Wisdom Fellowship of the Holy Name

                                         

The Wisdom Fellowship of the Holy Name is a gathering of those drawn by the mysteries of desert wisdom at the heart of the Orthodox Hesychast tradition and by wisdom’s grace, radiant in different ways in all the world’s great wisdom traditions.  It reflects an integral wisdom embrace, transcending but including every genuine revelation of wisdom, every prophetic manifestation of wisdom in Orthodox Christian Hesychasm.  Orthodox Christian wisdom’s integral Hesychast communion draws directly on the mysteries of desert wisdom that inspired St David and St Madoc in St Davids in the sixth century, but also the wisdom of glory in all the saints, such as Saint Silouan the Athonite, revealing humble love, and Saint Sophrony the Hesychast, revealing the Holy Name.  It is inspired by the transfiguring union of wisdom and glory in the Holy of Holies, springing from the communion of awareness and presence in the Holy Name, union which sustains communion as uncreated co-creativity in mystical theology and sacred art.  

Wisdom’s sacred function is to renew sacred tradition in the uncreated light of glory, which is to abide in the hallowing mysteries of purification, illumination and glorification of the heart, which is union with Christ in his death, resurrection, ascension and glorification.  Consequently, the Wisdom Fellowship of the Holy Name bears witness to the timeless mysteries of wisdom and glory in the heart, abiding in the hallowed Name ‘I AM,’ lived as Way, Truth and transfiguring Life, unveiled by Holy Trinity, unveiling Holy Trinity.  As a contemporary expression of the same wisdom that inspired ancient Christian desert monasticism, it embraces primordial desert IHIDAYAH, the life of graced union in deifying oneness, upstream from institutional monastic community life, opening to new unfolding of the eremitical desert tradition.  Amongst the friends, It also includes different ways in which wisdom tradition is embraced in family life, life partnerships, spiritual friendships and shared endeavour for the common good.

An initial step was taken in January 2019, when two hermitages were established at 73, Nun St, St Davids, a Wisdom Hermitage and the Starstonewell Hermitage above the ground floor Gallery at 73, Nun St, which houses sacred art and wisdom books.  The Gallery currently houses contemporary sacred calligraphy and stone carvings but also offers a space to meet and share with all who are drawn to wisdom awakening, wisdom creativity and co-creative communion in response to the crises and challenges of our times.  It extends the mysteries of transfiguring wisdom to a busy high street in the pilgrimage city of St Davids, opening to fresh wisdom ways of exploring the Christian tradition, beyond the constricted confines of pre-modern Christendom, modern Christianity and post-modern Christian spirituality.

The Wisdom fellowship of the Holy Name embraces the wisdom of uncreated light as graceful opening to glory, completeness that includes broken incompleteness as transfiguring witness to timeless completeness.   Integral wisdom acknowledges the importance of conventional, pre-modern religion, modern science, technology and democracy, together with post-modern spirituality, green ecology and radical grassroots politics, but is not confined by their shadow projections or warring exclusions.  Transfiguring wisdom lives from the Great Peace of the hallowed Name, unveiling the kingdom of glory at the heart of ever-present awareness.  Transfiguring wisdom is not closed, like sectarian, secular philosophies, which are confined by space and time, but is open to timeless, wisdom mysteries which unveil glory as awareness of presence and wisdom as integral awareness, opening from light to glory.  Transfiguring wisdom makes friends of those whose hearts awaken to these mysteries in this and every generation of nations, cultures, religions and languages.  Translucent wisdom inspires sustaining communion that grounds renewing spiritual fellowship, companionship that serves the deification of each and all.

Father Silouan.                                                                                                     August 21st 2019.

Since March 2020, retreats in St Davids have ceased, due to the spread of the Covid19 virus, but have continued to take place on Zoom under the guidance of Rev Michael Gartland, with the enthusiastic support of the Wisdom Fellowship of the Holy Name.