I'm just finishing Elder Joseph's letters, about to embark on his "Life". What an inspiration! What a saint!

Like many a true saint he has a power and presence in the world today, not just through his letters or the memory of his life, but a true presence, overflowing from the other side. I sense it while reading his words and looking at his photograph, and feel it has the quality of light. Very beautiful and brimming over.

I also felt his influence on me under attack from demonic sources, his name besmirched and his image tainted, but felt a powerful response clearing the way - the grace of God working through this awesome saint.

His visions, his fight against the demons, his teachings on patience, humility and obedience, as well as on the Jesus prayer and its effects, his advise to his children, all of these shine from the book: "Monastic Wisdom, The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast."

He was the last of a long line of Hesychasts. The Soviets destroyed thousands of monasteries, turning them into latrines and garbage dumps. It's a very sad story, much like what the Maoists did to Tibet.

It will take a while for this tradition to rebuild.
It's pretty self-denying hairshirt stuff, and Thomas
Merton was critical, although not without admiration
of the Uncreated Energies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm

http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Hesychasm

Most of the very little I know about Russian mystics comes from Merton, The Pilgrim, the Philokalia and this book:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi.../0879079266?v=glance

This book really fired my imagination and kindled a very deep respect for Eastern Orthodoxy.

Than you for the topic! - caritas, mm <*))))><

From what I can gather, at about the same time as the Soviets were destroying the monasteries in Russia, the tradition was spreading from Mt. Athos, where it had been most concentrated (and insulated), to Europe and North America, thanks to the spiritual children of Elder Joseph, St Silouan and Elder Paisios - strangely similar to the spread of Tibetan Buddhism to the West. And, thankfully, it's in the new spread that the tradition survives.

Orthodox monasteries in the U.S.A.? One or two...
How 'bout jolly olde Angle Land?

Yeah, there's only one that I know of in Essex, but the Jesus prayer part of hesychasm is really what I'm talking about and the influence of saints like Elder Joseph on non-Orthodox Christians. I feel this is much more wide ranging. It's had an impact on Anglicanism, for example, with Prince Charles, the next head of the Church of England, shooting off to Mt. Athos every once in a while, and a movement within Anglicanism to merge with the Orthodox church. That's the new spread I'm interested in, where before the prayer was solely practised in monasteries and on long Russian walks into Siberia etc. It does mean that people are generally practising it without an elder, and that's partly where the tradition breaks down, I suppose.

I have found, however, from my own practise over the past 6-8 months, that God has his ways and means of teaching the prayer, and I don't mean just from books. Spiritual channels are being opened up in very special ways. Whether this is a wide ranging thing or just something that's happening to me, I don't know, but I feel the prayer is such a special thing, God's not going to let it drop out of use or lock it away in crumbling monasteries for too long.

His "Life" brings the asceticism into focus. Pretty extreme stuff, and yes, the last of a long line. This stuff just doesn't fit in the modern world. But you can see what he's doing, the fight against the passions through extreme denial - of food, sleep, wordly care and comfort. I don't think the Jesus prayer needs this, but for these guys, the prayer and asceticism went hand in hand and opened them up to the Grace which inspired tremendous patience, courage and humility, virtues which also, sadly, don't fit in with the modern world. I have massive respect for Elder Joseph and his kind.

A photo shows him in the last year of his life and he looks about 80 years old, but according to the book he must only be about 60. Definitely not a life style for those wanting to stay looking young.