisius and the latter’s reply have been preserved in several Romanian manuscripts, having been translated into Church Slavonic only later. Thus, the oldest manuscript of this correspondence in Romanian that has survived to the present day “dates from 1768 and was produced at Dragomirna Monastery by the monk Rafail of Hurez (cf. B.A.R., Romanian manuscripts, no. 5110, ff. 1–86v)”7
In response to the accusations made by this abbot, Saint Paisie of Neamț replied with a letter, in fourteen chapters, in which he demonstrated, invoking the testimony of the Holy Fathers, that what he had done was in the authentic spirit of our Church’s tradition. Before composing his reply, he consulted his spiritual father, with whom ‘he went to the most senior synodal spiritual fathers, who, having examined Athanasius’s letter, commanded Paisios to write a reply to it and to refute Athanasius’s unjust accusations; and if the latter did not acknowledge his guilt and repent, they resolved to rebuke him openly at the council of the whole of Mount Athos’8’.
In his letter to Athanasius, Saint Paisios emphasised, amongst other things, the benefit of reading the works of the Holy Fathers and their importance in spiritual guidance, as well as the importance of discernment and enlightened reason: ‘I wished to remind you, Father, of many necessary things, but above all else, I ask this of you: that you cast aside and abandon this notion of not reading books, for you can see into what pit of ruin you have fallen, together with your disciples, in opposition to the Holy Church, because you do not read books with due attention. For I praise your life, I bless your ascetic endeavours, and I benefit from your company. But this asceticism of yours must be accompanied by reason and discernment, so that all your labour may not be in vain, but that your life and all your conduct may be in accordance with the power of Holy Scripture […]. Therefore, Father Athanasius, if you wish to save yourself and to show your disciples the royal path of God’s commandments—which leads to the Kingdom of Heaven—devote yourself wholeheartedly to the reading of the books9”.
In the same letter, addressed to the monk Athanasius of the Kavsokalivia hermitage, Saint Paisios the Pious points to his abbot, Saint Basil the Pious of Poiana Mărului, as the true guarantor of his teaching and work: “As for my abbot, Father Basil, I declare to you that this man is attested to not only by the whole of Russia, Wallachia and Moldavia, but also by three patriarchs: those of Alexandria, Antioch, and of Jerusalem; and many bishops, whilst in Bucharest and having heard of him, summoned him to Bucharest. And after consulting and deliberating on his behalf, they questioned him at length both regarding the holy faith and the teaching with which he instructs the brethren who live with him and those who come to him. And finding him blameless and unshaken in the Orthodox faith, and having examined his teachings, and realising that he spoke not of his own accord but taught solely from the authority of Holy Scripture, and seeing that he followed in all things the teachings of the holy teachers of the Church and in the footsteps of the most reverend Fathers, and finding no fault in him whatsoever, the most holy patriarchs rejoiced greatly andblessed him, and bore witness for him before the whole assembly, saying that no one should doubt his teaching. But even here, Father Athanasius, on the Holy Mountain, many honourable figures know my abbot’10’.
In defending the practice of unceasing prayer and the writings of Saint Gregory of Sinai, which deal with this form of prayer, the Venerable Paisius wrote: ‘The blind man, who has never seen the sun, even though he hears from everyone of its splendour and light, is not so delighted as he who sees the radiance of the sun’s light with his own eyes. Likewise, one who has never tasted honey, even though he often hears of its sweetness, cannot comprehend its sweetness in the same way as one who, having tasted it many times, has been delighted by it. Likewise, Your Holiness, not only have you never read or seen the book of Saint Gregory of Sinai, but you have only heard of it—and even then, rarely—yet now you wish to speak of what Saint Gregory teaches. Listen, then, and take heed, so that you may understand the power of Saint Gregory’s book11’.
In responding to all the accusations levelled by the monk Athanasius, the Reverend Paisius brought about such a radical change in the latter’s thinking that ‘he acknowledged his wrongdoing, repented by going to the abbot and asked for forgiveness. Paisius joyfully forgave Athanasius, and complete peace was restored between them’12.
The first work devoted solely to the defence of the practice of unceasing prayer, composed by Saint Paisius of Neamț, is A Treatise on the Prayer of the Mind. This work is a response, dated 1770 and in the form of a letter, to the defamation of this prayer by a Ukrainian monk from the Moșesnki Mountains, followed, a few years later by a second treatise, composed at the request of the abbot Agaton of Poiana Voronei Monastery and the fathers and brothers of that monastery, against ‘a blasphemer of the writings of the Holy Fathers who teaches the prayer of the mind’, Teopempt of Poiana Voronei.
The first of these two works was composed in 1770 and comprises six chapters, preceded by a ‘preface’. His biographer, explaining the reasons that led the Venerable Paisius to compose this work, wrote: ‘Even in the very first years of his stay at Dragomirna, the abbot had to come to the defence of the Jesus Prayer, that is, of communing with Christ through inner prayer, as the most effective means of overcoming evil thoughts and attaining purity of heart. In the Moșenschih Mountains of Ukraine, a monk had emerged who rejected the prayer of the mind as heresy and error. This monk gained such influence over his community that some, heeding his teachings, gathered the books of the Holy Fathers which spoke of the prayer of the mind, tied stones to them, and threw them into the water. The abbot, upon hearing of this, wrote a treatise of six chapters on the prayer of the mind, which he sent to the misguided monks”13.
One of the manuscripts containing this treatise was described by Fr. Paul Mihail and Zamfira Mihail as forming part of a miscellany discovered in the Library of the Metropolis of Moldavia in Iași: Miscellany: Letters of Abbot Paisie Velicicovschi, and with the subtitle: ‘The treatise on the prayer of the mind by our abbot, Archimandrite Paisie’, divided into chapters, with a preface, written whilst still at Dragomirna Monastery, with the year of composition specified; the text is contained on folios 208–251v of this manuscript 14. In the ‘preface’ to this work, the purpose and circumstances of its composition are explained: ‘For it has come to my ears, I who am the very last, that some within the monastic order dare to blaspheme the divine, ever-memorable and God-working Prayer of Jesus, which is performed with a sanctified mind in the heart, they are founded upon the sand of their own opinions, without any testimony, in such a sickness of their tongues, with which, I dare say, the enemy arms them, as though with his instrument – their tongues – they might slander this most righteous and divine work and, through the blindness of their minds, might darken this sun of the mind’15 In Chapter I of the Chapters on the Prayer of the Mind, the Venerable Paisios shows that the prayer of the mind is the ceaseless work of the Holy Fathers of old ‘and in many deserted places and in communal monasteries it shone like the sun amongst the monks: on Mount Sinai, in the Skete of Egypt, on Mount Nitria, in Jerusalem and in the monasteries surrounding Jerusalem, and, quite simply, throughout the East – in Tsarigrad and on the Holy Mountain of Athos, and on the islands of the seas, and more recently, by the grace of Christ, in great Russia’16 In Chapter II, Saint Paisios of Neamț explains ‘where this prayer of the mind has its origin and what testimonies from Holy Scripture the God-bearing Fathers offer concerning it’ (p. 167). Chapter III deals “with the fact that the holy prayer of the mind is a spiritual craft” (p. 194), and “this spiritual craft is the true and enduring work of monks, so that not only through the renunciation of the world and of those who are in the world […], but that monks may have their work (life) and through the spiritual mind itself, in attending to the inner man, and through prayer, which differs from and far surpasses that of laypeople” (pp. 195–196). Chapter IV sets out “what preparation is required of one who wishes to attain this divine work” (p. 195), whilst also emphasising that prayer itself will become a teacher of prayer, writing: ‘In various ways, the grace of God will hasten to him and guide him, through the prayers of the Holy Fathers, so that he may, without any doubt, master this divine work’ (p. 197). Chapter V explains ‘what this holy Jesus Prayer is in terms of its nature and effect’ (p. 197), as well as the fact that ‘those who wish to be united with the love of the most sweet Jesus, disregarding all the beauties and pleasures of this world and bodily comfort, will desire nothing else in this life but to devote themselves forever to this heavenly work in prayer” (p. 201). The final chapter, the sixth, shows ‘how we must teach ourselves from the very beginning to practise this divine prayer with the mind within the heart’ (p. 201).
This six-chapter treatise, composed in defence of unceasing prayer, details the biblical and patristic foundations of this prayer, the preparation required of those who wish to practise the Jesus Prayer, the methods of this prayerful work, as well as its effects, emphasising that those who speak or write against this inner practice do so solely out of ignorance of the writings of Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers.
A final work in which Saint Paisius of Neamț defends the Jesus Prayer—and which, in fact, follows on from his 1770 treatise—is a response, this time to the slanderous remarks made by the monk Teopempt of Poiana Voronei Monastery concerning the works of the Holy Fathers on the prayer of the heart. This letter from Saint Paisie, dated 1793, contains a series of instructions on unceasing prayer, concluding with a list of the Holy Fathers who wrote on the prayer of the heart, along with a brief description of their works. The original Slavonic manuscript is held at the Library of the St Petersburg Academy, in the collection of A.I. Yatimirski, whilst the oldest copy appears to be that held at the Library of the Romanian Academy, mss. Slavonic no. 380, ff. 68–89v, compiled by the monastic sister Mitrofan at Neamț Monastery in 1793. A Romanian translation of this letter dates from the following year, 1794, and is preserved in Chișinău in the book collection of the Library of the Noul Neamț Monastery (17). Father Paul Mihail edited Abbot Paisie’s correspondence with the community at Poiana Voronei Monastery from other copies of the Paisian manuscript, preserved at Rila Monastery in Bulgaria: ‘At Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, in 1931, in manuscript L 4/20, I came across the entire correspondence between Poiana Vorona Monastery and Abbot Paisie, and subsequently with Archimandrite Sofronie, also from Neamț Monastery. It is a copy written immediately after Abbot Paisie’s death, like so many of his other writings scattered amongst the monasteries where he had been or with which he had connections and disciples’18”. The correspondence of the Venerable Paisie concerning this matter “consists of the petition from the council to the superior of Poiana Voronei Monastery, regarding the hieromonk Teopempt, the blasphemer of the writings of the Holy Fathers and the Jesus Prayer. It is dated 14 June 1793 (in the edition of the letters published by Valentina Pelin, the date given is 17 June). The second letter is from Abbot Agathon to Archimandrite Paisie, the abbot of Neamț Monastery, in which, setting out the council’s petition, he asks that he not be left without guidance and enlightenment on this matter, ‘as the Holy Spirit Himself shall reveal to them’19
The Holy and Venerable Paisie of Neamț, setting out the reasons that led him to compose his letter, wrote: “Because a certain member of the council of fathers at Poiana Voronei, by the name of Teopempt, a worthy hieromonk, having made himself a second Calavrit, began to utter grave blasphemies against the Holy Prayer of Our Lord Jesus Christ and against the Holy Fathers who taught it, and even those who have held it and still hold it today; he blasphemed and branded the fathers of the hermitage as heretics, even going so far as to call them ‘Pharmazoni’20’. For this reason, the fathers of the council of Poiana Voronei Monastery asked Saint Paisios to compose a work in defence of the prayer of the heart: “An urgent necessity compels us to appeal to your holiness and fatherly love, to which we turn without hesitation, as though we were orphans, and we give thanks to our Almighty Creator that He still preserves you in this life for our common benefit. And by this, we bring to your attention the case of the hieromonk Teopempt, who dwells in the Voronii hermitage, concerning whom it has now been clearly proven that he has revealed himself to be a shameless blasphemer against the Divine Scriptures, that is to say, the holy books of the Holy Fathers, inspired by God, which teach the Jesus Prayer. For this reason, all the poor brothers of this communal hermitage could no longer endure his godless blasphemy and have reported to me in writing concerning him [...]. Falling at your feet, we humbly entreat your fatherly love not to leave us in this turmoil’21
The Venerable Paisie of Neamț reports that he received the abbot’s letter together with that of the council “with joy through our most beloved brother in the Lord, the spiritual father Iachint”22, and bearing in mind that this ‘matter about which is written is a great one, the reply is no small matter either, and he cannot send it to them in a short space of time. Having copied the letters sent, he returns the originals, promising to reply in due course for the strengthening of the Church and the benefit of the loving brethren. What follows is the extensive reply from Abbot Paisie, which is essentially a history of the Jesus Prayer with the testimonies of the Holy Fathers23.
Abbot Paisie writes to the fathers of the monastery’s council that, on Moldavian soil “this Orthodox and Christian country, which, more than any other, loves and welcomes strangers”, the defamation of the Jesus Prayer stems from “a certain philosophising monk of feeble mind from the Moșenski Mountains”24 and urges them to have a holy zeal and an unshakeable faith in the writings of the Holy Fathers, who have written on this subject.
Saint Paisios presents the prayer of the heart in accordance with the teaching of the Holy Fathers, pointing out that ‘this holy prayer, for some who did not believe in it and doubted it, has become a stumbling block and a rock of offence, as we see in the Greek works of our most reverend Fathers Simeon the New Theologian and his disciple Nichita Stithat, now in print, through God’s providence’25”. Before providing a list of testimonies from the Holy Fathers who wrote about ‘the holy and sanctified prayer of the mind, that is, that performed with the mind in the heart’, Saint Paisios urges the monks of Poiana Voronei Monastery: “But you, faithful and true sons of the Orthodox Church of God, holding fast to the truth, be founded upon the unshakeable rock of faith, having as your true work the commandments of Christ and this most holy prayer, so many witnesses – our most reverend and God-bearing fathers, a brief summary of whose teachings I have appended here – follow the holy teachings with all your zeal, striving with soul and body towards every good and God-pleasing deed, to the best of your ability, aided by the gift of God’26”.
In conclusion, we see clearly that Saint Paisios of Neamț was not only a practitioner of unceasing prayer, but also defended it, both through his translations of the writings of the Holy Fathers dealing with this form of prayer and through his own apologetic writings. The prayer of the heart is presented in the teachings of Saint Paisius as ‘a spiritual sword for striking down the enemy, granted to us by God […]. This prayer, I say, is not merely of the mind; that is to say, it is not performed solely with the mind and the mouth, for this is what every Christian who wishes to be saved ought to do; rather, through the skill of the mind working within the heart, in the name of God, it is a piercing of the unseen enemy’27
- 1
†Daniel, Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bukovina, ‘Philokalian Vocation and Destiny among the Romanians’, in Romanians in the Hesychast Renewal, Trinitas Publishers, Iași, 1997, p. 11.
- 2
†Daniel, Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bukovina, ‘Foreword’ to Dan Zamfirescu, Paisianism: A Romanian Moment in the History of European Spirituality, Roza Vânturilor, Bucharest, 1996, p. 6.
- 3
†Daniel, Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bukovina, ‘Foreword’, p. 5.
- 4
Protopresbyter Serghie Cetvericov, Paisie, Abbot of Neamț Monastery. His Teachings and Influence on the Orthodox Church, translated by Bishop Nicodim, Abbot of Neamț Monastery, Neamț Monastery Press, 1933, p. 178.
- 5
Saint Paisie of Neamț, Spiritual Words and Letters, vol. 2, 2nd edition, selected and translated into Romanian by Valentina Pelin, with a preface by Virgil Cândea, published by Doxologia, Iași, 2010, p. 26.
- 6
S. Cetvericov, Paisie, Abbot of Neamț Monastery, p. 144.
- 7
Saint Paisie of Neamț, Spiritual Words and Letters, vol. 2, p. 26.
- 8
S. Cetvericov, Paisie, Abbot of Neamț Monastery, pp. 144–145
- 9
Ibid., pp. 104–105.
- 10
Ibid., p. 85.
- 11
Ibid., p. 80.
- 12
S. Cetvericov, Paisie, Abbot of Neamț Monastery, p. 146.
- 13
S. Cetvericov, Paisie, Abbot of Neamț Monastery, p. 206.
- 14
Paul Mihail and Zamfira Mihail, ‘Slavic Manuscripts in Collections in Moldova, II’, in Romanoslavica, XIX (1980), p. 62.
- 15
Saint Paisie of Neamț, Spiritual Words and Letters, vol. 2, p. 163.
- 16
Ibid., p. 166.
- 17
Ibid., p. 245.
- 18
Paul Mihailovici [Fr Paul Mihail], ‘Abbot Paisie Velicicovscki and the heresy at Poiana Voronei’, in Arhivele Basarabiei, nos. 1–4, 1938, p. 69.
- 19
Ibid., p. 69.
- 20
Saint Paisios of Neamț, ‘A Testimony to the Prayer of the Mind’, in: Spiritual Words and Letters, vol. 2, p. 245.
- 21
Ibid., pp. 250–251.
- 22
Ibid., p. 252.
- 23
Fr Paul Mihail, ‘Abbot Paisie Velicicovscki and the Heresy at Poiana Voronei’, p. 70.
- 24
Saint Paisios of Neamț, ‘A Testimony to the Prayer of the Mind’, p. 253.
- 25
Ibid., p. 254.
- 26
Ibid., p. 257.
- 27
Ibid., ‘To the Most Reverend Father Theodosius, Archimandrite of the Sofroniev Hermitage’, in: Spiritual Words and Letters, vol. 1, p. 71.