Why He Remained with Nikephoros

Though Ephraim longed to become the disciple of St. Joseph the Hesychast, he did not leave his own harsh elder, Nikephoros — and the tradition insists that it was Joseph himself who commanded him to stay. This decision, subordinating even the desire for a greater teacher to the duty of obedience, is the defining act of Ephraim’s life and the key to his whole spiritual identity.

Tradition: Greek Orthodox / Athonite

The Temptation of a Better Elder

The situation the young Ephraim faced was, in monastic terms, a genuine and searching temptation — not a temptation to sin, but the subtler temptation to a real good sought in the wrong way. He was under the obedience of Elder Nikephoros, a hard and severe master who was not, by the sources’ own account, a teacher of the high noetic prayer for which Ephraim’s soul thirsted (biography Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, trans. Vassiliadou-Christodoulou, Katounakia, 2003, on Nikephoros and on Ephraim’s thirst for noetic prayer; see The Two Elders and Elder Nikephoros). Nearby lived St. Joseph the Hesychast, incontestably the greatest living teacher of that prayer — gentle in his instruction of prayer where Nikephoros was harsh, and possessed of exactly what Ephraim most desired (Joseph of Vatopaidi, Elder Joseph the Hesychast, Vatopaidi, 1999; Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, 2003). The natural, and even pious-seeming, course would have been to leave Nikephoros and attach himself wholly to Joseph — to exchange a hard elder who could not give him the prayer for a great one who could.

That Ephraim did not do so is the hinge of his sanctity as his tradition understands it. The reason the tradition gives is twofold, and both parts matter.

Joseph’s Own Command

First and most decisively, the sources record that it was Joseph himself who insisted that Ephraim remain under Nikephoros. When Ephraim came to him for instruction in prayer, Joseph — precisely because he was a true teacher of the undeluded life — would not receive him as a disciple who had abandoned his own elder. He taught him the noetic prayer, but sent him back to render obedience to Nikephoros, refusing to let his own instruction become the occasion of Ephraim’s disobedience (Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, 2003, on Joseph’s insistence that he stay with Nikephoros; the same is noted in the derivative Lives, which record that Ephraim followed Joseph “after receiving permission from Elder Nikephoros” and remained in Nikephoros’s obedience, johnsanidopoulos.com and full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com, per METHODOLOGY §2.3). This is entirely consistent with everything known of Joseph the Hesychast, for whom obedience was the non-negotiable foundation of the whole spiritual edifice and delusion the ever-present danger of an unobedient asceticism (Joseph of Vatopaidi, Elder Joseph the Hesychast, 1999; see St. Joseph the Hesychast: Spiritual Fatherhood and Obedience). Joseph knew that to take a monk out from under his appointed elder — even to give him something as high as noetic prayer — would be to build the prayer on a cracked foundation. So he built it instead on obedience, and sent the disciple back to his cross.

The arrangement that resulted was unusual but coherent: Ephraim had, in effect, two guides in two distinct capacities. Nikephoros remained his ruling elder, the one to whom he owed the obedience that cut off his will; Joseph became his teacher in the inner prayer, an instructor he visited and heeded but under whom he was not tonsured and to whom he owed no jurisdictional obedience (Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, 2003). The prayer came from Joseph; the obedience remained Nikephoros’s; and the whole was held together by the principle that the prayer must be practiced within the obedience, never against it.

Obedience Above Even the Desire for God’s Gifts

Second, the tradition reads Ephraim’s own acceptance of this as the supreme expression of his obedience — the point at which obedience proved itself by surviving even the desire for the highest spiritual goods. It is one thing to obey a harsh elder in the ordinary trials of the ascetic life; it is another to obey when obedience seems to stand between the soul and the very prayer for which it entered the desert. Ephraim’s willingness to remain under Nikephoros, and to receive Joseph’s prayer only within that obedience, is presented by his biographers as the moment his obedience was tested at its deepest point and held (Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, 2003, on obedience proved in the desire for prayer; Middleton, Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit, Protecting Veil, 2004, on his radical obedience). Here his two great themes — obedience and noetic prayer — are revealed as one: he would not seize the prayer by an act of self-will, because a prayer so seized would have been exactly the self-willed, delusion-prone prayer that the whole tradition warns against. His obedience protected his prayer; his prayer was safe because it grew in the soil of obedience (see Obedience as Cross and Path).

This is why the collection treats this episode as the interpretive key to Ephraim’s life. Everything else follows from it: his lifelong exaltation of obedience “even above prayer” (see Obedience and Prayer); his character as a hidden hesychast who never grasped at position or reputation; his stature as a safe and undeluded guide to whom others could entrust their souls precisely because he had so thoroughly refused to trust his own will. The man who would not leave his hard elder even to gain the prayer of the heart became a master of that prayer — and a teacher whose authority rested on the very obedience that had once seemed to hold him back.

What the Sources Can and Cannot Establish

In keeping with its methodology, the collection notes the provenance of this pivotal story. It reaches us through the devotional biography compiled by Ephraim’s own community and the testimony of Joseph’s circle, not through independent documentation; it is a narrative shaped by the veneration of the men who received it (on this, see The Katounakia Cluster). What can be said with confidence is that Ephraim’s tradition, and the parallel tradition of Joseph the Hesychast’s disciples, agree on the essential shape of the account: that Ephraim was Joseph’s disciple in prayer while remaining Nikephoros’s disciple in obedience, and that this arrangement was understood to be Joseph’s own requirement (Joseph of Vatopaidi, Elder Joseph the Hesychast, 1999, on Ephraim of Katounakia’s combined formation under Nikephoros and Joseph; Elder Ephraim of Katounakia, 2003). This convergence of two distinct devotional traditions on the same structure is the firmest ground the sources afford, and it is on that ground that the collection relates the episode — as the settled memory of both traditions rather than as an independently verified event.

References

Elder Ephraim of Katounakia [Ὁ Γέρων Ἐφραίμ ὁ Κατουνακιώτης]. Trans. Tessy Vassiliadou-Christodoulou. Katounakia: Holy Hesychasterion of St. Ephraim, 2003. (Joseph’s insistence that Ephraim remain under Nikephoros; obedience proved in the desire for prayer.)
Joseph of Vatopaidi, Elder. Elder Joseph the Hesychast: Struggles, Experiences, Teachings. Mount Athos: Vatopaidi, 1999. (Ephraim of Katounakia’s combined formation under Nikephoros and Joseph; obedience as the foundation.)
Middleton, Herman A. Precious Vessels of the Holy Spirit. Thessalonica: Protecting Veil, 2004. (His radical obedience.)
Derivative Lives (johnsanidopoulos.com; full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com) noting he followed Joseph with Nikephoros’s permission; per METHODOLOGY §2.3.