ИСТИНА

The tradition of hesychasm – in its early stages the monastic tradition within Orthodox Christianity, which originated from the monasticism of Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor and then disseminated itself in Greece, the Balkans, and Slavic countries, including Russia, – nowadays still attracts its modern followers, including not only monks, but laypeople as well. Monastic Hesychasm is not a secret teaching, but it is almost closed, and has its restrictions, and that may be the precise reason why Hesychasm as a tradition attracts laypeople who believe that this is where the root of true spirituality lies. Modern lay followers of the tradition of Hesychasm in Russia differ by their belonging to several major groups: - practising Orthodox Christians (who frequently attend church services and participate in pilgrimage tours), - nominal Orthodox Christians, - non-Orthodox, and - non-Christians. In Orthodox Christianity, it is possible for laypeople to practise elements of "mental prayer" (or “Jesus prayer”), but in this case, a special blessing from the confessor is required. However, nowadays there are laypeople, who say the Jesus Prayer “on their own”, without any “spiritual guidance”. The followers transform the practice, according to their modern outlook, enrich it, and incorporate their own spiritual experiences in it. Tradition becomes adjusted as a tool for individual spiritual improvement. Thus, elements of Hesychast practice become adopted by non-practising Christians, and non-Christians as well. In particular, there are practitioners who also combine the elements of different traditions (for example, the Jesus Prayer and yoga). We can follow a thread of the development of these modern approaches to practices due to a number of narratives, created by contemporary Russian laypeople, who pick up the elements of Hesychast practice and claim themselves to be Hesychasts and share their spiritual experience and their reflections on the tradition of Hesychasm through Internet forums and social media. This paper analyses the phenomenon of contemporary “laical Hesychasm” in Russia and compares the traditional monastic way of practising Hesychasm with the modern one, linking the latter to broader processes of globalization and virtualization of religion, and regarding the broader context of the globalization of Hesychasm and the Jesus prayer in the modern world.