03 — The Sora Skete
Returning from the Christian East, St. Nilus of Sora did not remain in the great cenobitic house of Kirillo-Belozersk but withdrew some distance away to found, on the marshy banks of the little Sora river, a skete of deliberate poverty and remoteness — and in doing so transplanted into Russia a third form of monastic life. These files describe the founding and character of the Sora skete and then the skete ideal itself: the small brotherhood of two or three, neither the large coenobium nor the full solitude of the hermit, governed not by an abbot’s authority but by a shared rule and the guidance of an experienced elder.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (hesychast; “Non-Possessors”)
The skete was Nilus’s institutional answer to the question his age had raised about monastic wealth and the conditions of contemplative prayer. Where the cenobitic monastery had grown large, prosperous, and busy with administration, Nilus built something small, poor, and quiet — a setting designed so that a handful of monks could practice the inner prayer he had learned on Athos. This section presents the skete as both a place and a principle.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Skete on the Sora | The founding of Nilus’s skete near the Sora river; the choice of a poor, remote, inhospitable site; the simplicity of its buildings and economy; life there by the labor of the monks’ own hands. |
| The Skete as a Third Way | The skete model between the large coenobium and full eremitism — the small brotherhood of two or three under a shared rule and a spiritual elder — its Athonite roots and its naturalization in Russia. |
See Also
- The Journey to Athos and Constantinople — the source of the skete model
- The Tradition (Predanie) and Letters — the rule by which the brotherhood lived
- Possessions and the Monastic Vocation — the principle of self-support that governed the skete
- Monasticism — the three forms of monastic life in the tradition
References
- Maloney, George A., S.J. Russian Hesychasm: The Spirituality of Nil Sorsky. The Hague: Mouton, 1973.
- Fedotov, Georges P. The Russian Religious Mind, Vol. II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966.
- Goldfrank, David M., trans. and ed. Nil Sorsky: The Authentic Writings. Cistercian Studies 221. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2008.