Hesychasm and magnanimity: Elder Sophrony's hypostatic principle and the ontology of prayer

The essay represents an attempt to recuperate the notion of Christian magnanimity in the so-called Post-Christian age. In the secularised contemporary environment, magnanimity has acquired a naturalised character and expresses itself in the language of inclusiveness and rights. Yet the reality that it can claim is self-constructed and a version of modern nihilism. Elder Sophrony's idea of hypostatic principle, operative at once in divine reality and Christ-centred prayer, not only recuperates the transformative spirit of Christian revelation but, working within the tradition of hesychastic spirituality, proposes an alternative sense of inclusivity that is more satisfying and truthful.