One yet two: Monastic Tradition, East and West, Orthodox-Cistercian Symposium

527 Pages·1976·18.011 MB·English

by  M. Basil Pennington

CISTERCIAN STUDIES SERIES: NUMBER TWENTY-NINE
ONE YET TWO
MONASTIC TRADITION
EAST AND WEST
Orthodox - Cistercian Symposium
Oxford University
I !
26 August - 1 September 1973
edited by
M Basil Pennington ocso
CISTERCIAN PUBLICATIONS
Kalamazoo, Michigan
1976
CISTERCIAN STUDIES SERIES
Cistercian Symposia Publications
CS 3 The Cistercian Spirit: A Symposium in Honor of
Thomas Merton (1970)
CS 12 Rule and Life: A Symposium (1971)
CS 21 Contemplative Community: A Symposium (1972)

CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Opening 9
Orthodoxy - Yesterday and Today
Proceedings 13
Papers
Silence in Prayer: The Meaning of Hesychia 22
Archimandrite Kallistos Ware
The Fool for Christ’s Sake in Monasticism,
East and West 48
John Saward
Pseudo-Dionysius 81
George Every
Symeon the New Theologian and the Way of Tears 95
Sister Sylvia Mary csmv
Saint Tikhon Zadonsky 120
Nadejda Gorodetsky
The Spiritual Teaching of Staretz Silouan 143
Hieromonk Symeon
The Cistercian Tradition
Proceedings 157
Papers
The Cistercians and the Eastern Fathers 168
Aelred Squire op
The Desert Myth: Reflections on the Desert
Ideal in Early Cistercian Monasticism 183
Benedicta Ward slg
Pseudo-Dionysius and the Early Cistercians 200
Bernard McGinn
The Use of Greek Sources by William of St
Thierry Especially in the Enigma fidei 242
John D. Anderson
William of St Thierry and the Greek Fathers:
Evidence from Christology 254
E. Rozanne Elder
Man as the Image of God in the Works of
William of St Thierry 267
Anne Saword ocso
Mundicia cordis: A Study of the Theme of Purity
of Heart in Hugh of Pontigny and the Fathers of
the Undivided Church 304
Nicholas Groves
Hesychasm in the English Cistercians of the
Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 332
Hilary Costello ocso
Image and Likeness: The Doctrine of John of Ford 352
Edmund Mikkers ocso
One Yet Two
Proceedings 359
Papers
Early Citeaux and the East 373
Bede Lackner o cist
Proposed Inventory for the Greek Fathers
in the Library of Clairvaux 401
Ferruccio Gastaldelli
The Cistercians in the Crusade States 405
Bernard Hamilton
The Eastern Monastic Fathers and
the Reform of Ranee 423
Chrysogonus Waddell ocso
Thomas Merton and the Christian East 440
John Eudes Bamberger ocso
Bread in the Wilderness:
The Monastic Ideal in Thomas Merton
and Paul Evdokimov 452
Rowan Williams
Monastic Life and Unity in Christ 474
A. M. Allchin
Summary Report 487
Message to the World Council of Churches and
the Secretariat for Christian Unity 494
List of Participants 497
List of Papers 504
List of Abbreviations 507

INTRODUCTION
I
T WAS AN UNUSUAL GROUP that gathered at Oxford
in the late summer of 1973. It was said to be the most
colorful meeting of the year. The flowing robes of the
monks and nuns, hierarchs and ecclesiastics seemed to call
the medieval buildings back to their more pristine period.
There were hermits who came in from their solitudes, monks
from their island monasteries; nuns who had come out of
their enclosures, as well as professors and graduate students
from the bustling campuses of America and the more preste-
gious sanctuaries of British learning. There were representa¬
tives from the other side of the equator, from Africa,
Australia and South America. All the continents were
represented and some twenty-four nations.
They had been called together explicitly to achieve one
purpose; they did in fact achieve several, and some of these
with perhaps far reaching effects.
This was the fourth in a series of Symposia sponsored by
American Cistercians as a part of their renewal program.1 In
response to the Second Vatican Council they were seeking to
enter more fully into the spirit and aims of their founders, to
1. The first was held at St Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer, in February, 1969,
on the theme: “The Cistercian Spirit.’’ The following year a larger group
met at the Abbey of the Holy Spirit, Conyers, Georgia, to discuss “The Role
of the Rule in Cistercian Life.’’ In the spring of 1972 the Third Symposium
took place at the Abbey of Notre Dame du Lac near Montreal. It explored
the question of “Contemplative Community.”
1
2 Introduction
bring them to today’s world.2 The hope was that the spirit
which animated the early Cistercians and the goals they set
before themselves were greatly and consciously influenced by
the rich monastic traditions of the Christian East. The out¬
come of the Symposium amply verified the truth of this pre¬
sumption. What is more, it brought today’s Cistercians into a
renewed contact with the Orthodox who are still living that
vital tradition and opened the way for many more fruitful en¬
counters. This, of course, was not something wholly unpre¬
cedented. There have been meetings in France.3 But for
English-speaking Cistercians around the world, among whom
there has been a phenomenal growth and expansion during
the past few decades, this was a new beginning.
The broader and more profound significance of the meeting
was on the plane of Christian ecumenism.4 As the World
Council of Churches is threatened with getting bogged down
in social action, and many other ecumenical meetings stop
short at intellectualized statements, however important they
2. The Second Vatican Council had told monks: “It serves the best
interests of the Church for communities to have their own special character
and purpose. Therefore loyal recognition and safekeeping should be
accorded to the spirit of founders, as also to all the particular goals and
wholesome traditions which constitute the heritage of each community.”
And it added:
“All communities should participate in the life of the
Church. According to its individual character, each
should make its own and foster in every possible way the
enterprises and objectives of the Church ...” and "Com¬
munities should promote among their members a suitable
awareness of contemporary human conditions and of the
needs of the Church." [Perfectae caritatis, no. 2).
3. See, e.g., M. Standaert, “Oecumenisme et monasteres,” Collectanea
Cisterciensia 27 (1965) 224-235 (reporting a meeting at Chevetogne, June
21-3, 1965); idem, 30 (1968) 190-194 (meeting at Liguge, July 5-6, 1968); R.
A. Batteman & M. A. Houdart, “Oecumenisme monastique,” Collectanea
Cisterciensia 29 (1967) 223-238 (reporting a meeting at Ramegnies-Chin,
Tournai, April 3-8, 1967. However, never before has a monastic meeting in
the West had such a large representation of Orthodox.
4. This was underlined by messages received from Metropolitan
Emilianos, the Ecumenical Patriarch’s liason at the World Council of
Introduction 3
are, there was need for a meeting which could strongly
remind the Churches of the profound unity that has always
existed and continues to exist among all Christians on the
deeper levels of spiritual search and the experience of God in
Christ Jesus. The Message of the Oxford Symposium to the
World Council of Churches and the Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity,5 if attended to, can bring to the ecumenical
movement new serenity, depth and peace as well as a signifi¬
cant impulsion forward toward its goal.
Besides the principles, Orthodox and Cistercians, the
meeting was greatly enriched by the very active presence of
Anglicans and representatives of other Christian Churches, as
well as men and women from other Roman Catholic orders
and an articulate and dedicated laity. The ecumenical out¬
reach was all-embracing. There were also a few men and
women from no Church. They had come to the dialogue to
hear what monasticism had to say, if anything, to the world
today in the midst of its many crises. The Message does
address a brief word of hope to them, but truly another Sym¬
posium, or a series of Symposia, needs to address itself to
this very important issue.
Methodology
The way the Symposium was organized is quite interesting
and proved quite effective. Some thirty-six monastics and
Churches (“Monasticism can render in our days inestimable services to
present day society and to a frustrated theology. It can remind us of the
spiritual dimensions which avoid a conceptual approach to religion, evapora¬
ting the discipline, the mustery and the askesis. Thus askesis can become a
common ground for common research, for a common endeavor for an
authentic renewal and return to healthy spirituality.”), Archbishop Michael
Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury (“Nothing is more important than the
drawing together of the spirituality of the East and West in the search for
that unity which is to be found in the depths of prayer and spirituality.”) and
John Cardinal Willebrands, President of the Secretariate for Promoting
Christian Unity (“There can be no question of the great value in the search
for renewal and unity of such a return to historical sources coupled with an
examination of the role which the contemplative life has to play in the world
today.”).
5. This can be found at the end of this volume.