04 — Interiorized Monasticism
Le monachisme intériorisé — “interiorized monasticism” — is Evdokimov’s central and most influential idea: that the essence of the monastic vocation is universal, binding on every baptized Christian, and can be lived in the world without leaving it. He took the term from the nineteenth-century Russian theologian Alexander Bukharev and grounded it in the Fathers — Nilus, Chrysostom, Theodore the Studite — who had said that the layman is bound by the same Gospel as the monk. This section expounds the idea and then its two practical instruments: the three vows transposed, and the royal priesthood of the baptized.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (emigration)
Files
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Idea of Interiorized Monasticism | The thesis, its patristic warrants, its Russian antecedents in Bukharev and Dostoevsky, and what it does and does not claim |
| The Three Vows and the Royal Priesthood of the Laity | Poverty, chastity and obedience as answers to the three temptations; baptism and chrismation as ordination to the royal priesthood; the domestic church |
Why This Section Matters
Everything else in Evdokimov follows from this. His theology of marriage (Section 05) is interiorized monasticism applied to the couple; his theology of woman (Section 06) presupposes that the highest Christian vocations are open to laypeople as laypeople; his theology of beauty (Section 07) rests on the claim that the world is the material of holiness and not its obstacle. If interiorized monasticism is wrong, most of Evdokimov falls.
A §4.1 caution. That all Christians are called to holiness and are bound by the Gospel is the confessed teaching of the Orthodox Church, not a private thesis. That the specific structure of the monastic life — the three vows, the tonsure, the taxis of the ascetic tradition — should be transposed into lay life as a programme, and that “interiorized monasticism” names a genuine vocation on a par with the monastic one, is Evdokimov’s own theological proposal. It has been widely and warmly received; it is not a dogma of the Church, and it has drawn objections (reported in 08 — The Critique).
See Also
- 05 — The Sacrament of Love — the idea applied to marriage
- Orthodox Monasticism — the tradition Evdokimov proposed to interiorize
- The Hostels and the Work of Welcome — the life from which the idea came
References
- Evdokimov, Paul. Les Âges de la vie spirituelle: Des Pères du désert à nos jours. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1964.
- Plekon, Michael. “‘Interiorized Monasticism’: A Reconsideration of Paul Evdokimov on the Spiritual Life.” American Benedictine Review 48, no. 3 (1997): 227–253.