Chapter 87
On the Difference in the Manner of the Prayer Rule
87.2.1 May the mercy of God be with you!
87.3.1 I congratulate you on the safe completion of your pilgrimage to the holy places, and on the good fruit you have gathered from the elders, those who have ripened in the spirit of new life.[1]
87.4.1 A certain elder, who prays to the point of sweating, seems to be a question for you: is it permissible? Is it good? Is it allowed to pray in this way? If he receives tangible benefit from this for himself, then it is good for him to act in this way. But that he attempts to impose this same manner of prayer rule on everyone else—that is unjust and unsafe. Not everyone is made the same way; each person has their own nature. Again: if he thinks that everyone should be obliged to pray this way, then he considers his own manner of praying essentially necessary – but it cannot be so, since it is external and bodily. If the elder receives benefit from his prostrations to the point of sweat... it’s not from that, but from the fact that inwardly – with intellect and heart – he ascends to God in the proper way, and not because he grows tired and sweats. With other elders, prayer is lofty and powerful not from making prostrations in this way, but from interior dispositions of prayer. In some it was inimitably lofty even without prostrations... There was an elder – and probably he was not the only one – who, lifting up his hands to heaven, before taking food... at three o’clock – began to pray and prayed thus, standing, until morning, when the sun rose and by its action awakened him.
87.5.1 That the elder rebuked N for something is healing medicine for N... And let him make use of it.
87.6.1 May the Lord bless you!
87.7.1 Be saved!
87.8.1 Bishop Theophan.
87.9.1 I ask for your prayers.
87.10.1