On the feast of the Uncovering of the Relics of St. Maximus the Greek (July 4), we have talked about the life and labors of this saint with Deacon Konstantin Akimov, a Master of Theology, a cleric of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in Strogino (Moscow), and the Chairman of the Parish Council of the church’s Edinoverie community.
Deacon Konstantin Akimov
—Fr. Konstantin, St. Maximus the Greek decided to become a monk quite late, and before that he had studied literature in Catholic Florence… Is it known what influenced the choice of a young man who came from a noble family and was very active in the world?
—Every human being is an unrevealed mystery, visible to the Lord alone. And the choice that drastically changes a person’s life is not always obvious. There is probably no unequivocal answer to the question of what divided the life of the thirty-year-old Michael Trivolis (St. Maximus’ secular name) into “before” and “after”. All the researchers and biographers whose works I have read draw their own conclusions, but give no direct statements. As believers, we can and should draw the following conclusion: God touched his heart and called St. Maximus to follow Him. This is the only answer to the question of why people, in the words of the Gospel, leave their nets (cf. Mt. 4:20) and willingly accept martyrdom, lead an ascetic life or take the monastic vows.
However, of course, nothing happens without precedents. Let’s briefly recall the major milestones of St. Maximus’ life before his taking of vows at Vatopedi Monastery on Mt. Athos. Michael Trivolis was born in 1470 into a noble family in the village of Arta, then part of the Kingdom of Epirus. He graduated from school on the Greek island of Kerkyra (Corfu) where he even ran for the local government. In short, he was an energetic young man.
After graduating from school, in 1492, at the age of about twenty-two he came to Italy in order to continue his studies. Michael spent nine or ten years of his life in Italy, diligently studying the humanities and communicating with prominent figures of the Renaissance. He visited cities such as Florence, Padua, Ferrara, Milan, Vercelli, Venice, etc. His “educational travels” concluded with his entry into the service of Prince Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola where Michael worked as a translator and selected theological and philosophical materials for the thinker’s works.
Now let us digress a little and immerse ourselves in the context of the age. What was Italy like at the end of the fifteenth—the beginning of the sixteenth centuries? It was the Italian Renaissance. We can identify three distinctive features here: firstly, a mixture of old medieval ideas with new humanistic ones—that is, the lack of a clear ideological system. Secondly, the ideological trends of several classes differed—there were both a bourgeois mainstream and a popular trend. And thirdly, perhaps most significantly: the ideological confrontation between Christianity and paganism, which was typical of the Renaissance.
After the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, many Byzantines took their libraries, and with them their ancient heritage, with them to Europe. Unlike the Europeans, the Byzantines did not lose their connections with the ancient heritage. It caused an enthusiastic reaction and the movement of Europe towards Antiquity, and with it towards pagan culture. St. Maximus himself admitted that in his youth he was no stranger even to the extreme fascination with pagan antiquity, which was leading to neopaganism and immorality, which was almost inevitable for a young and energetic intellectual.
And then a very extraordinary and striking figure of that age appeared in the life of young Michael—the Dominican monk and preacher of piety Girolamo (Jerome) Savonarola. He was a man of austere ascetic life, who quite literally understood the vows of monastic poverty and demanded the same from the brethren of his San Marco Monastery in Florence. Savonarola was a denouncer of the vices and injustices of social and Church life. There is even a monument to Savonarola for his opposition to the Catholic Church where he is represented among the figures of the Reformation. In Worms (Germany) there is a monument to Martin Luther surrounded by his companions and benefactors, and at the foot of the monument, at the four corners, are the “predecessors of the Reformation”: John Wycliffe, Peter Waldo, Jan Huss and Girolamo Savonarola.
Savonarola’s enthusiasm and ardor attracted and infected others who, like him, disagreed with the widespread moral corruption of society and the Roman Church. Undoubtedly, young Michael was influenced by the same spirit, so no wonder that in Moscow St. Maximus the Greek would join St. Nilus of Sora’s Non-Possessors monastic movement. Besides, inspired by the enthusiasm and determination of his former mentor, he would also expose the vices, including those of the Grand Prince of Moscow…
Arrival of St. Maximus the Greek to Russia, a miniature I should add here that in his sermons Savonarola denounced not so much humanism and its obsession with Antiquity as the tendency of the Renaissance towards immorality. So we can assume that the once strong fascination of young Michael with pagan culture somewhat declined under Savonarola’s influence.
On May 23, 1498, Savonarola was hanged and his body burned at the stake. Soon, in 1502, Michael—while retaining his secular name—took vows at San Marco Monastery. And it would seem that that was all—a young Greek intellectual who bore the European ideas of the Renaissance and humanism had to be finally and irrevocably Latinized, spend the rest of his life at the monastery in Florence and become one of the “Great Humanists”, such as Janus Lascaris, Angelo Poliziano, Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, all of whom were his teachers.
But no. Three years later, Michael retired to Mt. Athos where he took vows with the name Maximus at Vatopedi Monastery. No one can say for sure what the turning point was. Perhaps the tragic death of his spiritual teacher and confessor and the faithfulness to his legacy. Maybe something else... But we see that Michael returned to his roots of the Greek Orthodox faith. Having perfected his mind, he started perfecting his spirit in prayer. He stayed at the monastery for ten years, until 1515.
—St. Maximus, who is also venerated by the Old Believers, arrived in Moscow in 1518—at a time when the Russian Church had become fully independent from the Greek Church; our metropolitans were installed without the consent of Constantinople. Did his stance on the autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church change, or did he remain true to his beliefs that the Russian metropolitans should continue to go cap in hand to the occupied Constantinople, while Greeks themselves would travel to Moscow for financial and other support?
—I would like to digress a little to the phrase you said, “he is venerated by the Old Believers.” Few people know that the iconography of St. Maximus was developed precisely in the Old Believer environment. Let us recall that St. Maximus the Greek was officially canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate only at the Local Council in 1988. And now let’s remember icons of St. Maximus the Greek… The seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries! How is it? The fact is that the Old Believers have always venerated him, and his icons were already painted back then.
St. Maximus the Greek, an eighteenth-century icon And now there is a curious trend in the way two parallel iconographies are developing. One inclines to the traditional image of St. Maximus in medieval Russian monastic garb, often at a table and books, and with an almost perfect ball of a giant beard (you can’t do without it)! In the other, St. Maximus is depicted in the Athonite schema and other garb of Greek monks, in the Byzantine technique, and with smooth facial features. By the way, my favorite realistic image of St. Maximus the Greek is in the monument, The Millennium of Russia, on the Kremlin Square in Veliky Novgorod. There he is represented most vividly, so I believe in the proportions of the beard that the sculptor depicted.
But to return to the issue of Russian autocephaly. As is well known, St. Maximus did not share the position of the Russian episcopate and stuck to his opinion until his imprisonment and deprivation of Communion. Actually, the saint’s life can be divided into four periods: Greece and Italy, Mt. Athos, the Tsardom of Moscow before his imprisonment, the Tsardom of Moscow during his imprisonment and after. And it is the last stage of St. Maximus the Greek’s life that is important for our Russian Church history and spiritual heritage. The saint came to us as an Italian Greek who did not share our views and policies, but he reposed as an absolutely Russian saint. In confinement, he had plenty of time for prayer and reflection. To put it more precisely, it was at that period that he understood, or, rather, got to know the Russians and the Russian soul.
But prior to his imprisonment, St. Maximus, despite his continual work as a translator and writer on state orders, remained fiercely opposed to the Government alongside with such personalities as Ivan Bersen-Beklemishev, Vassian Patrikeyev, and Fyodor Zharenoy. In church matters, St. Maximus took a very principled stand as well.
—Yes, and at some point, St. Maximus the Greek joined the movement of the Non-Possessors of St. Nilus of Sora…
—Yes, that’s right. I repeat: It is entirely the merit of his Italian spiritual mentor Savonarola in St. Maximus’ way of thinking and behaving. And it would seem, where is Savonarola and where the Russian Non–Possessors; but these are two of a kind. I think that St. Maximus was a consistent disciple and carried the precepts of his teacher throughout his life, perfecting the Christian lessons he had learned on the leaven of the Orthodox faith and monastic tradition.
St. Maximus the Greek could only be on “this” side of the barricades in that historical context. Let me remind you: The so-called Josephites, or Possessors, advocated that monastic communities should own land, there should be a lot of farming, and accordingly, hired workers from among the local peasants. And although it may seem that this is just another attempt by the “churchmen” to cash in on cheap labor (as small-minded people would think), let’s look at it soberly. The richer a monastery was thanks to a product (of any kind) produced, the more jobs and food it could give the local populace. It was even beneficial for everyone to work for the monastery!
In addition, it relieved the monks from most of hard work, so they could devote their time to learning and writing books. After all, monasteries were the centers of learning in Russia. Who else? St. Joseph of Volotsk Monastery,1 for instance, owned extensive lands, providing jobs for hundreds of people, and at the monastery the brethren tirelessly copied and distributed much-needed manuscripts of liturgical books. It was one of the largest centers of their distribution. Without the brethren’s work there would have been nowhere to get books. There were no printers or even printing presses yet.
But the followers of St. Nilus of Sora, the Non-Possessors, who rejected any property for monastics, adhered to an opinion that was no less correct and truly monastic. Since we are all just wanderers here, and nothing belongs to us in this world, here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come (Heb. 13:14), as the Apostle Paul exhorts us. Knowing the precedents in the early years of St. Maximus the Greek’s life, no wonder he became one of the Non-Possessors. It couldn’t be otherwise, inasmuch as Savonarola, the Abbot of the Monastery of San Marco, cleaned cesspools himself!
—Let’s talk about the theological, literary and translation works of St. Maximus the Greek. Can you single out the most significant of his works? What is the main contribution of St. Maximus to Russian theological thought? And why was the saint accused of “damaging” liturgical books?
—St. Maximus’ legacy is not huge, but it’ quite extensive. The range of his writings is also wide, which speaks of him as a very versatile man. In his literary works, St. Maximus the Greek acts as an exegete of the Holy Scriptures (for example, A Commentary on the Words from the Gospel of John: I Suppose That Even the World Itself Could not Contain the Books That Should Be Written (Jn. 21:25), or A Commentary on Certain Passages of the Holy Scriptures, etc.). His very first translated work was a large Psalter (into Church Slavonic). He was also an apologist (A Word on Luther); an author of spiritual instructions (A Word on Watchfulness of the Mind); and even a naturalist (The Tale of a Tawny Owl, On Leviathan, The Names of Precious Stones), thereby paying tribute to medieval scholarship.
St. Maximus was also engaged in book editing. When translating, he had to work with the Old Slavonic language in its Eastern version, which had been completely unknown to him before. At the time he arrived in Russia, St. Maximus did not even know the Old Russian language, which was spoken at that time! At first, he generally translated from Ancient Greek into Latin, which the local scholars already knew. But then he started delving deeply into the language and discovered that it was not yet systematized. It should be noted that in Russia, the concept of “grammars” is quite late and contradictory. In our country, they had always been perceived as a manifestation of Western culture, and with a negative connotation. Having mastered, among other things, “Ars Grammatica” (the art of grammar), St. Maximus tried to systematize and introduce new rules into the language of Church Slavonic texts, but based on the Greek language. At that time, he still lacked “linguistic flair” (as the experts say), because he still did not know Old Russian well. He only really learned it in prison. It must be stressed that St. Maximus the Greek had two stages in his activities as an editor. Before his imprisonment, he translated everything according to the Greek model and built the grammar this way. But after his release, he redid all (!) the work on the texts and fully reconsidered his views on grammar in accordance with the internal structure of the Old Slavonic and Old Russian languages.
Self-portrait, drawing from a handwritten collection of works by St. Maximus the Greek
—In conclusion, perhaps it would be best to draw some comprehensive and integral conclusion about what we can learn as Christians from the saint’s Life. In your opinion, what are the qualities and points worth paying attention to? Where can we find a pivot in the facts from St. Maximus’ life? How should every believer, layman or clergyman imitate this saint?
—St. Maximus the Greek, the uncovering of whose relics we are commemorating today, hardly fits into the framework of “patronage” of certain activities or diseases, as is the case with many saints with a long history of veneration. However, he is a worthy model of both the monastic way of life and genuine Christian humility and patience. Few suffered as much as he endured.
To move to a foreign country as an obedience and be imprisoned and deprived of Communion for the truth for around twenty-five years! From about 1525 to 1547 or 1551. Ironically, he was first confined to St. Joseph of Volotsk Monastery where he felt the worst, and then to the Otroch Holy Dormition Monastery in Tver, where he was treated with respect and more leniently. And after his release, he ended his days at the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, where he now rests. The most incomprehensible thing to the worldly mind is that he did not become embittered with the Russian Church (although he still did not change his views on our autocephaly), but in a letter of 1552 he used the expression “Holy Russia”—one of the first instances of written use of this term. And during his time in prison, he was forbidden to write—the worst punishment for an intellectual and scholar! But, as you know, he scratched—probably with a piece of tableware—on the walls of the cell an absolutely amazing and touching Canon to the Holy Spirit the Paraclete. The text of the canon in the form of a prayer service is available now. I sincerely recommend everyone to read it at least once!
Shrine with St. Maximus the Greek’s relics at the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra
This demonstrates the profound spiritual gifts and benefits that St. Maximus acquired from being persecuted for righteousness’ sake (Mt. 5:10). And truly blessed and holy is this deeply humble monk, once a great luminary of scholarship, potentially standing among the great humanists of the Italian Enlightenment.
My personal view is that our Holy Father Maximus the Greek should be the Heavenly patron of every inquisitive and truth-seeking mind that will stop at nothing and nobody in search of Divine truth. After all, this is truly one of the paths suggested by the Lord Jesus Christ: If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (Jn. 8:31–32), just as it spiritually set free St. Maximus the Greek. After all, what else but the truth did this man search for all his life! And he left us an example for all times.
