Hesychasm

Hesychasm (/ˈhɛsɪkæzəm, ˈhɛzɪ-/) is a contemplative monastic tradition in the Eastern Christian traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches in which stillness (hēsychia) is sought through uninterrupted Jesus prayer. While rooted in early Christian monasticism, it took its definitive form in the 14th century at Mount Athos.

Hesychasm (Greek: ἡσυχασμός [isixaˈzmos]) derives from the word hesychia (ἡσυχία [isiˈçia]), meaning "stillness, rest, quiet, silence" and hesychazo (ἡσυχάζω [isiˈxazo]) "to keep stillness".

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, a scholar of Eastern Orthodox theology, distinguishes five distinct usages of the term "hesychasm":

Christian monasticism started with the legalisation of Christianity in the 4th century. The term hesychast is used sparingly in Christian ascetical writings emanating from Egypt from the 4th century on, although the writings of Evagrius and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers do attest to it. In Egypt, the terms more often used are anchoretism (Gr. ἀναχώρησις, "withdrawal, retreat"), and anchorite (Gr. ἀναχωρητής, "one who withdraws or retreats, i.e., a hermit").

The term hesychast was used in the 6th century in Palestine in the Lives of Cyril of Scythopolis. Many of the hesychasts Cyril describes were his own contemporaries; several of the saints about whom Cyril was writing, especially Euthymios and Savas, were in fact from Cappadocia. The laws (novellae) of the emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) treat hesychast and anchorite as synonyms, making them interchangeable terms.

The practice of inner prayer, which aims at "inward stillness or silence of the heart", dates back to at least the 4th century. Evagrius Ponticus (345–399), John Climacus (St. John of Sinai; 6th–7th century), Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), and Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) are representatives of this hesychast spirituality. John Climacus, in his influential Ladder of Divine Ascent, describes several stages of contemplative or hesychast practice, culminating in agape.

The earliest reference to the Jesus prayer is in Diadochos of Photiki (c. 450). Neither Evagrius, Maximus, nor Symeon refers to the Jesus prayer. Saint John Cassian (c. 360–435), who transmitted Evagrius Ponticus's ascetical teachings to the West, forming the basis of much of the spirituality of the Order of Saint Benedict and the subsequent western mystical tradition, presents as the formula used in Egypt for repetitive prayer "O God, make speed to save me: O Lord, make haste to help me."

St. Nicephorus the Hesychast (13th century), a Roman Catholic who converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith and became a monk at Mount Athos, advised monks to bend their heads toward the chest, "attach the prayer to their breathing" while controlling the rhythm of their breath, and "to fix their eyes during prayer on the 'middle of the body'", concentrating the mind within the heart in order to practice nepsis (watchfulness). While this is the earliest attestation of psychosomatic techniques in hesychast prayer, according to Kallistos Ware "its origins may well be far more ancient", influenced by the Sufi practice of dhikr, " the memory and invocation of the name of God", which in turn may have been influenced by Yoga practices from India, though it's also possible that Sufis were influenced by early Christian monasticism.