Monastic Life as a Model for Society (excerpt)

Taken from The Church at Prayer by Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra.

Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra (left) with Elder Ephraim of Philotheou and Arizona (right)

Monasticism is a true society, a true communion of persons, a liturgical gathering (synaxis). In the monastery, monks are not isolated individuals or mere names, but together they constitute one heart, one body. We do not exist separately from one another. And since monasteries, for the most part, have more monks than they do cells, everyone is close to everybody else, and expresses the love of his heart. What one finds in the organization of monastic life is an example of life in heaven. And the Church takes that example and offers it to the faithful, in the same way that the Fathers did.

The world thinks that when someone becomes a monk in a monastery, he leaves society and becomes wild. They say this because they are unaware that monks are the most sociable of human beings. You should know that no one can become a monk if he is not sociable, that is, if he cannot communicate and deal openly and directly with all the difficulties encountered in a life shared with others. If a man has had difficulties in marrying or establishing a family, chances are he won’t be a good monk. He must feel secure in his life. Monasteries are not places of refuge. Consequently, a monk is someone who may have formerly attained success in such relationships, and loved them, too, and thus he doesn’t reject them, he doesn’t condemn them, he doesn’t despise them, but rather prefers something superior for himself.

A monastery is a warm, close-knit brotherhood. All are members of one body, the body of Christ. There one feels what the Apostle Paul says to the members of the church of Corinth, who were divided: “If one member suffers”, such as my left hand, “all the members suffer together with it”—and thus my eye will look down to see what is wrong with my hand, and my right hand will seek to help it. All the members help one another. If one member suffers, the others are sorry for it and help it. If one member rejoices, if it is covered in glory, all the members rejoice; our whole body rejoices (cf. 1 Cor 12.26-27).

Aimilianos of Simonopetra, edited by the Holy Convent of the Annuciation, Ormylia, The Church at Prayer: The Mystical Liturgy of the Heart, Chapter 5: "Our Relations with our Neighbor: Monastic Life as a Model for Society", (Athens, Greece: Indiktos, 2015), pp. 93-94.