Slavic and Russian Monasticism

When monasticism passed from Byzantium into the Slavic world it took root and flowered into one of the great chapters of the tradition — from the caves above the Dnieper to the forests of the Russian north. This section treats the Slavic inheritance: the Kiev Caves and St. Sergius of Radonezh and the “Northern Thebaid” (deferred to their collections), and the sharpest of Orthodox monastic debates, the controversy of the Possessors and the Non-Possessors over monastic property, together with the later Paisian revival that reconnected Russia to the hesychast tradition.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (and Slavic)

Overview

The Kiev Caves and Saint Sergius traces the two great founts of Russian monasticism — the Kiev Caves Lavra of Sts. Anthony and Theodosius, which brought the Athonite and Stoudite traditions to Rus’, and St. Sergius of Radonezh, whose renewal of the common life sent his disciples to found hundreds of monasteries across the “Northern Thebaid” — deferring the founders to their own collections. Possessors and Non-Possessors treats, from both sides, the famous debate between St. Joseph of Volotsk and St. Nilus of Sora over whether monasteries should own lands and property — a genuine and unresolved tension between the social-charitable and the hesychast-eremitic ideals — and follows the thread forward to the Paisian revival of the eighteenth century.

Files

File Description
the-kiev-caves-and-saint-sergius.md The Kiev Caves Lavra and St. Sergius of Radonezh and the “Northern Thebaid,” deferred to their collections
possessors-and-non-possessors.md The Joseph of Volotsk / Nilus of Sora debate over monastic property (both sides); the Paisian revival

See Also