Early Life
Before becoming a monk, Nil Sorsky worked as a scribe and was engaged in book copying. Later in his life, he took monastic vows at the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, which had been known for its hostile stance towards monastic landownership. The founder of the monastery – Saint Kirill of Beloozero – was himself known for rejecting villages that had been offered to him by devout nobles.
Kirill’s followers adopted his ways and would later become known as the startsy from out the Volga with Nil Sorsky as their leader. Soon, he went on a journey to the Holy Land and visited Palestine, Constantinople, and Mount Athos, acquainting himself with a mystical doctrine of Hesychasm and reading patristic literature. Upon his return to Russia (between 1473 and 1489), Nil Sorsky founded a cloister on the Sora River (hence, Nil Sorsky, or Nil of Sora) not far from the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, where he would settle down with his followers. He wrote extensively.
Read more about this topic: Nil Sorsky
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“The girl must early be impressed with the idea that she is to be “a hand, not a mouth”; a worker, and not a drone, in the great hive of human activity. Like the boy, she must be taught to look forward to a life of self-dependence, and early prepare herself for some trade or profession.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“When you realize how hard it is to know the truth about yourself, you understand that even the most exhaustive and well-meaning autobiography, determined to tell the truth, represents, at best, a guess. There have been times in my life when I felt incredibly happy. Life was full. I seemed productive. Then I thought,”Am I really happy or am I merely masking a deep depression with frantic activity?” If I don’t know such basic things about myself, who does?”
—Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)