In 1975, the then Bishop Kallistos gave a paper at St. David’s, Wales, in a Conference on the hermit life entitled ‘Solitude and Communion.’ The papers were gathered into a booklet by the Anglican Sisters of the Love of God, edited by Canon Allchin.

  In the Orthodox tradition, a priest who is not married is normally attached to a monastery. Metropolitan Kallistos remains a monk of the monastery of St. John the Theologian on Patmos, where he spends some time each year. The monastery was founded in 1088, by Christodoulos - a monk in the Holy Land till the Turkish invasions. The monastery serves St. John’s cave, where the Apostle John lived,llll when he was exiled by Emperor Domitian, in 95 CE, and where he wrote the Apocalypse.

  The paper on the hermit life, entitled ‘Separated from all and united to all,’ is an excellent overview of the various forms of monastic life, which has three main forms - ‘the cenobitic, the eremitic, and the middle or semi-eremitic way of the hesychast’ - the person who practises ‘prayer of the heart,’  and dwells with one or two others.

  ‘In fourth century Egypt, St. Anthony provided in his own person a living icon of the hermit ideal; St. Pachomius established the cenobitic pattern; St. Ammon at Nitria and St. Macarius at Sketis mapped out the intermediary life. These same three forms can be found, sixteen centuries later, side by side in contemporary Athos.‘  

                                                         To be continued

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