148 Chapter 3 with his location, from a subordinate monk to an independent monk in charge of his own spiritual development.493 The completion of this first stage in Euthymius’ monastic career, in addition to the move away from Mount Olympus, is further stressed in the narrative by the timing of Euthymius’ vesture. After representing Euthymius’ motivation to travel away from Mount Olympus, that is to search for hesychia at the peaks of Mount Athos, the hagiographer informs the listener that Euthymius thinks he first needs to receive the monastic habit before leaving Mount Olympus,494 which he receives from the monk Theodore. As the hagiographer indicates, the saint could have already received the monastic habit earlier, but Euthymius had refused it ‘on account of his ineffable humility’.495 By postponing it to the moment just before the move to Athos, the hagiographer combines the saint’s formal completion of monastic training with a geographical transfer. Together, they mark the end of one stage and the beginning of the next one in the spiritual development of the saint.496 The later excursion to Mount Olympus transferred his earlier superior, Theodore, to his new habitat.497 This journey confirms Asia Minor as the geography in which Euthymius had received his education. In addition, this allowed the hagiographer to stress Euthymius’ spiritually advanced position that he acquired since moving away from Mount Olympus, presenting Euthymius equal and in some aspects superior in spiritual development to his former mentor Theodore. Later journeys in the Life of Euthymius often also correlate to different stages in the saint’s development as a monk and to different modes of monastic life.498 While Euthymius’ educational mobility is a distinct phase in its geographical representation, the other categories of mobility are not clearly distinguished geographically as separate phases in Euthymius’ career as a monk. The places that Euthymius travelled to because of monastic 493 After three years of extreme ascetical exercises in isolation (the first year together with another ascetic, the last two years alone) at Mount Athos with the aim of ‘purifying the mind’ (τὸ λογικὸν ἀνακαθαίροντες, Life of Euthymius the Younger 17.2), he immediately became a spiritual guide to others (‘he was awaited by the ascetics who had already become numerous from imitation of his example and had heard reports of him […] After spending time with them and edifying those who devoted themselves to him […]’; translation by Talbot in Alexakis (2016)). Life of Euthymius the Younger 22.1. At mount Athos he thus both matured spiritually individually and later became a spiritual father to others; the transition between these two stages in his monastic development did thus not require mobility. 494 ‘[B]ecause he did not yet wear the holy habit of monks […] he was upset and cried out in grief and distress’ Life of Euthymius 14.1; translated by Talbot in Alexakis (2016). 495 διὰ τὸ ἐξ ἀφάτου ταπαινώσεως: Life of Euthymius 14.1. 496 On the various practices surrounding vesture and tonsure in Byzantine monastic traditions, see Oltean (2020), pp. 9–86. Oltean identifies three main models: 1) an ‘ecclesiastical’ model, which would be mostly urban: vows accompanied by tonsure and vesture by a bishop or priest; 2) an ‘ascetical’ model, with more importance to a period of noviciate, which is followed by a vesture by the hegumen but no tonsure; 3) a ‘synthesis’ model: a tonsure and vesture for novices at the moment of admission. After the noviciate the novice pronounces vows and receives the ‘holy habit’ (‘le saint habit’); The first model is mostly associated with Constantinople; in Palestine mostly the 3rd model. Euthymius would represent a transition between model 1 and 3. Ibid., pp. 85–86. 497 Life of Euthymius the Younger 22.1. 498 Namely that of solitary or semi-solitary asceticism, living in a lavra, and cenobiticism. The monastic stages of Euthymius: monastic training, tonsured monk, independent ascetic, spiritual leader and deacon with disciples, ‘holy man’ sought after for advice, leader of monastery (which combines cenobitic and anchoritic modes); for various modes of monasticism in Byzantium, see e.g., Talbot (2019).
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