Between the ninth and fifteenth centuries hermits could be found in almost any isolated location in the Byzantine countryside, but they were particularly attracted to mountainous territory. In Greece and Anatolia the dense forests, lofty ridges, deep ravines, natural caves, and vertical cliff faces on mountains such as Athos offered unparalleled possibilities for solitaries to hide away in a secluded spot for years on end in solitude and tranquility. Gradually such mountains attracted sizable numbers of hermits, and subsequently cenobitic monasteries were founded as well. As monastic pioneers, both eremitic and cenobitic, began to tame the wilderness by inhabiting caves and building huts, cisterns, and chapels, then full-fledged monasteries, they also hallowed the landscape. They exorcized demons by recitation of prayers and psalms as they walked the mountainous paths, by making the sign of the cross and carving it on rocks, by the celebration of the liturgy, and by attracting pilgrims. Eventually these mountains attained a sacred character and began to be termed “holy,” in emulation of earlier holy mountains in the Levant, such as Mounts Sinai, Carmel, and Tabor. Among the earliest in the Aegean area were Mount Saint Auxentios near Constantinople (founded in the fifth century), Mount Latros near Miletos (founded in the seventh century), Mount Olympos near Prousa (where monasticism began to flourish in the eighth century), and Mount Athos (where the first hermits are attested in the ninth century). The access of women to these holy mountains, as visitors or residents, was sometimes totally prohibited, as on Athos and at Meteora, or restricted, as on Galesion, which had no nunneries at all on the mountain itself, but permitted the foundation of a single nunnery at the base of the mountain to accommodate female relatives of monks living in the three monasteries on the slopes above. Female pilgrims were frequent visitors to Lazaros’s column, but he strongly discouraged women solitaries, probably due to fears for their personal safety.
The life of the solitary was obviously much more physically and spiritually demanding than that of a cenobitic monk. Common wisdom held that a young monk should first spend a few years in communal life in a monastery, learning to chant the monastic office and accepting the principle of obedience to a superior and a monastic typikon, before setting off on his own in the wilderness. The tenth-century typikon of Athanasios of Athos gave the following conditions for a monk who wished to withdraw to one of the Great Lavra’s five kellia: “…if he has been previously exercised in obedience, if he has learned to stay in a cell with concentration and strict guard over his mind, if he has learned to pray and keep vigil, to control himself, to exercise abstinence, to meditate, to devote himself to the study of the Scriptures with humility, and attach some importance to working with his hands, then let him be permitted to do this.” Athanasios felt that a young monk who had thus gained self-discipline and had been initiated into a rigorous regimen of meditation and prayer would better be able to withstand the physical and psychological perils of a solitary life.
Later, in the fourteenth century, when the youthful Maximos the Hutburner arrived at the Great Lavra on Athos, he asked the resident monks which path he should follow first, that of the hermit or the cenobite. The elders strongly recommended that he remain in the monastery for a while to learn humility and submission to an abbot before progressing to a contemplative life in the wilderness. It was essential for the would-be solitary ascetic to be trained in abnegation of the will, which was viewed as taking priority over self-mortification. Thus, when Athanasios, the future founder of the Great Lavra on Mount Athos, first took monastic vows on Mount Kyminas in Bithynia, the superior, Michael Maleinos, “sought to restrain his will.” When he asked to eat only once a week, the abbot ordered him to take nourishment every three days, and when Athanasios requested permission to sleep in a chair, he was told to sleep on the ground on a straw pallet. After four years of this regimen, the abbot permitted him to move to a hut one mile distant from the monastery and live as a solitary. But Athanasios remained under the supervision of the abbot, who instructed him to subsist on dry bread and a little water every other day, except during Lent when he was to eat only every fifth day. He was also expected to attend the liturgy at the monastery on weekends, as was customary for solitaries who belonged to the type of monastery called a lavra. At this time he would also share a meal in the refectory with the other monks, and take back to his hermitage food for the week and supplies for his manual labor.
Some very pious and zealous youths, however, eschewed the trial period in a monastery before embarking on the solitary life, and withdrew to the wilderness at the very beginning of their monastic careers. Here they normally became the disciples of an established and experienced hermit, a geron or elder, who served as a mentor responsible for their spiritual training. In exchange for providing services, such as foraging for food, hauling water, building fires, and carrying heavy loads, the youths would learn submission and obedience to an elder, and how to pray and chant psalms without the structure of church offices and the liturgy.
(excerpted from chapter 3)
