Final press release

The relation between exegesis and spiritual life was developed and compared in the round table on The Bible in monastic experience today, presided by br Adalberto Mainardi, with contributions by hegumenos Iakovos of Petraki, archimandrite Sergij of New Valaam, igumen Petr Meš?erinov of the Danilov monastery in Moscow, fr Cesare Falletti, prior of the Cistercian monastery Dominis Tecum, fr Christopher Savage of New Skete in the United States. The presence at the conference of numerous Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant monks and nuns, who came from monasteries in Greece, Russia, Syria, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Finland, Mount Sinai, Ukraine, Armenia, Ethiopia, Egypt, United States, Belgium, England, France, and Italy, was an encouraging sign for measuring the urgency of a renewed presence of Scripture not only in the monk’s and Christian’s personal piety, but in every area of community life. A real and true “pedagogy” for discerning the Word of God is needed, which is often very difficult because of the lack of authentic spiritual guides.

Many of the problems raised in the course of the discussions found an echo in the two presentations of the final day, which traced an ideal synthesis of the conference’s work. “There can be no true and authentic spirituality and Orthodox conduct of life,” declared metropolitan Elpidophoros of Bursa, “if it is not based on Sacred Scripture and inspired by it; Sacred Scripture constitutes the fount, the principle, and the foundation of what is called ‘Orthodox spirituality’. Orthodox spirituality does not consist in fine ideas, sublime thoughts, and pleasing reflections; it is rather a balanced and authentic ecclesial ethos, a pure style of life, an upright behavior, a definite attitude and conduct of life… Spirituality is the grace of a life in the Holy Spirit; it is a life purified by the Holy Spirit after a struggle that aims at purity.” From this derives a particular mission for the Church: that of “approaching human being amiably in order to teach them how to love and how to be loved. Each one of us, we read in the Sayings of the desert fathers, is called to become ‘as fire’, to touch the world with the mystical power of the Word of God, so that… the world too may say, ‘someone touched me’ (Mt 9,20).”