I
THE PRINCIPAL
FIGURES
1. The ‘’Kollyvades’’ Fathers of the Holy Mountain
THE APPEARANCE in the eighteenth century of
the Kollyvades on the Holy Mountain, and in Greece in general,
constitutes a dynamic return to the roots of Orthodox tradition, to the ‘’philokalic’’
experience which is at the core of the Orthodox Church’s spirituality. Their
‘’movement,’’ as it was called, was regenerative and traditional,
progressive and yet patristic. In other words, genuinely Orthodox. Using the
scholarly methods of the time (composing writings), they first of all
revealed the continuity of hesychasm on the Holy Mountain Athos, and at the
same time remained faithful not only to the theoretical formulation of the
hesychastic-Palamite theology, but also to its practical applications, i.e.
the whole spectrum of the ascetic experience. Through the dissemination of
their works and by their struggles in defence of the tradition, they formed
the counterbalance against the European ‘’Enlightenment,’’ and in their own
right became enlighteners of their Nation and of Orthodoxy at large. That is
why they were loved by traditionalists, but hated and fought (or slandered)
by those who were instilled with the spirit of Frankish scholasticism or of
the Anglo-French Enlightenment and were thus cut off from the philokalic
roots. The hypertrophic (metaphysical) rationalism of the westernizers, a
standing threat to the patristic way of theology, thus proved to be foreign
to the experiential and Holy-spiritual way of theology which the
Kollyvades Fathers embodied and preached. If our reconnection with the
genuine, theological tradition of the Fathers has been achieved in our day,
this is owed to the precursory labors of the Kollyvades.
A contingent of Athonite monks in the second
half of the eighteenth century, living within the tradition of ‘’noetic
prayer’’ or ‘’prayer of the heart,’’ and being provoked by a seemingly
insignificant happening, which, however, had deep theological roots and
enormous extensions, will light the Church’s course and reveal the
continuity or discontinuity of the fullness of Orthodoxy. The monk of St.
Anne’s Skete on the Holy Mountain were building a larger church and, since
they wanted to be able to work on Saturdays in order to complete it, they
decided to move the memorial services from Saturday to Sunday after the
Divine Liturgy. This decision, which conflicted with the Church’s practice
and theology (Sunday being the day of the Resurrection is a day of joy),
scandalized the deacon Neophytos the Peloponnesian of the nearby Skete of
Kafsokalyvia, who was the first to rise up with a theological campaign
against the decision of the monks of St. Anne’s. one further event also
served to intensify the now ignited flame. In 1777, a book advocating the
necessity of ‘’frequent Holy Communion’’ was published from among the circle
of Athonite hesychasts who, because of their involvement in the dispute
‘’concerning memorial services’’ were by their opponents collectively called
Kollyvades (from kollyva, the boiled wheat used at memorial
services). The book was condemned by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1785,
for it supposedly created scandals and dissensions. Aside from exposing the
contra-traditional attitude of the monks of St. Anne’s, this action revealed
how Orthodox criteria had become obscured, thus affirming, also for Greece,
what the ever-memorable Fr. Georges Florovsky called ‘’pseudomorphosis.’’
The Patriarchate’s later decision, moreover, by which the condemnation was
lifted, serves to show the instability of these matters.
The men who advocated the canonical
performance of memorial services on Saturday also advocated frequent Holy
Communion (when, of course, the correct Orthodox presuppositions of an
ongoing spiritual life exists), thus ranging the practice of the early
Church against the unfounded actions of their opponents. The latter, being
as they were completely estranged from the tradition of the holy Fathers,
accused the Kollyvades of being innovators, in exactly the same way
that the fourteenth century Scholastics (Nicephorus Gregoras, John
Kyparissiotes, et al.) had accused the hesychasts of the Holy Mountain of
being ‘’modernists.’’ But then, the case of the Kollyvades is only a
repetition of the affair of the hesychasts of the fourteenth century; for
both groups, each in its own way, stood up against the spirit of the
estranged West and against the westernizing of the ‘’unionists’’ and
westernizers of the East. The Kollyvades emphasized the issue of
worship, for they diagnosed that there, i.e. in the area of the spirituality
that preserved the unity of the subjugated Orthodox people, the problem of
estrangement was perceptible. They encouraged participation in the
sacraments of the Church accompanied by a parallel spiritual struggle. They
strove for the correct observance of the Church’s typicon that would
maintain the spiritual balance, and for the study of patristic works that
would cultivate a patristic, i.e. the Church’s, mind. That is why the honor
belongs to the Kollyvades, in that they preserved the Apostolico-patristic
continuity in the Church: noetic prayer and hesychastic practice, asceticism
and experience, those enduring and unalterable elements of the Orthodox
identity.
This contingent of Athonite hesychasts (Kollyvades)
had their leaders, three of whom are among the theologians dealt with in the
present study. Namely they are the following:
1) Neophytos Kafsokalyvitis (1713-1784),
from 1749 rector of Athonias School on the Holy Mountain, is the man who
initiated the cause; but after his expulsion from the Holy Mountain, he
discontinued his active participation in the Kollyvades ‘’movement’’
for reasons unknown. He dealt mainly with education, serving as rector in
Chios around 1760; in Adrianoupolis in 1763; and in what is today Rumania,
Bucharest 1767, Bravsko 1770, and from 1773 until his death again in
Bucharest. He left behind a number of important works, among which are some
on canon law.
2) Saint Makarios (1731-1805), a
descendant of the renowned Byzantine family of Notaras, was born in Corinth
and later became Metropolitan of the diocese of Corinthia (1765-1769). He
wants the ‘’animater’’ of the movement and the person who not only
encouraged St. Nikodemos to write, but also supplied him with material for
his works. He died on 16 April 1805 on the island of Chios where he was
living at the time, and the people immediately honored him as a saint.
3) Saint Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain
(1749-1809), officially declared a saint in 1955, was the
‘’theologian’’ of the Kollyvades contingent. A great hesychast-ascetic
and a highly accomplished author of patristic caliber, he left behind a
multitude of writings in which the whole patristic tradition is recast. One
who studies the works of St. Nikodemos can unreservedly say that he has gone
through patristic theology in its entirety. His Handbook of Counsel
is, for modern times, the representative work on Orthodox spirituality. The
publication of the multivolume Philokalia of the Wakeful Fathers (in
collaboration with St. Makarios, but essentially the work of Nikodemos)
contributed to spiritual rebirth in Orthodox countries. His work The
Rudder constitutes the most authoritative compilation of our Church’s
holy Canons and explanations of them in conjunction with the Church’s
spirituality.
4) Athanasios Parios (1722-1813) was
the most militant of the Kollyvades, and also the most martyric. From
1776 to 1781 he remained unfrocked as a ‘’heretic’’ because of his vigorous
stand on the issues of tradition. He passionately fought the European
Enlightenment, Voltaireanism, and atheism, and was accused of being an
obscurantist by his ‘’West-struck’’ contemporaries. He, however, was not
fighting education which he himself served, nor even the exact sciences
themselves; but rather the ‘’godless letters’’ and the conceit of the wisdom
of this world (cf. Jas. 3:15). A prolific author, he left behind numerous
writings full of patristic wisdom and spirituality.
The Kollyvades exerted a tremendous
influence in their day, but also on the generations that followed. Their
influence initially was greater off the Holy Mountain than on it. Today,
however, the Holy Mountain acknowledges their contribution to the rebirth of
Orthodox spirituality and follows their tradition. In spite of the fact that
the Antikollyvades by far outnumbered the Kollyvades and
engaged in a systematic persecution of them, not only did they fail to
frustrate the latter’s effort, but they in fact contributed to the spreading
of their spirit in Greece and in the other Orthodox countries (Transdanubian
regions, Russia, etc). to the Kollyvades is owed the rebirth of
hesychasm in the nineteenth century. Even today, the Kollyvades
Fathers continue to be spiritual guides for the Orthodox, and the principal
bridge of reconnection with the patristic tradition. The rediscovery of the
hesychasm of the fourteenth century, and chiefly of its champion St. Gregory
Palamas (d. 1357), was a accomplished thanks to the seeds that the
Kollyvades of the eighteenth century sowed.
Source:By Protopresbyter George D. Metallinos,
D. Th., Ph. D.
Dean of the University of Athens, School of Theology
