When the Holy Spirit anoints awareness with wisdom, unveiling presence as glory, the mind descends into the heart, uncovering union with God as fire, light and glory in the midst. This is Hesychast transmission of purification, illumination and glorification through the Name. It is tri-une revelation of the Name, revealing God through God in God, Holy Trinity. The Name transmits uncreated ‘I’ awareness as wisdom embracing divine ‘AM’ presence as glory in the midst. Orthodox Hesychasm treasures these mysteries of wisdom and glory, mysteries which renew Holy Orthodoxy in every generation. Each religious world has its wisdom and although these wisdoms differ culturally and symbolically, Hesychast wisdom recognises wisdom wherever it manifests, generously able to integrate the shadow cast by shallow religion bereft of wisdom. When wisdom transmits the glory of the Name, healthy theopathy can heal what was demonised and integrate what was despised. Glory is fire then light before glory transfigures all that wisdom sees, glory transforming the glorified.
A global world brings together wisdoms that were once hidden at the heart of largely separate worlds, uncovering doxological co-inherence. But wise co-inherence is no shallow innovation. The ancient Oriental churches spread along the Silk Road from Antioch to China, from Odessa to Tibet and from Nisibis to India carrying a Johannine wisdom of the Name from Jerusalem to the Far East. Oriental Christian wisdom matured along the way, deeply encountering each culture by assimilating elements from its wisdom. The Christian wisdom of the Name also inspired Celtic saints in the western isles to integrate ancient Celtic wisdom culture, generating a mature Christian wisdom in Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, Cumbria and Wales, spreading the wisdom of the desert fathers from Egypt to southern France, from Syria to Brittany, Galloway and Pebidiog. In Ireland, the hallowing Name inspired St Patrick’s Lorica, his Breastplate Hymn invoking Holy Trinity; in Constainople it inspired the Trisagion Hymn in the Byzantine east. But whatever the cultural, linguistic and liturgical differences, the Name purifies hearts, illumines minds with wisdom and deifies saints, grounding wisdom in glory everywhere.
Wisdom is still renewing hearts in the Byzantine world and inspiring martyrs in the Oriental East, but when Archimandrite Sophrony came to Britain, he bore prophetic witness to the Name ‘I AM,’ searching out the mysteries of deifying first-personhood in the Spirit, through Christ, restoring the Name as the Son’s gift to us from the Father. Ancient apostolic witness to the Name ‘I AM’ was renewed in our times when elders once again bore witness to the wisdom and glory of its holiness. Many heard this and took it to heart, one of them eventually generating wisdom song, restoring glory to glory by hallowing the Name. Some say the Name draws very close when end times draw near, others that the Name bears witness to God in the midst for all time. Either way, the Name ‘I AM’ renews Hesychast Orthodox tradition for this present age.
Orthodoxy is glorification which hallows and glorifies saints. Hesychasm is stillness that restores glory to God, but wisdom knows hesychia is not the exclusive possession of the Orthodox. Wisdom gathers diverse divine names from different cultures when the Great Name is hallowed. She reveres what is true in them all when she turns to see who sees, Christ in our midst. Wisdom’s holy co-inherence gathers separation into differentiated union and stops diversity disintegrating into hardened division. Hesychast wisdom is the living heart of Christian Orthodoxy but embraces the Spirit of Truth beyond every boundary and in every sphere. It is living Patristic Orthodoxy, but in accordance with the true spirit of the Fathers, it transcends literal repetition of Patristic texts and formulas. It is living Biblical wisdom but is not protestant, because it retains Patristic hermeneutics, nurturing nourishing wisdom. The Spirit of truth bears unbroken witness to wisdom in the spirit of integral Patristic wholeness, not in a narrow sectarian spirit. The Name reveals God in the midst, enlightening his seers with wisdom, hallowing her saints with glory. Holy Orthodoxy is uncreated fire, opening to deifying purification, uncreated light, revealing transfiguring illumination and uncreated glory, unveiling translucent glorification. Fire purifies true disciples, light illumines wise elders, glory hallows God’s saints, ascribing all glory to God, renewing Holy Orthodoxy in our time and for times to come.