GUIDELINES
for visiting an Orthodox monastery
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IMPORTANT INFORMATION for Visitors!
Guests are always welcome, and even
encouraged, at most Orthodox monasteries. Many observe the ancient
practice of three days of hospitality. Remember, however, that
a monastery is primarily a place of prayer. Monastics are people
who have been called from the world by God to lead the Angelic
life. It is for this reason that the Church encourages the faithful
to regularly visit monasteries so that they may find the help
they need to develop their own spiritual life. Monastics who truly
dedicate themselves to a life of prayer are the examples of what
our life on earth is supposed to be--to unconditionally love God
and our neighbor. Visitors need to be sensitive to this and help
maintain an atmosphere and environment that is condusive to sanctity
and prayer.
Since most Orthodox monasteries are traditionally quite small,
monastics find it difficult to balance their life of prayer with
the needs brought about by hospitality to their guests. In order
to preserve the spiritual life of the monastics and afford that
same experience to others who visit the Monastery, the following
guidelines should be followed. Hospitality has always been a monastic
tradition, but those who would visit should respect the monastics'
home.
While
these guidelines are generally appropriate for any monastery,
some may not require them, while others will enforce them emphatically.
It is certainly better to be safe than sorry, and to avoid the
embarrassment of being asked to leave.
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Appropriate
Attire
Women are generally expected to wear
skirts below the knees, long-sleeved blouses, with their heads
covered with a veil or scarf in the Church, and preferably at
all times while on the grounds of the monastery. (No pants, shorts,
mini-skirts, sleeveless blouses, short-sleeved tops or those with
open necks, etc.).
Men
should wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts. Socks and shoes
should be worn at all times.
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Appropriate
Conduct
1. When arriving at the monastery, you
should go immediately to the monastery office or bookstore and
ask for the Guest Master. Before taking you to your room, you
may be taken to see the Superior (Abbot or Abbess) of the monastery
and introduced. You will usually be required to see the Superior
before you can begin your stay at the monastery.
2. When presented to the Abbot, visitors and guests should always
greet him in the same manner as they would a Priest. The Abbot
or Hegoumen is not always necessarily a hieromonk, but he is always
accorded the same respect. If the Abbot or Hegoumen is not a Priest,
he will not bestow a blessing. An Abbess is generally addressed
as Mother.
3.
You may generally greet the monastics when you see them, but you
should not press them for conversation. You should especially
not converse with novices. Conversations or questions should be
directed to the Superior, if they are present, or generally to
the Guest master who is appointed to look after guests and visitors.
Other monastics must have a specific blessing from the Superior
to speak with visitors. This is a very important part of a monastic's
training in obedience, and this silence should not be mistaken
as coldness towards you.
4.
Monks should always be addressed as "Father" even though
they may not be Priests. Novices are always addressed as "Brother".
Women monastics (many Orthodox monastics frown at the word "nun"
but some use it) are generally addressed as "Mother"
and novices as "Sister", but there may be some variation
at different monasteries. Don't be afraid to ask!
6.
The entire complex in which the monastery is located should be
treated with the same piety as the inside of a church. The sanctity
of this Holy place does not allow for impropriety. Loud conversation,
insolent chatter, and unrestrained laughter are out of place.
Children should not be allowed to run freely about, but should
be quiet and stay close to their parents. Talking in church, especially
when a service is in progress, is impolite and rude.
7.
There is generally no smoking permitted anywhere on the grounds.
8.
There are generally private areas in the monastery where guests
and visitors are not permitted to go. The monk's cells are usually
off limits to all visitors and guests. Never enter the cells or
domicile without the express permission of the Superior.
9.
When visiting a monastery, even for a short time, it is customary
take a gift, which can include olive oil, candles, fruit or vegetables,
brandy, wine, candy, etc. Dairy products such as eggs, milk, cheese,
etc. are also appropriate so long as they are not given during
a fast period. Meat or meat products are never acceptable as a
gift to any monastery. Please check with the monastery before
arrival to ask about appropriateness of a gift.
10.
Guests and visitors are usually expected to attend all services
and common meals. These are the major activities of the monastic
day and you should participate in as much of the monastery life
as your schedule permits. If you are staying at the monastery
and wish to leave the grounds for any reason, such as to take
a walk, you should ask the Superior for a blessing. A monastery
is not a hostel or hotel. You are here for a specific reason.
Running off to the movies or to a restaurant or undertaking some
other form of recreational activity and missing Divine Services
will not be looked upon favorably.
11.
When attending services in church, please allow the monastics,
novices and other visiting clergy to make their venerations, receive
Holy Communion, and take blessings first. Protocol requires that
good order be preserved in the Church and there is a system in
effect. If you are unsure as to what to do, the Guest Master or
Ecclesiarch will be most happy to help you.
12.
When eating in the refectory, visitors and guests should refrain
from conversation during the meal, unless addressed by the Superior.
During the meal, it is customary to follow the lead of the Superior
throughout the entire meal. This includes standing behind your
seat and waiting for the Superior to sit before taking your seat;
and waiting for the Superior to start eating before you do. At
the end of the meal, you should rise when the Superior rises,
whether you have finished your meal or not, and continue eating
only if invited to do so. Normally, when the Superior rises from
the table, the meal is ended and the after-meal prayers begin.
13.
Visitors and guests may be expected to participate as much as
they can in the life of the monastery by helping in meal preparation
and cleanup, cleaning and other chores and helping with other
obediences. While this is probably not mandatory, you should remember
that in serving others, you are serving our Lord.
14.
When leaving the monastery, please leave your room neat and clean.
If you stayed in the Guest House, please make sure that you leave
it exactly the way you found it. Make sure the beds are made and
the garbage has been taken out. Do not leave a mess behind for
the monks to clean up.
How
to Greet a Monk or Nun
1)
In the Russian Church: Only tonsured nuns are addressed
as "Mother"—the others are addressed as "Sister."
This is exactly the same as the practice regarding monks, who
are called "Father" only if tonsured. The clue is whether
they wear the "klobuk"—the cylindrical black hat
with the veil—if they wear a klobuk, they are called "Father"
or "Mother." The problem with this clue is that the
klobuk is worn only in church or at formal occasions—the
rest of the time monks and nuns wear "skufias"—soft,
usually velvet, pointy hats. Abbesses, of course, are always addressed
as "Mother"—in Russian, the greeting is usually
the diminutive "Matushka" [pronounced with accent on
the first syllable—webmaster].
2)
Only Abbesses (or in rare cases their chief assistants) can wear
a pectoral cross. Laypeople should approach an Abbess for a blessing
the same as they would a Priest—they bow and hold their hands,
palms up, right over left—and after receiving the blessing
(which the Abbess makes holding her fingers the same as when one
makes the sign of the cross—not the "Name of the Lord"
configuration of fingers used by priests when blessing)—they
kiss the Abbess's hand.
3)
When a Priest greets an Abbess, he blesses her as usual, but they
kiss each other's hand, exactly as two Priests meeting (or two
Bishops) do. Abbesses stand in a throne and hold their staff,
which looks like a Bishop's staff, except it is made of wood.
4)
In her convent, the Abbess is the Rector. The Priests who serve
in the convent do nothing without her knowledge and blessing.
The serving Priest bows to the Abbess when beginning the services,
and he censes her before anyone else. The Abbess is commemorated
by name at all the major litanies and at the Great Entrance. In
many ways, the Abbess is given respect by the serving clergy similar
to that given to Bishops present at the service, except that she
is censed only three times, not three-times-three.
5)
Abbesses can enter the altar at any time. In larger convents,
certain nuns are appointed by the Abbess (with the approval of
the Bishop) to enter the altar to maintain it and the vestments
of the clergy, and even to assist the serving priest if no male
altar servers are available—but it should be known that other
nuns cannot enter the altar. Nuns appointed to help in the altar
are usually chosen from those who have been in the convent from
a young age.
The
Russian approach is usually rather easy: if they're wearing a
pectoral cross, you can get a blessing from them. Unless, of course,
they're outside of the church and not wearing their cross. . .
With
love in Christ,
Prot.
Alexander Lebedeff
from:
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/monk_greet.aspx
Monasticism
"The
best way to penetrate Orthodox spirituality is to enter
it through monasticism"
-- Paul Evdokimov, L'Orthodoxie ( Paris 1959)
The monastic life first emerged as a definite institution
in Egypt and Syria during the fourth century, and from there
it spread rapidly across Christendom. It is no coincidence
that monasticism ashould have developed immediately after
Constatine's conversion, at the very time when the persecutions
ceased and Christianity became fashionable. The monks with
their austerities were martyrs in an age when martyrdom
of blood no longer existed; they formed the counterbalance
to an established Christendom. People in Byzantine society
were in danger of forgetting that Byzantium was an image
and symbol, not the reality; they ran the risk of identifying
the kingdom of God with an earthly kingdom. The monks by
their withdrawal from society into the desert fulfilled
a prophetic and eschatological ministry in the life of the
Church. They reminded Christians that the kingdom of God
is not of this world.
Monasticism has taken three chief forms, all of which had
appeared in Egypt by the year 350, and all of which are
still to be found in the Orthodox Church today. There are
first the hermits, ascetics leading the solitary life in
huts and caves, and even in tombs, among the branches of
trees, or on the tops of pillars. The great model of the
eremitic life is the father of monasticism himself, St Anthony
of Egypt ( 251-356 ). Secondly there is community life,
where monks dwell together under a common rule and in a
regularly constituted monastery. Here the great pioneer
was St Pachomius of Egypt ( 286-346 ), author of a rule
later used by St Benedict in the west.
...in Orthodoxy a monk's primary task is the life of prayer,
and it is through this that he serves others. It is not
so much what a monk does that matters, as what he is.
Finally there is a form of the monastic life intermediate
between the first two, the semi-eremitic life, a 'middle
way' where instead of a single highly organized community
there is a loosely knit group of small settlements, each
settlement containing perhaps between two and six members
living together under the guidance of an elder. The great
centers of the semi-eremitic life in Egypt were Nitria and
Scetis, which by the end of the fourth century had produced
many outstanding monks - Ammon the founder of Nitria, Macarius
of Egypt and Macarius of Alexandria, Evagrius of Pontus,
and Arsenius the Great. ( This semi-eremitic system is found
not only in the east but in the far west, in Celtic Christianity
.) From its very beginnings the monastic life was seen,
in both east and west, as a vocation for women as well as
men, and throughout the Byzantine world there were numerous
communities of nuns.
Because of its monasteries, fourth-century Egypt was regarded
as a second Holy Land, and travellers to Jerusalem felt
their pilgrimage to be incomplete unless it included the
ascetic houses of the Nile. In the fifth and sixth centuries
leadership in the monastic movement shifted to Palestine,
with St Euthymius the Great ( † 473 ) and his disciple
St Sabas ( † 532 ). The monastery founded by St Sabas
in the Jordan valley can claim an unbroken history to the
present day; it was so this community that John of Damascus
belonged. Almost as old is another important house with
an unbroken history to the present, the monastery of St
Catherine at Mount Sinai, founded by the Emperor Justinian
( reigned 527-65 ). With Palestine and Sinai in Arab hands,
monastic pre-eminence in the Byzantine Empire passed in
the ninth century to the monastery of Stoudios in Constantinople.
St Theodore, who became Abbot here in 799, reactivated the
community and revised its rule, attracting vast numbers
of monks.
Since the tenth century the chief centre of orthodox monasticism
has been Athos, a rocky peninsula in North Greece jutting
out into the Aegean and culminating at its tip in a peak
6,670 feet high. Known as 'the Holy Mountain', Athos contains
twenty 'ruling' monasteries and a large number os smaller
houses, as well as hermits' cells; the whole peninsula is
given up entirely to monastic settlements, and in the days
of its greatest expansion it is said to have contained nearly
forty thousand monks. The Great Lavra, the oldest of the
twenty ruling monasteries, has by itself produced 26 Patriarchs
and more than 144 bishops: this gives some idea of the importance
of Athos in Orthodox history.
There are no 'Orders' in Orthodox monasticism. In the west
a m onk belongs to the Cartusian, the Cistercian, or some
other Order; in the east he is simply a member of the one
great fellowship which includes all monks and nuns, although
of course he is attached to a particular monastic house.
Western writers simetimes refer to Orthodox monks as 'Basilian
monks' or 'monks of the Basilian Order', but this is not
correct. St Basil is and important figure in Orthodox monasticism,
but he founded no Order, and although two of his works are
known as the Longer Rules and the Shorter Rules, these are
in no sense comparable to the Rule of St Benedict.
A characteristic figure in Orthodox monasticism is the 'elder'
or 'old man' ( Greek gerõn; Russian starets, plural
startsy ). The elder is a monk of spiritual discernment
and wisdom, whom others - either monks or people in the
world - adopt as their guide and spiritual director. He
is sometimes a priest, but often a lay monk; he receives
no special ordination or appointment to the work of eldership,
but is guided to it by the direct inspiration of the Spirit.
A woman as well as a man may be called to this ministry,
for Orthodoxy has its 'spiritual mothers' as well as its
'spiritual fathers'. The elder sees in a concrete and practical
way what the will of God is in relation is in relation to
each person who comes to consult him: this is the elder's
special gift or charisma. The earliest and most celebrated
of the monastic startsy was St Antony himself. The first
part of his life, from eighteen to fifty-five, he spent
in withdrawal and solitude; then, though still living in
the desert, he abandoned his life of strict enclosure, and
began to receive visitors. A group of disciples gathered
around him, and besides these disciples there was a far
larger circle of people who came, often from a long distance,
to ask his advice; so great was the stream of visitors that,
as Antony's biographer Athanasius put it, he became a psysician
to all Egypt. Antony has had many successors, and in most
of them the same outward pattern of events is found - a
withdrawal in order to return. A monk must first withdraw,
and in silence must learn the truth about himself and God.
Then, after this long and rigorous preparation in solitude,
having gained the gifts of discernment which are required
of and elder, he can open the door of his cell and admit
the world from which formerly he fled.
†Bishop
Kallistos ( Timothy ) Ware, The Orthodox Church ( New York
1983)
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