97 Mobility, immobility and sainthood Mobility and monastic life Monastic life took various forms in the Byzantine Empire, and many monastic saints combined or alternated between these various forms, from living as a solitary hermit to living with a small group of monks in a loosely organised community to living in a highly regulated monastic community. Many monastic saints were also founders and leaders of monastic communities. Hagiographies may have been written by disciples who lived in the monastery under the leadership of the saints, such as the hagiographer of the Life of Euthymius. These hagiographers may have wished to promote the monastery with their saintly founders. Even so, these founders, such as Euthymius for the monastic establishment at Peristera and Gregory for the community around the Menas church in Thessaloniki, are also represented as having practiced other modes of monastic life, such as solitary life. In the narratives, the saints’ desire to reach hesychia is employed as a discursive strategy by the authors, enabling an alternation between community-based and solitary-retreat-based modes of monastic life. Alternating lifestyles was realised by translocations, both in the narratives and possibly reflecting a recognisable reality. Mobility therefore played a key function in the combination of multiple modes of monastic life. This is well illustrated by an example from the Life of Euthymius. In the narrative, Euthymius establishes a monastic community at Brastamon, erecting cells for his fellowmonks. He himself, however, is described to have ‘practiced hesychia some distance away in a deep ravine’, but to have received ‘visitors in the cells of the brethren’.317 He thus moves between monastic cells and the ravine, changing between modes of withdrawal and interaction. Later on in the narrative the author repeats this description and presents Euthymius again as alternating between these exact same modes and locations: ‘he sometimes associated with the brethren, guiding them and vising them […], and on other occasions he spent time on his own in that very deep ravine’.318 Changing place therefore allows Euthymius to alternate between a solitary mode of life and a mode of interaction, in which Euthymius could serve his community and visitors through his guidance. After mentioning these regular translocations between the monastic cells and the ravine, the hagiographer stresses Euthymius’ desire for hesychia and a solitary mode of life once more. The narrative continues: ‘but most of the time, overcome by his passion for hesychia, he would go to Athos and dwell there by himself’.319 In the representation of Euthymius’ own desires, the balance is thus tipped towards a preference for the monastic ideal of withdrawal over that of serving the community. The author subsequently introduces a divine revelation. The revelation is represented as a divinely originating incentive for Euthymius to move and change to a different mode of life again, despite Euthymius’ own 317 αὐτὸς πόρρωθεν βαθυτάτῳ χειμάρρῳ τὴν ἡσυχίαν μετήρχετο, πάντας τοὺς πρὸς αὐτὸν φοιτῶντας ἐν τοῖς τῶν ἀδελφῶν κελλίοις ὑποδεχόμενος; Life of Euthymius the Younger 27.1; translation by Talbot in Alexakis (2016), p. 81. 318 Life of Euthymius 27.2; translation by Talbot in Alexakis (2016), p. 83. 319 Life of Euthymius 27.2; this author left hesychia untranslated, but otherwise followed the translation by Talbot in Alexakis (2016), p. 83. 2
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