The Spiritual Legacy of Saint John Climacus

 By Jonathan L. Zecher

John the man is interesting, but it was his work rather than his personality that would exercise monastic imaginations across the globe. From its textual dissemination, it is clear just how important this work was and is, although it has yet to receive the scholarly attention it deserves. The Ladder itself, however, has long been a unique locus of reverent study in the Christian East. Peter Brown, though dedicating to it only a few brief pages in his massive work, The Body and Society, there called the Ladder the "undisputed masterpiece of Byzantine spiritual direction." His comment concerns its content, but also touches on the Ladder's popularity. Scripture excepted, almost no other work has exercised such a profound and lasting influence on Greek Christian ascetic spirituality.

Saint Paul the Simple as the Rule and Type of Blessed Simplicity (St. John Climacus)

 By St. John Climacus

(The Ladder - Step 24: On Simplicity)

24. The first property of the age of childhood is uniform simplicity, and as long as Adam had it, he did not see the nakedness of his soul, or the indecency of his flesh.

25. Excellent too is that simplicity which is in some by nature, yes, and blessed, but not as much as that which is grafted in with toil and trouble after repenting from sin. For the former is sheltered and protected from much affectation and passion, but the latter leads to the highest humility and meekness. The former has not much reward, but the latter—infinite, infinite.

Saint John Climacus and the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

 By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,
Former Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery on Mount Athos

(Delivered in 2008)

Saint John Climacus, whom our Church especially honors today, is a precious gift of God to our Church, because he left us a valuable legacy, the Ladder, with which he teaches us two great things.

First, progress in the spiritual life must be made like a science, not without a plan, not impromptu, not without consistency, but with care and effort to strive to shake off the passions and become acquainted with the virtues.

And secondly, in this struggle one cannot reach perfection from one moment to the next, but one must gradually ascend the virtues, pursue them, desire them, pray for them until one reaches the highest virtue, which is love.

Fourth Sunday of Great Lent - Sunday of Saint John Climacus (Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos)

By Archimandrite Epiphanios Theodoropoulos

On this day we celebrate the memory of Saint John, the author of the Ladder.

Regarding him the Horologion says:

"He was born in Palestine around 523. From an early age he was given over to asceticism. He was made abbot of the Monastery at Mount Sinai. Thirty discourses were authored by him regarding the virtues; upon acquiring each virtue one progresses from praxis to theoria, with man ascending each step to heavenly heights, which is why this book is called Ladder of the virtues. He died in 603 at the age of eighty."

The Origins of John Climacus: Was He the Son of Saints Xenophon and Maria?

In his Life of John of the Ladder, Daniel, a monk of Raithu and contemporary of John, writes: "I cannot say for certain in what memorable city this great man was born and reared." For a man whose book The Ladder holds such a special place in the life of the Church, to not know anything of his origins, is most unfortunate, though it has helped monastics through the ages to focus more on what he wrote rather than the writer himself.

While it gives Saint John Climacus somewhat of an aura of mystery, there still have been speculations. Perhaps the most popular speculation is that which is recorded by Saint Dimitri of Rostov in his Life of Venerable John of the Ladder, where he presents the case that John Climacus was the son of Saints Xenophon and Maria and the brother of Arkadios, who are commemorated by the Church all together as a family on January 26th. Saint Dimitri writes the following information in a footnote:

Eldress Mary Magdalene (Marie Madeleine Le Beller), Hermitess of Sinai (+ 2013)

The most-venerable Eldress Mary Magdalene, known in the world as Marie Madeleine Le Beller, was from Paris and went to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage and was baptized an Orthodox Christian when she was forty years old at the Jordan River in 1986. There she prayed to St. John Climacus, to show her the way of her salvation and the place for her solitary life of total dedication to God. She went to the Sinai desert, and lived near the cave of St. John Climacus in the Valley of Tholas (Wadi Et-Tlah) approximately 8km from Saint Katherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai (about a 100-minute hike from the monastery).

On Saint John Climacus (St. Anastasios of Sinai)

St. Anastasios of Sinai was a monk of the monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai when Saint John Climacus was abbot there. In his Narratives, he offers us the following biographical information about his spiritual father, primarily about a prophecy at his tonsure and the appearance of the Prophet Moses at the monastery refectory.

By St. Anastasios of Sinai

(Narratives, 6 and 7)

Abba Martyrios, when he tonsured our venerable father John the abbot at the age of twenty, took him and went to that pillar of our wilderness, Abba John the Sabbaite in the wilderness of Gouda where he had with him his disciple Stephen the Cappadocian. When the Sabbaite elder saw them he rose and took water, put it in a small basin, washed the feet of the disciple (the young John) and kissed his hand; but he did not wash the feet of Abba Martyrios his superior.

A Theophany Story for All Enthusiasts for Perfection

By St. John Climacus

(Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 4:31)

I should be quite unjust to all enthusiasts for perfection if I were to bury in the tomb of silence the achievement and reward of Macedonius, the first of the deacons there.* This man, so consecrated to the Lord, just before the feast of the Holy Theophany, actually two days before it, once asked the pastor for permission to go to Alexandria for a certain personal need of his, promising to return from the city as soon as possible for the approaching festival and the preparation for it. But the devil, the hater of good, hindered the archdeacon, and though released by the abbot, he did not return to the monastery for the holy feast at the time appointed by the superior. On his returning a day late, the pastor deposed him from the diaconate and put him in the rank of the lowest novices. But that good deacon of patience and archdeacon of endurance accepted the father’s decision as calmly as if another had been punished and not himself.

Venerable Menas of Sinai

St. Menas of Sinai (Feast Day - January 5)

Venerable Menas lived in asceticism for fifty-nine years in a certain monastery of Sinai, where he died peacefully in the second half of the sixth century. Myrrh flowed from his holy relics, which was noticed three days after his death. Saint John Climacus speaks of this wonderful man in his book The Ladder of Divine Ascent (Step 4:34), where he is portrayed as a model of blessed and ever-memorable obedience. He writes of him:

On Gaining Riches as a Pretext for Almsgiving

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

You will hear this kind of justification from many who pursue riches: "When I become rich, I will be able to perform good works!" Do not believe them, for they deceive both you and themselves. St. John Climacus knew in depth the most secret motives of men's souls when he said, "The beginning of love of money is the pretext of almsgiving and the end of it is hatred of the poor" (Step 16). This is confirmed by all lovers of money, the rich or the less rich. The average man says, "If only it were that I had money, I would carry out this and that good work!" Do not believe him. Let him not believe himself. Let him look at himself, as in a mirror, at those who have money and who are not willing to do this or that good work. That is how he would be if he acquired some money.

Scetis Came to Gaza, Gaza Came to Sinai - The Trajectory of Climacus

By Jonathan L. Zecher

Scholars sometimes consider Climacus as the end of a trajectory of thought that may be visualized roughly as a sunwise pilgrim trail blazed from Scetis and Nitria up to Alexandria, over to Gaza and Palestine, and back down to Sinai. Climacus is strikingly fond of the Apophthegmata Patrum and related literature from (or at least purporting to come from) Egypt, using and mimicking tales and sayings liberally throughout the Ladder. He read this literature, though, very often in the light of its interpretation and utilization by the Gaza Fathers, Abba Isaiah (d. 491), Barsanuphius (d. c. 540), John (d. 542), and Dorotheus (d. c. 578). Chryssavgis would go so far as to say that “John could be seen as a deliberate continuator or a direct successor of this school of spirituality.” The reasons for this are easily discernible. Not only were the Apophthegmata Patrum first written down and collected in Palestine, but one of the earliest collections of apophthegmata comes from the Asceticon of Abba Isaiah (Logos 8). Numerous sayings, with and without names, but substantially belonging to the Apophthegmata Patrum as we now know it, are to be found in the Gazan Quaestiones et Responsiones. The Gaza School was inspired by the variety of sayings and stories associated with the Egyptian desert and, most likely for that reason, helped collect and edit them. Under this model, the best way of understanding Climacus is to first read the Desert and Gazan literature, see the themes and ideas developed there, and examine how Climacus handles them.

Sunday of Saint John Climacus Resource Page

Verses

John, who when alive in the flesh was dead,

Liveth eternally, though he appeareth a breathless corpse.

He left a writing, in which he showeth a

Ladder of Ascent, the journey of his own ascent.

Sunday of Saint John Climacus 

 

Sunday of Saint John Climacus: Epistle and Gospel Reading 

 

Synaxarion for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent

 

Fourth Sunday of Great Lent - Sunday of Saint John Climacus (Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos)

  

The Hymnography of the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent
 

The Fourth Sunday of Great Lent Before the Thirteenth Century
 

Only by Prayer and Fasting (St. Theophylact of Ochrid) 

 

Homily on the Fourth Sunday of Lent (St. Gregory Palamas)

 

First Homily on the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (Archpriest Rodion Putyatin)

 

Second Homily on the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (Archpriest Rodion Putyatin)

 

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov) 

 

Homily on the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (St. John of Kronstadt) 

 

Homily on the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (Righteous Alexei Mechev) 

 

Homily One for the Fourth Saturday Evening of Great Lent (St. Sergius Mechev) 

 

Homily Two for the Fourth Saturday Evening of Great Lent (St. Sergius Mechev) 

 

Homily for the Fourth Sunday Evening of Great Lent (St. Sergius Mechev) 

 

First Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 

Second Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 

Homily on the Commemoration of the Dead (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (St. Justin Popovich) 

 

Homily One on the Passion for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent: Our Sins Are a Reason for Tears

Homily Two on the Passion for the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent: On the Suffering of the Savior

 

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of the Holy and Great Fast - The Sunday of Saint John Climacus (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)  

 

Homily for the Sunday of Saint John Climacus (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)
 

Saint John Climacus and the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

 

The Fourth Sunday of Great Lent and the Gift of Saint John Climacus (Archimandrite George Kapsanis)

 

Fourth Sunday of Great Lent - Orthodoxy and Monasticism (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

 

One of the Greatest Byzantine Music Moments of the 20th Century 

 

Saint John Climacus Resource Page 

 

Lectionary for "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" 

 

Love as the Essence of Asceticism in Orthodoxy 

 

Saint Theonas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki (+ 1541)

 

Synaxis of Saint George Karslides on the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent

 

Synaxis of All Saints of Rhodes 

 

Great Lent Resource Page

Fifth Week of Great Lent

The Fifth Week of Great Lent

Homily Nine on the Passion (St. Luke of Simferopol)

Homily Ten on the Passion (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 

Homily Eleven on the Passion (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 

Homily Twelve on the Passion (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 

Homily Thirteen on the Passion (St. Luke of Simferopol)

 

Homily Fourteen on the Passion (St. Luke of Simferopol)

Joyful Sorrow and its Secret Fruits (Photios Kontoglou)

Sermon for the Fifth Wednesday of Great Lent (St. Theodore the Studite)

Synaxarion for Thursday of the Great Canon

Saint Andrew of Crete Resource Page - The Great Canon

Sermon for the Fifth Friday of Great Lent (St. Theodore the Studite)

Homily on the Possibility of Being Saved Under Any Conditions of Time (St. Luke of Simferopol)

Synaxarion for the Fifth Saturday of Great Lent

Akathist to the Theotokos Resource Page

Old Testament Readings for Great Lent: Day 21 - Monday

Old Testament Readings for Great Lent: Day 22 - Tuesday

Old Testament Readings for Great Lent: Day 23 - Wednesday

Old Testament Readings for Great Lent: Day 24 - Thursday

Old Testament Readings for Great Lent: Day 25 - Friday

Fifth Saturday of Great Lent (The Akathist Hymn): Epistle and Gospel Reading

Is the Burning Bush Still Burning?

Ascent to Holy Mount Sinai

After the passage of fifteen centuries, does the Sinai brotherhood still feel the presence of Saint John Klimakos, author of the renowned Ladder of Divine Ascent?

“As though he were here yesterday!” says Saint Catherine’s Geronta Pavlos, adding that the saint’s words continue to guide the Monastery in modern times as of old.

Hundreds attended John’s enthronement as abbot – not least, Prophet Moses, who appeared once more tending God’s people in Sinai, directing servers in the Monastery refectory. And amidst the Arab conquests which roiled the region, pilgrims continued to arrive in large numbers to remove their shoes before kneeling on the holy ground where Moses met God at the Burning Bush.

The Ladder of Ascent to Spiritual Rebirth (St. Symeon the New Theologian)

By St. Symeon the New Theologian

Above all else you should strive to acquire three things, and so begin to attain what you seek. The first is freedom from anxiety with respect to everything, whether reasonable or senseless - in other words, you should be dead to everything. Secondly, you should strive to preserve a pure conscience, so that it has nothing to reproach you with. Thirdly, you should be completely detached, so that your thoughts incline towards nothing worldly, not even your own body.

Then sit down in a quiet cell, in a corner by yourself, and do what I tell you. Close the door, and withdraw your intellect from everything worthless and transient. Rest your beard on your chest, and focus your physical gaze, together with the whole of your intellect, upon the center of your belly or your navel. Restrain the drawing-m of breath through your nostrils, so as not to breathe easily, and search inside yourself with your intellect so as to find the place of the heart, where all the powers of the soul reside. To start with you will find there darkness and an impenetrable density. Later, when you persist and practice this task day and night, you will find, as though miraculously, an unceasing joy. For as soon as the intellect attains the place of the heart, at once it sees things of which it previously knew nothing. It sees the open space within the heart and it beholds itself entirely luminous and full of discrimination. From then on, from whatever side a distractive thought may appear, before it has come to completion and assumed a form, the intellect immediately drives it away and destroys it with the invocation of Jesus Christ. From this point onwards the intellect begins to be full of rancor against the demons and, rousing its natural anger against its noetic enemies, it pursues them and strikes them down. The rest you will learn for yourself, with God's help, by keeping guard over your intellect and by retaining Jesus in your heart. As the saying goes, "Sit in your cell and it will teach you everything."

Saint John Climacus and his Heavenly Ladder (Fr. George Florovsky)

By Fr. George Florovsky

The Paucity of Facts of his Life.

The biography of St. John — ό της κλίμακος — must rather be called an encomium. This is a description of him as one who prays and contemplates: "For John approached the mystical mountain where the uninitiated do not enter, and, elevated along the spiritual steps, he received the statute inscribed by God and a vision." He was some newly-appeared Moses.

Few facts are given in the biography. He was also called “Scholasticus” — σχολαστικός — but he is not to be confused with John Scholasticus, the patriarch of Constantinople (d. 577). It even remains unclear when St. John lived and where he was from. From circumstantial data it is possible to hazard a guess that he died in the mid seventh-century. His life is usually given from about 570 until 649. He came to Sinai in his early youth and spent his whole life there. However, it seems that he spent some time in Egypt, in Scete, and in Tabennesis. For many years he contended in obedience to a certain elder. After the letter's death, St. John withdrew into seclusion and lived as a hermit in a cave, which was not far off but was secluded.

The Fourth Sunday of Great Lent Before the Thirteenth Century

By John Sanidopoulos

The Orthodox Church today commemorates Saint John Climacus on the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent. However, his primary feast day is celebrated on March 30th. Saint John Climacus reposed in the seventh century, and the first time we hear of his feast celebrated on the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent is in a manuscript from Vatopaidi Monastery dating to the thirteenth century. It then began appearing in many manuscripts of the fourteenth century. This leaves us wondering what the primary focus of the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent was prior to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Saint Akakios of the "Ladder"

St Akakios of the "Ladder" (Feast Day - Gr. November 26 & Slav. July 7)

Verses

Akakios fled every wickedness of life,
Now delighting in every good being absent of life.

Saint John Climacus informs us concerning the great virtue of obedience for monastics in Step 4 of his Ladder:

 

Obedience is absolute renunciation of our own life, clearly expressed in our bodily actions. Or, conversely, obedience is the mortification of the limbs while the mind remains alive. Obedience is unquestioning movement, voluntary death, a life free of curiosity, carefree danger, unprepared defence before God, fearlessness of death, a safe voyage, a sleeper’s progress. Obedience is the tomb of the will and the resurrection of humility. A corpse does not argue or reason as to what is good or what seems to be bad. For he who has devoutly put the soul of the novice to death will answer for everything. Obedience is an abandonment of discernment in a wealth of discernment.

"The Ladder of Divine Ascent", First Book Printed in the New World

Casa de Juan Cromberger in Mexico City, the location of the first printing press in the Americas.

In 1539, in exchange for a monopoly on printing and the book trade in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, Seville Printer Juan Cromberger founded the first printing press in America. To undertake this project Giovanni Paoli, a native of Lombardy, and better-known as Juan Pablos, a printer from the "Casa de Juan Cromberger," set up in Mexico City the first documented printing press in the Western Hemisphere under the instructions of Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza. The first book Juan Pablos is said to have published was Breve y más compendiosa doctrina Christiana en lengua Mexicana y Castellana, printing of which was completed on June 12, 1539.

St. John Climacus on the Love of Money (or Avarice)

The Ladder of Divine Ascent

By St. John Climacus

Step 16

On Love of Money (or Avarice)

1. Many learned teachers treat next, after the tyrant just described, the thousand-headed demon of avarice. We, unlearned as we are, did not wish to change the order of the learned, and we have therefore followed the same convention and rule. So let us first say a little about the disease, and then speak briefly about the remedy.

2. Avarice, or love of money, is the worship of idols, a daughter of unbelief, an excuse for infirmities, a foreboder of old age, a harbinger of drought, a herald of hunger.

Love as the Essence of Asceticism in Orthodoxy

By Protopresbyter George Schoinas

In the midst of Great Lent, our Church raises before us the figure of a great ascetic and author of the Church, Saint John of Sinai.

He is the author of the Ladder, an ascetic book addressed mainly to monastics, and in proportion it is for each struggling Christian, because it describes the passions and each of their corresponding virtues, so that in the journey of this world we will reach the perfection of virtue.

To reach love and to reach dispassion. But because many times we take certain things for granted, I would like to talk about the obvious.