By Panagiotis Andriopoulos
Today is the Fourth Sunday of the Fast, and the Church honors Saint John of Sinai, the author of The Ladder.
I leaf through the Ladder of Saint John and try to understand — on an intellectual level, of course — the very deep concepts (as I suspect) contained in its respective chapters: On Detachment, On Exile (Living as a Stranger), On Joyful Mourning, On Insensibility, On Well-Discerned Discernment, On the Different Types of Hesychia and their Distinction (!) and so on. The words I encounter are also very distinctive and, I would say, powerful — Greek words which, of course, are no longer part of our everyday vocabulary: θεήλατος (divinely-driven), καλλίπενθος (beautifully mournful), ταπεινόνους (humble-minded), φερέπονος (pain-bearer), αμετεώριστος (unwavering), σύννοια (unity of mind), απαράκλητος (inconsolable), and others.
There are also expressions that are purified in meaning, that is, the words retain their original, pristine sense: λήμματι ἀμνησικακίας (literally: “disposition of non-remembrance of wrongs”) — that is, with freedom from resentment; φερέπονος αἴσθησις καὶ ἕξις (literally: “the perception and disposition of bearing pain”) — that is, the establishment in the soul of a courageous spirit of patience and perseverance; τήρησις τοῦ νοός (literally: “keeping/guarding of the mind”) — that is, maintaining the mind in a state of purity and continual remembrance of God; παραρριπισμός τοῦ νοός (literally: “the scattering of the mind”) — that is, various provocations or impulses that are extremely intense, lightning-fast, and almost beyond time.
Apart from the question of faith in God, no one can deny that Saint John of Sinai recorded in the Ladder all the movements of the soul and the mind — the terrible invisible warfare that takes place in the human heart, whether it is journeying toward perfection or remains entirely attached to vanity. Texts such as the Ladder are spiritual tablets, engraved by God, forming the towering edifice of our true spiritual heritage.
At the same time, they are texts of a universal character, addressed to human beings of every age, to show them the way out of the unbearable tragedy of existence on earth. For the aim is that a person should become in no need of books and filled with the grace of the Spirit. Saint John Chrysostom says it: “Let the grace of the Spirit become for our souls a substitute for books; and as these are written in ink, so may our hearts be inscribed by the Spirit.”
That is, the aim is the departure of the mind from corruption, so that the indwelling of Christ may take place in the unenslaved heart.
Difficult things for our shallow times, in which flourish miracle-mongering (obsession with miracles), gerontocracy (an unhealthy dependence on charismatic “elders”), hollow psychologizing theology (a theology reduced to shallow psychology—comforting talk without ascetic depth or doctrinal seriousness), noisy superficial patriotism (full of slogans but lacking substance), and other distorting phenomena, ranging from the ridiculous to the tragic.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.