Eikon

Maximus Kavsokalyvites

Our Venerable Father Maximus the Hut-burner of Mount Athos

Venerable · Fool for Christ · Wonderworker · b. c. 1270, at Lampsakos — d. c. 1365, on Mount Athos

Commemorated 13 January — Repose on Mount Athos

Maximus the Hut-burner (c. 1270 – c. 1365) was one of the great hesychast fathers of Mount Athos in the fourteenth century. Born Manuel at Lampsakos on the Hellespont, he became a monk in his youth, and after years of wandering ascesis came to the Holy Mountain, where for a long time he lived as a fool-for-Christ, feigning madness to hide his sanctity and roaming the wilderness without a fixed dwelling: whenever he built himself a hut of branches he would burn it and move on, whence his surname Kavsokalyvites, "the Hut-burner." Granted, at the summit of Athos, a vision of the Mother of God, he received the gift of unceasing prayer and of clairvoyance. When Gregory of Sinai came to the Mountain he saw through the pretence and called Maximus "an earthly angel," and persuaded him to give up his wandering and to teach; thereafter emperors and monks sought his counsel. He reposed about 1365, and is kept on January 13.

Manuel of Lampsakos

The saint was born about 1270 at Lampsakos on the Asian shore of the Hellespont, and given in baptism the name Manuel. Raised in piety and educated at the church of the Mother of God in his city, he was drawn from childhood to a great devotion to the Theotokos; the tradition tells that once, venerating her icon, he felt a warmth and a flame pass from the image into his heart, and from that hour the Jesus Prayer never ceased within him. At about seventeen he left his home and became a monk, placing himself under an elder named Mark in Macedonia, whom the account calls the finest spiritual guide of that country; after his teacher's death he passed under other ascetics, and for a time frequented Constantinople and the church of Blachernae before withdrawing to the wilderness.

The Holy Mountain and the feigned madness

Maximus came at length to Mount Athos, settling first near the Great Lavra of Saint Athanasius. There, to conceal the height of his ascetic attainment and to flee the esteem of men, he took up the hard way of the fool-for-Christ: he "played the madman," behaving as though out of his wits, so that the monks held him in contempt and left him alone with God. He would not keep a settled cell but wandered the ridges and ravines of the Mountain; when he made himself a rough hut of branches he would presently set fire to it and move elsewhere — and from this he was named Kavsokalyvites, "the burner of huts," and the desolate place he haunted on the south of the peninsula came to be called Kapsokalyvia after him.

The vision on the summit

Climbing to the very summit of Athos, where the chapel of the Transfiguration stands, Maximus kept vigil in prayer, and there — the tradition holds — the Mother of God appeared to him in glory, surrounded by angels and bearing her divine Son, and commissioned him to remain on the Holy Mountain and to settle at its foot, promising that he would become a guide and teacher of many; from her he received grace against the demons and the confirmation of unceasing prayer. This vision the hymns of his feast make the centre of his life: he is "the initiate of the Theotokos," the one whom the Virgin herself instructed.

Gregory of Sinai and the later years

The turning-point of his public life was his meeting with Gregory of Sinai, the great teacher of hesychast prayer, who came to Athos in the first half of the fourteenth century. Gregory questioned the supposed madman and, discerning the grace hidden under the pretence, began to call him "an earthly angel" and a true bearer of the prayer of the heart. He entreated Maximus to lay aside his feigned folly and his ceaseless wandering, and to live where others might be edified by him. Maximus obeyed: he settled at last in a cave near the Lavra and received those who came to him. His gift of clairvoyance became famous — the emperors John V Palaiologos and John VI Kantakouzenos are said to have visited him to hear his predictions — and the abbots of the Mountain testified to his wonders; Theophanes, later abbot of Vatopedi, wrote that he had himself seen Maximus carried through the air from one place to another. His conversations on prayer and the ascetic life were recorded by his disciples, and some of his teaching passed into the Philokalia.

Repose

Maximus reposed in peace near the Great Lavra about the year 1365, at a great age — the tradition says ninety-five years — and was glorified after his death, as in his life, by many miracles. He is honoured on the Holy Mountain as one of its foremost saints, the father of the settlement of Kapsokalyvia that bears his name.

Feast and commemoration

Maximus is commemorated on January 13 (church date; Old Calendar civil January 26), within the afterfeast of the Theophany. His feast is kept with particular solemnity on Mount Athos, and above all at the skete of Kapsokalyvia that grew up in the place of his wandering. The Greek Menaion and the later Athonite service appoint proper hymns hailing him as the "divine wonder of Athos" and the "initiate of the Theotokos."

Hymns

Apolytikion — Tone 5 (plagal of the first)

From thy mother's womb, O venerable Maximus, thou wast set apart unto God as a vessel of election; thou wast counted worthy, as Moses, of the divine darkness, and to foresee things far off, as the great Samuel. O divine wonder of Athos, initiate of the Mother of God, intercede thou, O Father, on our behalf.

Iconography

Maximus is depicted as an aged Athonite ascetic — long white beard, monastic schema and mantle — often shown against the peak of Athos, sometimes with a burning hut at his feet to mark his surname, and in the developed Athonite type receiving the vision of the Mother of God with the Christ-child upon the summit. No public-domain image identified as this saint (as distinct from the many modern copyrighted Athonite icons) was found; the entry is noted as wanting an icon.

Disputed questions

  • The dates. His birth is placed variously between about 1270 and 1285, and his death in 1365 or (in some accounts) 1380; the entry follows the common reckoning of a repose about 1365 at about ninety-five years of age.
  • Not to be confused with the many other saints named Maximus — above all Maximus of Moscow (†1434), the Russian fool-for-Christ of the same generation and calling, with whom the shared type invites confusion; and with Maximus the Confessor and Maximus the Greek (both January 21), and the martyrs of the name. This Maximus is the Athonite hesychast and hut-burner.

Sources

  1. The Athonite Life of Saint Maximus the Hut-burner (the vitae by Niphon, his disciple, Theophanes of Vatopedi, and others of the fourteenth–fifteenth centuries) — the birth at Lampsakos, the feigned madness, the burning of the huts, the vision on the summit, the meeting with Gregory of Sinai, the clairvoyance, and the death about 1365.
  2. Nikodemos the Hagiorite, Synaxaristes, January 13 — the synaxarion account of the saint.
  3. Greek Menaion and the Athonite service for January 13 — the office and the apolytikion (Greek verified for the translation above).
  4. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, January 13 (consulted live) — the narrative of Manuel of Lampsakos, the flame from the icon of the Theotokos, the fool-for-Christ ascesis, Gregory of Sinai's recognition, and the repose.