The Holy Mountain and Hesychasm

For over a thousand years Mount Athos has been the enduring center of Orthodox monasticism, and at the heart of its life stands the hesychast tradition — the pursuit of inner stillness and the unceasing prayer of the heart. This section defers the Holy Mountain itself to its own collection, marking only its place as the living capital of the monastic world, and treats the hesychast prayer that runs from the desert through Sinai and Athos to the whole later tradition.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Athonite / hesychast)

Overview

Athos, the Monastic Republic marks the place of the Holy Mountain as the enduring center of Orthodox monasticism — the self-governing monastic community that has preserved and radiated the tradition for more than a millennium — and defers its full history, houses, and saints to the Mount Athos collection. Hesychasm and the Prayer of the Heart treats the spiritual method at the center of monastic prayer: hesychia (stillness), the Jesus Prayer descending into the heart, the psychosomatic method and the vision of the Uncreated Light, and the fourteenth-century Palamite vindication of the hesychasts — deferring the Philokalic texts to their collection and linking the Jesus Prayer to the hub essay.

Files

File Description
athos-the-monastic-republic.md Athos as the enduring center of Orthodox monasticism, deferred to the Mount Athos collection
hesychasm-and-the-prayer-of-the-heart.md The hesychast tradition at the heart of monastic prayer; the Jesus Prayer; the Palamite vindication

See Also