Saint Silouan Athonite – Fr. Gavril Galev
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24 September
The life and acts of Saint Silouan remained uncovered for many people until the end of his life on earth and until his blessed appearance in front of God, for Whom he cried all his life, like the fallen Adam, yearning for Him and searching Him in tears. It is the expression of his deep humility, although his cognition and communion with God was very close and personal as with a friend.
His life, in many ways, resembles us who belong to Christ and live in this modern society of temptations and atheism. That is why we can freely say that Saint Silouan is the most authentic monk of present times and the forerunner of the new wave of “modern” monasticism.
We get to know a lot of things about Saint Silouan from his spiritual child Elder Sophrony (+1993), the Archbishop of the Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner in Essex, England, from his God-inspired and very useful book “Elder Silouan”.
Elder Silouan, with a secular name Simeon Ivanovich Antonov, was born in 1866 in the Tambov region, as a son to a simple villager, a farmer, but rich in good deeds and a good heart, from whom he inherited his meekness and kindness.
An event is notable from his childhood, when his father received some educated man from whom he was hoping to learn something good. But instead of goodness, the foolish intellectual started to argue that God does not exist, saying: ‘Where is He, that God?’ These words entered deeply into the soul of the four-year-old Simeon, who after the departure of the guest told to himself: “When I grow up I will go all over the world and I search God.”
When he grew up he started to work as a carpenter in some building site. At that place there were the relics of Saint John Sezenovski (1791 – 1893) the memory of whom was still fresh among people. When he went to pay homage to his holy relics, he heard the conversation about the miracles of the Saint and came to a conclusion: “If he (Saint John) is a Saint, it means that God is (everywhere) with us, so I do not need to go and look for Him”.
At that moment he started to feel that he had found the faith. His mind turned towards God, so he continuously prayed in tears and cried for Him. He wanted to take monastic vows in the Kiev Monastery of the Caves (Kiev Pechersk Lavra) but his father told him: “You should first do your military service, and then be free to go”.
That condition of his lasted for three months, but later the secular temptation pulled him towards the broad way. He was a tall and handsome young man, good-spirited and happy by nature, which is why he was a favourite among the young people. He was a friend with peers and girls, he used to drink vodka and have fun, and he even had a girlfriend.
From that period he remembered a fight he had with some young man, which he repented all his life. He had the fight because his young vanity and pride did not allow him to be laughed at in front of the girls. He hit the man in his chest so strong, that although the other young man was a big one, he flew off and fell down far from him, so that froth and blood started to flow out of his mouth. He thought to himself: “I killed a man”, but for his great luck the young man stayed alive. After that incident he had to hide himself and to be aware because the brothers and friends of the young man looked for him with knives and pickets to catch him.
So, in his youth, the young Simeon slowly but surely started to suffuse the monastic call inside himself. But God does not forget His chosen ones. Once he had a dream of a snake entering his mouth. He felt very disgusted and woke up. Then he heard a voice: “You swallowed a snake in your dream and are disgusted, and what do you think I feel like when I look at what you are doing!” It was the meek and sweet voice of the Holy Mother.
After that Simeon went to pay military service. While he was there the wish to devote himself to God and to take monastic vows came back to him, and he used to spend most of his time thinking about that. In one occasion while he was out with his friends and while they were having a good time, he was sitting there thoughtful. When they asked him why he is so thoughtful, he answered: “I think about the situation. We sit in this inn, eat, drink vodka, listen to music and have fun, while the monks in the Holy Mount hold vigil and pray all night. And I ask myself who will give a better answer on the Doomsday – they or us?”
Several days before the end of his military service, the young Simeon went to see Saint John of Kronshtad in Petrograd in order to ask for blessing and prayers to take monastic vows. He did not find him, but he left him a short note:”Bakjushka, I want to take the monastic vows, pray for me so that the world could not keep me.”
When he got back to the barracks, the next day he started to feel that the fire from the hell was burning around him, he felt it wherever he went. There was not a week to pass after he went home that he bid farewell to his family, he took some things he needed and some gifts for the monastery and went to the Holy Mount.
He reached the Holy Mount in the spring 1892 and joined the Russian monastery of Saint Pantelejmon. According to the principles of the Holy Mount, Simeon was given several days in complete peace, so that he could remember his sins and have a complete confession in order to be released from sins and to heal his soul. After the confession his spiritual father told him: “You confessed your sins in front of God and they are forgiven. Now, start a new life. Go in peace and be joyful since God brought you to this port of salvation.”
With all its power, his soul strived for God, so it was not hard for him to get used to the monastic principles in the monastery and to do his duty responsibly and with ease. He entered the spiritual life according to the centuries-old order of the monastic life in the Holy Mount. It was a life of permanent thinking about God, prayer in their cells, long services in the Church, fasting, vigil, frequent confessions and receiving the Holy Communion, reading, work and obedience. He was especially happy about the fact that he could keep saying the short Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!”, at any time or place, even at the mutual services in the Church, as well as for the fact that it can replace all services, except the Holy Liturgy, in the cases when he was not able to go to the Church.
After a very short time of three weeks, during the night prayer he noticed that the prayer was slowly entering his heart, and continuously creating itself there. At that time he was not even aware of the priceless gift he had received from the Holy Mother of God.
In the Orthodox ascetic-isihastic practice of the sacred life in the Church, this gift of prayer of the mind in the heart is usually given to the devotee after a lot of exploits, work and continuous uttering of the Jesus Prayer. When his heart is sufficiently purified from passions, the mind can through the prayer come down into it and there the mind and the heart can together ascend towards God.
But according to God’s providence, there are exceptions as with father Silouan, to whom that prayer was given “in advance”, at the very beginning of his spiritual life, for God knows that the one He gives this gift to will not betray Him or lose it, but will keep it as a most precious gift and will be thankful.
Somewhere in the Old Testament, which is full of symbols, it is said: “It is hard for the town whose ruler is young”, but it also appeals to people, the devotee whose mind is inexperienced. It happened to the young Simeon as well, as an inexperienced and not instructed enough in the spiritual life. He received the gift of the prayer of the mind in the heart early, while his mind was still immature and tender to fight with the evils of the devil. So, one night he was attacked by proud thoughts in his cell, he saw light and without the reasoning and advice from his spiritual father he accepted it as “blessing”. Since then he was continuously attacked by satanic delusions. The unstoppable prayer was still running, but his repenting spirit was lost. His fight with the demons became more frequent but he never gave up and prayed more earnestly to God to save him from the temptation. That is why he received immense blessing from one of the icons of Christ during one of the night services in the Church.
Apart from that, father Silouan continued his strict monastic exploit in obedience, his unstoppable Jesus Prayer and physical exploit, which to the rational mind may seem impossible. He slept with interruptions for 15 – 20 minutes, but never more than 2 hours a day and always on a wooden chair, while during the day he had a hard physical work in a watermill. Only the one that has experienced the beauty and the sweetness of the Holy Spirit can understand the point and the reason why the young monk Silouan worked so hard to regain the grace from the Holy Spirit inside his heart. At the beginning of Christianity Saint Irinei of Lion, and later Saint Athanasius stated the known sotiriologic God-uncovered truth: ”God became man, so that man could become god”. And now Saint Silouan uncovers the ascetic- isihastic truth: “Keep your mind in hell, and do not despair”, which will become the enlightening and guiding thought among the new generation of devotees.
Fifteen years passed in continuous struggle with passions and demons so that he could bring back the pure prayer. One night while he was being prevented by the demons and sad about that, he addressed God from the depth of his heart with the words: “God, you see that I want to pray to You with pure mind, but the demons do not allow me. Teach me what to do so that they would not bother me”. He heard the answer in his heart: “The proud ones always suffer from the demons. Keep your mind in hell and do not despair”. At that moment elder Silouan discovered that the reason for every human sin and fall is hidden in the pride. Pride is the prime sin, the reason and the mother of all other sins. Pride is like an iron wall which separates us from God, and humility is the beginning and the mother of all good deeds and graceful gifts of the soul. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Math. 5: 3), in fact, if we acquire humility, we have acquired the Kingdom of Heaven, which is in our heart and in which, as on a throne, sits the Heavenly King i.e. God. From that moment, the enlightened monk Silouan directed his whole exploit towards struggle with pride and acquiring the most precious humility. After he achieved his humility, the grace of the Holy Spirit settled in his heart and never left it again. He felt that he has it in his heart, he felt the live presence of God and he continually praised His boundless mercy. The Holy Spirit once again gave him the power of love.
Being made wiser after the long spiritual struggles and being enlightened from his own experience in the spiritual life, he became a great spiritual fighter. However, he continued to suffer because of the general hesitation and instability of human nature. In these moments of withdrawal of God’s grace, with inexpressible cry of the heart adding hard work to hard work, he succeeded to bring it back. 15 years passed until he gathered power to reject, just with one movement in his mind and without one visible sign, the thing that used to defeat him so hard.
Together with the frequent blessed visits inside himself, his gratitude towards God started to grow. Learning about God’s love, the Holy Spirit gave father Silouan the gift to live effectively with that love and to receive the life of the whole humanity inside him. His prayer was not limited in space, or time, it did not linger upon changeable earthly things. He prayed for the whole humanity, from Adam to the last one that will be born by a woman, and he especially prayed for those whose souls abided in the eternal hardships in hell.
Although there was something “unusual” to be noticed in father Silouan, he was very simple about that and many of them could not recognize the holiness inside him. Some of them were even lead to condemn him because of some of his “word or deeds”. He was a very tall, large and a very strong man. He had small dark eyes with peaceful and sweet look, which was sometimes penetrating, usually tired of many vigils and tears. He had a long thick beard and a long thick hair. Sometimes his face used to transform and change itself and become unrecognizable. His pale and clear face used to acquire some special, weirdly enlightened expression so that people could not look at it. A man had to simply turn his sight away from him, just like the Jews, when they could not look into the face of Moses.
The life of the elder was rather harsh. He gave no importance to his appearance and he took little care of his body. Like many other athonite devotees he never had a bath. He wore a simple monastic mantle like all the other athonite monks, workers.
He was vigorous by nature, sharp-minded, and with a lot of experience in the spiritual struggle, the inner prayer; after the many and difficult struggles he survived, as well as the frequent visits by God. It all made him especially wise and penetrating.
Elder Silouan had a particularly soft heart full of warm-hearted love towards all. He kept himself from every thought that was not pleasing to God. He had a gift of graceful compassion with everyone. It was a spiritual compassion and not a sentimental one. The spiritual and physical forces inside him were harmonically coordinated.
While he was with people, he did not pay any attention to their national or social belonging, as well as their way of life. He was not intrusive; he was direct, meek and full of understanding and love. He was not in the least disgusted by the people who lead disordered and untidy life, but in the depth of his heart he was sad about their falls, like a father and a mother who are sad because of the falls of their beloved children.
He used to accept the temptations without fear and with courage. He was fearless and open, and again there was not a crumb of pride and insolence. He lived only in fear of God, being afraid not to disappoint Him even with the smallest impure thought.
The venerable elder Silouan was a truly and deeply calm man, humble in front of God as well as in front of people. He always gave priority to the others with pleasure; he wanted to be the smallest and last of all, to be the first to greet, to ask for blessing from those who had a priestly rank, especially from the episcope or the abbot. He honestly respected the people with a rank and position in the Church, as well as the educated ones, and there was never envy, jealousy or contempt in him. It was maybe for the fact that everything here on earth is changeable: treasure, position, nobility, power, even the scientific knowledge, or maybe it was because of the sensitivity and love for the others. He was always careful not to hurt anybody not just with his outward movements, but also with the movements in his heart.
He had an exceptionally strong will, but one without stubbornness. He was good-natured, direct, fearless, courageous, and at the same time meek, sweet, humble, obedient… In the right meaning of the word he was a man created according to the icon and the similarity to God.
In his strict monastic and devoted life, he was several times ill and was in the monastic hospital. Early in the morning on the 2nd/15th September 1938, around 5 o’clock, elder Sophrony, who was his monk on duty, visited him in the storeroom and found him with a cheerful and serene face, doing his everyday duty. Later around 10 o’clock in the morning, when he visited him again, he saw the elder sitting on a chair and answered him that he is ill.
As always, Saint Silouan lived the life in his heart, hidden for the outward world. It is the reason why nobody could see or predict that he was going through a difficult illness and that those were his last days of his life on earth:
– Father, what is wrong?
– I am ill.
– Are you dying?
– I am not humble enough.
– You should go to hospital.
– I don’t want to go to hospital, because there are a lot of people, and just as the last time, they will put me under a clock whose ticking prevents my prayer. If they give me a separate room I may go.
Then elder Sophrony went to the hospital and settled the matter with the monastery hospital attendant and he gave him a small room in which they could put one bed only and nothing more.
In this place, Saint Silouan, as a very ill patient, according to the athonite principles, received the Holy Communion every day. On Friday 9th/23rd September a prayer on the departure of the soul was read to him, and the next day on 11th/24th September 1938 early in the morning while the morning service was being read in the Church, silently and unnoticeably for anyone, he gave up his holy and devoted soul to God, for Whom he yearned all his life and searched him in tears. The holy people preach and praise God even with their deaths. Saint Silouan preached and praised God in these last days of his life through his short conversations and his behaviour, from which we can come to the spiritual advice.
During his life a small number of people could notice the holy and spiritually rich life in his heart. That is why father Spiridon, a great devotee from that time, after a conversation he had with him in the hospital said: “He is either in spiritual delusion, or he is holy.” But after they heard the news about his venerable death and after they discovered the personal records of his thoughts, prayers and contemplations, many of them as well as father Trophim, another great devotee, after the death of the elder, said: “Now I see that father Silouan came to the level of the Holy Fathers.”
Saint Silouan left us his short booklet of personal records edited by his spiritual child and the writer of his autobiography the Archbishop Sophrony, which is now translated into many world languages, as well as Macedonian: “Sad Happiness- Happy Sadness”, and in English “Wisdom From Mount Athos”. At the end here are some extractions from that small but life-carrying booklet:
“The Kingdom of Heaven is inside us. We should examine ourselves to see if the sin lives inside us. When the spiritual father says a word, it burns the sin in our soul and it feels freedom and peace. If the soul brings repentance, God will allow it to experience happiness and cheerfulness in God. Then the Kingdom will be inside us.
If we were humble, God would allow us to watch Heaven every day. Since we are not humble we are given a struggle to have against ourselves. The one that wins the struggle against himself with humbleness and hard work, will be given the sacred hope from God.
We strongly need to humble our soul every minute, so that it can humble itself even in our dream. The holy people wanted to humble themselves and to cry, for which reason God loved them and allowed them to experience Him. God’s love can be recognized through the Holy Spirit Who lives in our Orthodox Church.
The greater the love is, the bigger the struggle will be.
The fuller the love is, the fuller the experience will be.
The more ardent the love is, the more blazing the prayer will be.
The more perfect the love is, the more sacred the life will be.
It becomes so with the soul of everyone who has recognized the Holy Spirit.
Oh Lord, give us that love towards the whole world!
Holy Spirit, come and abide inside us and live in our souls so that we can live in peace and permanently praise the Creator, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen!”
Through the prayers of our holy father Silouan the Athonite, God Jesus Christ have mercy on us.
Fr. Gavril Galev
Abbot of the monastery “St. Clement of Ohrid”,
Kinglake, Melbourne, Australia
24 / 09 / 2020
