Saint Sophrony the Hesychast is sometimes called Saint Sophrony the Athonite because he was a monk on Most Athos between 1926 and !947 and sometimes Saint Sophrony of Essex since he was the revered elder of his monastery in Essex between 1959 and his death in 1993. Both titles reflect important periods of his life on Mount Athos and in… Read more »
The Song of the Name was wisdom song inspiring a wisdom round cell on the hill, infusing the wisdom of prophecy and prayer, prophecy renewing images, prayer transcendending images (Wisdom, Prophecy and Prayer 2013). The wisdom of prophecy regenerated images in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘Life of Merlin’ with images of the Manstone’s Christly enthronement on the Stiperstones (Merlin on Manstone Mynd… Read more »
‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God’ John1:1). The Word names God in the beginning, unveiling the Name of completeness that the Holy Spirit knows as Truth, the Spirit of Truth knows as Way and the Way knows to be eternal Life. The Name is timeless life, living uncreated light… Read more »
I came to tell thee my Name, / I am ‘I AM’ in thy midst . / Turn, turn, and thou shall be turned; / turn and see who sees. / I am ‘I AM,’ that is my Name, / the glory belongs to God alone. / Vain, vain, the glory when confusion / reigns and the glory darkly falls. / The… Read more »
Is Christmas a dangerous blasphemy? Those who shouted for Christ to be crucified thought it was. Was Christ’s incarnation a disastrous idolatry? Many monotheists thought so, but they were confused by what they saw as his confusion. Was his crucifixion proof that he was a Jewish heretic? In which case, what did his resurrection prove? Was his ascension really his disappearance… Read more »
Uncreated energy is winged, giving creation grace to rise with heavenly wings into heavenly realms, like angels whose deified lives are winged, or Seraphic flame partaking in winged Cherubic embrace, images of the ineffable that resonate with music of unseen spheres. Uncreated energy is creative, generating wondrous ways of being renewed by the uncreated imagination, deifying elders and saints with uncreated… Read more »
The invocation of the Name revokes the ancient curse as it undoes the fall from grace. It breaks the curse of evil enchantment with the grace of uncreated love, whose glory was hidden when Beauty was asleep. The Beauty of glory sleeps forever unless the kiss of grace breaks the curse of enchantment with genuine love. The dis-enchanting kiss of love awakens beauty… Read more »
Wisdom discerns the union of beauty and glory in paradise, the paradise that transfigures the earth with the union of holiness. Heaven and earth are conjoined as a visible union in the Holy of Holies, whilst the invisible is joined with the visible in the Holiest of Holies. The holy heart of the Holiest conjoins creation with uncreated glory, which his… Read more »
Wisdom abides at the heart of glory, delighting in the beauty of her glory’s holiness, rejoicing in the limpid purity of her uncreated energy. She does not neglect those she loves, but embraces them with her in-seeing gaze, seeing through the hardened surfaces of external form to the formless translucence of God’s Holy Name. To love her is to die… Read more »
The wisdom hermitage is redundant in monasteries that have forgotten what they are for, although in the desert, Orthodox monasticism began with hermit cells and on the Holy Mountain, the hermitage still survives between the monasteries. The wisdom round cell becomes a place to store whatever has nowhere else to go, when once it had been the place of stillness at the… Read more »