Following is an “opinion piece” that I recently read online:

It’s hard for us to remember that people became saints and were able to live a “legitimate” spiritual life for nearly five centuries before the Church fell into it’s “monastic captivity” (Fr. Tom Hopko’s phrase regarding the influence of monasticism on the church up to today).

The man “in the world” that St. Anthony the Great (the father of monasticism) was sent to for schooling in the spiritual life attained it without a monastic “holy elder” confessor, the Philokalia, the Rudder, a Horologion and Menaion, or a “fasting calendar” with all the pink days that lists whether you can have fish, wine or oil that day, etc. etc.

It’s all good until it is more of an obsession than being a Christian.

This piece was written from within an Orthodox context. The argument is simple: since there were holy men and women — saints — in the generations before the growth of monasticism, then neither monasticism, the wisdom of the elders, a spiritual guide, nor the disciplines of the Church are necessary for the conduct of a holy life and even for “sainthood.”

As far as the statement goes, it is, I suppose, true. It is also true that amputations were performed before antiseptics and anesthesia, but few would argue against their use today. Pioneers once crossed the country in wagons and on horseback, but not many of us would prefer those modes of transportation to automobiles and airplanes. I once navigated by map and AAA Triptiks; now I use a GPS and, while I have a nostalgia for maps, I recognize the advantages of modern technology.

At one level, I agree with the author of the piece: monasticism is not the primary model of or context for Christian holiness. The Church is: the Church universal and the church local. And this is also the level at which I disagree with the author and why I even bothered to comment. When he (?) suggests that the Horologion and Menaion, the fasting calendar, etc., etc. are unnecessary for one’s formation in holiness, he is close to rejecting those disciplines that the Church has developed and bequeathed us for the cultivation of holiness, the disciplines that foster holiness for the many. As an Anglican, can I progress toward holiness without the Book of Common Prayer? Of course, just as I could conceivably stumble through a 10k race with my shoe laces tied together. But, why would I handicap myself?

The Reformers erred — gasp! — in discarding certain Church institutions and practices because of historic abuse and misuse of those institutions and practices, monasticism chief among the discards. The Reformers’ spiritual descendants have suffered a certain spiritual deficit since. In the Orthodox Church, bishops are most often selected from the monasteries, from the rank of monks, not because these are the only saints among us — not even because they are saints! — but because they have been formed by monastic ideals of humility, worship, holy poverty/simplicity, prayer, silence, repentance, and forgiveness. We could do worse. In too many cases, we are doing worse. And though I am not and, thank God, never will be a bishop, I would be a better priest to the extent that I had been better formed in these disciplines. And, here is the truth: I would be a better Christian if I had been better formed in these disciplines. To reject the wisdom of the Church as expressed in and through monasticism and the disciplines of the Church is a grave, self-inflicted wound. Why would one choose that?