The monks believe that the sins torturing the soul are manifested by ‘irrational’ (para-
logo, ‘against logic’) behaviour, which is emotionally excessive, and at times can be
neurotic, paranoid, and angry. In this context, the value, as introduced by the
the protestant ethic which develops over time through the process of rationalization’ (1991:134).
However, Razzel surpassed Weber's two historical chapters on the roots of capitalism regarding the early
Christian ascetics of the 2nd Century AC (Chapter IV ‘The Religious Foundations of Worldly
Asceticism’, and Chapter V ‘Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism’), in which I feel ‘spirit’ means a non-excessive attitude towards life, and which can be seen in Vatopaidi today. This does not mean that Orthodox monastic life becomes ‘Protestant’, rather, that the roots of Protestantism are in ascetic life (as argued by Weber 2003/ 1930).
Hesychast, has its own rationality, according to the times: the non-excessive attitude is the means of teaching in a moderate way to untrained novices; it is also the means to ecologically connect and live in the peninsula through agricultural activities that must be economic toward the natural environment and not allow its exploitation, according to recent ecological considerations (Eleseos and Papagiannis 1994: 51-54). The balanced relationship between the forest and humans is not only a matter of faith (according to the ideal of virginity, chapter 3), but also a practical matter of ‘symbiosis’ (sustainability) between the monks and ‘the natural order of God’s Building’ [personal communication with priest-monk 1/10/02]. The priest-monk who supervised me at work told me that ‘everything is a connected to energies, from the natural environment to ourselves’. He explained that there are positive and negative energies, which unify or divide respectively:
‘Nature carries the charis of God. The monk who carries the charis is not afraid of the snake or the scorpion, because they will not hurt him. It is a matter of energy. Everything in nature has energy108... a man with a bad energy cannot hide it. Only his presence brings anxiety, tension; but (on the other hand) everyone wants to talk to a man with good energy’ [discussion with priest-monk, 7/5/03].
In this context, the social order of the monastery is projected on the natural order of the landscape, naturalizing ‘economy’ as the way through which each monk returns to the ‘virgin’ state of being, signifying a nostalgic return to nature through the monastery which is conceived as a ‘natural’ part of the ‘virgin’ landscape. Prayer and work ‘keep the mind concentrated to god at all times’ [discussions with monks] aiming to control mind and body, in order to achieve the ‘natural’ state of apatheia (being ‘without passions’, impassionate):
‘God help the ones who get drunk without wine. The ones who let anger drive their soul mad, letting fear paralyse their intellect. The angry man is drunk with his passions. He cannot think, or see, what is in front of him. It is as if he is fighting in absolute darkness, grabbing anything that comes in front of him, and falling on everything that comes in his way. He does not know what he is saying, but he only makes fake promises, swears, hits, spits, threatens, and screams’ [priest-monk 5/5/03]
108 The priest-monk explained: ‘I remember an American documentary I watched as a child in which
some scientists discovered a machine that can record the different energies of the natural environment. They were investigating a murder, and I remember that while the grass had low levels of energy, the grass on which the murderer had stepped had extreme high volumes of energy, it was going wild. This scientific investigation proves the charis of God in all things, in the whole Creation’ [7/5/03].
The moderate attitude towards both younger monks and the natural environment reveals a particular way of thinking manifested in the practical value of ‘economy of passions’, the repetition of the words of the Jesus prayer throughout the day as the means of detaching from both internal memories or thoughts (logismoi) and the surrounding environment (incuding the worldly visitors), in order to achieve the mental state of
apatheia. But although apatheia is an ideal state of mind that reflects on the moral
values of the entire community, it is important to note that anger is not a sin per se, but an emotion that should be learned to control and use it for the benefit of the community. For instance, anger is also the necessary means for the elder monks to deal with matters of disorder and disobedience of younger monks. At times, an elder has to be angry if a novice disobeys him, in order to teach him the right order. If the time comes that an elder or a priest-monk has to get angry, this anger comes only from the lips, not the ‘heart’. In other words, it is not a ‘passion’. On the contrary, ‘it is on straight line with the advice be angry but do not sin’ (Ephraim Abbot of Vatopaidi 2001: 104, my
translation). The priest-monk above exclaimed: ‘Apatheia is not our aim, but the means
for saving our souls’ [5/5/03]. Thus, in Joseph’s teachings emotions are not completely denounced. Rather, each monk learns to control his emotions through the cleansing process of monastic life, and to use them in an ‘economical’ way for the benefit of the entire community.
My fieldwork in Vatopaidi was hard. During the day, I had to work under the
supervision of the priest-monk on duty acting in the role of the verger (economos) of the monastery, while every two nights I had to confess to another priest-monk, who was appointed by the Abbot to be my ‘spiritual father’. In this way, during the day the verger supervised my body in terms of work, while in the night the confessor looked into my soul through confession. One of my daily jobs was to clean, with a knife, the burned wax from used candles, in order to be re-used at the liturgies. It was a repetitive job to do, and because of my clumsiness I often cut more wax off the candle than necessary. The verger however advised me to be patient, and cut the used candles properly, ‘because it is a matter of economy’. In learning to handle my hands in terms of economy of movement, I would then be able to respect the natural environment. He told me: ‘just like Jesus recycled His body, we recycle the wax’. But also through this symbolic act of ‘recycling’, the monks save candles to sell through a network of churches and religious shops in Orthodox countries, as candles, honey, and wine, are
the monastery’s main agricultural exports. Because my wrists were hurting after only cleaning a few candles, the verger asked me to loudly repeat the words of the Jesus Prayer while cutting the burned wax off the candles, as a technique to develop rhythm in the movement of my hands, and in relation to my breathing. Indeed, after an hour of reciting the words I was automatically moving the knife on the wax, breathing
according to the rhythm of the words of the prayer.
‘Do you see my child that now you don’t have any stress? When you work, work hard, and keep saying the prayer ‘Lord Jesus Forgive me the Sinner’. In this way you won’t lose your concentration. The prayer keeps your mind clear from negative thoughts. The devil puts stress in our hearts, in order to stop our spiritual
development. For example, while our spiritual capabilities are, let’s say up to 60% of what Christ was capable, we only use 5% of what we can actually offer, because stress takes our concentration away. It does not let us move our energy forward, but slowly eats us from inside, and that is why we need to pray all the time’ [priest- monk 8/5/03]
Repeating the words of the prayer would keep me out of trouble, and after a few hours, the words began coming automatically in my mouth, giving me a sense of rhythm that carried over my actions. For a very brief moment, I felt a mild sense of trance, a state which the monks call apatheia, meaning ‘without passions’, manifested by their mild faces and detached attitude in their daily conduct. If a ‘dangerous’ thought (logismos) passed my mind, for example the memory of my girlfriend, or feeling tired and angry because of the hard, repetitive, and unpaid work I was doing, I then had to tell about my thoughts in my frequent confessions to my spiritual father, who supervised my soul in the night. Accordingly, clearing the used candles from the wax had both a spiritual for me and a materialist value for the monastery: in learning to handle my hands in terms of economy of movement, I was learning about the ‘economy of passions’, but also, I was helping with the internal economy of the monastery as by recycling the old candles to be re-used for the liturgies, the monastery kept a bigger number of candles to export in the Greek market. In this way, the repetition of the words of the prayer, while I was clearing the burned wax of the candles, was the practical way through which I was enabled to connect to the greater rhythm of Vatopaidian daily life, even though I was an outsider, through the practical notion of ‘economy of passions’. Arguably, here, praying was a matter of representation of the self in everyday life strongly connected to the communal order (as in Goffman 2006/ 1959), as it emphasizes the importance of
repetitive working on the mind (words of prayer) and body (repetition of movement) to save the immortal soul109.