ΤΗΕ ROLE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
By
taking the healing method preserved and applied in the monasteries
and introducing it in our own homes and souls and apply it in our
very lives, we get completely cured, both spiritually and physically.
True
psychotherapy, today, is unfortunately preserved and observed (almost
exclusively and) only in orthodox monasteries. It may seem hard for
many to believe this, but in the Byzantine times, this therapy was
implemented also by the laity! Yes, indeed! Many lay people out there
were practitioners of Hesychasm, they lived by and acted according to
this “medical” treatment. They were, in fact, “hesychasts in
the world”. If you read, for example, St. Ephraim the Syrian (4th
century A.D.), you will find him saying that people in the cities
were more ascetic than the ones living in the monasteries. So, much
to our surprise, lay people were more monastic than monastics!
Today,
we have lost all of that, and many of the worldly people claim “Ιt
is one thing to be a lay person and another to be a monk. Lay people
are excused (so they say) to live a spiritually “light” version
of our faith and are supposed to do less than a monastic.”
Totally wrong attitude! That’s why we are all sick, both lay and
secularized people and, unfortunately, many of the monks and nuns of
our times.
When
we do not adopt the therapeutic system of Hesychasm, even as monks or
nuns in a monastery, we cannot be cured. It’s
not the place, but the way (method) that cures!
Concluding,
whenever we hear about Hesychasm, we should immediately think of the
healing method explained above.
f. Savvas Agioreitis
To be continued...
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