Paisius Yaroslavov

Hegumen Paisius Yaroslavov was a monk, ascetic, copyist of manuscripts and writer, the best-⁠known monk of the Spaso-⁠Kamenny monastery on Lake Kubenskoye in the Vologda region, and the earliest representative of the so-⁠called "Trans-⁠Volga elders". Born about the middle of the fifteenth century at Yaroslavl, he died in 1501. He was the teacher whom Nilus of Sora followed, and his life shows a love of an inward monastic life, not only of outward appearance.

Life

He was born about the middle of the fifteenth century at Yaroslavl and was tonsured at the Spaso-⁠Kamenny monastery, in honour of Venerable Paisius the Great. He was a monk of the Kirillo-⁠Belozersky monastery, then lived for a time at the Trinity-⁠Sergius Lavra (1467 to 1474) and, at the insistence of the grand prince, was even hegumen there (1479 to 1482), but soon left, because "he could not turn the monks to the way of God, to prayer, fasting and abstinence, they even wanted to kill him". We then find him in Moscow: in 1484 the grand prince consults him in the matter of Metropolitan Gerontius, who had quarrelled with the prince and wanted to leave his see, and urges him to be metropolitan, but he refuses; the chronicler gives as the reason his failure as hegumen. According to other reports, Ivan III proposed that he succeed Gerontius on the latter's death in 1489. In 1490 he was present at the council in Moscow on the heretics of Novgorod. In 1480, together with Metropolitan Gerontius and Archbishop Vassian, he interceded before the grand prince for the latter's brother. He was also godfather to the prince's children.

At the council of 1503 he spoke against monastic landownership. Together with his disciple and associate Nilus of Sora (died 1508), he enjoyed extraordinary respect, both among the hierarchs and from the grand prince. In 1489 Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod, in struggle with the local heresy and writing to the archbishop of Rostov, asked him to consult Paisius and Nilus, who lived in his diocese, and draw them into this struggle, since rumours of the near end of the world had spread among the people; he himself wished to talk with these learned elders and even invited them to him. The grand prince held them in great honour: according to contemporaries they, "for their strict life and multitude of virtue, had great boldness before the Sovereign and were very well received and honoured by him".

Writings

Paisius is the author of the "Tale of the Spaso-⁠Kamenny Monastery", which tells the history of the monastery and Christianity's struggle with paganism in the area. He also wrote "On the Second Marriage of Grand Prince Vasily", which gives valuable information on the role of various clergy in that marriage and contains messages from four ecumenical patriarchs and from Athonite monks.

His ideas

Paisius is the earliest representative of the "Trans-⁠Volga elders". Their general direction was strictly ascetic, but much more inward than most Russian monasticism of the time understood it. The background of their aspirations was the primacy of the spiritual, the ideal, over the outward and formal. In the elders' thought lies the mark of ancient Christian spirituality: they wished to draw near to the original evangelical ideal. Monasticism, in their view, must be not bodily but spiritual, and requires not an outward mortification of the flesh but an inward perfecting, because the ground of monastic struggle is not the flesh but the thought and the heart. To weaken the body on purpose is superfluous, and weakness of the body can even hinder the struggle of moral improvement; a monk can and must feed and support the body, allowing for weaknesses, illness and old age. Nilus of Sora, Paisius's disciple, gives only general teaching about fasting. He was an enemy of everything outward, thought costly vessels in churches, of gold or silver, and decorations superfluous; churches should have only what is necessary, what is found everywhere and easily bought; and what would be given to the church, better to give to the poor. The monk's struggle of moral improvement must be wise and conscious, carried out not from compulsion and command but "with examination" and "with discernment". Nilus asks of the monk not mechanical obedience but consciousness in the struggle, though without destroying free will. The personal will of the monk, like that of any man, is subject, in the elders' view, to a single authority: "the divine writings", the only source for knowledge of moral and religious duties. Therefore the examination of the Scriptures and their study is the monk's chief duty; the love of "examination" and of books was a distinguishing trait of the elders. They added, however, that the Scriptures "are not all divine", so that their study must be joined with a critical view of the mass of written material; thus Nilus, copying books, subjected the text to a more or less careful criticism. This idea of criticism was very characteristic of them and unusual for the circle of scholars then.

The elders of Beloozero did not hide their disapproval of the disorders they saw in most Russian monks of the time. Paisius, as we saw, vainly tried to turn his monks to "the way of God, prayer, fasting and abstinence" and silently protested against the demoralization of the monasteries by leaving the hegumenate; his followers Nilus of Sora and Vassian Patrikeyev took a public stand. The elders of Beloozero, headed by Paisius, were, as is known, the most determined opponents of monastic estates and ardent preachers of original monastic poverty. Every property they considered contrary to monastic vows; monks must live from their own labour, and receive alms only in extreme cases, neither having nor desiring to have. What was obligatory for the monk was obligatory also for the monastery. The question of monastic estates was burning, and the elders' attitude was, according to contemporaries, one of the causes of the hostility of men like Joseph of Volokolamsk, "the first dislike" between them. With the preaching of monastic non-⁠possession the elders of Beloozero were also preachers of greater religious tolerance, in the matter of the heretics of Novgorod, which was "the second dislike" with the Josephites. Archbishop Gennady advised the bishops gathered in Moscow that the council be held only so that the heretics be punished, burned and hanged, and Joseph of Volokolamsk said that the heretic and apostate must not only be condemned but also anathematized, sent into exile and given over to cruel punishments; the elders of Beloozero rose against this harsh view, in a joint epistle, showing that the Church does not punish repentant heretics but receives them "with open arms". Unlike Joseph, who liked to quote the Old Testament, the elders leaned mostly on the Gospel. In other, smaller church questions they also held different views, as in that of the "widowed priests": at the council of 1503 all widowed priests and deacons were deprived of the right to serve; the elders of Beloozero, headed by Nilus, present at the council, spoke against the decision. Their views triumphed later, at the Moscow council of 1666 to 1667.