Currently Reading Mother Maria Skobtsova: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series) By Mariia, Helene Klepinin-Arjakovsky, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky, Maria Skobtsova see related

Mother Maria of Paris and "New Monasticism"

A few years ago, I became aware of a movement in North American Christianity which referred to itself as "New Monasticism."  A website representing those who associate themselves with that movement defines new monasticism as "an attempt to discern the Holy Spirit's movement in the abandoned places of the Empire called America". At the time, I was generally interested in the idea and even considered perhaps buying an old house in the middle of a run-down neighbourhood in Niagara Falls, beginning to hold the daily office (according to the Book of Common Prayer as I was an Anglican then) and trying to meet the needs of the people around me. I have come to look with a bit of healthy suspicion on my own desires to do such though after conversations with traditional monastics and much spiritual reading, mainly because of the threat of delusion, a mixture of vainglory and deception that often overtakes those who attempt to live something of a monastic life without the formation one gains within the framework of cenobite monasticism. (Without spiritual direction or under self-direction, the risk is very high as the Fathers always say "He who has himself for a spiritual director has a fool for a spiritual director.")

All that being said, I was interesting to discover that the idea of a new monasticism had its origins, not in the "Emergent" Christianity of "post-Evangelicals", but, in the writings of a an Orthodox nun and martyr in the early part of the twentieth century. The holy and glorious venerable-martyr Maria Skobtsova (also known as St. Mary of Paris or Mother Maria), was brought up in Russia during the period leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution. As a teenager living in St. Petersburg she embraced the atheism that was prevalent among the intellectual circles and she became a writer and a poet. But, after her marriage to the Bolshevik Dmitri Kuzmin-Karaviev fell apart, she found herself drawn back to the Christianity of her childhood by the humanity of Jesus.

She married again and gave birth to children, but as the political tides became uncertain, she fled with her husband and family, first to Georgia, then to Yugoslavia, and finally to France. In Paris, Elizaveta (Mother Maria's name in the world), began to devote herself to the study of theology and to serving the poor. At this time also, she was shaken by the death of her daughter Anastasia and the disintegration of her marriage to her second husband Daniel. As this all happened, Elizaveta moved deeper into Paris to work more directly with those in need and was soon encouraged by her bishop to take monastic vows. With her husband's permission, an ecclesiastical divorce was granted and she received the monastic tonsure and the name Maria.

It was at this point the Mother Maria realized the necessity of a new monasticism. The monastic life that was led up till that time in her home country had been brought nearly to an end by the rise of communism - the Party had gone around closing and destroying monasteries and sending most of their inhabitants to death camps. Many had fled the country to form monasteries in neighbouring countries, like the New Valaamo in Finland. But for those who had fled further away, into non-Orthodox countries where monasticism had never really existed, the formation of cenobitic communities was incredibly difficult. With these changes in conditions, monasticism as it had been known in the immediately preceding centuries had become a virtual impossibility. 

Mother Maria sought, therefore, to plunge into the essence of monasticism and to find away to live as a monastic in her new setting, as a poor Russian emigre nun living in Paris in a time of economic and spiritual depression. Looking into the heart of the monastic life, Maria pointed out that it was built on the three vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty. Chastity was a self-evident vow and, in the mind of Mother Maria, its necessity and nature would not change in the new situation. 

Obedience, understood as the cutting off of one's will and keeping the instruction and commands of a spiritual elder, would be frustrated by the new situation - such elders did not exist, at least in the number necessary for all monastics to have access to them, and their own inexperience would keep them from exercising their authority to any great extent.  Because of this, Mother Maria offered the following direction:
"Obedience as such remains unchanged, but its meaning becomes different. A monk should be obedient to the work of the Church to which he is assigned; he should give his will and all his creative powers to this work. Obedience becomes service,. In essence, this service should be no less strict than obedience to a starets [spiritual elder]. Only here responsibility rests with the monk himself, he himself takes the measure of his conscientiousness, his sacrificial self-giving.  The Church herself becomes his starets, and also judges him, while the obedience requested is the responsible fulfillment of what the Church has charged him to do."
Therefore, obedience is not done away with, or changed - rather the historical circumstance of the lack of elders necessitated that obedience be directed towards another and that other became the Church.

The third vow of poverty, or "non-possession" as Mother Maria liked to put it, in the new context needed to be interpreted as something much larger than the renunciation of personal property. The accumulation of material wealth, in Mother Maria's mind, was not the opposite of the vow and virtue of poverty, but rather the egocentrism which she found as a vibrant reality, even amidst the destitution and depression that surrounded her in early twentieth-century Europe (and we must admit is alive and well today in our American context). Of modern man, Mother Maria says: "He is the center for which creation exists. Divine justice and divine mercy are measured from the point of view of his needs . . . We may say that any relationship, external or internal, material or spiritual, can always be an expression of egocentrism - religious life is also not free of it." This being the case, the vow and virtue of non-possession needs to be lived out in every one of these relationships: "In exactly the same way, the principle of non-possession can be expressed in any relationship. The subtler the egocentrism, the higher the limits of the human spirit it reaches, the more repulsive it is. The subtler the non-possession, the greater the spiritual values a person renounces, the more fully he gives his soul for his friends, the holier he is, and the more he corresponds to what Christ demands."

Mother Maria does not mean, by this,  to trivialize the renunciation of material goods, but only to take poverty in its fullness: "A monk who makes a vow should strive to fulfill it in the most absolute and all-embracing sense. In the sphere of external things, a monk should  first of all be non-money-loving and a man who owns no private property, or if he does, he should place no value on it." But ultimately, non-possession must be understood as "the renunciation of one's spiritual exclusiveness, it is the giving of one's spirit to the service of God's work on earth, and it is the only path to common life in the one sobornoe [Russian word, bearing the idea of a communion of free persons] organism of the Church."

This non-posession, says Mother Maria, should not simply give help to those who seek it, but ought actively to seek those in need to give of the gifts God which the monk receives.  This activity is expressed in the world in the form of social work, charity, and spiritual aid.  Mother Maria did this herself, in turning her rented house in Paris into a "convent," a place with an open door for refugees, the needy and the lonely, and where one could always find theological conversation.

Mother Maria spent herself fully, renouncing everything to help Parisian Jews during the Nazi occupation. She, along with Fr. Dmitri, provided a place of refuge for Jewish children, distributed baptismal certificates to Jews in an attempt to protect them from the Gestapo, and helped many others escape. When this was uncovered by the Gestapo, the closed down the house and arrested Mother Maria, Fr. Dmitri, Sophia (Maria's Mother), and Yuri (her son). They all were sent to concentration camps. Mother Maria was sent to a camp in Ravensbruck, Germany where, on Holy Saturday in 1945, taking the place of another prisoner, she was put to death in a gas chamber.

Mother Maria of Paris offers us an image of a life lived in the world in accord with the two commandments of Christ, loving and living totally for God and for the neighbour. May she inspire us by her own life and strengthen us by her prayers to live ourselves according to Christ's commandments. Mother Maria, pray for us sinners.

As witnesses of truth and preachers of piety,
let us worthily honour through divinely inspired chants:
Dmitri, Maria, Yuri and Elias,
who have borne the sufferings,
the bonds and unjust judgment,
in which like the martyrs
have received the imperishable crown.

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Today is born of the Virgin Him Who holdest all creation in the hollow of His hand. 
He Whose essence is untouchable is wrapped in swaddling clothes as a babe. 
The God who from of old established the heavens lieth in a manger. 
He Who showered the people with manna in the wilderness feedeth on milk from the breasts.
The Bridegroom of the CHurch calleth the Magi, and the Son of the Virgin accepteth gifts from them.
We worship Thy Nativity, O Christ. Show us also Thy divine Theophany!

Today the Virgin cometh to the cave where she will give birth in an ineffable manner to the Word Who is before all ages. Rejoice, therefore, O universe, when thou hearest it heralded: Glorify Him, with the angels and the shepherds, Who chose to be seen as a new-born babe, the God Who is before all the ages.

Faces of Monastic Life

Currently Reading John Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent (The Classics of Western Spirituality) By Colm Luibheid, Norman Russell see related

St. John Chrysostom on the Holy Nativity of Our Lord

I behold a new and wondrous mystery. My ears resound to the Shepherd's song, piping no soft melody but chanting forth a full heavenly hymn. The Angels sing. The Archangels blend their voice in harmony. The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise. The Seraphim exalt His glory. All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He Who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the starts the singing of angelic voices; and in the place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side, the Sun of Justice. And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed, He had the power, He descended, He redeemed; all things move in obedience to God. This day He Who Is, is Born' and He Who Is, becomes what He Was Not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became He God from man; but being the Word, He became Flesh, His nature because of impassability, remaining unchanged.

"This day, He Who was ineffably Begotten of the Father, was for me born of the Virgin: in a way no tongue can tell. Begotten according to His nature before all ages from the Father; in what manner He knows Who has begotten Him; born again this day from the Virgin, above the order of nature, in what manner knows the power of the Holy Spirit. And His heavenly generation is true, and His generation here on earth is true. As God He is truly begotten of God; so also as man is He truly born from the Virgin. In heaven He alone is the Only-Begotten of the unique Virgin.

Though I know that a Virgin this day gave birth, and I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learned to venerate in silence, and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech. For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of Him Who Works.

And what shall I say? And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of Days has become an infant.

He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness. For this, he assumed my body, that I may become capable of his Word; taking my flesh, He gives me His Spirit; and so He bestowing, and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of Life. He takes my flesh, to sanctify me. He gives me His Spirit, that He may save me.

Come, then, let us observe the Feast. Come and we shall commemorate the solemn festival. It is a strange manner of celebrating a festival; but truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the Nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is broken, paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed from us, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused, and spreads on every side, a heavenly way of life has been implanted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and men now hold speech with angels.

Why is this? Because God is now on earth, and man in heaven; on every side all things commingle. He has come on earth, while being Whole in heaven; and while complete in heaven, He is without diminution on earth. Though He was God, He became Man; not denying Himself to be God. Though being the impassable Word, He became flesh; that He might dwell among us, he became flesh, He did not become God, He was God. Wherefore He became flesh so that He Whom heaven did not contain, a manger would this day receive. He was placed in a manger so that He, by Whom all things are nourished, may receive an infant's food from His Virgin Mother. So, the Father of all ages, as an infant at the breast, nestles in the virginal arms, that the Magi may more easily see Him. Since this day the Magi too have come, and made a beginning of withstanding tyranny; the heavens give glory, as the Lord is revealed by a star.