Never isolated from the Greek-speaking world, Slavic communities in the Balkans and further afield in Kiev and Novgorod cultivated a visual tradition in dialogue with ateliers in cultural centres such as Constantinople, Thessaloniki, and Mount Athos. Knowledge of new trends and traditional techniques and forms passed between itinerant Greek masters and local workshops; indeed, in later centuries, Greek ateliers increasingly sought employment abroad, at the courts of Prizren, Tarnovo, Wallachia, Moscow, and elsewhere. With innovations prompted by dispute, Slavic hierarchs often shielded congregations from the most daring and esoteric implications of Byzantine discourse. On the whole, they reached back to the synodikon and to formative patristic theologians such as John Chrysostom and John of Damascus. These writers, so they believed, offered an authoritative reply to doctrinal questions about icons and spiritual life, including the possibility of visions of God; later teachers merely added to this textual bedrock. Consequently, few Greek theologians between the tenth and fifteenth century saw their works immediately translated into Old Church Slavonic.

The divergence between literature available in Greek and Slavonic shaped the impact of artistic trends, including the way Hesychasm played out in the design and reception of works of art. A spiritual movement centered on meditation and visions, Hesychasm spread in monastic circles in Thessaloniki, Thessaly, and on Mount Athos in the fourteenth century. Shortly thereafter it appeared in a revitalized form in the Slavic communities of the Balkans and in the sketes of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Muscovy. The emphasis of such Greek teachers as Kallistos and Ignatios Xanthopoulos and Gregory of Sinai on prayer and interiority left the role of art objects in the life of devotion somewhat unclear: does the icon help the mind to rise above earthly things and free itself of worldly cares, or does it simply amount to a distraction or even a hindrance?Footnote ¹

Scholars have identified the impact of hesychast teachings on artworks in white and gold highlights and open goldwork, as well as in mandorlas and nimbi around Christ in images of the Transfiguration, the Anastasis, and the Ascension.Footnote ² Increasing the ambient radiance of Christ while drawing attention to beams of light, these iconographic and compositional features have been seen as a visual parallel to the writings of Gregory Palamas (d. 1359). The foremost Greek hesychast teacher, Palamas was a former monk at Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos. In writings prior to his tenure as bishop of Thessaloniki, he defined the pinnacle of spiritual life as a vision of Christ transfigured on Mount Tabor. On Tabor Christ revealed his hidden divine nature. Those who seek God with purity of heart can behold this perfect being, Palamas taught.Footnote ³

Palamas’ magnum opus, Defence of Hesychasts, was not translated into Slavonic. It is thus difficult to argue for a Palamite reception to images among the Slavs, even for works of art executed by a Greek atelier.Footnote ⁴ Rather one must inquire into how the Slavs engaged in a dialogue with their Greek counterparts, accepting certain hesychast tenets while rejecting others.

In this essay I examine the hesitancy of Slavs towards the bold claims of Greek hesychasts. The study's focus is on the mechanics of visions as articulated by Euthymios of Tarnovo (d. c. 1402). Patriarch of Bulgaria between 1375 and 1393, Euthymios initiated orthographic reform and the correction of liturgical books – changes that had a lasting impact on the Slavs.Footnote ⁵ Often described as a hesychast, Euthymios espouses views in his correspondence that in fact contradict those of Palamas, whose theology was endorsed by the patriarch of Constantinople.Footnote ⁶ While Euthymios valued spiritual interiority, he did so in a way that mirrors wider cultural trends in which the Slavs held the most intrepid ideas of Greeks at a distance.

We glimpse a parallel to Euthymios’ understanding of visions in a miniature in the Tomichov Psalter, produced around 1360. (Fig. 1).Footnote ⁷ A product of the Tarnovo literary school, the manuscript may have been created in the capital itself or in a leading religious house such as Kilifarevo Monastery, founded around 1350 by Theodosios of Tarnovo.Footnote ⁸ Designed to accompany Psalm 77:5, the scene depicts, as the inscription at the lower middle of the page declares: ‘The vision that Isaiah, the son of Amos, beheld’. Isaiah appears three times on the folio, shown at different ages: standing at the centre bottom; standing on the lower left, holding a scroll with the words: ‘Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth’ (Isa. 1:2); and recumbent on a couch in the grass on the left side.Footnote ⁹ Reclined opposite him is the prophet Ezekiel. Angels minister to both seers, arbitrating the revelation of God. What the prophets behold is the ‘Ancient of Days’, as the inscription at the top declares, alluding to the prophet Daniel's vision (Dan. 7:9). In the circular nimbus God the Father appears cradling Christ Emmanuel, a bodily disposition that mimics the trinitarian type of the Paternitas.Footnote ¹⁰ Surrounding the outer orb are the four beasts that Ezekiel beheld on the banks of the river Chebar (Ezek. 1:10). Cherubim and seraphim support the nimbus, which rises high above a platform, as if perched on a beam of blue light. The composition conveys the idea that angels mediate visions of God. Without their assistance, sight could not penetrate this mystery.

Fig. 1.

The Vision of Isaiah. Tomichov Psalter. C. 1360. Moscow, State History Museum, Muz. 2752, fol. 129r.

The intercessory role of angels in the Tomichov Psalter resonates with Euthymios’ later writings. In a letter to the monastic founder and scribe Nikodemos of Tismana (d. 1406), Euthymios investigates Moses's vision of God on Mount Sinai. If an angel who observes God in heaven is an ‘intelligible creature’ (slovesnaia tvar’), Nikodemos asks, does it not follow that Moses is also an intelligible creature? But then would that entail, Euthymios responds, that the ‘image of God’ (obraz’ bozhii) is intelligible since Moses was also made in God's image?Footnote ¹¹

Euthymios rejects this inference on the evidence of the Psalter. Citing the text, ‘God made his angels spirits’, he notes that the psalmist says nothing about humans being spirits. (Ps. 104:4).Footnote ¹² Euthymios next opens an inquiry into the celestial hierarchy. Here his explanation of visions departs from that of Gregory Palamas. Whereas the Greek theologian argued that the saints see God without mediation, Euthymios takes a cautious approach, invoking angelic intercessors:

Euthymios grants upfront the limitations of human sensory perception. During a vision, the human eye receives only the lesser angels, not the highest celestial orders, to say nothing of divinity itself. Whereas Palamas boldly extended the speculations of ancient mystical authors – from Plato in the Symposium to Gregory of Nyssa in the De vita Moysis – Euthymios exemplifies a suspicion shared by contemporary western theologians. With the latter he eschews the bravura of metaphysical adventurers. Subjecting curiosity to scrutiny, he finds it guilty of pride and exhorts Nikodemos in the path of self-knowledge.Footnote ¹⁴ In the Tomichov Psalter we find a kindred cognitive humility. Showing the lower, anthropomorphic angels ministering to the prophets, the painter leaves the cherubim and seraphim hovering around the mandorla encircling the godhead, not approaching the seers, just as Euthymios indicates. However, the painter also discloses, if ever so slightly, the mystery of the heavenly hierarchy and the godhead which Euthymios would shield.

Euthymios stresses the ontological gulf dividing heaven and earth. His response concerns Nikodemos’ question about why God hid the ‘terrifying mystery of providence’ from the ‘first rank’ of angels, namely, the cherubim and seraphim.Footnote ¹⁵ The basis for the monk's question was apostle Paul's statement that the ‘mystery’ of Christ's birth was ‘revealed’ to the saints but concealed from heavenly beings. (Col. 1:26–29). For Euthymios, Paul checks human pride and advocates restraint. Hence, Euthymios urges Nikodemos to curb his unimpeded desire to know God fully: ‘it is said that it befits us only to believe and not to probe [the divine mystery], for “who has fathomed the mind of the lord”?’ (Rom. 11:34).Footnote ¹⁶ However, while perfect knowledge is impossible, God compensates human ignorance through faith. Said differently, divinity appears not in a vision of the other world but in a witness to God in this world – the incarnation. Noting that God imparted ‘the ancient, hidden plan’ (drevnyi s’’kr'vennyi s’’vet’) to Gabriel, ‘eldest’ among the archangels, Euthymios fulfills Nikodemos’ request to clarify how angels visit human beings:

Euthymios here invokes the dramatic moment when Gabriel, who stands ‘in the presence of God’, announces the birth of a son, John the Baptist, to the priest Zachariah (Luke 1:19). Later the archangel manifested himself to Mary and informed her of the birth of Christ. Citing these verses from Luke, Euthymios inverts Nikodemos’ assumption about the order of revelation: whereas Nikodemos sought a mystery veiled even from the angels, Euthymios reminds him that the archangel Gabriel revealed the mystery of Christ's birth.

Euthymios based his examination of visions on the Corpus of the fifth-century theologian Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite. Fluent in Greek, Euthymios could have read the Corpus in the original language, but it had recently become available in Slavonic. In 1371 the Athonite monk, Isaiah of Serres, translated the Corpus into Slavonic, after which it spread widely in monastic scriptoria and exerted a profound impact on artistic workshops.Footnote ¹⁸ In Pseudo-Dionysios’ telling, angels act as mediators between heaven and earth, bestowing visions on the faithful.

Ever since antiquity cults devoted to the archangels had thrived in the eastern Mediterranean, blending with local beliefs in spirits and elemental forces. In the Byzantine period angels were closely tied to the military and court, a political function they continued to serve in Slavic capitals where princes sought to rival their counterparts in Constantinople.Footnote ¹⁹ While pictorial cycles dedicated to the archangels were rare before the eleventh century, they proliferated in the fourteenth and fifteenth.Footnote ²⁰ As Smilka Gabelić has shown, among the earliest expanded visual narratives emerged in the Balkans, in the extensive mural programs at Lesnovo (c. 1346) and Matejić (mid-fourteenth century), which served as a basis for later vita icons.Footnote ²¹ In the Balkans the compositional pairing of Michael and Gabriel – the Synaxis of the Archangels – was extremely popular. (Fig. 2).Footnote ²² The workshop focuses on the role of angels derived in part from disputes between hesychasts and their opponents. While the military valour expressed by imagery of the archangel Michael appearing to Joshua or vanquishing enemy armies may feel distant from the abstract language of Euthymios, yet on the mid-fourteenth-century Synaxis icon in Sofia they come together. On this panel Michael and Gabriel wear the imperial loros, hold staffs signifying their inter-celestial travel, and display a circular mandorla depicting the Panagia (Mother of God) and Christ Emmanuel, linking them to the incarnational narrative of Luke's Gospel. Indeed, this icon lays emphasis precisely where Euthymios does – on the archangels’ presentation of the central theological mystery of Orthodoxy: God in the flesh. This painter, like Euthymios, implies that the incarnation answers the zealot's yearning to see God firsthand.

Fig. 2.

The Synaxis of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. Mid 14th c. Sofia, National Gallery, Museum of Christian Art.

The Greek author closest to Euthymios’ view of the role of angels is Prochoros Kydones (d. 1369/70). A fierce opponent of Gregory Palamas, Kydones lived as a monk on Mount Athos; with his older brother Demetrios, later a Catholic convert, he translated Latin theological texts into Greek and used them to debate Palamas’ followers. Prochoros objected to Palamas’ claim that the saints perceive divinity itself, citing, as would Euthymios, the Corpus of Pseudo-Dionysios. He argued that humans do not behold God ‘without mediation … as scripture says very clearly that “no one has seen” or ever will see the hidden things of God’. (John 1:18).Footnote ²³ Instead, God is divulged in a way commensurate to the sensory organs, which cannot fathom an infinite essence; whenever divinity appears, Kydones maintains, it is through the convoy of angels. Accordingly, he rejects Palamas’ insistence that Christ revealed God's loftiest glory at the Transfiguration. Doubting that the apostles’ vision on Tabor was really any different from what the ancient prophets beheld, Kydones points out that Isaiah says he beheld ‘the glory of the Lord’ (cf. Isa. 6:3; 40:5) and that Moses declared ‘the sight of the glory of the Lord is like a devouring fire’. (Exod. 24:17). However, ‘none of these [sc. visions] were something in the essence of God. Indeed, speaking generally, Great Dionysios clearly asserted that all our celebrated forebears who lived before and after the Law were led by angels to divinity through such holy visions as were proportionate to the senses’.Footnote ²⁴ Crucially, Kydones believed that the incarnation did not change the mechanics of visions which always transpire through the assistance of angelic helpers.

In his Defence of Hesychasts, composed in the 1330s, Palamas had sketched a very different role for angels in visions. Written to refute the teachings of Barlaam of Calabria (d. 1348), the Defence argues that human sight can grasp the uncreated light of divinity. When filled by the Spirit, the eye has no need of angels, Palamas avows. The prime example of this manifestation of suprasensible light is the Gospel story of Christ's Transfiguration atop Mount Tabor; that text, importantly, makes no mention of angels. (Matt. 17:1–13). Speaking of contemplation of God, Palamas quotes an extract from an encomium attributed to John Chrysostom. There the anonymous author praises a vision described in the Book of Acts, when the protomartyr Stephen saw the Son of Man in the heavens. (Acts 7:55–6). Asserting that Stephen witnessed not only God's glory and the invisible beings ‘but the very object of his love, where the angelic army fears to cast a glance’, the author charts a daring approach to theoretical knowledge: ‘The martyr, in fact, casts his gaze where even “the cherubim hide their faces” (cf. Isa. 6:2); he contemplates what the seraphim dare not raise their eyes towards. With his eyes he ascends to an infinite height and thus proves himself to be higher than the angels, loftier than the principalities, far beyond the thrones’.Footnote ²⁵ Palamas here implies that the mystic leaves behind the ranks of angels – heavenly beings that Euthymios, following Pseudo-Dionysios, would hold in the highest regard. In their place he substitutes a magnificent conviction in human potential: buttressed by grace, the human eye rises above the celestial hierarchy, enjoying a sight of God's countenance that even the angels do not behold. One finds in Palamas little of Euthymios’ esteem for intercessory beings. Nor was the Slavic theologian alone in this respect. The multitude of workshops that toiled over the archangels’ deeds, depicting their myriad interactions with Old Testament patriarchs and prophets, as well as new miracle workers, speaks to a measured approach, one grounded in a patristic, and even a biblical, attitude: Gabriel himself informs Zachariah that he stands ‘in the presence of God’. In Euthymios’ view, Pseudo-Dionysios had articulated a more trustworthy basis for theological knowledge through visions. This testimony, while variously interpreted, lay beyond dispute, affirmed in synodal rulings and ratified by generations of teachers.

Euthymios takes a characteristically Slavic approach to sensory perception. If Palamas spoke of a boundless vista of theological knowledge, revealed by the rays of Christ's face on Tabor, Euthymios withdrew into a cautious, if not skeptical demeanor. His hesitancy betrays an unease about unwarranted, or excessive, epistemic claims. Whereas Palamas bypassed the celestial hierarchy, stripping away the interlocking orders, Euthymios reasserts their utility, citing a litany of interactions between angels and humans in scripture and patristic writings. The angels were messengers of the Incarnation, first heralds of the good news of this highest of all heavenly gifts. Whereas Palamas was content to place the mystic in the presence of God's unalloyed purity, Euthymios found this to be a brash claim and a reductive metaphysics: ontological degrees understandably separate the human seer from the divine Seen. There was a temporality to Euthymios’ caution as well, because the Palamite worldview held that the saints’ vision of God in heaven was available here and now; indeed, that vision came ever closer through the collective prayers of mystical practitioners the world over. Euthymios’ invocation of the angels amounted to a caesura in the Greek hesychast's lurch towards the last days: a posture of patiently waiting for God to ‘send’ a heavenly messenger. In other words, Euthymios was a hesychast because he urged Nikodemos to receive angels whereas Palamas was a hesychast because he encouraged his readers to exceed them. Depictions of the archangels’ deeds in a wide variety of Slavic liturgical books and mural cycles lent weight to Euthymios’ position. The angels play an essential role in the devotional life of monasteries, aiding monks in their pursuit of spiritual perfection.

Euthymios expressed hesitancy towards Byzantine speculative thought. Palamas had applied an audacious hermeneutic to scripture and patristic texts, resulting in a flipping of cosmic orders whereby humans rise above the angels. In response Euthymios crafted a more modest interpretative angle. The patriarch adopted a disposition in line with centuries of Slavic caution towards the excessive probing of divine truth by Greek philosophers, who were often categorized as outsiders.Footnote ²⁶ While important exceptions exist, on the whole Slavic authors and translators shied away from theoretical controversy, preferring old writings to new, and a safe alternative to a challenging viewpoint. To an extent this was a pragmatic choice: the Slavs were latecomers to Christianity, baptized in 864 (Bulgaria) and 988 (Kiev) – astonishingly late in light of other adjacent kingdoms to Byzantium, such as Armenia, Georgia, and Ethiopia, all of which had been Christian for some five hundred years. The simplest, clearest teachings, Slavic teachers believed, would exert the greatest impact, facilitating the spread of an Orthodox identity still emerging in various local permutations. But there was also an element of temperament, for the Slavs were, on the whole, further removed culturally and geographically than medieval Greek authors from the classical past. They took issue with underlying Hellenic tenets in hesychasts’ visionary ambitions. They were critical, in particular, of the ease with which hesychasts replaced angelic intercessors with human potential, understanding this elision of the celestial hierarchy to be based in pride. Their hesitancy towards hesychast speculation is part of a wider story of the Slavs’ ambivalence towards Greek theoretical inquiry. Only in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as Jesuit education spread in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Russia would attitudes begin to change. But by then Greek teachers were inciting distrust for different reasons, most importantly due to the fleeting union of the churches at the Council of Florence in 1439. Slavic hesitancy towards Greek learning and the new science was now intermixed with scepticism towards the authority of Constantinople. This guardedness contributed to divisions within Orthodox communities across and beyond the Ottoman world. Arguably the disputes over faith and the nature of knowledge in the late and post- Byzantine periods still have an impact today, shaping wider opinions about the limits of human inquiry in Greek and Slavic circles.Footnote ²⁷