(Interviews realised, adapted and commented by post-grad. theol. Gabriel Memelis)
An Iconic Dialogue
Gabriel Memelis: Reverend Father Ghelasie, with God’s help and your permission we will begin recording this dialogue today, approaching different themes that span your theological thought. So, as I confessed to you earlier, I thought of this form of interview, in principal, for two reasons: the first might be a little subjective, to maintain the distinct mark of your verbal qualities, which is edifying to me in many ways. The second is, in fact, closely correlated with the first. It is in order to create a kind of antechamber for accessibility to your writings. Because experience, not a few sad times, has demonstrated that the reader can’t attack them directly without great difficulty, given their atypical style and their content’s great concentration of thought. While trying to think of the most comprehensive question that we could begin with, I’d like to dwell on the following: could you tell us about the essence of your discourse, Father? What message would you like to transmit in the current theological and philosophical context of our times?
Fr. Ghelasie Gheorghe: Dear sir, the problem that you propose must be looked at from a different point of view. In the first place, my preoccupations with Christian mystical life are due to the fact that I myself have chosen the monastic life. I’m not, nor am I trying to be one who considers that he could give a message. Rather, in my regular life as a monk, I’ve noted a few things that are a result of the relational with others, in a general context of spirituality. And from this there resulted, first of all for me personally, some conclusions that I considered might be good to note because they might be useful to somebody. In our days the problem is no longer posed of dedicating yourself in a special way to writing. Nowadays, intellectual preoccupations are ordinary. We all have spiritual occupations. As such, we too – in the monastic life – have these spiritual preoccupations into which the activity of writing enters. I believe that these records that I’ve written, if they present an interest, are offered to a rather limited circle of readers, even if we were to try to make some publicity around them. However, from the start I’d like to mention that I don’t do theology in a special way, and I don’t assume the right to be one who is somehow noticeable. Dear sir, I am an ordinary monk, and what I have registered is a result of dialogue with others, which I hope will be useful. It is my own way of speaking, as every one has the right to – an actualization of my own receptivity towards the life that we carry on in the monastery.
So, I can’t say that I have a special message to transmit, it’s only bringing the Christian message up to date, as Father Stăniloae does, in the general context of contemporary spirituality. This preoccupation isn’t only mine, since the majority of those who now come to the monastery are people who already have the preoccupations of spiritual life and bring with them an entire general context of spirituality. I remember a father, who being asked what brought him to the monastery responded beautifully – “knowledge.” Likewise, the aim of coming to the monastery is knowledge and shouldn’t be motivated only by a simple decision.
G. M.: What you’ve said just a little before seems very important to me, that is, what matters today is bringing theology up to date. It is necessary in every cultural context…
G. G.: Dear sir, you know that – in the conditions of a very contradictory spirituality like that of today – we Christians must, first of all, distinguish the Orthodox theological way. Our spirituality must be centered on this meaning and should truly have a theological basis; even if we have certain inherent defects from culture and education that aren’t in conformity with the theological. Our struggle is precisely to become ourselves and to harmonize in this way with the Orthodox Christian theological way taught by the Holy Fathers.
And I attempt, through my speech, precisely this – to frame in the basic reference points of the Holy Fathers’ theology. Of course this isn’t easy. It implies, along with a detailed and solid knowledge of the theological and the capacity to penetrate it, living and integrating into it. I am perfectly convinced that in this context where we have to deal with all kinds of mixed gnosis, with occult syncretism and magic, we need a clear distinction, which is, what does this particular Christian character consist of, that I’m trying to distinguish?
G. M.: In your books, Father, you attribute great value to the Carpathian, hesychastic traditional vision, whose founder was the hermit Neofit. This vision can’t be treated as a simple addition to the Philokalic method. Rather it has its own unique character that may consist of an especial accent on the theology of the icon, [1] on a dialogue between God and man. Could you please give us some details of these things by bringing into relief the uniqueness of Carpathian hesychasm, as you called it?
G. G.: Dear sir, the subject that you’re dealing with – and which I attempt to deal with too – comes from personal experience: truly, I have known a monastic tradition, we could say, of an indigenous nature, a tradition of the hermits from the Apuseni mountains – from the clefs of Râmeţ. It was here that I met a hermit to whom I became a spiritual son and who illustrated this traditional ascetic precisely. I was surprised to find some references in this essential feature that were a true revelation for me, in the sense of living Christian theology. There’s no cause however, to make this into a novelty, which people will consider as something different or torn from the traditional theological way of the Holy Fathers. On the contrary, however much the monastic life and the hermits of our country may have been isolated, they maintained faithfulness to our Christian Orthodox theology. It didn’t deviate… However, what I try to distinguish is the fact that this indigenous character left its imprint on the common Philokalic base of the Holy Fathers. So, to be concrete, what in fact does this common Philokalic base mean? Translated into more accessible terms, the Philokalic doesn’t only mean love for the beautiful, but it became – in the Orthodox mystic sense – the spiritual in and of itself. The common base of the Philokalia is Orthodox-Christian spirituality which can’t be anything but the same, indifferent whether it receives a Sinaitic character or that of the Thebaiden monks, the Athonite character of Greek spirituality, or a Slavic character. This is the distinction that I make. This Carpathian characteristic that may sometimes seem like it has departed from the common tradition, is in fact a personal witness of that, which for me, meant a true revelation. It is understood that, indifferent of the common base of certain realities, a tradition’s imprint matters very much.
There has been talk about Slavic influence over the monastic life in Moldavia; similarly, there has been talk about a specific Athonite character of the monasteries in Muntenia. I found however, in the region of Ardeal, [2] this tradition of the hermits from Apuseni who follow the practices of the hermits from the monasteries of Râmeţ. I was amazed to find an essential feature here, somewhat distinguished, that denoted in fact an indigenous characteristic aspect which isn’t in contradiction with the common Philokalic base. I stress that the Philokalic base remains common, being the spirituality of the Holy Spirit transposed, dressed however, in personal, individual forms. In this way, it could be said that I am trying to distinguish an essential characteristic of Romanian monasticism, conferring to it a kind of form and at the same time a distinction. We should consider, though, that my effort is to intentionally point out and appeal to an eventual continuation of research. It is a record of what might have been overlooked, and I believe that it has importance for Romanian monasticism. However, the belief must be definitely avoided, that Carpathian hesychasm is superior to others, or that it could bring something in plus, in the sense of an invention compared to the common Philokalic base. This, I repeat, remains the same. It’s just that it is transposed, dressed in particular characteristics. Many unknowing people become tied, however, precisely to this exterior part, the clothing, without knowing what I’m referring to.
Again, many ask, in what does this common Philokalic base consist of? It is nothing other than what we know from the writings of the Fathers contained in the twelve volumes of the Philokalia translated by Father Stăniloae. The Philokalic base is the aspiration of man that puts a special accent on returning to God through surpassing sin’s abnormalities. And in the Philokalic texts we also see how a few characteristics are outlined:
- The Sinaitic character insists on the reconstruction of the dialogue between God and man through asceticism, if we could put it that way, preponderantly disembodied. It’s not excessive or extremist. However, in its framework the foundation is placed directly on the spiritual and on rising above everything that is bodily. It is a drastic asceticism whose goal is gaining a life where the material is almost abolished. This characteristic is also due to the desert like environment in which materiality, vegetation almost doesn’t exist. So then, the Sinaitic characteristic, which seeks an almost pure soul, will be very spiritualized. All the holy hermits, starting with Anthony the Great put a special accent directly on the spiritual part.
– The Athonite character accents a kind of metaphysics, a dialogue between the spiritual and the bodily part. Christianity reveals its special contribution here by the fact that it doesn’t make the body into something contrary to the spirit. It affirms man rather as the unity of soul and body in the ideal of Christ the Resurrected one, Who ascended to heaven with His body.
– The Slavic character brings out into relief the subterranean part of sin, that tries to form itself as a counterpart of negative life replacing true life, spiritual life. It’s a kind of focusing on the anti-spiritual part that makes Slavic spirituality dominated by the war with the demonic, with the un-spiritual.
– Our Carpathian character comes with its own traits: this is also due to its own special natural environment, of lush vegetation… In addition, here, the problem of a break between soul and body, of a drastic asceticism like the Sinaitics was never posed, because it was believed that the body forms an integral part of our being-ness. The dramatic character of the Slavs, of the furious battle with evil spirits, was never emphasized.
And now, what I’d like to bring into light is a feature that I’ve called iconic. Why do I say iconic? Because they say that the hermits from the Apuseni mountains call themselves iconographers; not in the sense that they were painters, but because they had an extraordinary veneration towards icons, practicing in their own way a mysticism of icons. They were true bearers of the icon, of iconic image, [3] which means that their modality of Christian theological mysticism was made concrete in this way.
To get back to a common terminology we must see what understanding is given to the icon in the general theological sense, and then in the Carpathian. It’s known that the iconoclastic disputes, which were so bloody, came to a close through the definition of the icon’s theological meaning. It appears, however, that the iconoclastic spirit is maintained until today, and very many theologians of a more intellectual nuance conserve a certain reservation towards the mysticism of the icon. The difference is however, that the specific Carpathian characteristics are centered on this mystical consideration of the icon. In this manner, I’m even trying to make an enlargement of the mysticism of icons, in whose framework I try to bring into relief particular Carpathian characteristics. In the regular theological understanding, the icon is a modality through which the spiritual can “materialize,” a kind of presentation of the spiritual into some forms, so to speak, corporeal-material, which call us and stimulate us to pass through to a spiritual that is beyond the material part. So through the image we turn to the one represented on it, as Saint Theodore the Studite says. As you see, the mysticism of the icon poses the problem on a deeper level, because the icon is at the same time a cult object; and cult for us means integration in the liturgical ritual. Liturgical ritual implies on its behalf, a participation of the bodily too, a partaking of the corporeality in spiritual life. Because the corporeal becomes Eucharist, it participates in a special way in spiritual life. It isn’t just a symbol, a simple modality of passing through to a realm of “spirit” beyond ordinary materiality; and precisely here the distinct Carpathian iconic character comes out into specific relief. The relevance of the icon doesn’t only come from the directly spiritual part, it isn’t only a modality of passing through from a representation to something beyond the body, but it is a revelation of a mystery. So how can the spiritual become incarnate, however? If this isn’t understood and if the icon isn’t seen as an embodiment of the spiritual, the iconic characteristic that I want to talk about won’t be understood. In the Carpathian iconic understanding, I repeat yet again, the whole of the mystery isn’t a passage from the material to the spiritual, from the bodily to the spirit. But rather, what must be well underlined, is that this mystery is a passage of the spiritual – from the spirit – into an incarnation in which the bodily participates in spirituality properly speaking. If in the usual, traditional sense of the Holy Fathers, and especially of Athonite theology, that which is bodily must be raised to the spiritual and become spiritualized, the specific Carpathian character sustains that the pneumatic spirituality doesn't pass to a superior level, it doesn’t isolate itself. It doesn’t seek to stimulate the corporeal part, the bodily, the material, to raise itself to the spiritual, but the spiritual itself became a kind of more evident incarnation of the spiritual. This happens to such an extent that at a certain point the material, corporeal part, becomes a place, an altar, even a kind of eucharistic pre-figuration. In this way the representation, properly speaking the iconic [pictorial] of the incarnation, becomes a living reality precisely in this state of bodily representation. [4]
G. M.: A little earlier, you sketched a kind of spiritual geography where you framed in each mystical transposition. Where do you think this affinity of the Carpathian spirituality for the Incarnation and the iconic comes from, as you’ve developed it up until now?
G. G.: Dear sir, it might be that this characteristic of our indigenous spirituality is due, even like I said, to the geographic environment, but first of all I think it is due to an ancestral memory; because every nation distinguishes itself precisely through a kind of memory of origins. The nations differentiated themselves religiously through each one’s specific way of keeping these memories. For example, the Jewish nation kept a few memories closer to the adamic memories, and probably because of this it was the nation through which God could prepare the Incarnation of Christ. Other nations kept a more spiritual memory, metaphysical, as the Greeks did for instance; and others conserved a more ritualistic character etc. Therefore, each population distinguished themselves after the adamic fall through these specific characteristics. It seems then that our Thracian-Dacian characteristics were made concrete in the way the ancestral memory of heaven was kept. The soul and body weren’t in contradiction, but rather they were completing the ideal of being in a participative union in an almost equal measure, like the Holy Fathers say. It seems that it was because of this that Christianity caught on so easily and quickly here. The spiritual Thracian-Dacian character was a kind of solidification of an ancestral base that our people had already had. A base that conformed to a great extent to a central idea of Christianity, the Incarnation of God. The particular Christic character is precisely the Incarnation of God, an ideal present in the Thracian-Dacian ancestral memory where, as we’ve seen, there existed a unity between soul and body. Because of this, the essential nature of Christianity caught on miraculously. It felt at home and stimulated our specific spirituality in the iconic direction that we’re talking about. The iconic is just this – the modality in which the Incarnation doesn’t contradict the soul, but rather the mystery where the spiritual, the soul-ness, that something beyond the visible [plane], becomes visible, accessible – the seeable participating with the unseen.
If, in the Athonite way, the visible must participate without fail [through the raising and in a way through the negation of itself] with the unseen… Well, in other words, in the Carpathian sense the spiritual doesn’t mean a raising of the seen into the unseen, but rather a kind of mystical descent of the unseen’s sacredness into the seen. Into a showing, so much so that at a certain point the icon becomes a kind of eucharistic pre-figuration, where the exact mystery of the unseen’s transformation is shown in a body of giving. [5] Likewise, in the particular Carpathian characteristics the icon isn’t a mere presentation, just a modality for passing from the seen to the unseen, from the bodily to the spirit. It is something different. It is exactly the mystery in which the Divine becomes body and shares itself, making itself able to communicate. The value of communion isn’t so much in making ourselves spiritual, but it is in the truth of the spiritual lowering itself into our concrete sight and which, purely and simply, we can consume. It becomes an integral part of our entire being-ness’ constitution with the soul, body and spirit alike. [6]
G. M.: Could it be believed that the unseen that descends into the seen could remain on the visible plane?
G. G.: No! This is exactly the clear difference between the Carpathian iconic mysticism and Athonite iconic mysticism. There really does exist [in the latter] a fear that the unseen or spiritual, through the fact that it “enters” into something seen, could be lost or absorbed, that it could become devalued. But, and here is the beauty, the unseen or spirit’s descent into the iconic bodily achieves a miraculous thing. In the Athonite understanding, the iconic heads in the direction of transfiguration, where the regular bodily representation must without fail pass on to the transfigurative light, full of grace on Mount Tabor. This is where the usual countenance [7] of Christ is proven to be, in fact, the Image of God Who offers Himself for contemplation. In comparison, the Carpathian iconic road is, in a way, in the opposite direction. We know that the test of authenticity for an Athonite icon is being able to see the transfigurative light in it, beyond the representation itself (and in this sense Saint Symeon the New Theologian and Saint Gregory Palamas are representatives). Otherwise, the icon has no [doxological] value. The visible must be viewed without fail in this Christic transfiguration of Divinization which gives the icon a intrinsic spiritual value. Therefore the icon is reduced to a simple passage, at all costs, from the visible representation to the transformation by grace of the Transfiguration. The Carpathian modality of the icon comes, however, with an additional specification that in fact doesn’t contradict the Athonite transfigurative. That is, it no longer begins from the seen, but from the unseen, [already present in the seen] without putting into doubt the Taboric light. If the particular Athonite character begins with the hiding of the Taboric light in order to reach the vision of the light, in our Carpathian sense we begin with the Taboric light, which makes an extraordinary act, that of incarnating into something, of showing, of becoming iconic. If in the icon of Athonite modality, the light of grace is hidden and you, beginning from the icon, must arrive at it [the light of grace], in the Carpathian iconic the Taboric light is no longer hidden in the representation’s materiality. In the Carpathian modality, the icon receives something special, a super-sacredness. Why do I say super-sacredness? Because the iconic in the Carpathian sense tends to show through this super-sacredness that Taboric light enters in a special way into visible iconic representations, where it makes for itself a kind of place for its altar. It descends and enters into the materiality, into the corporeality, into the bodily. It’s not absorbed into the materiality so as to become devalued, as you’ve suggested, but rather it is a mystery, which at a certain point produces a direct reliefing of both aspects. Whereas in the Athonite iconic there isn’t an equal representation of both parts, because the bodily must be overshadowed by the Taboric transfiguarative of the light of grace; so that at a given point, the body passes directly into a kind of spirit. In the Carpathian iconic we find however, a kind of aspiration to the ancestral memory of heaven, where the bodily and the spiritual, the Divine and creation stand face to face. They no longer reciprocally exclude each other, but are both seen at once. [8]
G. M.: Nevertheless I’d like to ask you, doesn’t it seem to you that the Athonite iconic modality preserves the Resurrection’s and Ascension’s message, that consists precisely in Christ’s physical presence “blurring” into light?
G. G.: No, this isn’t true! We shouldn’t talk about Christ blurring into light!
G. M.: Maybe the word was a bit too harsh. I’m referring to a transfiguration, an eruption of light…
G. G.: We have to say that Christian theology had to face up to the spiritual context of the respective times. Therefore, Christian thought received some imprints from Greek mentality, dominated by a metaphysics and thought form where the spiritual is considered the essence of the Divine. [9] The Holy Fathers insisted a lot on the idea that the Divine made itself a kind of co-dweller, almost equal with the material, with the bodily. The bodily is also the work of God, not only a simple product as in Greek metaphysics, according to which the materiality of the bodily represents a prison and an eclipsing of the spiritual, and so needs to be spiritualized at all costs.
In the Carpathian iconic sense, the value of Christ the Resurrected One doesn’t rest in the fact that He would have transfigured the bodily into a kind of pneumatic spirituality. Interestingly enough, Christ makes a miracle beyond nature, showing that the spiritual, Divinity, can descend so much that it can participate in itself and in the bodily in an equal measure. Not only that, but the Divinity and the bodily stand face to face in an equality of presence at the same time; not in the sense that the spiritual’s presence must make the bodily blur until it’s no longer seen, absorbed into the spiritual. However, not inversely either. That is, the spiritual doesn’t remain unseen behind the material and corporeal. This is where the beauty lies. It is in the fact that this supernatural iconic allows the Divine to remain Divine in itself, the spiritual to remain spiritual, the bodily to remain bodily. They are both seen at the same time, one participating with the other in an equal way, without contradicting each other – transfiguring each other at the same time. On the other hand, in the Athonite spirit, the transfiguration is unilateral, not simultaneous from both parties. The Athonite perception remains that, at a certain given moment, in Christ the usual body was no longer seen, but only the light of grace, [10] like an absorption of the body into the light. While in Carpathian spirituality no kind of absorption is talked about, but rather a co-dwelling without confusion, without either part overshadowing the other. [11]
G. M.: Is this how you explain the fact that during the Supper on the road to Emmaus Christ made Himself unseen right at the moment of the breaking of the bread? At the moment of the Eucharist’s presence Christ made Himself unseen?
G. G.: Yes, because the seen is already Eucharistic. Some consider that I make a too difficult and daring affirmation when I say that in the Carpathian understanding of the simultaneous and equal presence of the transfigurative Taboric grace and the Incarnation’s body, the icon is in fact a representation of Eucharistic type.* [12] If the Catholics manifested themselves in a mysticism of the Eucharist itself, like the veneration of the host, we speak of a mysticism with a conspicuously Eucharistic character, that is something completely different. This character manifests itself on a Thracian-Dacian ancestral memorial basis, in which the Divine and creation can be together precisely in this supernatural image, the Eucharistic image.* This manner of approaching the icon is closer to the message of the Incarnation, which is none other than that the Divine can become body too. That Christ the Divine One, the Son of God, descended to us and is at the same time in “equality” with the body. Our Liturgics are differentiated, consequently, from the Protestant modality that makes the Eucharist into a kind of symbolic iconic. The Catholics kept something of the Eucharistic mysticism, but for us Orthodox, the Eucharist doesn’t produce an automatic transfiguration – in the sense that if I received Bread and Wine I will necessarily head towards something more spiritual. The Holy Eucharist is, in fact, materiality deified. The problem of transcendent metaphysics is no longer posed here – of separations and passages beyond. No, but [in the Eucharist] there is already a co-dwelling, an un-separated weaving where the Divine and bodily are in an inseparable, unconfused, undivided unity, at the same time – in equality.
Thus, it seems that the future of our Christian theology would consist of this; an active up dating that especially awakens Liturgical Eucharistic living. The Catholics also have this intuition, but they make in my opinion as a priest, a great error, a kind of concession. They consider that you must give communion to everybody. They have, on the other hand, the justifiable intuition of the fact that integration in the Liturgical iconic and Eucharistic is a resurrection of life. On the other hand, they don’t take into account the truth that the world is so unprepared that at a certain point, a kind of devaluation of communion is produced, if not even a mockery. That which is spiritual can’t enter into a vessel that hasn’t cleaned itself beforehand. We Orthodox, however, make a special foundation out of the aspect of ritual. It could be said in a way that Christianity’s essence, especially in the lives of Christians, is the Liturgical ritual. Why is this? It [liturgical ritual] poses the very problem of reactualizing the iconic Eucharistic countenance.* In this way, what is important isn’t so much the act of communion itself, going directly to receiving the Holy Eucharist, even though it is without a doubt, the crowning. The most important thing is to enter as a receiver into the process of Eucharistic transformation. Let us bare in mind that at the epiclesis we pray, “Lord, send Your Spirit over us and over these Gifts…”
G. M.: So it’s about a Eucharistic transformation of the entire community…
G. G.: Not only that, but we ourselves must become of Eucharistic condition in order to be able to receive the Eucharist. [13] First and foremost, in the Liturgy we ask to become of Eucharistic condition [constitution], iconic, in order for us to commune. In Catholicism the receiver’s condition no longer matters, and they go directly to communion. For us, the participation in the Holy Liturgy has great importance. The Liturgical ritual means a preparation for us to regain the Eucharistic condition, and only after that comes the true crowning – union with the Divine Who accepts a descent directly to us. Because of this, I say that the meaning of the Carpathian iconic isn’t a passage from the material into the spiritual, but somehow opposite, a passage from the spirit to the material. [14] There’s no kind of invention in what I’m saying, I’m only giving value to a unique background that is in essence the same as the Holy Fathers, but has a special characteristic relief. It doesn’t mean that I negate Athonite spirituality’s value. It accentuates passing from the material to the spiritual, to the Taboric light, in order to accentuate the Divine – in order for Christ to be truly proven the Son of God and not just simply a wise man as some people say. However, on this foundation there is always a need for the miraculous to be shown, through which The Divine can descend into man’s bodily image. The unilateral accentuation of the Athonite aspect could lead us to a forced metaphysic where we believe that everything must be absorbed in the spirit. As you suggested before, at a certain moment the Christically resurrected body or the Eucharistic pass into a kind of abstractionism, or symbolism, in which the body in fact, isn’t deified, but merely raised to an improved level. [15]
In conclusion, the Carpathian iconic comes from the affirmation that there is no contradiction or difference (!) between spirit and body. They must be viewed together at the same time, and so the iconic bears a double manifestation. In Athonite characteristics there is a unique hypostasis, in which the materiality must be raised to the part of grace, of Taboric light. In the Carpathian iconic, however, the Taboric light and the bodily are at the same time; it is a double transfiguration, so to speak, a double manifestation. If this isn’t understood, grave conclusions could be made.
G. M.: Moving on to a different subject, many people who try to read your works have great difficulties with your approach to language, Father, which seems too complicated to them. I’d like to ask if you’re trying to give value to the iconic characteristics of language itself?
G. G.: Mysticism is analogous with poetry, with painting, with art in general, in the true sense of the word. So, maybe, I instinctively attempt to truly use an iconic language in my accounts. And, so that this language may be understood, we must return a little bit to what we were saying before in reference to the Carpathian iconic that distinguishes itself from the Athonite metaphysic that seeks the spiritual beyond the material. As I’ve said, in the Carpathian iconic the spiritual and the material, the spiritual and bodily can be at once, in reciprocal participation. So, my language seeks to conform to this iconic characteristic, and maybe this gives the impression that I use a mixed language, made from words with an ambiguous sense from which you don’t know what part to choose: its usual part, or the spiritual part? In iconic language both meanings must be taken at the same time, as in a communication of gestures: the language must capture this double acceptation, the spiritual as well as the usual stand face to face in equality. I don’t have, of course, any pretensions that this language should be accepted by the whole world, but as for now that’s how I write.
G. M: You even use, at a certain moment, the term “supra-language.” Is the introduction of this word a sign of a desire to surpass certain conceptual frameworks that belong to Greek philosophy, to be emancipated from a certain metaphysical language?
G. G.: Not in the least, I’m not trying to depart from the Greek terminology ostentatiously, as if there existed an antagonism between the two terminologies. It’s just that the Greek terminology is the nature of the respective thought forms. We couldn’t exclude the validity of it, nor do I affirm that the iconic and Greek languages are reciprocally exclusive. This is right where the beauty lies, iconic language always maintains regular terminology without contradicting or absorbing it. Greek metaphysical language insists on a passage from the ordinary representative part (the material, bodily) to the spiritual part. So it illustrates a modality of rational knowledge, which passes into an “excess of mind.” In iconic language, however, the mental, not excluding the rational, must be considered at the same time with the other parts of a representation of form. [16]
G. M.: Then if I’ve understood correctly, Father, you hold to an adjacency of both aspects and to their reconciliation into a superior plane…
G. G: Iconic means that, too…
G. M.: I’d like to discuss in continuation a syntagm that often appears in your writings, Father. That is, a “being dialogue.” What especially surprises me is the fact that you define creation’s being as a “divine of creation”…
G. G.: Divine with a small “d”…
G. M.: Yes, with a small “d”… This “divine of creation,” as you call it, exists face to face with Divine being-ness Itself, in a certain, if we can put it that way, autonomy. You place a great accent on man’s dialogue with God as a dialogue between two fulfilled being-nesses. Doesn’t this somehow depreciate the dialogue through the intermediary of uncreated energy? I’d like to ask you to clarify this.
G. G.: So, it is good that we’ve especially discussed iconic characteristics. In my preoccupations with mysticism I’ve tried to make an enlargement, a theological, spiritual support for this Carpathian particularity that we’re talking about. In this framework I stress the fact that, being created after the image and likeness of God, we received our own being-ness, [which is] of a created nature. We know that the metaphysical discourses of ancient philosophy considered that creation itself was the manifestation of God, a direct coming forth from Him. [It was] Divine Being manifesting Itself in some spiritual principles and then in structures, because in the end, everything would be reabsorbed again into Being. In the Christian understanding, God creates creation’s reality, to which He also gives a certain “autonomy” [17], because if He hadn’t given it this “autonomy” we wouldn’t be able to realize the dialogue of response in the presence of God. Our complete liberty is founded on this kind of autonomy. This is why I particularly accentuate the ideal that created being stands face to face with divine being, [18] the created with the Uncreated, the spiritual with the bodily etc.
If a duality of contraries existed in ancient metaphysical thought, in the iconic sense, such a contradiction disappears, and the duality becomes an affirmative-dialogue. Do you understand? I wouldn’t want to be misinterpreted… It’s known that in Christian theology there exists a terrible fear, and rightly so, of the pantheistic danger of created being’s entrance into Divine Being. I’m not dealing with the issue of entrance because Divine Being is beyond accessibility. We, being in the quality of created being, can’t participate in Divine Being directly. That would mean to share the same being with the Divine. But I do pose the problem of a dialogue between the two beings. Divine Being, in Christianity, isn’t conceived of in the essentialist modes of Greek philosophy. It is a super-iconic Countenance,* so to speak, and through the Christic Incarnation It makes a condescension and paradoxically becomes accessible through the energies of grace. Inaccessible Divinity can, in this way, pour Itself out even into a countenance* of creation. Then, a being-ness participation of creation in the Being of God, Who always remains beyond accessibility, can be discussed. When I talk about a being-ness mysticism, I don’t have in sight a mysticism of Divine Being, but of the created being. Through this distinction, I delimit myself from pseudo-mysticism that is actually occultish, in which they especially speak about an aspect of energy, of a mysticism exclusively about energy. In a book that I’m working on, I want to solidify a kind of Christian anthropology on the thought of Saint Gregory Palamas. About how this Saint showed, as in the spirit of all theology up until him, that the Being of God is at the same time tri-personal, and “transposed” into uncreated energy. Then I try to develop a configuration of Christian anthropology where man is seen as a created being, with his energies of creation as image and likeness.
As opposed to the ancient anthropological model where a metaphysical configuration concerning the material and spiritual parts of man was desired, the spiritual and bodily, I present the configuration in iconic language. It is a kind of iconic anthropology where I attribute to creation – of course from a Biblical basis – the categories of created being with created energy, without departing from the limits of Christian theology. It’s not something new, just an enlargement based on the Holy Fathers, with an additional relief from our specific Carpathian characteristics. Whether this work will have theological value or not, I can’t say yet. However, I know that framing in the essential Carpathian features is necessary in the Christian theological and Philokalical. Likewise, I propose an entrance of the theological into culture… In this sense I ask theologians especially to bring it to my attention if they observe any errors.
G. M.: In any case, approaching your writings, Father, presupposes a change of paradigms, of theological thought forms…
G. G.: No, don’t say that, that’s not true at all. It’s not about a changing of thought!
G. M.: I was referring to this situating in iconic thought…
G. G.: Dear sir, that’s true only when it is clearly specified that it has to do with iconic thought. As we’ve said before, I don’t exclude normal language and thought. I do it so that a double language can be discussed, and not an exclusive one. In Christianity we must renounce conceptualizing Divinity and creation as two separate, incompatible entities. If God assumed for Himself creation’s level then there is room to speak about divine language’s entrance into a kind of form of creation’s language. In this way Saint Dionysius the Areopagite could speak about names of divine grace in the forms of creation. It’s true that, on the one hand, we give names and properties to the Divine in the order of creation. And at the same time, we give these names on the basis of some grace models that we have in ourselves as essence and as modality of perception. So talking about God in Christianity isn’t simply analogical, it is done in a language, so called, “of creation,” understanding this as a kind of “theological” of the image of creation, of the very nature of creation. We, as image and likeness of God, have a seal. We have divine grace models inside us. We are, through creation, theological beings bearing the image of God in us. We increase these divine models-images that we have, and when we increase them we give them something of our own. If we don’t give them something of our own, it would mean that we don’t respond in fact, that we are nothing but mere imitations [of the Divine image]. We see then, why we can speak about the theology of our response before the Divine theological. [19]
G. M.: In other words, God could receive something from us too…
G. G.: The Lord knows us, and wants to receive something of our own. It’s good, the theological of our response would interest me. This problem hasn’t been dealt with yet…
G. M.: In order to make such assertions of yours acceptable in the eyes of some very rigorous theologians, Father, we would have to believe that the human, more precisely, the image of man had been assumed by the Son, if not from all eternity, at least a little before the act of creation properly speaking – of cosmo-anthropo-genesis. In one of your writings, Father, you say that "at a certain moment before time the Son showed Himself to the Father in the image of man.” Do you believe then that there could be talk of humanity’s assumption by the Son, at the theological level itself, and not merely of economy?
G. G.: Truly, I propose a kind of Christian “metaphysics” where I insist a lot on the pre-creation Christic image. I speak of the Book of Life where the Son has already written all of creation’s images that He then manifested later on, transposed in action, in order that we could also achieve our response. This is a much deeper question, which must be confronted in a different manner…
In a way, there could be a discussion of the assumption of man’s image into the Christic Image Itself [pre-creation]. Why? Because man, as I described in my “Mini-Dogmatic,” has specifically human, as well as microcosmic, cosmic and super-cosmic destiny. In this way, the image of man is also the image of the entire creation’s union; and much more than that, the image of man is the image through which Christ incarnates Himself. That means therefore, that the image of man must be of Christ and like the model in itself. As the image of creature, we have the very image of the Son’s incarnation. [20] Here’s the mystery – that we don’t just have any image, but the one that already had transcendent origins, so to speak. It’s here that man’s iconic vocation is founded. That’s why I say that man’s image is an iconic image. I don’t consider it to be just any kind of image; neither angels nor nature have an iconic image, only man. This is the meaning of the parable where Lucifer, the fallen angel, didn’t want to understand that creation’s significance is only achieved thorough the Incarnation, in fact.
G. M.: I still hold my opinion that entering into discussion with you, Father, presupposes a daring step forward, a surpassing of some schemes of thought…
G. G.: I wouldn’t quite say so, because then all kinds of suspicions could appear. I believe that I’m simply bringing things up to date, and bringing things up to date always means bringing in a foundation that is in essence the same, into the present. To us its just the “clothing” of bringing things up to date, due to the fact that everything has its own unique characteristics. I like the affirmation that in theology there isn’t an evolution, but rather a continuous brining up to date [an insertion] into a permanently new present. It doesn’t do anything but bring out into relief something that is already fulfilled. This fulfillment must be lived by everybody, and must unfold in us, into our own response. This doesn’t mean we add something. We just make the fulfillment current by our own response.
G. M.: And lastly, I’d like to ask you how each one of us personally could become skilled in this iconic way of living, practically?
G. G.: Truly, it seems that this iconic modality, transposed onto the level of mystical life could resurrect our spiritual living. The great tragedy is, however, that we, on the spiritual plane as much as the corporeal, are almost destroyed. I don’t believe a spiritual elevation of the kind that there was in the past is foreseeable any longer. You can no longer ask today’s man to make spiritual efforts or great corporeal asceticism. Iconic modality, which I brought into relief, implies principally the Liturgical living of this iconic of Eucharistic image which can reform the capacities of man. You can’t ask man for something purely spiritual nowadays, because he has nothing to give. You can’t even ask very much from him on the material-corporeal level. There is an almost equal defect there too. So then, what must be done? We need just this, a practice through which we can remake both aspects. Before, you could remake the body through the spiritual and the other way around too. In other words, figuratively speaking, if you didn’t have one leg, at least you had the other one. If you didn’t have one hand, you had the other. We are in a situation where we don’t have a hand, or a leg. We are completely sick. So then, what can we do? We must find a different modality that can give us back our hands and legs. The iconic ritual does this. It restitutes normality’s conditions. So I believe that this iconic practice should be made known, which doesn’t demand too big of a mental effort, and it introduces you into a sacrality that gives you back the conditions of normality. Because of this, I believe that the iconic practice is more accessible to modern man. [21]
I liked, for example, the youths’ dialogue with Father Theophil Părăianu published by Byzantine Publishing house, where it’s written that today’s youth have a burning thirst to draw close to the Divine. It’s true, and how is it given to them to draw close to the Divine? Today’s youth no longer have any special spiritual capacity, or a very great biological force. So then we must urge them first of all towards closeness to the Church’s sacredness, which is an iconic countenance.* The Church is precisely the iconic countenance where the altar and the naos’ mystery, the divine and creation’s, the soul and the body’s mystery are all at once. So, the youths’ integration into the mystery of the Church, of the Liturgical ritual is their single salvation, and at the same time, the most efficient modality through which the youth can find God, and through which, at the same time, theology can make a resurrection of the youth. The iconic mystical theology isn’t an intellectual mysticism, but Liturgical, of the Church, and of our Christian ritual. Neither is it a meditative, occult, or magic mysticism, like yoga. In brief, iconic practice is the image of the Church, Liturgical, Eucharistic, Christic image.
G. M.: We thank you that you had the kindness to grant us this interview and we hope that it will be as much of a use for theologians as for this generation’s youth.
G. G.: I ask again, with all my heart, that you wouldn’t be suspicious that what I do is a personal preoccupation, which I believe could also help others. I don’t want to make a special point that I am doing something new and I acknowledge that I possibly could be mistaken. So I even ask, that if in some way you find some mistakes, to correct me with the words of the psalmist, “Let the righteous strike me, let the faithful correct me.” Because the one who seeks can certainly have deficiencies too, but we hope in Christ’s words, “Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be open unto you!”
G. M.: We thank you again.
The Holy Monastery of Frăsinei,
August 12th, 1997
Notes:
[1] Or image, in its many meanings and manifestations (trns. note).
[2] Transylvania.
[3] Chip, in Romanian; this word has no direct counterpart in English. It can refer to any or all of the following; face, countenance, image, appearance, aspect, person, manner, kind, and way. It corresponds quite closely to the Greek πρóσωπον, but is even richer in content and connotations. I have rendered it variously as image, countenance, manner, and way. When it has been translated other than image, I have marked it with an asterisk. The translation of this term has proven difficult due to the great importance and attention Father Ghelasie gives to the word. Chip is used in the classic Biblical passage, “Let us make man in Our image; according to our likeness (Gen. 1:26).” However, the word also strongly implies personality and mannerism. I’ve generally rendered it as image except where it could cause confusion in the meaning of the dialogue (trans. note).
[4] It is evident that what Father Ghelasie is attempting isn’t a complementing of a presupposed missing zone of the icon’s theology, or a correction of the patristic discourse on this theme. It’s simply about a shifting of accent to the idea, fundamental in iconology, that (having the Incarnation of God as a foundation) the icon is, as a cultic presence, an event of the Incarnation. Father Ghelasie restitutes, through the medium of Carpathian mysticism, an aspect less contoured in the icon’s theology: the moment of descent, of God’s lowering Himself into the icon, of its tranformation into a pre-Eucharistic reality, as the intermediary through which we have access to the Holy Spirit. We should make note of a truth that will be developed by Father Ghelasie in the following interview. We can’t speak of the participation of the Holy Spirit without the Incarnation’s assumption, without Christ. Father draws subsidiary attention to the fact that too often we fall into the temptation, almost reflexively, of speaking about “asomatic” spiritualization, without the body, evasionist, that loses the body along the road, or else it recedes into a kind of ethereal materiality. Christianity showed that spiritualization doesn’t mean evasion of the body, but the body’s new reality, Eucharistic reality. So that veneration before an icon – as such a reality – would contain the spiritual and corporeal aspects alike. The icon is a support for an integral relation of the faithful with God. Without negating the analogical function of the icon, Father urges us towards an understanding of these functions in the sense of an intensified Incarnation. Just as the Ascension of Jesus into heaven was not a receding into the light (see further on), but a condition for the coming of the Holy Spirit as the One Who intensifies and generalizes the Incarnation’s truth, the icon’s pre-Eucharistic constitution doesn’t place as much value on the vertical ascension towards the Archetype, as much as on the Incarnation of Him in visible reality.
[5] In the original the term was împărtăşire, which often means not only giving or sharing, but giving/receiving the Eucharist, or communion (trans. note).
[6] Father Ghelasie’s discourse, which might appear excessively realist sometimes, does nothing other than bring to mind a truth that is common, in fact, to all religions and is culminatingly affirmed in Christianity. Man’s relation with God isn’t formulated – as we used to believe on account of some vulgar, platonized interpretations specific to the cultural context of Europe (and not Christianity) – in spiritualistic terms, but in a clear way in terms of mystical physiology. It is formulated by the insertion of the Sacred into man’s own reason for being human (in this way the etymology physis + logos in the word physiology may be observed), until It would become just as imperative and indispensable as any physiological need, be it air, water, or food. To be religious means, after all, to get back to being natural, to live a relation with God as the nature of existence itself – as the reason to be human. In addition, as Father Ghelasie adds in a different section, in Christianity this naturalness is iconized. In this context, Father’s pleading for the Eucharist’s centrality as food – in the most concrete way – as the Body and Blood of Christ, is revealing. So Father is adding that Eucharistic reality isn’t merely localized in Bread and Wine itself, but contains by extension the icon too, as a cult object, and the faithful that devotionally address it, and the whole life of the Church in its ensemble.
[7] Chip (trans. note).
[8] As we have seen, all of Father Ghelasie’s nuances gravitate around a few key terms, “seen,” “unseen,” “transfiguration,” without negating the authenticity and value of the Greek manner of understanding and practicing iconology. In the final analysis, he proposes a different conceptual framework, an other gestalt for understanding these terms, where the primary issue is not the seen-unseen dialectic, but their reciprocal revelatory conjunction, realized in a type of Incarnation; and in this different framework, practically incomparable with the Athonite, it would be a particularity, as Father Ghelasie holds, of an indigenous Carpathian spirituality and closer to the Christian spirit. It could be objected that the distinction that Father Ghelasie tries to make isn’t discernable in devotion. How could the faithful transpose such a subtle distinction, practically, in gestures or concrete veneration of an icon? Such an objection would overlook, by falling into a kind of intellectualism, that it is not understanding that determines how we show devotion, but inverse. The modality in which veneration is practiced has a formational ontological effect over all of man’s faculties, including his thoughts. In addition, the importance that Father Ghelasie accords to the very gesture of veneration itself must be taken into consideration, as we will see in the last interview that we held with him.
[9] Modern researchers like R. Rocques have shown that this dominant metaphysics did not place enough accent on the Incarnation and was passed on to Christianity in Greek expressions through authors like Origen and Evagrie up until even Dionisie-Psuedo Areopagitul (see Lars Thunberg, Man and Cosmos in the vision of Saint Maximos the Confessor). So all the developments Father Ghelasie makes about the specifics of Athonite mysticism, even though they are critical, shouldn’t seem unfounded to us.
[10] This is a debatable observation (trans. note).
[11] It is evident again, that for any well intentioned reader this reciprocal cohabitation of the Divine and the human that Father Ghelasie speaks about conforms perfectly with the dogmatic specifications of the Synod of Chalcedon. Father is merely urging us to view the Incarnation’s event, the resurrection, and in general, all the theology of human nature’s deification that derive from them, through a different grid than Greek philosophy. The Holy Fathers transcribed Greek philosophy ideologically and terminologically. In the perspective belonging to the Carpathian spirituality, as Reverend Father says, God and man stand face to face, in an “equal” position, in a co-habitation and reciprocal reflection. Father reformulates, in fact, using a terminology of his own, the same principal of analogy announced by Saint Maximos the Confessor in Ambigua 13: “God and man are each others models (παραδείγματα).” In regards to the spirit-matter binome, it becomes – if not actually inoperative – free of any dichotomous interpretation; it is about a new kind of relation between these two aspects of reality. It is a relation that implies a kind of inter-penetration and reciprocal transformation while, as we mentioned in the previous note, it also concerns a new reality, the Eurcharistic-iconic reality, which implicates the spirit and body in a distinct union. Father Ghelasie says that the Resurrected Body of Christ is such a reality, Who was doxologically touched by Thomas the Apostle – a simultaneous pneumatic and somatic reality, susceptible at any moment to convert into Eucharist (see Father’s following response).
[12] Whenever appears * we translate the Romanian term “chip”.
[13] This is concerned, in traditional liturgical terminology, with the subject of the “worthiness of the receiver” which Father will develop in the next interview. We’ll only remark here that Father develops logically, on the Eucharistic plane, the principle of the Divine and human being situated “face to face in an equality of presence,” naturally arriving at the question of “Eucharistic condition.” It is the same as Saint Maximos, the worthiness of the receiver is founded on the principle of analogies (tantum-quantum: see the previous note). The level of man’s deification corresponds to the level of the Son’s Incarnation. Implicitly, what God gives through the Eucharist is according to the measure of the partaker’s capacity to receive. We should note, at the same time, Father Ghelasie’s discourses’ general theological affinity to that of Saint Maximos.’ We find again in both cases the same insistence on the Divine-human equilibrium in the Incarnation proclaimed in the Synod of Chalcedon, the equilibrium cosmologically reflected in the unseen (intelligible) – seen (sensible) binome, and liturgically in the inter-penetration of the real and symbolic aspects of the Holy Mysteries.
[14] Evidently, not in a materializing way, or by becoming the object of the spirit, but in the way of the incarnation.
[15] If we try to look through an inter-religious and intercultural perspective, we could say that Father Ghelasie would like to avert us from falling into the tendency of interpreting Christianity in terms of Greek philosophy. Or more precisely stated, though being attracted by the prestige of Athonite spirituality (remarkable though it is), we shouldn’t lose sight of the singularity of Christianity in rapport with, not only mystic-philosophic Greek classicism, but also with every other religion. The miracle, and at the same time “scandal,” brought by Christianity wasn’t so much that it affirmed that man is called to deify himself. All pre-Christian spiritualities formed their own ideals for man, in the final analysis as deification too, although clearly in terms specific to each one’s own culture. Rather, it (the scandal) was in the fact that only Christianity showed that the support for deification could be nothing other than the Incarnation of God. In other words Christianity showed, not only that in order to be completely man in the full and consistent sense of the word means to be like God, but also that to be truly God means to assume humanity. The true God is the One that becomes human and incarnates. I believe that Father Ghelasie’s entire discourse, clearly icono-logical and Eucharistic, is subordinated to the desideratum of placing theology under the auspices of the Incarnation, the event that makes Christianity into a meta-religion, not simply one of many...
[16] In other words, instead of increasingly accentuated abstractions, iconic language purposes a terminology that is, at the same time, concept and image which doubles the rational sense, conferring plasticity to it. It is actually, a returning to a prestigious characteristic of religious terminology in general, especially identifiable in sacred texts, which is picturality. The essential advantage of these features is the capacity to circulate multiple simultaneous meanings, such as the non-verbal language of gesture, as Father Ghelasie says above, there by retaining the non-sequentiality proper to mystical experience. In the case of the essential features of Christianity, the iconic manner of language is another sign of the Word’s Incarnation.
[17] In patristic literature (especially in the works of Saints Gregory of Nyssa and Maximos the Confessor) the term “auto-determination” (αυτεξουσία) is used.
[18] It is useless to insist again on the legitimacy of these views, given their massive occurrences in Biblical texts of the syntagm “before the face of God.” At the same time, one of the typical formulas like the Liturgy’s Old and New Testament refrain “Lord, don’t cast me from Your face!” On this foundation, Father Ghelasie purposes a prosopo (πρόσωπον)-logical ontology, where created being is ontologically ensured precisely through the fact that (and only to the measure in which) it is situated “before the face of God,” in the “perceptual” perspective of the Divine. And the situating “face to face” of the Divine and creation also presupposes a dialogue like structure and ingredient. The dialogue is not fulfilled unless the partners are fulfilled. Because of this, creation can only offer God its own irreducible response that God Himself awaits, if it has ontological auto-determination. Yet again, it seems to me, a very current vision if we consider the results that contemporary science (especially quantum mechanics) has obtained in evaluating the relation between the reality of the world and how it is perceived, with interactive and infra-real virtual realities.
[19] Father Ghelasie rests man’s dialogue with God on an icono-logical basis, in terms of the celebrated syntagm “after the image and likeness of God.” Practically every discourse about human being in Christianity begins with this. Father accentuates – in comparison with the classical interpretation – the fact that this syntagm doesn’t only restore a kinship (συγγένεια) of man with his Creator, but also a certain singularity of the first – the quality of being an irreducible being even to God. It is in this that likeness with God is seen, Who is Himself a Trinity of Hypostases one irreducible from the other! Man is truly a created god (μικρόθεος), an anthropic ladder. We could speak, in virtue of Incarnation’s theology, even more about a theological anthropology than an anthropologic theology. On the foundation of these singularities or man’s “uniqueness” – as Father calls it in another interview – he can speak “in God’s tongue.” He somehow has accessibility to a language of essence, onto-iconological, and since God also spoke man’s tongue, he could give Him his own irreducible response. In addition, being essentially configured after the divine Image, man has in his ontological structure “grace models” that, given to the Incarnation, confer to him – so to speak – the perceptual-conceptual gestalt of the Divine that models its own forms of expression, including terminology. The implications of Father Ghelasie’s vision in theology, and in the philosophy of language are truly daring, as in general. Yet again they are in complete conformity with the Incarnation which bears fruit until its ultimate consequences: man can not only give utterance of reflections about the Divine in an analogous way, but can even utter an essentially divine language, to which mysteriously and unspeakably, he has access. Theology in Christianity doesn’t only mean “speaking about God,” but moreover speaking with God, which implies a true theology of language.
[20] The idea is, again with a solid grounding in New Testament Biblical and Patristic anthropology, that the archetype of man is Christ, it is the Logos Incarnate. Along these lines Father Ghelasie takes things further by speaking of human nature being rooted in the Christic Image, a truly iconic proto-ontology of human creatures. It doesn’t seem like a significant contribution, but this accentuation implies, in fact, Father’s whole discourse in reference to the major importance of the iconic that becomes, for Father, a kind of hermeneutical axle for Christian theology. Father Ghelasie’s personality and thought verifies the ever attested criterion of the history of Christian thought, according to which theology didn’t develop cumulatively, through original contributions, as much as through successive movements of accentuation and subsequent deepening (see the following response).
[21] An additional sign that Father Ghelasie’s discourse isn’t merely an arid theological digression is that he has an end and a very pragmatic, realistic, ascetical application. This doesn’t consist in extravagant proposals, or exotic religious practices, but in returning in a different perspective, to Liturgical Christian living. Yet again it is about living marked by theoretical iconic method as expounded until now, that isn’t declared as superior to classical asceticism (remarkable in its psychosomatic and mental “performance”), but only adapted through divine condescension to the weaknesses of contemporary man. Doesn’t the spirit and newness of Christianity stand in this, that “where sin abounded, grace abounded much more (Rom. 5:20)?” Where man’s weaknesses are accentuated more, hasn’t God given him the power to find new paths to Him? Christian asceticism has never formulated an infallible recipe, available for every historical epoch (just as theology hasn’t remained cramped in a philosophical-cultural paradigm or a given period). It is rather the path of creating efficient theology on the ontological level that is formational for man in any epic. The dynamic aspect of Christianity is solidified in this, a reality that Dogmatic manuals declare but is put under acute and circumspect questioning when it is manifested in action. My opinion that I tried to defend in my preliminary arguments in these footnotes and which I hope to develop in future monographs, is that Father Ghelasie’s thought is a good example of equilibrium between the steadfast and dynamic elements of Tradition.
Translation from Romanian by Fr. John DOWNIE
Bucharest, 2008
(interview published originally in Romanian in the volume “Părintele Ghelasie de la Frăsinei, Iconarul Iubirii dumnezeieşti” (“Fr. Ghelasie from Frasinei, The Iconologist of the divine Love”, Platytera Publishing House, Bucharest, 2004, pp. 69-93)
Copyright: Platytera Publishing House
The French Version.
The Romanian Version (Original)
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