Part I

Prologue

I bow my knees to the Creator of all, I stretch out my hands to the Eternal Word, seeking the gift of words... (Following St. John Chrysostom, Ikos)

Truly, it is necessary for the one who begins these lines to kneel before the Creator, it is necessary to stretch out his hands to the Eternal Word, seeking in the depths of his soul a word worthy of depicting the deeds and feats of the saints.

In the days when the Russian Orthodox Church, and with her the whole world, celebrates the millennium of the Baptism of Rus' and when these days have come true, every Russian Orthodox must have his or her say. Our word is about the Russian eldership, since by God's Providence personal life and the life of loved ones were accomplished under the guidance of the elders.

Orthodoxy, and especially Russian Orthodoxy, has long been the subject of in-depth study for many representatives of non-Orthodox confessions. With great attention and love, in all the smallest details, Orthodox worship is studied. Much attention is paid to Orthodox fine arts and Russian icons. The lines about the Russian eldership are filled with the same interest, although the image of the elder is most often depicted as the image of a wanderer moving across the boundless expanses of the Russian land, carrying within himself the work and art of the Jesus Prayer.14

The Russian eldership – the flesh of the flesh of the universal eldership – based on the experience of the great Egyptian elders, also has specific features. To look closely at the features of this great consoling phenomenon born in the bosom of the Russian Orthodox Church is our urgent task, and this is what our word is about.

But to reveal the little-known sources of the sayings of the elders themselves in their writings and letters – and thus to be reborn to never-ending, eternal life – should also be within our power. On the whole, the direction of the word before us is a fall into the foundations of the Spirit in Christ Jesus, to the foundations of the spiritual life, which guides and strengthens the life of people in the eldership. It is also the search for life, the search for the path, unchanging, true, which remains so in the days of our difficult "cosmic" age.

Fundamentals of Eldership

… thoughts, the most primary and most subtle forms of the movement of sin and virtue in the realm of the mind, became for the monks the center of primary attention in the guidance of the elders. ("Monastic Pastorship, or Eldership")

Before expounding our thoughts on the Russian eldership, it is necessary, at least very briefly, schematically, to understand the basic concepts of the eldership as such that exist in the literature. There are very few such works; most often eldership is written about as a patristic tradition, as a phenomenon associated with the teaching and thoughts of the Holy Fathers, and ideas about the benefits of elder guidance are developed.15

In addition to the above-mentioned sources, it is necessary to note the manuscript work, where the eldership is understood as monastic pastorship.16 Its author sees in the phenomenon of eldership a mystical justification for the moral feat of man. He says that for the realization of Christian perfection it is necessary to purify the heart, to sanctify the entire personality of a person, which can be achieved only in the ascesis of elderly guidance. In it, the entire "subsoil" of human life must be revealed.