The contemplative spirituality known as Hesychasm, together with the concomitant guidance provided by elders, is today regarded as the quintessential form of Orthodox spirituality. However, as Irina Paert shows in this important monograph, it is a tradition that, if not exactly ‘invented’, was revived and has taken on distinctively new characteristics in the modern period. She demonstrates that what is today regarded as a ‘triumphant rediscovery of Orthodox spiritual roots was not perceived as such at the time’ (p. 7), but rather was greeted with suspicion and regarded as an innovation. The story which this book addresses – of how these practices came to play a ‘key role in establishing Orthodox religious identity in the modern period’ (p. 7) – is fundamental to understanding Orthodoxy today.

Paert shows how spiritual eldership had roots in ancient Christian ascetic practice, but largely disappeared or was marginalised between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries throughout the Orthodox world. Hesychast spirituality was revived in the Balkans in the eighteenth century in the context of the Enlightenment (though, as Paert demonstrates, this cannot be interpreted simplistically as a reaction against the Enlightenment) in movements that resulted in the publication of both the Greek and Slavonic versions of the Philokalia. Eighteenth-century Russia from Peter the Great to Catherine the Great was hostile to contemplative monasticism, and those who sought its revival were on the fringes of religious dissent or left the Russian Empire altogether for Mount Athos or Moldavia. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, however, Russian elite culture was open to ‘mystical universalism’, and Hesychasm began to develop. It received a further boost in the era of Nicholas i (1825–55), when official efforts to reinforce the association of Orthodoxy with Russian national identity allowed this form of spirituality to be regarded as distinctively Orthodox. Nevertheless, tensions and conflicts persisted, in large part because the authority of spiritual elders derived from personal charisma rather than institutional hierarchy – although even here, as Paert argues throughout the book, these tensions cannot be explained simply through a Weberian ‘charisma’ versus ‘bureaucracy’ model; there were many instances when bishops embraced the authority of elders and elders typically supported the authority of the Church hierarchy.

While such forms of spiritual guidance originated in a monastic context, with more experienced ascetics directing neophytes in the path of struggle against the passions and pursuing mystical communion, in Russia during the second half of the nineteenth century eldership spread beyond the walls of the monastery and began to draw the laity in great numbers. Ordinary believers viewed the elder as ‘a living saint, a mediator between heaven and earth, who – by virtue of his or her special relationship with divine powers – could perform miracles, heal the sick, and predict the future, and who often possessed a rare insight into human nature’ (p. 214). Indeed, some elders became national phenomena. As I have also argued, elders are a unique lens through which to examine Russian Orthodoxy because they were mediators between the ‘official Church’ and ‘popular religion.’

Paert suggests that elders became so popular in part because they addressed the needs of ordinary believers in an era of great transition and uncertainty, in part because they provided forms of spiritual guidance that the bureaucratised church hierarchy and downtrodden parish clergy were unable to offer. If the church authorities were suspicious or ambivalent about the elders in the first half of the nineteenth century, Paert asserts (more than demonstrates) that they sought to capitalise on the elders’ popularity to bolster their own authority and as an alternative to dissenting religious sects, while at the same time restricting their freedom and charisma. There were, however, Russian bishops like the influential Filaret (Drozdov) of Moscow who supported the elders because they shared their worldview, not for any utilitarian purpose. As Paert also recognises, the popularisation of spiritual elders was spontaneous and ‘from below,’ and was supported by like-minded hierarchs and was ambivalently accepted or tolerated by others.

In the period before the Russian Revolution, the bounds of spiritual eldership widened so that some parish clergy (especially John of Kronstadt) were regarded as elders, and there was also the rise of peasant ‘village elders’, the most notorious of whom was Rasputin. For some elites – from Tolstoy to the Nicholas and Alexandra – elders represented a more authentic or spontaneous spirituality than the institutional Church. The final chapter of Paert's book examines the fate of elders after the Revolution: Paert contends that Russian émigrés – especially those in Paris – were not very sympathetic to traditional monasticism or spiritual elders, though she overlooks those émigrés such as Vladimir Lossky and John Meyendorff who were central to the revival of the Hesychast theology of Gregory Palamas and therefore to the process of making spiritual eldership normative for contemporary Orthodoxy. In the Soviet Union, with the suppression of monasticism, the contact between elders and believers actually increased as monks and nuns were dispersed through the population. In the late and post-Soviet periods, the practice of eldership has become even more diffuse, with countless self-proclaimed elders and their exclusive spiritual families becoming a common feature of contemporary Orthodoxy – though one that causes substantial tensions with the Church authorities, even more than in the pre-revolutionary period.

Paert's book focuses on the social role of elders rather than the theology or spiritual practices associated with them. While she indicates that there was diversity in such practices, these are not explored in any great depth. Paert demonstrates that, even at the height of its popularity, and despite official attempts to promote its proliferation to reform monasticism, eldership existed in relatively few monasteries even at the end of the nineteenth century – although, I would suggest, this was due to the fact that the spirituality which produced elders was only fostered in a minority of monasteries, while others had a rather different ethos, focused, for example, on liturgical worship rather than contemplative withdrawal.

Paert's book is certainly essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Orthodoxy, and even Christianity more broadly, in the modern world.