The Way of a Pilgrim and Other Classics of Russian Spirituality

INTEREST

PREFACE

THE TERM SPIRITUALITY IS USED IN VARIOUS SENSES. IN THE BROADEST, IT DEFINES THE LOFTIEST MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL qualities of man in his relation to God and to nature, to himself and to his fellow-men. In social or cultural life, spirituality in this sense finds expression in the philosophy, art, and ethic of a nation or of a civilization. Wordsworth or Keats, for example, is highly representative of English spirituality as it is expressed in the Romantic Movement of the nineteenth century.

In its stricter, or narrower, connotation, spirituality is applied to the religious life in its innermost and deepest strata, the life with God and all spiritual experiences arising from this source. Prayer is the center, the core, of spirituality—and this is true not of mystical prayer alone. As a matter of fact, mysticism as the experience of union with God (a feature of many religions besides Christianity) is a rare phenomenon in religious life. It is true, of course, that the spiritual energies generated by this prayer of union do not remain sealed in the cell of the contemplative saint but diffuse themselves, sometimes fructifying very remote areas in the civilized world of his age. The spiritual influences exerted by St. Francis and St. Teresa are historical examples of this, and in our own day a non-Christian, Eastern mysticism, emanating from India, is seeping into an English literature lately emancipated from the Puritan tradition, with results not wholly salutary. Nevertheless the most. powerful influence upon a people is exercised, not by the mystical, but by the common kind of prayer, by the attitude of the ordinary man towards God, in his prayer and in his moral life. Here also the saints, the heroically spiritual, are leaders; but chiefly such of them as stand on common ground with the men of their time; who can share more or less freely their spiritual experience with their fellow-men.

Spirituality, even in the specific religious sense, is not confined to prayer but embraces the whole world-outlook of the individual, particularly the ethical code which his religious experience inspires. In the art of the best epochs of civilization, religious spirituality is reflected; its rays, although gradually weakened, penetrate into the densest strata of social life, into political movements, popular customs, the wisdom of the common man, folk-lore. But, of course, in these exterior strata spirituality encounters the ponderous resistance of material forces and very often is distorted by them. Indeed there has never been a Christian civilization in the full meaning of the word—that is, not as an endeavor, but as a realization. It is different in the case of a natural, or pagan, religion. The outgrowth of physical environment and tribal custom, it reflects, in its very deficiencies, the impact of natural and social forces; and in that it is fully conformed to its environment, it exerts the more powerful influence. A pagan civilization always presents a more harmonious unity than does a Christian civilization. Christian society is ever the arena of a struggle for domination between Christian and pagan, or secular, forces. Yet this struggle has not as its end the annihilation of the natural forces opposed to Christian principles, for grace does not destroy nature, but transforms it. The Christian Church, coming to a newly converted people, does not efface the character of this people as a collective personality, but, after a period of sharp conflict with the forces of paganism, accepts all those elements which are reconcilable with Christian dogma and ethic. With baptism, or the influx of grace, a new national personality comes into being, different from all others and reflecting in all its Christian manifestations the pre-Christian culture. And of course, side by side with the national inheritance, purified and transformed by Christianity, live many survivals of rude paganism which, although endangering ethical practice, are yet capable of a mighty creative unfolding in the culture of a nation, particularly in her art. Thus, in both its Christian (conquering) and pagan (yielding) elements, the spiritual life of a nation is a clue to the understanding of her culture.

Russia imposed herself upon the attention of the West but recently through her literature, music, and art—finally through the tremendous social upheaval of the Communist Revolution. A widespread curiosity with regard to the spiritual background of this newly disclosed world has been awakened but scarcely satisfied. Russia remains a great enigma to the West. There is, for instance, no obvious link between her classical literature of the nineteenth century and the spirit of her Revolution.

Now it is plain that neither the modern literature of Russia nor her political and social tragedy can be understood without a clear vision of her past. Russia had been a medieval civilization until the time of Peter the Great (about 1700), knowing no Renaissance nor any cleavage between religious and secular culture. And until their emancipation from serfdom (1861), the Russian people—in contrast to the gentry and the intelligentsia—were medieval in their religion and in their world-outlook. Without too violent a pressure on facts, one can venture the statement that the people leaped directly out of the Middle Ages into the atheistic society of Communism. As for the intelligentsia, although living mainly by Western ideas and ideals, they had never completely lost contact with the peasantry; particularly in the nineteenth century the people were studied and idealized, as a basic stratum of Russian culture and a source of Russia’s moral strength. All the great classical writers (especially Dostoevsky and Tolstoy) paid a generous tribute to populism and were dependent upon popular beliefs and traditions for their own religious and moral attitudes.

The national religion of Russia, known as Eastern Orthodox, or Greek Orthodox, continues the uninterrupted tradition of the ancient Eastern and the Byzantine Church, the Mother Church of Russia. Since the middle of the eleventh century (1054), the Christian East has been separated from the Western, Roman Catholic Church by schism. The characteristics of the Eastern Church in its liturgical and canonical life, even in its dogmatic thought, have long been studied by specialists in theology; but the core of Eastern Christianity, its spiritual life, has just begun to be the object of scholarly investigation. Even in Russia there are extant few special studies on this rich and engrossing matter.

In the present book there is offered to the reader, not a study, but a selection from original sources, of Russian spirituality, the first attempt at such an anthology in any language. The material is taken from the lives of saints, ascetical and mystical treatises, and spiritual autobiographies (a very rare species of literature in Russia), embracing the centuries from the eleventh to the twentieth. All the authors selected have belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church and occupy, with one exception (Avvakum), an authoritative place in the sphere of spiritual guidance. The editor has tried to prevent any personal preference from influencing his choice; the emphasis had already been placed by tradition and by present-day Russian ecclesiastical opinion.

From what is said above, it can be inferred that the material, authoritative as it is, has its limitations. The reader will not find: (1) Russian folk-lore in which Christian piety is mingled with pagan survivals; (2) the literature of the Russian sects so numerous in the last two centuries; (3) the works of secular poets and novelists reflecting modern Russian spirituality of very complex origins. For the inclusion of these three groups of sources would broaden the scope of the book to the detriment of unity and purpose. The third group—that of fiction—is moreover already partly accessible to the English and American reader in translations.

Political events, sometimes of a catastrophic nature, divide the history of Russia into clear-cut periods; and the bearing of these divisions extends even into the spiritual domain. The first historical shape of Russia, that of the Kievan period (the ninth to the thirteenth centuries), was the loose confederation of principalities under the prince of Kiev on the Dnieper River. Converted to Christianity by her prince, St. Vladimir (988), Russia received her Church hierarchy from Constantinople, and her whole religious and cultural life was molded on the Byzantine pattern. In spite of this primordial condition, Kievan Russia was in close communication with the Latin West, and her social and political life had more in common with Western feudalism than with the Byzantine monarchical state.

The Tartar, or Mongolian, conquest (circa 1240) destroyed this flourishing culture, and for centuries thereafter the bulk of the Russian population, the northeastern, or Great, Russians, were cut off from their southwestern brothers, the Ukranians and White Russians, who were included in the Polish and Lithuanian states. Under the Mongol yoke Great Russia preserved her religious and cultural heritage, although eventually in a rather impoverished condition. Detached from the West (though not impenetrable to Western influences), Russia was continually in touch with Byzantium and moreover exposed to the new and dangerous influences emanating from the East. Until well into the fifteenth century, Russia was a quasi-feudal conglomeration of small principalities, with even some great democratic free cities, such as Novgorod and Pscov, and her cultural atmosphere was still independent, in spite of the political oppression and financial extortion of the Tartars.

The principality of Moscow, with the support of the Church, and to some extent of the Tartars, gradually succeeded in destroying the feudal system and uniting all Russian lands and free cities under the absolute power of the Great Prince of Moscow (circa 1500). He threw off the domination of the Tartars (1480), crowned himself (1547) Tsar (Caesar), after the Byzantine pattern, and began the conquest of the vast territories held by the Mongolians. The rulers of the Muscovite State thus succeeded both the Mongols and the Byzantine Emperors, since the Eastern Empire had fallen to the Turks. This government was totalitarian, and very severe and exacting in its claims upon its subjects. The peasants, who for the most part had been free in the Middle Ages, were now turned into serfs, and all classes of the population were forced into the service of the state.

The fact that the cultural and technical backwardness of Muscovy was a serious handicap to her political relations with the West moved Peter the Great (d. 1725) to carry out his great reforms, which actually amounted to a cultural revolution. He Westernized Russia forcibly, relentlessly, at least so far as the life and thought of her upper classes was concerned. In the period of the Empire (Peter was the first Russian ruler called Emperor), Russian political power reached its height and Russian culture its full flowering—literary, artistic, scientific. This culture was Western European in its form and ideas; yet, in the most striking and profound of its artistic creations, the spirit of the thousand-year-old past breaks through and manifests itself, a past still living in the masses of the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, and the clergy, who were the guardians of the national tradition. In the pattern of Russian culture during the last two centuries there have been two motifs: one, the European—modern, abreast of the times; the other, ancient Muscovite, deriving from the seventeenth century, with a residue of a past still more remote. The fact that these motifs have been able, to some extent, to blend has preserved the original genius of the high Russian culture.

Yet the cultural breach between the upper classes and the people was so wide, and the social pressure upon the latter so heavy (despite the emancipation of the serfs in 1861), that the tensions arising from World War I were too great for the unsteady Empire, and the War ended for Russia in a revolutionary breakdown. The Revolution inaugurated a new period of Russian history (the fifth, according to our scheme), which, however, is not within the scope of this study: the Bolshevist Revolution, by its very intention, meant the destruction of every kind of spirituality (not only Christian), and although spiritual life did not die out in Russia, it has been unable to find any literary expression up to the present day.

The spirituality of the Russian Church, from the beginning to the present, has been shaped mainly by the Byzantine, or Greek, tradition. There have been, however, variations in the degree of the influence and in the elements of Greek piety chosen as the pattern in different periods of Russian life. Newly converted Russia received from the Bulgarian Slavs an enormous treasury of translated Greek sermons, lives of saints, and Patericons (i.e., collections of legends which had their source in Egyptian, Syrian, and Palestinian monasticism). For a millennium John Climacus was the prevailing authority on the spiritual life. The Palestinian group of saints (Sts. Sabbas, Euthymius, and others) were the main teachers of Russian ascetics in ancient times.

In the Kievan period, the most remarkable fact is the absence of a mystical tradition in the translated, as well as the original, Russian literature. The severe asceticism of the penitential (metanoic) Syrian type is represented in the Kievan Cave Patericon, a collection of the biographies of the outstanding fathers of the most famous Russian monastery. Yet simultaneously with the imitation of the Greek and Oriental patterns, newly converted Russia discloses in the persons of her first canonized saints, Boris and Gleb, a quite original view of the Christian way of salvation. This spiritual tendency we call kenotic, understanding by the term the imitation of Christ in His kenosis, His self-humiliation and His voluntary, sacrificial death. When their elder brother sought to wrest their principalities from them, these two young princes chose the course of nonresistance, preferring to be murdered by him rather than to enter into fratricidal combat. In the monastic life St. Theodosius brings the virtue of humility to extreme social consequences which suggest, somewhat, the practices of St. Francis of Assisi. The most remarkable phenomenon of early Russian spirituality is the immediate impact of the Gospels upon the minds of the first Russian saints. Thus the rediscovery of the Christ of the Gospels, of the Christ in His human nature behind the Byzantine Pantocrator (the omnipotent or the Divine Monarch), which was a great feat of the twelfth century in the West, was anticipated by about a century in the spiritual life of Russia. Doubtless the use of the Slavonic language in the Bible and in the celebration of the Mass contributed to the originality of the Russian religious genius, but whatever its cause, kenoticism, in the sense of charitable humility as well as of non-resistance, or voluntary suffering, remains forever the most precious and typical, even though not always the dominant, motif of Russian Christianity.

The Russian Middle Ages, or the Mongolian period (the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries), adopted the Kievan religious tradition but enriched it by one essential feature: the mystical life which found its way into Russia from the Greek monasteries of Mount Athos in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A contemplative type of monasticism was engendered in Russia, and specific exercises were practised to create a spiritual prayer. The Greek form of mystical prayer was grafted onto the Russian kenotic and caritative type of monastic life. The only literary spokesman of numerous silent Hesychasts in the forests of Northern Russia was St. Nilus Sorsky (fifteenth century), but the origins of this movement are traced to St. Sergius (fourteenth century), the head and the restorer of Russian monasticism after the long period of its decay which followed the terrors of the Monogolian conquest. But Sergius, if a mystic, had likewise a social and national mission; one modern writer goes so far as to call him one of the builders of Russia.

In contradiction to what is commonly supposed concerning the Christian East, ancient Russian Christianity was always marked by strong social tendencies. But soon after the time of Sergius is the beginning of a fatal separation: St. Sergius stands at the crossroads; from his teachings, Russian monasticism took two divergent directions-the mystical and the social. The mystics of the northern forests cultivated absolute poverty, silence, and spiritual prayer, preserving a great moral independence of secular powers, which they even held it their obligation to teach and reprove. This kind of spirituality undoubtedly inspired the highest manifestations of the Russian art in icon painting, which reached its peak in the fifteenth century: this was the golden age of Russian saints and artists.

The other line of Sergius’ disciples, culminating in St. Joseph Volotsky, struck a different note: they were active, practical, social; good farmers and administrators, social leaders in the surrounding countryside, political advisers of the Muscovite princes in the building of a unified, autocratic state. Their religious life was founded upon the fear of God and the meticulous observance of ritual, mitigated by their esthetic appreciation of liturgical worship.

These two groups found grounds of conflict at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when their adherents disagreed violently on the two great problems of the time: the question of the legitimacy of monastic landowning (the mystics stood, of course, for absolute poverty), and that of the policy to be adopted in dealing with a new group of heretics, the Judaizers (the mystics were opposed to capital punishment and in general to any severe persecution). The Josephites won the battle, thanks to their close connection with the princes of Moscow. And they made the most of their victory: the outstanding disciples of St. Nilus were themselves condemned as heretics, and thereupon the whole mystical movement disappears from the surface manifestations in Russian history for about two centuries.

The age of the Muscovite tsardom (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), so favorable to the growth of Russia’s political power, was very unfruitful with regard to the spiritual life. Josephitism degenerated into static ritualism with the gradual suppression of the caritative elements in Russian traditional piety. But in spite of the general barbarization of morality during this period, it is impossible to deny the strengthening of social discipline, the training of the will in public service, which shaped the Great Russian character as it is known through modern Russian literature and history.

The spiritual energies latent during this age were unleashed in the great explosion known as the Raskol (schism) in the Russian Church, which resulted from liturgical reforms introduced by the patriarch Nicon (1652-58). The conservative national party, the remote descendents of St. Joseph, having identified religion with ritual, preferred to die rather than to accept the new, corrected service books, and finally they separated themselves from the state Church, becoming the first of a long series of sectarian movements characteristic of modern developments in Russian religion. The original Old Ritualists, or Old Believers, stood entirely upon traditional ecclesiastical grounds, and since they represented the strongest moral force in Muscovite society, it seems justifiable to select for our consideration the leading figure of the movement, the priest Avvakum, a writer of genius, as the exponent of Muscovite spirituality.

During the period of the Empire (the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries), with the abrupt Westernizing of Russia, the Church lost its hold upon the influential strata of aristocratic society and the intelligentsia. The masses of the people, as has already been noted, lived in a Muscovite civilization, as a whole faithful to the established state church but with strong sectarian minorities. The Church itself was not a direct inheritor of the Muscovite tradition. It entered the schools of Western Theology, Catholic and Protestant, and tried to find its own, Orthodox way among these Western extremes. Together with theological thought, some of the currents of Western spirituality penetrated into Russia; these were for the most part Protestant—such as the pietism of the eighteenth century or the mysticism of the early nineteenth. This latter was helpful in overcoming the rationalism of the Enlightenment and in introducing a fervent emotional note into the rather dry moral preaching of the Church. Yet, in spite of this and many other Western influences, the strongest current of Orthodox spirituality remained faithful to the Eastern tradition. At this time, however, it was the tradition of Christian Greece, ancient and medieval, which dominated, and not that of ancient Russia. The break with Muscovy was so complete, even in ecclesiastical education, that it was never completely healed, although the second half of the nineteenth and the present century have been marked by the gradual revival of holy Russia.

One of the most prominent features of Peter’s reform was an almost complete elimination of the Church from all fields of social and political life. In drastic alteration of conditions from those of ancient Russia, the Church was forced to give up every attempt at Christianizing, or even influencing, social life. The only role left to it (and, as a matter of fact, required of it) was that of apologist for the established order. Accepting this part, willingly or unwillingly, the Church was forced to concentrate its moral action upon the individual. And it made a virtue of necessity, regarding this religious individualism as a blessing, the special vocation of Orthodoxy. In this prejudice it was supported by many foreigners, who were in the habit of opposing the Eastern Mary to the Western Martha.

Under these conditions, ancient Russia could not be a secure guide in spiritual practice, and monastic Greece superseded her Russian daughter and pupil to a degree unprecedented in the history of the Church. This impact of Greece was received through two media: the contemporary monasticism of Mount Athos, where the Russians had—and still have—their own communities, and ancient ascetical literature, which was now collected into a large anthology called the Philocalia. The influence of this book (particularly after the publication of the second, more comprehensive, edition prepared by the Russian bishop Theophanes) grew from generation to generation. It was at its height at the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary period. The Optina cloister, a center for the influential startzy, was the chief guardian and promoter of the Greek ascetical and mystical tradition. The mystical, or spiritual, form of prayer was revived, and Nilus Sorsky found a posthumous disciple in the person of Païsius Velichkovsky, to whose influence the monastic revival after the general decay of the eighteenth century is due. Spiritual prayer was popularized and became the practice even of a certain proportion of laymen—a fact to which the famous Way of a Pilgrim bears eloquent witness.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the evangelical and humanitarian tendencies which largely dominated Russian secular literature tempered the ascetical spirituality of the Church. The Slavophiles, a liberal national party in the Church, tried to create (or, rather, to resuscitate) a spirituality based on social ethic. But the breach between the ascetical-mystical and the evangelical elements within the Church widened, and each tendency found political expression in the period immediately preceding the Revolution. The evangelicals stood for ecclesiastical reforms and allied themselves with the liberal political groups of the nation; the mystics supported the absolutism of the tsar as a remnant of Byzantine tradition. The reformers and liberals did not succeed in developing a type of spirituality of their own deep enough to counterbalance the reactionary, or black, influence of monasticism, and this dualism played a fatal part in the disintegration of the moral forces of pre-Revolutionary Russian society.

ST. THEODOSIUS

THE FIRST REPRESENTATIVE OF KENOTICISM

THEODOSIUS WAS THE FIRST MONASTIC SAINT CANONIZED by the Russian Church. Soon after his death (1074) the task of recording his life story was undertaken by the famous chronicler Nestor, a monk of his Kievan Caves cloister. Although Nestor had at his disposal, as a pattern for his literary work, numerous Greek lives of saints, from which he quoted abundantly, he drew still more upon the testimony of the great abbot’s acquaintances and companions. Thus his work has always been held in high esteem by Russian historians for its trustworthiness and its richness in factual detail.

The reader will find the events of Theodosius’ life clearly related by Nestor, and his chronicle has been our one source of information. Here we have only to emphasize the predominant features of his spirituality. These characteristics become evident in the earliest part of the story of his childhood, for which Nestor had no literary model. The ideal of the literal imitation of Christ in His poverty and humiliation on earth is an apprehension of religious genius which was to mold permanently the mentality of the Russian people. The social aspect of this kenotic ideal is of first importance: the love of an uncouth garb and the manual labor in the fields with the serfs both represent an abandonment of class privilege which encountered the long and bitter opposition of the saint’s mother. The intimate spiritual association of Theodosius with the person of Christ in His life on earth and in the Sacrament is revealed in Theodosius’ attempted journey to the Holy Land, where our Lord had walked in the flesh, and in his predilection for the task of baking the altar-bread: the boy rejoiced in the thought of being a collaborator in creating the flesh of Christ, Who became poor and humbled Himself for our salvation.

The monastic life of Theodosius is patterned upon that of the Palestinian ascetics–Sts. Sabbas and Euthymius and St. Theodosius, after whom he is named. However severe or even unnatural Theodosius’ asceticism may appear to our age, it was a mitigated, or humanized, form of mortification if gauged by the classical standards of monastic Egypt or Syria. His was a combination of community life and seclusion, of manual labor, prayer, and the exterior work of educational activities among the laity. His bodily asceticism consisted mainly in fasting and abstention from sleep. Only in the narrative of his early youth is mention made of the chains which he wore under his shirt, after the Syrian example followed in Russia. Rather exceptional, also, is the most painful of his acts of mortification: the exposure of his body to the bites of mosquitoes as a measure against temptation. In general, acute pain in mortification is avoided; no self-flagellations occur in the practice of the Christian East; the aim of mortification is rather the drying up of the body, the weakening of the passions.

Although Theodosius was the disciple of a senior monk, St. Anthony, his own spirituality is a departure from that of his teacher. Anthony, who had been initiated into the monastic life on Mount Athos, seems to have engaged in the more severe forms of ascetic practice and to have committed himself to absolute solitude, spending all his days in a dark cave. Theodosius found this manner of life oppressive and narrow. His ideal was rather that of community life and service to the world. He earnestly tried to introduce and put into practice in his monastery, the Greek rule of the Studion (in Constantinople), which became the classical type in the monastic institutions of medieval Russia. The spirit of this rule, and even the form, resemble in many details the rule of St. Benedict.

The greatest danger to the social order that Theodosius sought to create in organizing his cloister was the form which his own holiness assumed. For in becoming the leader of his community he did not betray his ideal of kenotic humility, but clung to his coarse clothing and rejected all outward signs of authority. He never punished erring brethren, but would weep over an incorrigible runaway and, again and again, receive with joy a returning prodigal who could not be relied upon to remain. His harshness was directed, not towards sinners, but only towards the material goods which would tempt the brethren to vitiate their holy poverty by care for the morrow. Thus, on occasion, he destroyed precious food in order to strike at the root of worldly prudence. Discipline was never up to the mark in the Cave cloister, and the homilies of St. Theodosius give evidence of his grievous disappointment.

But the kenotic humility of the abbot was no obstacle to his influence outside the cloister walls. On the contrary, his mildness and charity gained for him the devotion of princes and boyars, and he used his authority in spiritual matters for promoting the cause of justice and charity. A true kenotic, in imitation of Christ, humbles himself before the lowly, not before the powerful. Theodosius could be terrible in his denunciation of the crimes of the rich, and to this valuable social implication of the kenotic virtues ancient Russia was faithful for centuries. This, above all, distinguishes the old Russia from both Byzantine civilization and that of modern Russia.

The great historical importance of St. Theodosius is in the fact that he provided a pattern and an ideal for all monastic life in ancient Russia. His life was a source for all subsequent Russian hagiography, and many features of his personal behavior, including his uncouth garb, were imitated for centuries. In a certain sense, all Russian monasticism, in spite of the various and divergent tendencies in her spirituality, belongs to the wide family of St. Theodosius’ disciples and their heirs.

But far exceeding the limits of the monastic life, the kenotic ideal of St. Theodosius imprinted itself upon the mentality of the whole Russian nation. In the nineteenth century it is easily discoverable in all the literature which portrays Russian folklife, and in Russian folk-lore itself. But, what is still more surprising, the great literary classics of that time also belong to this religious type. This is obvious in the cases of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but the influence is none the less present in the works of most of the non-religious writers, even in those of the atheistic radicals, the narodniks (populists). Indeed the bulk of the revolutionary intelligentsia, especially during the 1870’s, in their simple life their coarse clothing, and their positive search for identification with the underprivileged, were unconscious imitators of St. Theodosius. But it was a kenoticism detached from God, in direct contradiction to the charitable humility which is the essence of St. Theodosius’ teaching—and thus purely negative. This kenoticism, completely divorced from the spirit of supernatural love, is at the root both of Russian atheism and of Tolstoy’s radical negation of culture.

All this would seem to imply that kenoticism may justly be considered the dominant motif in Russian spirituality—one might almost venture to say, the specific Russian approach to Christianity. Yet this statement is correct only in a limited sense. For, actually, kenoticism was never the exclusive, nor even the quantitatively predominant, feature of Russian religion. It has always been moderated, diluted and supplemented by other currents: ritualistic, liturgical, mystical or culturally creative, some of them deriving from foreign sources—from Byzantium or, in modern times, from the Christian West.

A LIFE OF ST. THEODOSIUS

By NESTOR

I THANK YOU, MY LORD AND MASTER JESUS CHRIST, FOR HOLDING ME WORTHY TO CHRONICLE THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF YOUR saints. For I first recorded the life, the slaying, and the miracles of the saints and blessed passion-bearers Boris and Gleb¹, and I am now about to undertake another writing. It is a task too great for my powers, I am not fit for it, since I am neither wise nor learned, but I have in my mind the words If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, remove from hence thither and it shall remove. Reflecting on these words I, sinful Nestor, have girded myself with faith and hope in order to relate the life of blessed Theodosius, the former abbot of the Caves Monastery dedicated to the Holy Mother of God.²

Brothers, when I realized that no one had yet recorded the life of this saint, I was greatly distressed, and I asked in prayer for God’s help in setting down in their proper order all the facts concerning our father and God-bearer, Theodosius, so that the monks who come after us, reading this chronicle and seeing the virtues of this man, might glorify God in His saint. May they be confirmed in their religious vocation by the knowledge that so holy a man has lived in this land. For these words of God may well be applied to him: Many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; and, again: Many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first. Indeed, this saint of the latter day has shown himself greater than the ancient Fathers. As it was said in the Patericon that there would be laxness in the last generation, it is surprising that in this last generation Theodosius should be made known by Christ as a great laborer for His sake and a true pastor to his monks. For from boyhood he was distinguished for the purity and goodness of his life, and especially for the faith and understanding with which he was endowed.

Brothers, listen attentively, for this story is of great benefit to all who hear it. I implore you, my beloved, do not condemn me for my ignorance if, because I am so filled with love for the saint, I have attempted to tell everything concerning him. For, in addition to this, I feared that Our Lord’s words with regard to the wicked and slothful servant might be applied to me. But apart from these considerations, it is not right to conceal God’s miracles, especially in view of what He said to His disciples: That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light; and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops.

It is therefore my intention to write for the benefit and edification of my readers. May they glorify God and be rewarded by Him. But first of all I turn to God with a prayer: My Lord Omnipotent, giver of grace, Father of our Master Jesus Christ, come to my aid. Illumine my heart for the understanding of Thy commandments and open my mouth for the proclaiming of Thy miracles and the praise of Thy saint. May Thy name be sanctified, for Thou art the only helper of those who hope in Thee. Amen.

The Childhood of Theodosius

There is a town called Vasilev, lying at a distance of fifty versts³ from Kiev. In this town lived our saint’s parents, who were enlightened Christians of exemplary piety, and here it was that blessed Theodosius was born to them. On the eighth day after his birth, according to the custom, they brought the child to God’s priest in order that a name should be given him. The priest, perceiving with spiritual insight that the newborn child would devote himself to God’s service from infancy, gave him the name Theodosius.⁴ Then, after forty days, he baptized the child. Theodosius grew up under the tutelage of his parents. God’s grace was with him, and he had the light of the Holy Ghost from his first years.

By the decree of the Prince,⁵ the saint’s parents soon transferred their residence to another town called Kursk-but it would be more exact to say that this was done according to the will of God, so that this town also might be enlightened by the presence of the good youth. Thus Theodosius rose for us in the East like a morning star, attracting many other stars in expectation of the Sun of Justice, Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that he might say: Here I am, my Lord, and here are the children whom I have nourished with Thy spiritual food. Here, my Lord, are my disciples. I have brought them to Thee, having taught them to despise all earthly things and to love Thee alone, my Lord God. Here, Master, is the flock which Thou hast enlightened, whose shepherd Thou hast chosen me to be. I have led them to graze in Thy pastures. I have brought them to Thee, having kept them pure and innocent. And God will answer, Good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things. And He will say to the disciples: Come, good flock; come, divinely enlightened sheep of the good shepherd; you who have hungered and labored for my sake shall now receive the kingdom prepared for you since the beginning of the world.

Therefore, brothers, let us also be zealous imitators of the life of St. Theodosius and the disciples he sent to God before him, for then we too shall be worthy to hear the voice of the Master saying, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.

And now let us turn once more to the story of the holy youth. As he matured in body and spirit, he was drawn by the love of God to go to church daily, devoting all his attention to the sacred books. Unlike most boys, he kept aloof from children at play and was unwilling to join in their games. He wore coarse and patched garments, and when his parents tried to make him put on fresh clothing and play with other children, he would not obey, for he wanted to be identified with the poor. Moreover he begged his parents to entrust him to a teacher, so that he might be instructed in the reading of the sacred books, and they consented to this. The boy acquired knowledge rapidly, so that everyone was astonished at his wisdom and the quickness with which he learned. And how can we measure the virtues of obedience and humility which he practised, not only towards his teachers, but also towards all with whom he shared his studies?

The Struggles of His Youth

When blessed Theodosius was about thirteen years old, his father died. From that time on, he applied himself even more zealously to his undertakings. That is, he now went into the fields with his serfs, where he did the humblest work. To prevent this, his mother used to keep him indoors. She also tried to prevail upon him to put on good clothes and go out to play with boys of his own age, for she said that if he were so poorly dressed, he would expose himself and his family to disgrace. But he would not obey her, and often she beat him in her vexation. She was robust of body, and if you could not see her, but could only hear her voice, you might well have mistaken her for a man.

The devout youth, meanwhile, was meditating and searching for the means of salvation. When he heard of the Holy Land, where Our Lord had walked in the flesh, he longed to make a pilgrimage to this place. He prayed to God, saying, My Lord Jesus, listen to my prayer, and grant that I may go to the Holy Land. After he had prayed in this manner for a long time, some pilgrims came to the city. The holy youth rejoiced when he saw them. He went out to meet them and welcomed them affectionately, asking them whence they had come and whither they were going. And when they told him that they had come from the Holy Land and that, God permitting, they intended to return there, he begged to be taken with them. They promised to take him, and Theodosius returned home rejoicing. When the pilgrims had decided to set out on their journey, they informed the boy of their intention, and rising in the night, he left his home secretly, taking nothing with him except the poor clothes he had on. It was in this manner that he set out to join the pilgrims.

But God, in his mercy, would not permit the one whom He had predestined in his mother’s womb to be the shepherd of the divinely enlightened sheep to leave this land; for, when the shepherd had departed, the pastures that God had blessed would lie desolate, overgrown with thorns and haunted by wolves which would scatter the flock. After three days the mother learned that he had gone with the pilgrims, and taking her other son (who was younger than Theodosius) with her, she set out to overtake him. After a long pursuit, they caught up with him. Carried away by fury, she seized him by the hair, flung him to the ground, and trampled on him. Then, having rebuked the pilgrims, she returned home, leading the saint bound like a criminal. So greatly incensed was she, that when they had entered the house she beat her son until she was exhausted. Then she flung him into a room, shackled him, and locked the door. The holy youth suffered all this joyfully, giving thanks to God in prayer.

After two days his mother returned, unfastened him, and placed food before him. But her anger was still unsatisfied, so she put chains on his feet and ordered him to go about the house in them, and she watched him, so that he might not run away from her again. He wore these chains for some time, but at last his mother relented. She began to beg him not to run away again, saying that she loved him more than all her other children and could not live without him. And when he had promised that he would not leave her, she removed the chains from his feet, telling him that he might now do as he pleased.

Blessed Theodosius returned to his former practice and visited the church daily. When he saw that often Mass could not be celebrated because there was no altar bread,⁶ he was greatly distressed and resolved humbly that he would devote himself to this work. And he kept his resolution. He began to bake altar bread and sell it; some of the money thus earned, he gave to the poor, and some he kept in order to buy more wheat, which he would grind with his own hands. And in this manner his work of baking the loaves continued. Now this was according to God’s will, so that the church might be provided with pure altar bread made by the hands of a chaste and innocent youth. He carried on the work for two years or more.

Boys of his own age, inspired by the enemy, ridiculed him for performing such a task. But the saint suffered all this joyfully and without complaint.

Now the enemy, who hates all that is good, seeing the humility of the God-enlightened youth triumphing over him, knew no peace; in the attempt to divert the boy from his task, he persuaded the mother that she must prevent Theodosius from pursuing his activities. The mother, who could not bear to have her son the object of ridicule, said to him gently, I beg of you, my son, give up this work. You are bringing disgrace upon your family; indeed it is not right for a young man to be engaged in such work. Good Theodosius replied humbly: Listen to me. Our Lord Jesus Christ became poor and humbled Himself, offering Himself as an example, so that we should humble ourselves in His name. He suffered insults, was spat upon and beaten, for our salvation; how just it is, then, that we should suffer in order to gain Christ. As to my work, listen to me. When Jesus Christ sat with His disciples at the Last Supper, He took bread, and having blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, ‘Take ye, and eat. This is My body.’ If Our Lord called bread His body, should I not rejoice that God lets me share in the making of His body?

When she heard this, his mother marvelled at the boy’s wisdom, and from that day forth she let him alone.

He was so humble of heart and so submissive towards everyone, that the governor of the city, observing the boy’s virtues, was greatly attracted to him and engaged him to serve in his own house. He gave him fine clothes to wear, and for a few days the saint wore them, looking as if he were heavily burdened; then he divested himself and, giving the new clothing to beggars, went about in the old. On seeing this, the governor gave him other garments finer than the first. These likewise Theodosius gave away. And this happened several times. The governor then held the boy in even greater esteem, marvelling at his humility. After that blessed Theodosius went to a blacksmith and ordered iron chains with which he girded his loins, and went about wearing them. The tightly bound chains bit into his flesh, but he was at peace, as if he suffered no bodily pain.⁷

After some time Theodosius heard the words of the holy Gospel He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me. And again Come to Me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. And so, filled with devotion and with the love of Our Lord, the God-inspired youth cast about for the best way of escaping from his mother and finding a place where he might enter the religious life.

Now it was the will of God that his mother should go to the country at this time for a long visit. The saint rejoiced, prayed, and stole out of his home, taking with him nothing but the clothes he had on and enough food to sustain him. He went in the direction of Kiev, for he had heard that there were many monasteries in that city. Since he did not know the way, he asked God to send him fellow-travellers to guide him. It was the will of God that a company of merchants should be travelling along that road with their wagons heavily laden. Learning that they too were going to Kiev, the saint thanked God and followed them at a distance, unobserved. When they halted for the night, the saint also paused for rest. Still they did not notice him; God alone watched over him. After travelling in this manner for three weeks he reached the city of Kiev, where he went from one monastery to another begging the monks to admit him.⁸ But, seeing before them a simple youth, poorly dressed, they were unwilling to accept him. This happened in accordance with the divine will, in order that Theodosius might finally be conducted to the place to which God had called him from his very childhood.

Hearing that blessed Anthony was living in a cave outside Kiev, Theodosius went eagerly to the hermit’s dwelling.⁹ When he saw Anthony, he wept and fell on his knees before him, begging for permission to remain in that place. The great Anthony replied, My child, look about, and you shall see that this cave is dark and narrow. You are young and, I should think, unable to suffer such hardships. Venerable Anthony said this, not only because he wished to try the youth, but also because he prophetically foresaw that Theodosius would build a large cloister in place of this narrow cave and gather around him a great number of monks. The God-inspired Theodosius answered, with humble sincerity, You know, most venerable father, that the all-seeing God has brought me to you because He desires my salvation. I will therefore obey you in all things. Then blessed Anthony said to him, My child, glory be to God, Who has given you strength for such a vocation. This is the place; remain here with me. Theodosius fell once more onto his knees, and Anthony blessed him and ordered the great Nicon, who was an experienced monk and an ordained priest, to bestow the tonsure upon the youth. Nicon led Theodosius away, gave him the tonsure, and invested him with the monastic robe.

From that day on, our father Theodosius submitted himself completely to God and to venerable Anthony. He mortified his body, keeping vigils, singing the praises of God throughout the night in order to hold off the weight of sleep. He also observed abstinence from food with the help of manual work, recalling the words of the psalm I humbled my soul through fasting, and mortified my body through labor and penance. Venerable Anthony and the great Nicon were astonished at his humility and obedience, thinking that such great virtue was remarkable in one so young.

Meanwhile Theodosius’ mother, having searched for him in vain in her own city and its vicinity, was weeping bitterly and beating her breast as if he were dead. A proclamation was issued offering a reward to anyone who should see the youth and let his mother know his whereabouts without delay. And so it was that some travellers from Kiev told the woman that four years earlier they had seen the boy in their city, and that he had then expressed the wish to receive the holy tonsure in a monastery. When she heard this, the mother hastened to Kiev, not minding the long journey, so intent was she upon finding her son. She inquired for Theodosius at all the monasteries, and at last she was told that he was living in the cave of venerable Anthony. So she went to the hermitage and introduced herself cleverly by asking to see the staretz.¹⁰ Tell the abbot that I beg him to come out and speak to me, she said, for I have travelled a long distance to see him, to pay my respects to his holiness, and to receive his blessing.

When he was informed of her presence, Anthony emerged from the cave to speak to her, and she knelt before him. Then, as they sat down, she began to talk to him, touching upon a variety of matters. Finally she disclosed the true purpose of her visit. I beg of you, father, she said, tell me where my son is. For I am greatly distressed at not knowing whether he is alive. The staretz, who was a simple man, quite unaware of her mischievous intentions, said to her. Your son is here. Do not grieve, for he is alive. And she asked, How is it, then, that I do not see him? I have come a long way but to set eyes on my son and then to return home. The staretz answered, If you wish to see him, retire for the present, and I shall try to persuade him; for as yet he wishes to see no one. Return tomorrow and you shall see your son. The woman obeyed and went away, hoping to see Theodosius on the following day.

Venerable Anthony gave blessed Theodosius a full account of the occurrence, and the youth was greatly perturbed by the knowledge that he could no longer hide from his mother. The next day the woman returned, and the staretz tried to persuade her son to go out and see her, but he would not. Then the staretz said to her, I have urged him to see you, but he is unwilling to do so. Thereupon the woman cried angrily, The staretz has done me an injustice! He has taken my son away from me and hidden him in his cave. Bring him forth, staretz, so that I can look upon him. For I cannot live if I do not see him once more. I will put an end to my life with my own hands at this door. At this Anthony was exceedingly distressed. Returning to the cave, he implored blessed Theodosius to go to his mother.

In order not to disobey the staretz, Theodosius did so. When she saw her son and observed his worn appearance (for his labors and abstinence had produced a great change in his face), she burst into tears and embraced him. Then, somewhat appeased, she seated herself and began to remonstrate with God’s servant in the following words: My son, come home, she said, and you shall be free to do all that is necessary for your salvation. Do not stay away from me any longer. When I am dead and you have buried me, you may return to this cave if you wish, but as long as I live, I cannot bear to be separated from you. The holy youth replied: If you wish to see me every day, go to the city and take the holy tonsure in some women’s convent; then you may come here to see me, and yet you will be gaining the salvation of your soul. Unless you do this, I say in earnest that you shall never see my face again!

With these and many other words, the youth tried from day to day to prevail over his mother’s determination, but she would not listen to him. After she had left him, the saint would go into the cave and pray fervently for his mother’s salvation, asking that her heart might be inclined to obedience. God heard the prayer of His saint, and one day the woman returned and said to her son: My child, I am ready to do as you have commanded; I shall not go back to my own city, but, if God is willing, I shall enter a women’s convent, and, taking the tonsure, I shall spend the rest of my days there. Your teaching has brought me to the realization of the emptiness of this passing world.

When he heard this, the saint rejoiced in spirit and went to inform the great Anthony. The staretz praised God, Who had moved the woman’s heart to repentance. He went out to speak to her and instructed her concerning many things for the good of her soul. Moreover, he put her case before the prince’s wife and she was permitted to enter the women’s convent of St. Nicholas. Here she took the tonsure and the habit, and after having lived many years in the true monastic spirit, she passed away peacefully.

Such is the life of our blessed father Theodosius from his childhood until the day when he entered the cave. His mother related all this to one of the brethren, Theodore by name, who was the cellarer of our father Theodosius. I heard this account from Theodore’s own lips, and set it down, in order that all who read may remember his deeds.

Theodosius’ Life as a Monk

From that time on, great numbers of people came to the Caves to receive the father’s blessing; by the grace of God, some became monks. Then the great Nicon and another monk, who had belonged to the monastery of Saint Minas¹¹ and had been a boyar before entering religion, left the Caves with one accord, in order to live apart from the community.

The great Nicon settled on the peninsula of Tmutarakan,¹² where, in a pleasant place near the city, he founded a monastery; this community increased by the grace of God, living after the pattern of the Caves monastery. Euphrem the Eunuch also left the Caves; he went to Constantinople and retired there to a monastery, where he lived until the time when he was called back and appointed bishop of Pereyaslavl.

Blessed Theodosius was ordained to the priesthood according to the wish of blessed Anthony, and each day he celebrated the divine service with the deepest humility. He was simple, of a gentle and quiet disposition, but full of spiritual wisdom and a pure love for all his brethren. The latter had now reached the number of fifteen.

As for blessed Anthony, who was accustomed to living alone and wished to be undisturbed, he retired to one of the Caves’ cells and appointed blessed Barlaam in his place. Later on, Anthony moved to another hill and dug himself a cave which he was never to leave, and in which his venerable body rests even to this day.

Blessed Barlaam built a small church consecrated to Our Lady over the Caves and ordered the brethren to assemble there for prayer. From that time on, the monastery could be seen by people in the surrounding countryside, whereas formerly they had scarcely known of the brethren living in the caves.

I shall now tell of the primitive life of these monks. God alone can measure the suffering they endured because of the narrow space to which they were confined in the caves; human lips cannot describe it. They lived on rye bread and water. On Sundays and Saturdays they partook of a little boiled grain; sometimes, however, even such fare as this would be lacking, and they were satisfied with a small portion of cooked vegetables. They worked with their hands, weaving cowls and headgear for the brethren and plying other manual trades.

They sold the products of their labor in the town in order to purchase grain,