I cannot say that I had to pass through the experience of “renunciation” when I decided to follow the monastic life. When I left the “world,” I did not undergo an inner struggle with myself, nor did I find it difficult to reject something that attracted me to worldly life. I rejected nothing, nor did I look down on anything. I went to the monastery because it was spiritually necessary for me to find a way of life in which I could give myself to God completely—with all my thoughts, all my heart, and all the physical and psychic powers of my being.
This did not, however, exclude a period of painful struggle between prayer and my passionate love for painting. Art had been for me a path toward knowledge of being. That was how I understood art, how I lived it; it claimed me wholly, even more than “wholly.” Without the complete surrender of oneself to art, it can never become authentic, that is, it cannot lead its servant beyond the limits of time and space. A truly artistic work is only that which bears within itself elements of the eternal; outside of this, it remains merely a “decorative” object in our homes. The thought of the eternal had accompanied me since childhood. As prayer deepened within me, it led me with greater force to a sense of eternity. And this prevailed.
Later, monasticism posed for me the problem of “personhood.” We know from world literature that the union of two persons in marriage—when it bears a more or less perfect character of personal love—gives human beings the experience of a certain “eternity,” that is, a transcendence of time and an opening beyond the narrow confines of individual existence. Those who have passed through this experience have known enthusiasm and wonder. From this they concluded that marriage is a “mystery” in itself: the overcoming of egoism, the union of the two into “oneness.” Thus, a theologian in Paris even went so far as to claim that outside of such an experience it is impossible for one to conceive the dogma of the unity of the Holy Trinity.
I do not at all claim to know everything. Because of the conditions of our earthly existence, no one can experience “everything” in his personal life. We are confronted with the necessity of choosing a definitely categorical path. In this, both the observation of the lives of those around us—who in their overwhelming majority bear the stamp of emptiness and disappointment—and the penetration into the facts of being through prayer, are of help to us. It is impossible to tear from the soul the hope for something better for itself. With our imagination we sketch a beautiful picture of a harmonious marriage. Yet in my case, prayer was victorious.
In prayer, “personhood” is revealed incomparably more deeply than in the union of two loving persons. Prayer—person to the Person of God—introduces the human spirit into the realm of the Uncreated Light, filled with a special love and wondrous peace. Likewise, prayer for the whole world, for all humanity, discloses new spheres of being. This experience is not granted by marriage.
Every genuine human encounter reflects within itself the beauty of worldly life. Each person expects from us the fullness of our attention toward him. Yet, despite the joy that meeting a living person brings, in prayer for the whole world the soul perceives the grandeur of universal reality and can no longer turn away from the horizons that have opened before it. To love a precious person is a wonderful thing. But to pray is something greater.
In order to attain unceasing prayer, which was commanded to us (see Eph. 6:18; 1 Thess. 5:17), it is essential to arrange our life in such a way that it becomes a unified and uninterrupted standing before the Great God, centered on the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. Historical experience has shown that the best way to achieve this holy aim is monasticism. The absence of responsibilities for the protection of anyone—whether a woman, children, or others—gives the monk the freedom to risk his entire life in the struggle of fasting, vigil, and forgetfulness of natural needs such as food, clothing, comfort, and so forth.
The mind of the monk is free to remain undistracted in the remembrance of God. He moves naturally in the sphere of pure prayer. He experiences contact with living eternity. He beholds the Uncreated Light that proceeds from the Person of God. He breathes the fragrance of Love that descends from above.
When, after a truly blessed marriage—not brief nor merely carnal, but one of deep personal love—one of the spouses dies and leaves the other alone, the one who remains feels lost, shattered, “half.” The world becomes empty for him. And only a few, through fervent prayer, have overcome their loneliness and emerged into freedom for a higher ascent toward heaven.
Thus, marriage, even in its best form, carries the danger of narrowing the human person. Monasticism safeguards one from such a diminishment. The ceaseless turning toward the Heavenly Father, without the need for communication on the lower levels of our existence, widens the monk’s heart to receive the life of the universe—something that cannot be taken away from him by physical death. His person expands and acquires a Christ-like universality. The monk is granted from above to perceive the words of the Lord, the radiance of the Beginningless Being. The Father Himself gave the words to His Son, and the Son transmitted them to humankind.
Fr Sophrony (Sakharov)
The Mystery of the Christian Life, pp. 395–398. Holy Monastery of St. John the Baptist – Essex (Edition).
