PAISIUS VELICHKOVSKY

On November 28 (15), the Church celebrates the memory of St Paisius Velichkovsky (1722-1794). The time of Saint Paisius’ life coincided with the era of absolutism, when the rulers of European empires, in the name of the prosperity of states and the well-being of their subjects, sought to subordinate the spiritual and material needs of churches, communities and ordinary believers to a single logic.

In monasticism, they saw, first of all, a resource for education, overcoming illiteracy, in monasteries - a way to organize almshouses, a force for charity. Similar things happened in different Christian denominations, but for Orthodoxy, with its spiritual essence, asceticism and aspiration to Heaven, it could be especially destructive.

Like the biblical prophets, Saint Paisius was born and lived at a time when his natural desire for spiritual perfection, multiplied by an abundance of grace-filled gifts and mystical insights, turned out to be truly necessary for the revival of ancient monastic traditions. Russian Orthodoxy, the Moldavian Lands, and Mount Athos rightly consider him their teacher. Saint Paisius stood at the origins of the revival of eldership. He read, studied, and translated the patristic heritage, and founded very numerous monastic communities.

It is Saint Paisius who is credited with collecting and publishing the Slavic “Philokalia.” This enormous anthology of patristic texts, collected together, was regular reading for many generations of saints, Seraphim of Sarov, the Optina elders, and Ignatius Brianchaninov. How little and insufficient do we, modern Orthodox Christians, the heirs of his great school and tradition, know about Saint Paisius.