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Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library #40
Holy Men of Mount Athos
Often simply called the Holy Mountain, Mount Athos was the most famous center of Byzantine monasticism and remains the spiritual heart of the Orthodox Church today. This volume presents the Lives of Euthymios the Younger, Athanasios of Athos, Maximos the Hutburner, Niphon of Athos, and Philotheos. These five holy men lived on Mount Athos at different times from its early years as a monastic locale in the ninth century to the last decades of the Byzantine period in the early fifteenth century. All five were celebrated for asceticism, clairvoyance, and, in most cases, the ability to perform miracles; Euthymios and Athanasios were also famed as founders of monasteries.
Holy Men of Mount Athos illuminates both the history and the varieties of monastic practice on Athos, individually by hermits as well as communally in large monasteries. The Lives also demonstrate the diversity of hagiographic composition and provide important glimpses of Byzantine social and political history.
All the Lives in this volume are presented for the first time in English translation, together with authoritative editions of their Greek texts.
Holy Men of Mount Athos illuminates both the history and the varieties of monastic practice on Athos, individually by hermits as well as communally in large monasteries. The Lives also demonstrate the diversity of hagiographic composition and provide important glimpses of Byzantine social and political history.
All the Lives in this volume are presented for the first time in English translation, together with authoritative editions of their Greek texts.
- GenresReligion
776 pages, Hardcover
Published April 28, 2016
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December 7, 2017
Like all the Dumbarton Oaks volumes, this one is a wonderfully elegant work of scholarship. Endnoted to the max, here we are provided - in facing Greek and English - with six hagiographies concerning five Athonite monks. All are edifying and inspiring to some degree, and the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library is to be significantly credited for their persistence in bringing into English such fine translations of previously untranslated Byzantine literature.
The 39-chapter Life of Euthymios the Younger, authored by the saint's disciple Basil, presents us with a man named Niketas, son of Epiphaneios and Anna and brother to Maria and Epiphaneia, hailing from a Galatian village. As he grows, he enrolls in the military, marries a woman named Euphrosyne, has a daughter named Anastaso, but soon thereafter enacts his long-held desire to "dedicate and give himself to God by adopting the monastic habit." On the pretext of searching for a lost horse, the 18-year-old Niketas travels to Olympos and encounters Abba Ioannikos. (Upon arrival, Ioannikos tests him by falsely declaring Niketas to be a murderer; and, in ascetic humility and obedience, Niketas confesses and is vindicated.) Niketas departs to live with Abba John, who tonsures him and renames him Euthymios before eventually sending him to a cenobitic monastery. The Life goes on to discuss Euthymios' ascetic combat against his own temptations toward the passions; his gentleness and service; and his determination to transfer to Mount Athos. The text describes the arduous nature of his lifestyle (with particularly graphic descriptions of "a swarm of lice" that "multiplied upon them due to the filth of their bodies, and worms were generated in their decaying and rotten garments as if in pus...") and his confrontations with demonic apparitions; his travels and stint as a stylite (standing atop a column); his ordination as a deacon; his temporary capture by Arab plunderers and release; his travels to Thessaloniki to found a monastery southeast of the city; his continued confrontations with demonic opposition; and finally, his transfer of his monastery to his grandson Methodios and nunnery to his granddaughter Euphemia; his return to a stylite lifestyle, to Athos, and finally to a hermitage; and his peaceful death after a brief illness. Various incidents in Euthymios' life are, within the work, anchored in events in Byzantine history - for instance, the controversies between Ignatios and Photios over the patriarchate beginning in 858. Assorted elements of cultural color come through - for instance, the reference to a monk named Joseph who "was not devious and crafty, even though he was of Armenian descent"! And, although most of the hagiographies feature little of the actual teaching of the saints they portray, this Life does offer several paragraphs of speech attributed to Euthymios (pp. 102-107).
Many of the same factors are visible in the other five hagiographies. The anonymously-written 79-chapter Life of Athanasios of Athos presents us with a man named Abraamios, born in Trebizond, orphaned early but raised by a family friend who was a wealthy nun. Taken at a young age to Constantinople by a eunuch, he came to live with a general named Zephinazer whose son married a female relative of Abraamios'. After joining Zephinazer on a expedition that afforded young Abraamios a distant view of Athos and returning to Constaninople to meet St. Michael Maleinos and his nephew Nikephoros Phokas (then a military governor), Abraamios became the hair-shirt-wearing monk Athanasios, whom Michael in time recognized as a spiritual successor. Not wanting to become abbot of the Kyminas monastery, Athanasios thereafter flees to Athos under an assumed identity, pretending to be a simpleton (instead of the very learned man he actually was) - until Nikephoros' search for him and instructions to the Athonite protos leads to the revelation of his real identity: "Since Athanasios was such a practitioner of virtue, in the end he could not escape notice, just as a city set on a hill cannot be hid." He later was compelled to travel to Crete to bless Nikephoros' military endeavors there (in recapturing it from an emirate established there by Andalusian Muslim exiles), and received from both Nikephoros and the latter's brother Leo Phokas funds with which to rebuild a church - a project that expanded into establishing the first monastery on Mount Athos, the Great Lavra. (During this construction, Nikephoros was proclaimed emperor - a bit of news that greatly disappointed Athanasios, to whom Nikephoros had once promised to become a monk.) After another failed effort to disappear (this time in Cyprus), work to restore another monastery, and a visit with the new emperor, Athanasios returned to Athos for further combat with demons (a running theme here as well), who instigate 'accidents' that physically harm him and seek to promote turmoil and unrest among his monks and with Nikephoros' successor John I Tzimiskes. The portrayals of Athanasios' ascetic struggles and especially his care for the monks are quite moving. Much of the remainder of the Life is consumed with anecdotes revealing Athanasios' virtue, his discernment, even the occasional miraculous healing. Eventually, as he predicts, Athanasios is buried beneath some collapsed scaffolding at the construction site of the Lavra, leading to his death in chapter 66; the subsequent chapters relay his funeral and his posthumous miracles, before concluding with an entreaty to St. Athanasios "as you stand in the presence of the Trinity and are brilliantly illuminated by its shining rays" (367).
Similar summaries could be offered of the other four hagiographies in this volume: two of St. Maximos the Hutburner (whose practice of burning his huts gave the name to Kavsokalyvia); one of the hieromonk Niphon of Athos (who himself is the author of the first Life of Maximos the Hutburner included); and, lastly, a short anonymous life of Philotheos. All have plenty more ascetic struggles, plenty more miracles, as well as their fair share of excitement (after all, Philotheos was the son of a refugee, was conscripted as a child by the Ottoman Turks, and escaped through a vision - finding refuge at the monastery where, unbeknownst to him and his brother, their mother had become a nun).
If the time period in question interests you, if monasticism interests you, if saints interest you, or if you're simply looking for interesting adventures or (better yet) a glimpse at holy lives, be sure to pick up this book.
The 39-chapter Life of Euthymios the Younger, authored by the saint's disciple Basil, presents us with a man named Niketas, son of Epiphaneios and Anna and brother to Maria and Epiphaneia, hailing from a Galatian village. As he grows, he enrolls in the military, marries a woman named Euphrosyne, has a daughter named Anastaso, but soon thereafter enacts his long-held desire to "dedicate and give himself to God by adopting the monastic habit." On the pretext of searching for a lost horse, the 18-year-old Niketas travels to Olympos and encounters Abba Ioannikos. (Upon arrival, Ioannikos tests him by falsely declaring Niketas to be a murderer; and, in ascetic humility and obedience, Niketas confesses and is vindicated.) Niketas departs to live with Abba John, who tonsures him and renames him Euthymios before eventually sending him to a cenobitic monastery. The Life goes on to discuss Euthymios' ascetic combat against his own temptations toward the passions; his gentleness and service; and his determination to transfer to Mount Athos. The text describes the arduous nature of his lifestyle (with particularly graphic descriptions of "a swarm of lice" that "multiplied upon them due to the filth of their bodies, and worms were generated in their decaying and rotten garments as if in pus...") and his confrontations with demonic apparitions; his travels and stint as a stylite (standing atop a column); his ordination as a deacon; his temporary capture by Arab plunderers and release; his travels to Thessaloniki to found a monastery southeast of the city; his continued confrontations with demonic opposition; and finally, his transfer of his monastery to his grandson Methodios and nunnery to his granddaughter Euphemia; his return to a stylite lifestyle, to Athos, and finally to a hermitage; and his peaceful death after a brief illness. Various incidents in Euthymios' life are, within the work, anchored in events in Byzantine history - for instance, the controversies between Ignatios and Photios over the patriarchate beginning in 858. Assorted elements of cultural color come through - for instance, the reference to a monk named Joseph who "was not devious and crafty, even though he was of Armenian descent"! And, although most of the hagiographies feature little of the actual teaching of the saints they portray, this Life does offer several paragraphs of speech attributed to Euthymios (pp. 102-107).
Many of the same factors are visible in the other five hagiographies. The anonymously-written 79-chapter Life of Athanasios of Athos presents us with a man named Abraamios, born in Trebizond, orphaned early but raised by a family friend who was a wealthy nun. Taken at a young age to Constantinople by a eunuch, he came to live with a general named Zephinazer whose son married a female relative of Abraamios'. After joining Zephinazer on a expedition that afforded young Abraamios a distant view of Athos and returning to Constaninople to meet St. Michael Maleinos and his nephew Nikephoros Phokas (then a military governor), Abraamios became the hair-shirt-wearing monk Athanasios, whom Michael in time recognized as a spiritual successor. Not wanting to become abbot of the Kyminas monastery, Athanasios thereafter flees to Athos under an assumed identity, pretending to be a simpleton (instead of the very learned man he actually was) - until Nikephoros' search for him and instructions to the Athonite protos leads to the revelation of his real identity: "Since Athanasios was such a practitioner of virtue, in the end he could not escape notice, just as a city set on a hill cannot be hid." He later was compelled to travel to Crete to bless Nikephoros' military endeavors there (in recapturing it from an emirate established there by Andalusian Muslim exiles), and received from both Nikephoros and the latter's brother Leo Phokas funds with which to rebuild a church - a project that expanded into establishing the first monastery on Mount Athos, the Great Lavra. (During this construction, Nikephoros was proclaimed emperor - a bit of news that greatly disappointed Athanasios, to whom Nikephoros had once promised to become a monk.) After another failed effort to disappear (this time in Cyprus), work to restore another monastery, and a visit with the new emperor, Athanasios returned to Athos for further combat with demons (a running theme here as well), who instigate 'accidents' that physically harm him and seek to promote turmoil and unrest among his monks and with Nikephoros' successor John I Tzimiskes. The portrayals of Athanasios' ascetic struggles and especially his care for the monks are quite moving. Much of the remainder of the Life is consumed with anecdotes revealing Athanasios' virtue, his discernment, even the occasional miraculous healing. Eventually, as he predicts, Athanasios is buried beneath some collapsed scaffolding at the construction site of the Lavra, leading to his death in chapter 66; the subsequent chapters relay his funeral and his posthumous miracles, before concluding with an entreaty to St. Athanasios "as you stand in the presence of the Trinity and are brilliantly illuminated by its shining rays" (367).
Similar summaries could be offered of the other four hagiographies in this volume: two of St. Maximos the Hutburner (whose practice of burning his huts gave the name to Kavsokalyvia); one of the hieromonk Niphon of Athos (who himself is the author of the first Life of Maximos the Hutburner included); and, lastly, a short anonymous life of Philotheos. All have plenty more ascetic struggles, plenty more miracles, as well as their fair share of excitement (after all, Philotheos was the son of a refugee, was conscripted as a child by the Ottoman Turks, and escaped through a vision - finding refuge at the monastery where, unbeknownst to him and his brother, their mother had become a nun).
If the time period in question interests you, if monasticism interests you, if saints interest you, or if you're simply looking for interesting adventures or (better yet) a glimpse at holy lives, be sure to pick up this book.
December 27, 2016
As is usual with any compilation, some entries are better than others. The translations of all the Lives are equally good, but the originals vary in quality and interest. The two Lives of Maximos the Hutburner exemplify that idea: Theophanes, for me, is much more readable than Niphon. Otherwise, by the time one has finished reading about the lives of these devout men, and the miracles ascribed to them, one is hard-pressed not to believe that there's at least a smidgen of truth in them, and perhaps more.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews