Late Byzantine spiritual guidance in the letters of the metropolitan of Chalcedon to the nun Eulogia
Abstract
In Late Byzantium, spiritual correspondence served as a form of spiritual guidance. One form of imparting guidance was through correspondence between a spiritual father and a spiritual child. The 14 unpublished letters from the Metropolitan of Chalcedon to his spiritual daughter, nun Eulogia, found in the codex Paris, BnF, gr. 1372, ff. 155–170v, constitute the extant segment of spiritual correspondence during the Late Byzantine period. Selected by Eulogia herself and transcribed at her request, these letters evolved into a section of a collection of ascetic treatises designed for a monastic audience. The main theme of these little-studied letters is the exploration of Eulogia’s soul and her experience of monastic life. The Metropolitan serves as a vigilant supervisor meticulously noting even the subtlest emotional fluctuations of his correspondent. Within the epistolary narrative, the metropolitan performs a number of functions: therapeutic as a doctor, educational as a counsellor, prayerful as an intercessor before God, and reconciliatory as a mediator between God and Eulogia. The mentioned aspects are characteristic features in the depiction of a spiritual father in the Eastern Christian tradition. The article illustrates how employing these guiding models the spiritual father endeavors to regulate the emotional and physical experiences of his spiritual daughter. The hierarch emphasizes the necessity of struggle with depressive despair through daily confession before God and discourages the adoption of elevated hesychast practices. Furthermore, the hierarch revises the monastic rules of life advising Eulogia who is grappling with a physical ailment to exercise moderation in the number of prayers and genuflections, while also emphasizing the importance of maintaining a healthy balance in terms of food and sleep. Thus, the spiritual father serves as a regulator of ascetic practices demonstrating his desire to personalize Eulogia’s relationship with the sacred and to shape the most suitable path for her to experience monastic spiritual life. The spiritual letters themselves serve as instruments of influence as their function extends beyond communication and maintaining social connections. These spiritual messages are meant to be reread and comprehended during which the spiritual child was again and again immersed in the discourse of instructions.
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