Mountain of Silence: A Search for Orthodox Spirituality Book

Amazing story of one man's series of conversations with a spiritual master from Mt. Athos. Such a rich treasury of Christian truth on how to seek after Christ following the path of saints and martyrs from the time of the apostles until now.

If anyone is interested or has questions about Orthodox spirituality, Fr. Maximos gives a compelling introduction through his conversations with Kyriacos Markides. Easy to read and very interesting.

Makes me want to go to Cyprus and Mt. Athos.

Lots to say about this book. For one, its conversational setup is great, because Markides asks just about every question that anyone, even Protestants would have about Orthodox monasticism. Why be a monk? Don't monks just run away from the real world? etc.

It's amazing to see a Christian tradition that is so extremely Christ-centered and Bible-centered, all grounded in the faith of the first 800 years of Christianity, but with such different foci from Protestants "Bible-believers" who think they are the authority on the faith.

I especially appreciated the practical yet mystical theology of the book. Practical, in that it accurately demonstrated that being a Christian requires discipline and humility in everyday situations; there is no special way of becoming holy other than working your butt off day in and day out using spiritual disciplines. On the other hand, it was also very mystical. In the midst of doubt, darkness, despair, and frustration, God visits us in unexpected ways and reveals parts of himself that one wouldn't have had any way of accessing without hardship and trial.

Having said that, there were times when Markides' secular, modernist, academic background seemed to prevent him from accepting certain ideas in faith. Also, he seemed to do something that I frankly see in too much Orthodox writing -- that is, acting as if the Western tradition of Christianity cannot accept mystery and has over-analyzed everything to the detriment of betraying the faith of the early fathers. I agree that Western Christians do deserve much of this charge, but I also wouldn't want to dismiss the mystical expressions of faith that I find in both Catholic and Protestant traditions.

Anyway, this was still a fascinating book, and I ate it up like good baklava.