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Handout #223 |
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The starets |
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In traditional monastic Russian life, the
starets (plural startsy) is the spiritual master who initiates the young
novice. In the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the
startsy, often venerable old men, became, the spiritual directors of the
Russian spiritual elite. The most famous were those of the monastery of
Optino in the province of Kaluga, In The Brothers Karamazov Dostoievsky
gives a portrait of the starets Zossima. The writer seems to have borrowed
features from several famous startsy.
What, then, is a starets? A starets is a man who takes your soul and your will into his soul and will. Having chosen your, starets, you renounce your will and yield it to him in complete submission and complete self-abnegation. Ordinary people as well as great aristocrats flocked to the startsy of our monastery, so that, prostrating themselves before them, they could confess their doubts, their sins and their sufferings, and ask for counsel and admonition. It was said by many people about the Elder Zossima that, by permitting everyone for so many years to come and bare their hearts and beg his advice and healing words he had absorbed so many secrets, sorrows and avowals into his soul that in the end he acquired so fine a perception that he could tell at the first glance from the face of a stranger what he came for, what he wanted, and what kind of torment racked his conscience. Indeed he sometimes astounded, confounded and almost frighten his visitor by this knowledge of his secret before he even had time to utter a word.. Many, almost all, who went for the first time to have a private talk with the elder, entered his cell in fear and trepidation, but almost always came out looking bright and happy, and even the gloomiest face was transformed into a happy one. Dostoievsky, The Brothers Karamazov,Penguin edn, 28-30. |
