An important addition to St. Gregory's teaching on hesychia is his conversation with Maximus of the Holy Mountain about mental prayer. The Athonite Patericon in the Life of St. Maximus relates: "When St. Gregory the Sinaite met with St. Maximus, he asked Maximus: 'I beg you, my reverend father, tell me about mental prayer, do you perform it?' From my youth I had a living faith in my Lady, the Most Holy Theotokos, and I did not cease to beseech Her with tears to grant me the grace of spiritual prayer. One day, as always, I came to church and prayed to Her with the boundless warmth of my heart. When I, full of love, kissed Her holy icon,

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Then I felt in my heart the darkness and fire of the holy icon, but not scorched, but the blessing of me. In nto mgnong• nir, my father, my heart began to pronounce the prayer from its depths, and my mind through the nose of the remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ and my Intercessor I 1re the removed Mother of God received new strength. And to this day my heart does not lose that memory. And from that hour, forgive me, the prayer in my heart does not cease." Then St. Gregory said: "Tell me, venerable father, when you are saying the Jesus Prayer, have you seen any manifestations of God that can be considered the fruits of the Holy Spirit? St. Maximus answered, "Yes, my father, and so I retired to solitary places and >or to pray in perfect silence, that I might receive more of the fruits of the Holy Spirit."

Then St. Gregory asked: "I beg you, father, tell me, do you now and always have what you tell me about?" Lowering his eyes, Maximus said: "Do not demand of me that I speak about the revelations given to me," Then St. Gregory said: "Oh, may God grant you always to have such consolations, venerable father! I beg you, tell me: when your mind ascends to God, what do you see with your spiritual eyes? And can your mind rise up with your heart?" When the grace of the Holy Spirit descends upon people through prayer, the prayer ceases, for the mind submits to the Holy Spirit and can no longer act by its own powers, it is inactive, and the Holy Spirit leads where it wants: either to the immaterial atmosphere of the Divine Light, or to some ineffable vision, or to a conversation with God. In short, speak as the Comforter, the Holy Spirit comforts His servants as He wills; whatever grace each one needs, that He gives him.

What I am talking about now can be found by everyone in the prophets and apostles; People often thought that they had fallen into delusion, but people were mistaken. Thus, St. Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a high Throne, surrounded by Seraphim. The Protomartyr Stephen saw the heavens open and the Lord Jesus at the right hand of the Father. So now the servants of Christ are sometimes vouchsafed visions, although others do not believe it. I often wonder and do not understand what kind of people they are and why they are so blind, why they do not see and do not believe what the True God said through the mouth of the prophet Joel: "I will burn of My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" (Joel. 2. 28). This is the grace that the Lord sent to His disciples, which He gives today and will forever give, as He promised.

If the grace of the Holy Spirit descends upon someone, it shows him the ordinary objects of this sensible world, but that which he has never seen and which surpasses all conception. Thus the Holy Spirit teaches the human spirit the highest and hidden mysteries, of which the divine law says: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man" (1 Cor. 2. 9).

And in order that you may better understand how our mind comprehends the mysteries, think of this analogy: if wax is kept away from the fire, it remains solid, and you can touch it and take it, but if you throw it into the fire, it will immediately melt, ignite, and burn up, turning into light. The same is true of human

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spirit: while he is lonely and has not found God, he comprehends what surrounds him with his usual powers; but when he approaches the Fire of the Divinity and the Holy Spirit, he is completely captured by this Fire, he himself becomes light, burns in the flame of the Holy Spirit, enters into the Divine thought, and can no longer manifest his own thoughts and will."

Then Gregory asked: "My father, is there anything else similar, but which is a temptation?" The great Maximus answered: "Of course, there is, but each has its own signs: temptation is one, grace is another. When the evil spirit of temptation enters a person, it darkens him, makes him furious and excited, covers his heart with darkness, makes him doubtful and full of fear or, on the contrary, pride. His gaze is unsteady, his brain is restless; The whole body trembles. The devil shows him light, but the light is deceptive: it is not pure, but painted red, plunges his spirit into recklessness and causes his mouth to utter obscene words. Those who are overtaken by such a temptation become angry and angry, do not know meekness, are completely ignorant of true weeping and tears, but boast of their qualities, talk about them without any fear of God, and, finally, their spirit falls into complete darkness and goes to the grave and the earth. May the Lord preserve us through your prayer, Reverend Father, from such temptations.

The signs of grace are as follows. If a person has received the grace of the Holy Spirit, then his own spirit becomes collected and meek, he constantly remembers his sins and death and the future judgment and eternal torment, he is touched by his soul and weeps, and the closer grace becomes to a person, the more his soul is filled with peace and consolation through the holy sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ and His boundless love for people. The spirit leads a person to the highest vision: first, it is the contemplation of the ineffable power of God, how He created everything out of nothing by the Word; secondly, how by the same power He contains all things, governs all things, and determines all things; thirdly, man contemplates the incomprehensible Most Holy Trinity and the unfathomable depths of the Divine Being. At the same time, the human spirit is touched and enlightened by the Divine Light, the heart becomes calm, the Holy Spirit pours out all His gifts upon it: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control (cf. Gal. 5. 22)».

Shocked and full of amazement, St. Gregory remembered the words of St. Maximus and called him an earthly Angel.

Orthodox monks diligently copied the work of St. Gregory and translated it from Greek into Slavonic. Mystics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, such as Kallistos, Patriarch of Constantinople, and his friend Ignatius, both called Xanthopoulos, then Kallistos Katafigiotis, Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica, the monk Nicephorus, Philotheus, Patriarch of Constantinople, developed the mystical views of Gregory and attached special importance to spiritual prayer. But then came the time when Gregory and his supporters were forgotten.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, there was a revival of hesychastic mysticism. 1 The 1st Greek monk of Athos – Nicodemus Sniatogorets (1748-1808) delved into the old writings of Akgthon and the mystic of Eastern Greece, which he