The Rich Heritage of Eastern Slavic Spirituality

LOUIS BOUYER [Louis Bouyer was a priest of the Oratory in Paris, France, and a professor of spiritual theology at the Institut Catholique. A freguent contributor to French periodicals, he is widely known in the U.S. and Great Britain for his speaking and writing. His works translated into English include The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism; The Meaning of Sacred Scripture; Word, Church and Sacraments in Protestantism and Catholicism; and An Introduction to Spirituality.] AND THE EDITORS | posted 4/01/1988 12:00AM

In only 460 years (990–1450), less than half the millennium period being celebrated this year, at least several thousand of the Eastern Slavs—and this is based solely on the number taking monastic vows—were exercising themselves in spiritual devotions and service. Here are the stories of only a few of the leading lights.

The spirituality of the Orthodox believers in Eastern Slavic territories, like the spirituality of the entire Orthodox faith itself, is largely unknown to most Western, Protestant readers. But there is much in the history of such spirituality, as the several tales below will demonstrate, that can inspire, stimulate and encourage us.

These biographies are excerpted and condensed from Fr. Louis Bouyer’s book, Orthodox Spirituality and Protestant and Anglican Spirituality, No. III in the series, A History of Christian Spirituality, by Bouyer, Jean Leclercq, Francois Vandenbroucke, and Louis Cognet. Originally published in 1969 by The Seabury Press, the series is now published by Harper &Row Publishing, Inc., and these excerpts are used here by permission of Harper &Row.

Comparing the Primary Chronicle’s accounts of the conversions of Vladimir and Olga with those of characters in other ancient Christian writings, it is worthy of note that the Chroniclers make no attempt to gloss over the previous sinful conduct of the two heroes—as was the case, for example, in Eusebius’s account of the conversion of Constantine. In fact, the Slavic Chroniclers openly discusses Olga’s brutality and Vladimir’s dissolute life, portraying two people who, in Christianizing the realm of the Kievan Rus’, were not prefabricated saints but needed conversion just as much as their people.

This is but another evidence that from the first, “Russian” Christianity was prominently a religion of penitents, penitents who found no difficulty in confessing their grossest sins. This was to mark it with an evangelical character of striking consistency. Of course some distortions arose, distortions so overly penitent that one astute said Russians were incapable of sinning with simplicity.

Yet it is easy to see that even behind the distortions lay a candor and humility that moved many spiritually minded Russian people to own Christ’s phrase, “I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners”—a claim that our over-civilized Christianity may find some difficulty in digesting.

Growing out of this penitent spirit is a rich history of spirituality, of Orthodox Slavic believers reaching for the divine with all their hearts, souls, minds and strengths. Here are some of their stories.

In Russian lands, as in the ancient East, spirituality early on came to center mainly on monasticism. Monasticism was already in existence in those regions well before the baptism of Kiev, but the royal family’s Christianization certainly lent it a significant boost, as the house of Vladimir abundantly extended its interest and generosity to the Petcherskaia Lavra, or the Monastery of the Caves, whose facility still stands on a much-hallowed plot of ground just outside Kiev. The monastery’s founder, St. Antony, apparently began his monastic life in Greece. But the records of his teaching and practices seem to suggest he was more strongly influenced by Syrian monasticism, especially seen in his insistence on penitential asceticism of a kind we are tempted to regard as inhuman.

Born in Lyubech, just north of Kiev, he was unable to settle down in any of the existing monasteries on his return from Greece. After wandering from one to another, he finally established himself in a cave in the side of the hill overlooking the city or Kiev. There, he lived in total solitude on bread and water, digging out his cave with his own hands, watching and praying. Disciples from all sections of society soon gathered ’round him, and proceeded to enlarge the caves and build a church building. He welcomed them, but when there were too many he with drew further up the hill and finished his life in total seclusion. When he died in 1073 (?), the monastery was under the direction of one of his followers, Theodosius, who was actually canonized as a saint before the retiring Antony was.