ON THE JESUS PRAYER IN OUR TIME

Archpriest Theodore Gignadze In our last talk with Fr. Theodore Gignadze, the
topic of the Jesus Prayer was raised. We asked Fr. Theodore to speak in a sepa-
rate article about the need for the laity to pray the Jesus Prayer.

What does it mean when we say that we are Christians? We are not just
believers and religious, that is, confident in the existence of God and ob-
serving certain rules for the sake of pleasing God. Christians are those of
us who know that God came as a man, who have seen Him with the eyes
of the heart, and to whom grace has declared (cf. Mt. 16:17) that before us
is He Who created the universe and us, by Whom exists all that exists, by
Whom our hearts and those of our loved ones beat; He is the foundation
of everything (cf. Jn. 1:3-4).

Seeing all this, we can’t help but constantly contemplate Him, we can’t
turn our backs to him, we can’t distance ourselves from Him even for a
time to take care of our affairs (moreover our affairs are in His hands).
Besides this pragmatic approach, He touches our hearts with love (cf. Rev.
3:20) and allows us to experience true life (cf. Jn. 10:28) and happiness (cf.
Mt. 11:6). Along with this, He gives us Himself in the liturgical services,
makes us an organic part of Himself (cf. Jn. 6:51), and attunes us to a grate-
ful, that is, Eucharistic life.

In other words, we are Christians not for religiosity, but because we want
to be with Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 12:2), because we realize ourselves in unity
with Him, in following Him, in discipleship to Him (cf. Jn 15:18), in friend-
ship (cf. Jn. 15:14) and brotherhood with Him (cf. Mt. 12:49), as images and
likenesses of God, as citizens of Heaven (cf. Phil. 3:20, Heb. 13:14) and chil-
dren of the Heavenly Father (cf. Jn. 20:17, 1 Jn. 3:2-3, Heb. 12:6-8, Rom.
8:16).

Bearing this in mind, how can the strange question arise: “Can laymen
pray the Jesus Prayer?” After all, this prayer is an attempt to constantly be
with Christ (cf. 1 Thess. 4:17), to behold Him and follow after Him (cf. Mk.
10:47-52).
The noetic Jesus Prayer is closely connected with hesychasm (“tranquility
of mind and body”). It is often asked how advisable such a practice is for
the laity. This formulation of the question is erroneous, inasmuch as the
hesychastic way of life is one of the most important factors of Orthodoxy’s
uniqueness. And as St. Symeon the New Theologian teaches us:
“Do not say: It is impossible for us, because Christ declared His com-
mandments for everyone; He did not give separate commandments
for monastics and laity.”

In the Greek tradition, hesychasm amongst the laity is a common phenom-

enon, and there’s even a special term for it: lay hesychasm. In the four-
teenth century, when hesychasm was dogmatically confirmed in a Coun-
cil (1351), the fathers of the Church were supporters of hesychasm among
the laity (e.g. St. Gregory Palamas, St. Nicholas Cabasilas).
In connection with the fact that in the Orthodox tradition hesychasm is
necessary and obligatory for the laity as well, the teaching of the Orthodox
Church that every person who is baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity
and who submits to God in three Hypostases and one nature enters into
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people (1 Pt.
2:9) should be taken into account. There are other places in Sacred Scrip-
ture where this is spoken about:
 Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father (Rev. 1:5-
6);
 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your rea-
sonable service (Rom. 12:1).
Therefore, every Christian, regardless of Church rank, must constantly of-
fer God a bloodless sacrifice of praise from the depths of his heart, which,
in fact, is the noetic Jesus Prayer.

Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) writes:

We believe that noetic prayer is the most important means for the salvation
of man… Perhaps someone will say that all these healing means, that is,
eye salves, treating the eye of the heart (cf. Rev. 3:18), can only be used by
 monks. It is not so. All of us, even those living in the world, can live ac-
cording to the commandments of Christ. Prayer, repentance, weeping, con-
trition, vigil, and so on are commanded to us by Christ, and that means
everyone can follow them. Christ didn’t name things that would be impos-
sible for man. Speaking of purity of heart, St. Gregory Palamas emphasizes
that “it is possible for those living in marriage to satisfy this purity, alt-
hough with much greater difficult.”
Everything that makes up the phenomenon called hesychasm is justified
by the Councils of Constantinople of 1341, 1346, and 1351, which are rec-
ognized by the Orthodox Church:

“Consequently, anyone who objects to any of the above is outside

the Orthodox Tradition and can therefore be cut off from its life.”3
Metropolitan Hierotheos makes another interesting observation:

We note that even Orthodox Christians can be divided into two large
groups. The first group includes those who can rightly be called followers
of Barlaam. They are those who put reason in the first place and place their
hope primarily upon man. Such people believe that many problems can be
solved this way, including the main question of life—knowledge of God. To
the second group belongs those whose hearts (in the fullest sense [ὅλα τήν
ἑρμηνεἰα] in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition), like St. Gregory’s, are
at the center of their spiritual life. Such people follow the path (τήν μέθοδο)
of all the saints of our Church. They are vouchsafed true knowledge of God
and true communion (στήν κοινωνία) with God. Thus, nowadays there
are two directions, two lifestyles. But since the Church considers St. Greg-
ory Palamas a great theologian and his teaching as the teaching of the
Church, we should follow precisely this second path.4
Sacred Scripture repeatedly confirms for us the importance of calling
upon the name of the incarnate Son of God, both in our daily struggle with
sin and in terms of continuous communication with Him, selfless love for
Him, and salvation as a whole:

 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not
life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son
of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe
on the name of the Son of God (1 Jn. 5:12-13);
  But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut
thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth
in secret shall reward thee openly(Mt. 6:6);
 And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may
be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in My name, I will do …
whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in My name, that He may give it
you (Jn. 14:13-14, 15:16).
And the Lord declares to us: Without Me ye can do nothing (Jn. 15:5). And
the fact that, according to Christ, No man cometh unto the Father, but by
Me (Jn. 14:6), is the strongest basis for fervent prayer, addressed to Him.
St. Paisius (Velichkovsky) writes:

“The God-bearing Fathers, made wise by the enlightenment of the

Holy Spirit—the basis of their teaching on noetic mystical prayer se-
cretly committed in the inner man—believe in the immovable rock
of the Divine Scriptures of the New and Old Testaments, taking
many testimonies from there as from an inexhaustible spring.”5
One of the common myths against the noetic Jesus Prayer and against hes-
ychasm as a whole is the idea that this prayer is supposedly a source
of prelest (spiritual delusion). We are given an answer to this myth by the
words of the great Athonite elder of the twentieth century Joseph the Hes-
ychast:
“Noetic prayer, the … invocation of the name of God, leaves no
room for doubt nor can it be followed by delusion. For within the
heart, the name of Christ is called upon, and He cleanses us from
darkness and guides us into the light.”6
And in another letter the Elder writes:

“May, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,’ be your breath.”7

This modern ascetic’s thought is shared by all the Holy Fathers. One of
them is the great apologist of noetic prayer St. Paisius (Velichkovsky), who
talks about the practice of this prayer and of its results and of its ad-
vantages over other prayer practices:

“Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!” If someone says this
prayer incessantly, like breath from his nostrils, and with desire, the Holy
Trinity—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—will soon settle within him and
create an abode with him, and the prayer will devour the heart, and the
 heart the prayer, and he will say this prayer day and night, and he will be
liberated from all the enemies’ webs… If someone does not become accus-
tomed to the noetic Jesus Prayer, he cannot have ceaseless prayer… This
path of prayer is quicker to salvation than through the Psalms, canons, and
the usual prayers for the literate. What a grown man is to a child, so is this
prayer to a learned scholar—that is, a prayer that is written down skill-
fully.8
And together with the holy father, we boldly ask the opponents of noetic
prayer:

“I’m completely bewildered. Do you really think that calling on the name
of Jesus is not useful?”9
The negative attitude to hesychasm is also due to those who understand
this term to mean the state of a deified man. In fact, hesychasm is the path,
the Orthodox practice of the prayerful ascetic life, that process in the spir-
itual life, which is possible and necessary for the layman, because, from a
practical point of view, it is precisely hesychasm that determines the
uniqueness of Orthodoxy, because it is based on the teaching of the uncre-
atedness of Divine grace, of Divine energy, of the Taboric light. And this
teaching is specifically Orthodox—we don’t find it in other Christian de-
nominations. Thus, Orthodox prayer practice is unique. According to Or-
thodox teaching, thanks to prayer, God directly abides with us in grace.
Therefore, the attitude towards prayer in our Tradition is different, bring-
ing the corresponding fruits.

In its prayerful-ascetic podvig, Orthodoxy is hesychastic. And for those

who believe that these topics are inaccessible and distant for people in
such a state as we are, here are the words of Archimandrite Sophrony
(Sakharov):
“I desire to know about something more perfect: about what exceeds
my measure. But not because I lay claim to what is higher than my-
self; no, because it seems necessary to me to somehow see the guid-
ing star, to test myself, whether I am on the right path… I would like
to have a vision in the spirit of the true criteria, albeit very high, so
as not to rest upon the little that I have known up until this hour.”10
The existence of hesychastic practice in the Church has a special influence
on liturgical worship. Many ascetics of the Church speak about how im-
portant personal prayerful experience is for a serving priest so he himself
would become, in his heart, a partaker in the Eucharistic ministry, so this
great mystery would not pass him by; so the glorious service of offering
the Bloodless Sacrifice would not be a mere spectacle for him. When the
serving priest becomes one with the mystery, makes it his own, he be-
comes an example for the faithful flock and thus contributes to the crea-
tion of the mystical Body of Christ, that is, of the Church. From this point
of view, the considerations of an unknown Athonite hesychast are inter-
esting:

“Priesthood should be accompanied by fasting (that is, by a podvig—

Fr. T. G.), and it should be accompanied by noetic and heartfelt
prayer. For if a priest always fasts and ceaselessly prays noetically
from the depths of his soul, then during the Sacraments he will truly
feel the grace of God within himself (and, accordingly, give an ex-
ample to the flock and pave a way for it to the Living God—Fr. T.
G.).”11
Noetic prayer and liturgical, Eucharistic ministry are the two wings by
which man unites with God. These two mysteries help, complement, and
adjoin one another: “The All-Night Vigil can become the best teacher of
the Jesus Prayer,” instructs St. Nikon of Optina. But the living experience
of worship and profound participation in it is impossible without personal
prayerful preparation. Here is what Archimandrite Aimilianos writes in
this regard:

Worship “exists as the highest manifestation of our prayer and point

of departure for the continuation of prayer. Only he who prays and
keeps the name of Jesus on his lips before going to church can say
that he fully participates in the Liturgy, that he understands every-
thing.”12
In conclusion, we say together with the apostle that our Christian life is
realized by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth (Acts 4:10), and Neither is
there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12); and to those who compel
us to renounce the invocation of the holy name of the incarnate God (Acts
4:17-18), we also say together with the apostle: Whether it be right in the
sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye (Acts 4:19).