Recipes of hesychast medicine for those who are seriously ill

  1. Lemma
  2. Retetele medicinei isihaste pentru cei grav bolnavi
  3. Romanian
  4. Gheorghe, Ghelasie
  5. Scientific theories and disciplines > Medicine - Concepts of knowledge and modes of reasoning > Mysticism and Orthodox spiritual experience - Orthodox theological tradition and practice
  6. 2016
  7. Recipes of hesychast medicine for those who are seriously ill - Bucharest: Playtera, 2016.
  8. Hesychasm - treatment of disease - prayer - medicine
    1. The hesychast medicine presented by Father Ghelasie has the characteristics of a comprehensive treaty of contemporary man's problems, in the variety of their manifestations. We can thus see a therapeutic approach to the restoration of the communication with God by joining the Body of Christ through communion with the Holy Mysteries of the Church and the dialogue with the Holy Trinity and with all the saints (sacrotherapy), together with a healing process of the powers of the soul, weakened by the passions and with the cultivation of virtues (psychotherapy), a process of recuperation through the dynamism of physical movements of blocked energies (mobilotherapy) and an approach to rethinking food from the iconic perspective (diet therapy) in which the aspect of communication between living memories. Here, the main purpose is taking full responsibility of human nature to bring it as a gift and to assimilate it eucharistically in the mystery of the kingdom of God. (Florin Caragiu)

      The hesychast medicine, given its direct Christian inspiration, always begins with prayer. Most often, it appears linked to Father Ghelasie Gheorghe from the Frasinei Monastery, who was talking to many about it. Although the language of the hesychast medicine can sometimes be difficult to access because of the fall modern language, it strikes by its coherence.

      "Christ took away the sins of the world to cleanse them. I want to be a follower of Christ, I want to be similar to Christ. As someone Christlike, I am a Life and a Sacred Destiny, Who Really Deserves to Live. In this Sacred Destiny, I have the duty to heal my Diseases, which are my parents' inheritance, through which I will save my Parents too. In Me My parents are sick and suffering and in me my parents are asking me to heal their illnesses and sufferings. Through this Healing for their Love’s sake, I also heal myself, who have their Essence as My Being." (Avva Ghelasie of Frasinei,"The Hesychast  Medicine ").
      Theoretically, the hesychast medicine is very simple and can be summarized as follows: "Pray to God with great faith and love!"

      The hesychast medicine is not only concerned with the body, but also with the soul, which makes the body sick. Even though Father Ghelasie only ate seeds, nuts and dry hermit bread, he was aware of the fact that neither fasting nor natural remedies or any other treatment can help us as long as we lack love of God, faith and prayer. Along these personal efforts, which alone do not transform man, prayer is the most important. This is why he used to say, "If you keep fasting without prayer and good deeds, you do nothing but bleach the bone. The soul remains sad and darkened. "

      According to the hesychast medicine, the disease for which we were punished with the banishment from the Eden is inattention. It is enough to pay attention to ourselves during one day, if we can, and we’ll understand how little we pay attention to ourselves and for how long our minds are wandering, either in the past or in the future.

      The hesychast medicine is a "double medicine", of the soul and of the body. It is truly a return to real life, which involves the healing of all our parts. In his philocalic writings, the Holy Callist Catafygiotus speaks of the triadic model of the human soul (mind, spirit reason, energies). Since the disease is in fact a breach of our trinitarian unity, treatment should aim primarily at rebuilding this unit. Hesychast medicine involves therefore a whole orthodox therapy, also understood as a recovery of the true language of the Mystery of Life. (Teodor Danalache)