One of the features of Russian Orthodox Christianity has been the

prominence of monasteries. Soon after the conversion of Russia there was

founded the monastery of the Caves in Kiev; later on, there was established

by St Sergei of Radonezh the famous monastery of the Trinity (now called the

Sergei-Trinity Lavra) outside Moscow. Monasticism had been a feature of

Christianity since the fourth century. At the heart of monasticism is

commitment to the life of prayer, and in the earliest texts onwards we find

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discussions about how to maintain a life of continual prayer. In fourteenthcentury

Byzantium there arose a controversy about the so-called hesychast

monks (‘hesychast’ being derived from the Greek hesychia, quietness) about

claims that, through continual prayer, there could be attained the vision of the

uncreated light of the Godhead itself. Hesychast monks were important in

the bringing of Christianity to the region around Moscow in the fourteenth

century (the circle of St Sergei). The notion of contemplating the uncreated

light of the Godhead is manifest in iconography, especially of the

Transfiguration of the Lord, about this time. The hesychast monks came to be

associated with a practice of inward prayer (‘prayer of the heart’) achieved by

practice of the Jesus Prayer (‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on

me, a sinner’): a prayer that became very popular in nineteenth-century

Russia, as the famous book, The Way of the Pilgrim, bears witness.