Lecture 24: Eastern Orthodoxy—Holy Tradition
Athos (“the Holy Mountain”) in Macedonia, founded in the
8 th century, which by itself contains some 20 monasteries and
their dependencies.o Such monastic “cities” concentrate populations dedicated to the
ascetical life and prayer. At the same time, they are repositories
of remarkable artworks gathered over the centuries, including
murals, icons, and precious manuscripts.o Even today, the lands of the former Byzantine Empire contain
a remarkable number of surviving monasteries: 53 in Greece,
22 in Serbia, 8 in Cyprus, 45 in Moldova, 150 in Bulgaria, 363
in Russia, and 520 in Romania.Hesychasm
• Especially within the context of monasticism, Orthodoxy developed
a distinctive form of mysticism called hesychasm (“silence” or
“quiet”) that was passed from generation to generation through a
series of great teachers.• An otherwise unknown author named Dionysius the Aereopagite
(in such works as Mystical Theology) constructed a conceptual
framework that influenced mystics in the East and West.
o He envisaged reality as a great chain of being that links all
existent things, both visible and invisible. Within that chain
of beings, the “God-man” Jesus represents the full offer of the
divine to humans, and the supreme gift of Christ is theosis, a
“divinization” of humans that prepares them for God’s glory.o The ultimate “radiance” (“glory”) of God is a “dark cloud” that
cannot be grasped with the mind but can be attained/touched
through nonrational prayer (“silence”).• Two monks of the 7th century were of great importance for
solidifying this mystical tradition.
o Maximus the Confessor (580–662) was, as we saw, a
defender of Chalcedon against monotheletism, who died as a