The influence of Hesychast philosophy on the monks’ speech practice (the case of the epistolary texts of the Russian Orthodox monasticism of the 20th century)

Abstract

This article deals with issues related to the interaction of language and religion, such as the influence of Hesychasm philosophy on the speech of Russian Orthodox monks, which shows itself primarily at the ideological level. Referring to the epistolary texts of Russian Orthodox monks-writers of the XX century, the author shows the features of the fundamental ideas of the religious and philosophical doctrine of Hesychasts represented in the language. It is stated that the main representatives of the Hesychast ideas in the epistolary texts of Russian Orthodox monasticism of the XX century are overwords units and words nominating these ideas, as well as derivatives of nominees. It is noted that representatives of the ideas of salvation, theosis, transfiguration, silence, seclusion, etc. belong to the Orthodox vocabulary corpus of spiritual and moral content. The author refers to the use of words and verwords units from the subject area of Hesychasm and specific etiquette speech formulas of greetings and farewells to the distinctive linguistic features of the epistolary texts of Orthodox monks-writers. The question of the influence of prayer making on monastic speech, which forms its distinctive character, is discussed separately: the monk's speech is unique in its prayerfulness and richness with prayers lexis (which reflects a deep mental immersion in prayer texts of different eras).