Not of This World: Part 1

A Short Stay in an Orthodox Monastery

22 min readDec 25, 2023

My YouTube vlogs about my stay in the monastery

Introduction: In the Dark

I am seated in a dark room. The only illumination is a couple of flickering lamps. It is almost pitch black. Ahead of me a man is standing, his shadowy silhouette dissolving into the abyss. There are other figures here too. Twenty, thirty, I cannot say. One belongs to the disembodied voice to my right which is intoning these words in a foreign tongue.

Over and over again he repeats them. He does not hurry; he savours every syllable and between recitations he pauses to let them embed in his soul. There is no excitement, no joy, no fear, no misery. There just is. He repeats them slowly, again and again like a mantra. He speaks and we listen. In silence.

As my eyes adjust, I can make out a little more. People to my left and my right. A few are seated like me; more are standing. One is kneeling on the floor, hunched down in supplication, a black mound, unmoving, devoted.

The objects of that devotion are ahead of us, beyond the shadowy figures. A line of icons partially illuminated by the meagre lamps. I focus on the image of Christ dead ahead. At least, I know it to be Christ because I have seen it in the day when light streams in. Now, the lamplight merely reflects off the gold that surrounds Him, whilst his face remains dark and indistinct. If I strain my eyes, I get an impression of eyes or a mouth, that is all. He is a mystery.

Where am I? Why am I here?

Those are simple questions, yet much harder to answer. I am in the world and outside of it. Where I sit can be found on a map. The houses, fields and roads hereabout remind me of the village where I grew up. Yet at the same time it is all so alien, like the words the unknown reciter repeats. This is a place removed, with different values, norms and reality. And as for why? Well, I do not know, but something compelled me to come, to try and understand. To take myself to a dark room and listen to someone chant in a language other than my own.

On and on he goes, time after time. The mound to my left never moves, the shadow before me carries on dissolving into the background. And Christ stays hidden. I try to let the words enter my soul, but it is hard. Doubts rack me. Is this real, that which we all chase, or are we instead like the chained prisoners watching shadows in Plato’s cave? I pray for clarity.

Then the intonations change. He repeats “Alleluia!” thrice and then falls silent.

She starts to recite:

The same mantra, this time in my language. Things have become clearer.

Slightly.

Part I: The Story

I was in the Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, Tolleshunt Knights, one of the very few Orthodox Christian monasteries in Western Europe. It was founded in 1958 by St Sophrony of Essex, under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Anthony, Metropolitan of Sourozh and ruling Russian bishop in England, with six monastics from a number of nations; soon after, in 1965, the monastery moved under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople (which is what makes it Stavropegic). Since it’s establishment in the former rectory of the church of All Saints in Tolleshunt Knights, it has expanded dramatically and now has over fifty monks and nuns from ten countries. It is the foremost Orthodox monastic institution in the United Kingdom.

The reason why I was there was three-fold. Firstly, I have long been fascinated by monasticism and monastic life. It all started way back in 2008 when I went on my pilgrimage to Lindisfarne in Northumbria. That ignited an interest in Britain’s early Christian heritage, and I learnt how my islands were evangelised through the actions of Celtic monks and nuns, based in monastic institutions like Lindisfarne and Iona, who went out and preached the new faith to the Pagans. Indeed, my own diocese was converted by St. Chad, himself a Lindisfarne monk. The more I read, the clearer it became that the monasteries were the beating heart of the Celtic Church and, even after the Latin Church asserted its authority following the Synod of Whitby in 664, monasticism continued to be a defining feature of Christian life until their Dissolution under Henry VIII in 1539. Even then though, beyond our shores, the tradition not only survived but thrived. My walk along the Camino de Santiago was, at times, literally a trek from one old monastery to the next. Similarly on Franciscan pilgrimage through Central Italy, whilst further east, in Orthodox lands, the faith was literally kept alive during the centuries of Muslim domination through the monasteries scattered across Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Serbia and beyond. Monasticism has been part of Christianity since its very earliest days when the Desert Fathers headed out from their towns into the arid Egyptian wilderness in order to connect better with God.

And on a more personal level, there was something else. Back in the summer I started exploring the concept of past lives. Now, I am still far from sure that I believe in them, but one message that I was getting clear from several quarters was that, in at least one past life, I’d been a monk (or a nun) and that this influenced my attitudes in this life around topics such as money and what is holy. Was this real or all hokum? There was only one way to find out, and that would be to experience it for myself in this existence.

In addition to this fascination with monasticism however, there was also a third factor: an interest in Orthodoxy. After walking to Santiago, I felt the call to visit Mt. Athos, the autonomous monastic republic in Greece. That proved to be impossible at the time due to COVID, but my explorations brought me into contact with one Scott White, or Jurgis as he prefers to be known.[1] Jurgis is an American convert to Orthodoxy from Lutheranism, and he made his big change after visiting Athos. He suggested that before heading to Greece, I stay in the St. John the Baptist Monastery here in England so I could better understand the regime and routine and ask questions of the monks who spoke good enough English to provide worthwhile answers.

His approach made sense and it also fed into what I had been thinking anyway. Ever since 2012 I’ve had a growing interest and attachment to the Orthodox Church. I explore this in my essay Why I am an Orthodox Christian… and Why I’m Not but here was a chance to go deeper. Over the previous decade or so I’d visited Orthodox monasteries in Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Turkey, Georgia, and Bosnia, but they had been just that, visits. Staying for a few days would give me the chance to delve deeper. And so, it was booked, three nights in deepest, darkest Essex, a county more known for loose morals and tatty towns than spiritual fulfilment.

Getting to the monastery was not easy. Indeed, it almost seemed as if God wanted the journey there to be part of my penance for leading a dissolute(ish) life.

It started the night before. I took Tom back to his mum’s after finishing off Game of Thrones and it started to snow. By the time I arrived at their house, the snow was heavy. Going back, I got stuck on a hill about a mile from home and had to abandon my car in a side-street, walking back in a blizzard and not getting to the house until past one in the morning. Which was naff because I had an early start.

I had an early start because I had a train to catch at just before ten. But when I tried to call the taxi company the night before to book my cab, they simply didn’t pick up because of the snow. So, too in the morning. Without a car of my own, I rang around friends and family. All were busy or elsewhere. In the end, I tried Uber and managed to get an emergency taxi at three times the price of the usual ones. So, I got to the station on time.

I was taking an early train because there were strikes. Naturally, I won’t strike break because it is unethical, but it was an ASLEF strike and only certain train operating companies were walking out. These included London North Western and Avanti West Coast which meant that there were no trains at all to London, the natural route to get to Essex. So, I had to take the Cross Country to Birmingham New Street, and then get on the Cambridge service as far as Peterborough. However, when I arrived in Peterborough, it transpired that my Greater Anglia connection was cancelled, so I then had to go to Ely where I changed for the Ipswich train and then had a forty-minute wait in Ipswich before jumping on the service to Kelvedon, the nearest stop for the monastery.

That, though, was not the end of it. “Nearest stop” does not mean that it was remotely near at all. Kelvedon station is about six miles away from Tolleshunt Knights, the village where the monastery is located. So, I called an Uber.

They had no cars.

I called the local taxi companies.

They weren’t operating.

What to do? Six miles away and it was now getting dark. As so often in a time of crisis, I chose the sensible option and went to the pub.

The barmaid at the Railway Tavern suggested that I download an app through which local taxis can be ordered so, over a pint, I did that.

They had no cars.

In desperation, I asked the landlord if he could help. He said that there was one company that might be working. I called up Terry’s Taxis and, yes, he came out.

Eventually, at almost six o’clock in the evening, we pulled up in front of the monastery gates.

Where there was another problem.

No reception.

No anything in fact. The gates were open and there were lights on, but no one seemed home. I went into one of the buildings. It was unlocked, but no one was there. I tried another: the same situation. At the end of my tether and unsure of what to do, I then spied a monk in the distance. I went over to him and explained my predicament. “Ahh, you need to see Fr. Bartholomew. He’s in the church with everyone else. There’s a talk but it’s just finished.”

And so, eventually, I was sorted. Fr. Bartholomew, a Cypriot with a strong London accent who reminded me a bit of some of the Asian gangsters I met in prison, welcomed me and showed me my room before inviting me to supper in the refectory.

I dumped my bags and gave thanks. After considerable trials I had arrived. Now I could switch my attentions to actually embracing monastic life.

My first experience of this new world was the refectory. Actually, to be completely accurate, the New Refectory, for the monastery has two. The older one which is still used for breakfast and high tea and then the newer, main one where lunch and supper are served.

Upon entering, I was taken aback. The walls were all covered in glorious frescoes of saints, each one holding a scroll inscribed with an edifying message. The quality of the artwork was sublime, and it was a feast for the senses. I remembered back in the summer when I had visited Bachkovo Monastery in Bulgaria. That too had a fresco-covered refectory that I had been in awe of, but it was the only one of its kind I had hitherto seen. I certainly did not expect to be dining in one in Essex!

The food was simple but wholesome. The produce was grown by the monastery. There was green salad, beetroot, some sort of soup maid of vegetables and lentils and a small piece of fish. It was washed down with tea which was, curiously, served in a bowl. All around me monks and nuns milled about. I was surprised. I had not realised that this was a mixed institution. Indeed, I had not realised that mixed institutions existed in the Orthodox Church (they are still rare). I sat and consumed my much-needed sustenance, revelling in the decorations all around me. Over the past couple of years, I’ve come to realise that I may be undiagnosed ADHD which means that my brain requires constant stimulation. That is why I struggle with minimalist spaces. Put simply, I find them intolerably boring. But in this refectory, I was in heaven. My eyes drunk in the images whilst my brain pondered the messages they conveyed whilst all the while I watched the real-life potential saints of the future milling about me. This was something special.

After supper I retired to my room. I was lucky. For some reason, Fr. Bartholomew had put me in the Bishop’s Room which was, I assume, somewhat grander than the others. It had a single bed, a bookshelf, an armchair and a fine wooden table which I set my computer up on. One advantage of my many hours of travelling was that I had managed to dedicate some time to reading and writing and I intended to fill some of my spare hours at the monastery with the same activities. Not for long that evening though; it was an early start the following morning for prayers in the church and I had not slept much the night before. So, I turned up fairly soon, taking advantage of the other great feature of the room: a plethora of icons towards which I could focus my prayers.

And thus, it was that my first day in the monastery ended.

I dreamed intensely. Firstly, it was a chaotic jumble of scenes from the monastery, a nonsensical playing out of how I thought my stay might pan out. Then I awoke and when I slept again, I was a hitman or spy-type figure in 1960s Tokyo, running around brutalist blocks in search of my goal. None of it made any sense.

Intense dreams seem to be a feature of spiritual explorations and there is probably a reason for them. Prior to me commencing Camino I dreamt for several nights about how I would fail to cross the Pyrenees. I called them my demons. These were similar yet there was no sense in them. Still, they stuck with me as I dragged myself out of bed and into church for the 7am service.

The service focussed on the Jesus Prayer, a tradition that is especially beloved by the Orthodox Churches. I am primarily familiar with it due to the famous work The Way of a Pilgrim, an anonymous 19th century Russian composition about an unnamed pilgrim who takes St. Paul’s exhortation to pray continually literally and so walks around Russia for years repeating the Jesus Prayer to himself like a mantra so that it transforms his soul.

The Jesus Prayer is an ancient tradition. No one knows quite where it started, but it seems to have been in the Egyptian Desert in the 5th century. That made sense since the Desert Fathers were the founders of Christian monasticism and they inspired Mt. Athos which, itself, inspired the monastery where I was staying. But more on that later.

The prayer is simple. The service, held in almost complete darkness, consisted of a monk repeating it slowly and constantly for around fifteen to twenty minutes:

Again and again and again until the words bore into your soul whilst the lamps before the icons flicker. And then, there is a triple “Alleluia!” and it starts anew from another monk or nun elsewhere in the church, in a different language. Romanian, Greek, Church Slavonic, French, Arabic, maybe more. On and on.

It was beautiful but it was early, and I am no morning person. I fought off the sleepiness, drifting off several times before jerking myself back to this world.

Breakfast was in the Old Refectory. This too had wonderful frescoes adorning the walls although I preferred the other room. Breakfast was bread with honey, peanut butter, jam, Marmite, or vegan spread washed down with tea. The bread was quite simply some of the tastiest I have ever sampled and, I was told, that the honey and jam were produced by the monastery. The latter was apt at least, for Tiptree, the nearby town, is nationally known for its jam.

At breakfast I met some of the other guests — one from Lebanon, a South African, a French Canadian and a third unknown. These were the male guests at any rate; the females sat on a different table across the room.

After breakfast I wrote and read but then fancied some exercise. I walked almost two miles through the village to Tiptree where I visited the café of the jam museum and drank a genuine latte whilst checking up on life admin, (there was neither phone nor internet signal in the monastery). Then I returned.

Outside the monastery, smoking a cigarette, I met Raphael, the French Canadian. He had the alpha and omega signs tattooed on his hands and a teardrop below one eye. Back when I worked in prisons, that signified you had killed someone, and I wondered if this was the case.

Raphael was a convert, quite recently. Indeed, he hadn’t even been baptised yet. Previously a Roman Catholic, he had been searching for something and in Albania and Serbia had found Orthodoxy. He was a self-confessed redneck and had been doing some translation work for the King of Albania (well, the guy who would be king were it still a monarchy) and some hard-right pro-Orthodox Serbian political party. I sensed he wanted some structure and meaning in life. I also sense he had been hurt at some point. “I might have come to Orthodoxy,” he confessed, holding up his cigarette, “but I’m still addicted to these.” I assured him that none of us were where we wanted to be completely and then left him alone as his smoke curled up into the trees.

Lunch was in the new refectory, giving me a chance to revel in the frescoes again. Lunch was far more formal than breakfast. People spoke little and instead listened to a reading from a book by St. Sophrony. When the reading was finished, the abbot rang a bell and, after a prayer, that was it. No socialising.

St. Sophrony was the founder of the monastery. A Russian born in 1896, he was mystical from an early age and became interested in Eastern religions and the occult. He moved to Paris in 1921 and, in 1924, returned to Orthodoxy as he found that only in Christianity could one get a personal relationship with God. In 1926 he moved to Mt. Athos where he became a disciple of the ascetic monk St. Silouan. Decades later he returned to Paris where he promoted Silouan’s writings before gathering a community around him and founding the monastery of St. John the Baptist in 1958.

After lunch I went to the monastery bookshop where many of Sophrony’s — and Silouan’s — works were on sale. I bought the former’s book on the life of the latter, The Monk of Mount Athos icons of both and some Christmas cards and then returned to my room to read, write, and study. However, I was tired, perhaps due to the intense dreams and so I drifted off to sleep for a period.

Half past four was high tea in the Old Refectory. I went down and there were only a few present, all of them visitors. Less formal than the main meals, I sat with some of the female visitors and heard their stories. There was an elderly Greek Cypriot lady who lived at the monastery and whose daughter was born deaf but cured through prayer and now speaks four languages and is married to a priest in Belgium. And there was Elizabeth, an English girl from Bristol who had travelled widely (she’d lived in Japan for a time) and had been on a spiritual search for some years, trying out different churches before settling on Orthodoxy which spoke to her because of its authority as the True Church.

Finally, the Lebanese gent was there too. He had intrigued me because he’d said he was originally from South Lebanon, but there are no Christians there to my knowledge and all the Christian sites that I had visited on my trip to his home country, he seemed unfamiliar with. It transpired that he had been born Shia, although the family was not religious, and had become atheist when in London before converting to Orthodoxy and taking the baptismal name Paul (his birth name was Ahmed). An unusual journey yet he seemed to be happy where he was. Like Elizabeth, it was the authority of the Orthodox Church as the original and true church that he found convincing.

After high tea there was the evening service, another recitation of the Jesus Prayer which I concentrated on better this time, being fully awake. It was two hours long, but I only stayed for an hour. After, I finished my Ramon Llull book and then went for dinner which, like the lunch, was formal and conducted in silence whilst an edifying lesson was read.

But since it was in French, I learnt nothing.

After the meal, I chatted with Fr. Bartholomew who asked me how I was finding it all. We had a good chat about monastic life from the superficial — Why is the tea served in bowls and not cups? (a Russian tradition apparently) — to far deeper topics. He also told me his own story. A London boy from a Cypriot family, he would bunk off school and sneak down to the monastery to hang out with the monks, so it was perhaps always ordained that he would join the community one day. I rather liked him; he had a touch of the gangster about him but with a spirituality to balance that. He was very human and, like all at the monastery, refreshingly open.

That evening I wrote up my account of the pilgrimage I had made to Glastonbury the previous month with my friend Rupinder and then turned in at ten.

Another night of intense dreaming. Firstly, I am with a girl who is a friend of a friend. I see her walking home in the rain and offer her a lift, Will she get in or not? No, she refuses, knowing the real reason why I am offering. But then, later, at home, she knocks on the door, wet through, I invite her in, and we kiss passionately. We are about to go to bed when my dad and ex-wife (they are married in the dream) tell me they have a guest and need the room and so throw her out. Luckily, I have another house that we can use. Am about to go to bed with her there when I wake up needing the toilet.

And then I dream again. I am in a car park; it is something to do with work. There’s a man with a dog. He jumps over a fence and then an Alsatian comes and attacks them both, ripping into them. I call the emergency services and am still wondering whether I should intervene directly or not when I awaken.

What does it mean?

Does it mean anything at all?

I dragged myself out of bed for the 6am service. I was confused as to why it was even earlier than the previous day’s, but I soon learnt why. This was no recitation of the Jesus Prayer, but instead a full-blown Mass or Liturgy as it is called in the Orthodox tradition. It was beautiful, particular since some of the nuns had formed a choir and their singing from the gallery brought an almost heavenly dimension to it all. Despite all of this though, it was also gruelling. The early time meant that I was continually fighting the sleep, whilst it liturgy went on and on and on. The Orthodox do not do brevity and even the most beautiful services can last too long. Perhaps I will know when I have achieved personal piety when I can sit through an entire Liturgy and not get bored. Nonetheless, there were moments of clarity and inspiration, but they grew fewer as it progressed.

Breakfast was as the day before and I welcomed it. Then I again went for a stroll, this time heading south not north, aiming for the Church of All Saints.

All Saints was the parish church for Tolleshunt Knights and the monastery began in the rectory attached to it. The church was closed in 1957 which is probably why St. Sophrony was able to purchase the rectory and start his monastery a year later. Nonetheless, it is still a stroll of half a mile or so. En route, I saw some of the monastery’s orchards and gardens where the produce is grown and also the rising mass of the new Church of St. Sophrony near to the new refectory.

The Church of St. Sophrony under construction

The monastery has grown piecemeal since its establishment. As I stated earlier, it began in the rectory, a large 18th century house, and the first church, a chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is located in one of the downstairs rooms. As time went on, buildings were added, the first being the block where my room was and then the structure containing the old refectory. In the 1980s the Church of St. Silouan was constructed, which is where the services are held. Externally, it is a bit of a barn, although there are some fine mosaics on the western wall, but inside it is covered with frescoes like the refectories.

Sometime in the 21st century, the farm across the road was purchased and this is where the new refectory is located plus the large Church of St. Sophrony is being built. There are also several building where the sisters live on the farm site as well as the monastery greenhouses. In addition to all of the above, there are a couple of houses nearby that have been purchased and the Church of All Saints, being disused, has been given to the monastery by the Anglican Church.

The walk was pleasant and refreshing but when I arrived, the church was locked. That was annoying since it was an interesting-looking building, said to date from the Norman period but much altered and rather ramshackle in a picturesque fashion. Undeterred, I sat on a tomb and read a chapter of a book that I’d purchased from the monastery bookshop. Entitled The Monk from Mt. Athos, it is St. Sophrony’s telling of the life of his spiritual guide, St. Silouan. After reading a chapter though, the chilly weather began to tell so I returned to the monastery.

Lunch was as was the day before and I stayed in all afternoon, reading and writing, completing my final essay in my interfaith series. At high tea I spoke with Elizabeth and the Greek Cypriot lady again and another chap, Serafim, a half-British half-Romanian man who was thinking about quitting his job and going travelling. We talked for some time, and it was good.

Then there was the Jesus Prayer service and, following that, dinner. Afterwards, I fell into conversation with Br. Andrew, a Scottish monk who had answered the phone when I’d called enquiring about staying. He was a friendly fellow with an otherworldly air. He had been a “bit of a hippie” in his youth and, like St. Sophrony, had explored Eastern faiths, particularly Buddhism. He had spent considerable time at Dharamshala where the Dalai Lama is based, and we chatted about this as I am scheduled to visit in a couple of months’ time. But like with his spiritual guide, he found that, ultimately, there was a void in the Eastern traditions whereas he wanted the personal relationship with God. He also spoke about sensing the Divine Light, something that Sophrony too had encountered, the Light of Christ which appears to some people as the purest light one can imagine.

Br. Andrew was also kind enough to show me into the original church in the rectory and he told me that the frescoes had all actually been painted by one of the community and, what is more, one of the sisters. Apparently, Sr. Gabriella had gone to Russia where she trained in icon painting and then completed the wonderful artworks upon her return to the monastery.

That night I slept better although I still dreamt vividly.

On my final day I attended the Jesus Prayer service again. It moved me as it had done the other times and, I believe that if I were to stay for a week or longer attending continually, great things would happen. But beyond being moved, nothing occurred to me on this trip; three days is but a dipping of the toe into the ocean of Orthodoxy.

I then had my breakfast and packed my things and left. I couldn’t get a signal in the monastery itself, so I wheeled my bag along the lane to the village until I could and then called the taxi company. After I tried about three, I found one who would take me to the station. I continued to walk, and he pulled up where the lane to the monastery meets the main road. Like Terry, he was a jovial local chap with a strong accent and a worldliness that seemed alien after the monastery. He drove me to Kelvedon where I bought a ticket and, within minutes, a train pulled up. I was whisked to London in no time and then it was straight to work, with meetings fortified my strong cups of tea — the caffeine withdrawal had REALLY hit me in the monastery — and then, for lunch and dinner, meals with lots of meat as a counterpoint to the predominantly vegan diet.

I was back in the world that I knew.

And so that is the story of my time in the monastery. Now, we can move onto the more important part: What did I learn from it all…?

Part II: Reflections

[1] Jurgis has a YouTube channel entitled Orthodox Gardener.

Not of This World: Part 1

A Short Stay in an Orthodox Monastery

Introduction: In the Dark

Part I: The Story

Written by Matt Pointon