Confessor. The primitive Church did not enclose itself with external visible walls, but it separated itself from the world in the most decisive way. And all Christians set themselves those moral tasks (of course, except for celibacy), which later became specifically monastic tasks.

   Unfold the book of Acts, and you will immediately see this monastery. What was the main life work of Christians? Prayer. They lived a life of prayer. They lived for God and in God. "They all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with certain wives and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren" (Acts 1:14). It was in Jerusalem, in the upper room, where, after the Ascension of the Lord, His closest disciples gathered. Here, having prayed, they cast lots and chose Matthew as an apostle, instead of the fallen Judas, here the Holy Spirit descended upon them in tongues of fire, here they received grace-filled gifts and entered into constant and real prayerful communion with God. These first days in the life of the Church were days of constant prayer. And when the community of Christians quickly grew to several thousand people, this prayerful foundation of their life remained unchanged: "And they continued constantly in the teaching of the Apostles, in fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42).

   When the further growth of the community began to distract from prayer, since various household concerns appeared, special persons were chosen for this purpose - deacons, in order to give the apostles the opportunity to "constantly" abide in prayer and the ministry of the word. Look further at the life of this primitive Church of apostolic times, and you will clearly see in it the very features that we now associate with the "monastery." Their inner life was filled with grace and true ecclesiastical unity. And if we apply our present concepts, it was an ideal monastery, not visibly, but internally erected in the world. "And all the believers were together, and had all things in common" (Acts 2:44). "And the multitude of them that believed had one heart and one soul; and no one called any of his possessions his own, but they had all things in common" (Acts 4:32).

   They did not go into the desert. They did not have high stone walls, but no stone walls could protect the Holy Church from the "world" as much as the inner attitude to worldly life that the first Christians had. The spiritual invisible fence of this monastery was more reliable than any walls, because it placed the monastery outside the world -- not in the sense of external isolation, but in the sense of that clear and universally felt difference between the grace-filled nature of the Church and the evil elements of the world, of which the Apostle speaks: "... whoever wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God" (James 4:4). How the Church lived apart, not mixing with worldly life, although she was in the world, is evident from the following words of the Acts: "And of the strangers no one dared to cling to them" (Acts 5:13). They preached the Word of God to the world, bore witness to the Resurrection of the Savior, brought the good news of salvation to this world, and the number of believers grew every day, "the people blessed them." But the inner life of the Church was made accessible only to those who were already becoming faithful. They did not allow peace into their lives. And this was observed with the greatest strictness.

   "Whosoever cometh unto you, and bringeth not this doctrine, him ye shall not receive into your house, neither shall ye greet him" (2 John 1:10). These seemingly cruel words were addressed to the world, and they were spoken by the Apostle of Love, John.

   But the Church was constantly increasing in its composition. It included masses of pagans. Little by little, the boundary between the Kingdom not of this world, the holy Church, and the worldly life surrounding this Kingdom was blurred. More and more the worldly spirit, alien to Christianity, penetrated into the Church. This began to weigh heavily on the most zealous Christians, who strove to preserve the inner church life of the apostolic time in its entirety and resolutely did not want the secularization of the Church. These zealous Christians, bearers of the true Spirit of the Church, began to sever external ties with the world in the name of the purity of Christian and church life. They carried away from worldly temptations into their solitude the purity of the life of the first Christians and were the true lights of Christianity. Little by little, such a striving for external separation from worldly life spread everywhere, and the Church put forward against the onslaught of secular elemental monasteries as a stronghold of Christianity, where the purity of the Apostolic Church was protected by an external break with worldly life. Individual ascetics left these monastic communities, because the coenobitic monasteries still lived in contact with the world, and the worldly spirit inevitably penetrated into them, at least in part. These were hermits, anchorites, stylites, hermits -- those great ascetics who towered above the general chain of monastic heights as separate unattainable peaks.

   Unknown. Does this mean that the Church was only in the monastery?

   Confessor. No. There was one Church both in the world and in the monastery. But the monastery was the most indestructible stronghold of her holiness for the enemy.

   Unknown. But if a monastery is the ancient Apostolic Church in its purity, where did the "abbots," "elders," "novices," these special monastic statutes, monastic "rules," "five hundreds," prostrations, in a word, the entire way of monastic life come from? What is all this for? After all, the "monastery in the world," as you call the Apostolic Church, could do without it.

   Confessor. Leaving the world and beginning a closed, isolated not only internally, but also externally, spiritual life, the monastery could not remain the same as it was in the time of the apostles. There was a different relationship with the world, an internal struggle proceeded differently, a completely different way of life was created. And the monastery began to create its own methods for achieving spiritual goals, in relation to these new conditions of closed church life, and to this new inner well-being of people who had broken off their external ties with worldly life. The "monastic rule" -- liturgical, fasting, and coenobitic, all the rules and the entire structure of monastic life -- everything is created by spiritual experience, prayer, and podvig. In a monastery, everything comes from the inner life, and not from the mind. In everything there is a breath of the Spirit of God's grace, which abundantly watered the chosen soldiers of Christ. They walked the path of Christian perfection in these new conditions, and each left his precious mite in the treasury of the monastic rule.

   Unknown. But can you tell us in more detail what exactly the monastery created in terms of methods for achieving spiritual goals?

   Confessor. Prayer, fasting, and obedience are what monasticism lived by. And if the whole Church created the liturgical and lenten rule and strengthened the principles of obedience, then monasticism created this primarily as a rule. After all, the Church and the monastery are not something opposite to each other or different in essence. A monastery is a certain part of the earthly Church, but in waging a struggle against the enemy of salvation, both the Church in the world and the Church in the monastery, each did its own work, solved its problems to the best of its ability.

   Unknown. I would like you to tell me more about prayer, fasting, and obedience.

   Confessor. Ok. Let's start with prayer.