Love & Russian Orthodox Mystics

Thomas Merton provides us a useful summary review of the Russian Orthodox monastics and their contemplative spirituality. I've referred to Thomas Merton before. A 20th-century American Cistercian (Trappist) monk, he was a prolific writer on the contemplative traditions of Christianity and other faiths and spiritualities.

The following quote summarizes his thoughts on Christian love and the orientation of the Russian Orthodox mystics reflected in Starchestvo, the process of spiritual direction by a staret or the startsy (pl.) (monk elders gifted and experienced as teachers and directors).

Thomas Merton, from his essay, "Russian Mystics" (1):

It is not so much that the startsy were exceptionally austere men, or that they had acquired great learning, but that they had surrendered themselves completely to the demands of the Gospel and to Evangelical charity [love], totally forgetting themselves in obedience to the Spirit of God so that they lived as perfect Christians, notable above all for their humility, their meekness, their openness to all men, their apparently inexhausible capacity for patient and compassionate love. The purpose of Starchestvo is, then, not so much to make use of daily spiritual direction in order to inculcate a special method of prayer, but rather to keep the heart of the disciple open to love, to prevent it from hardening in self-centered concern (whether moral, spiritual, or ascetical).

All the worst sins are denials and rejections of love, refusals to love. The chief aim of the starets is first to teach his disciple not to sin against love, then to encourage and assist his growth in love until he becomes a saint. This total surrender to the power of love was the sole basis of their spiritual authority, and on this basis the startsy demanded complete and unquestioning obedience. They could do so because they themselves never resisted the claims and demands of charity [love].

...So many Christians exalt the demands and rigors of law because, in reality, law is less demanding than pure charity [love]. The law, after all, has reasonble safe limits! One always knows what to expect, and one can always hope to evade, by careful planning, the more unpleasant demands. (Emphases added.)

Whatever some may feel about Christianity, or the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox contemplative traditions, this understanding of Christian love--Love from, of and with God, individually and in community--has to resonate or appeal more than the everyday secular and faith expressions of relationship and community we most often encounter.

(1) in Mystics and Zen Masters (1967), by Thomas Merton