Today, on February 28th or 29th according to the Julian Calendar, the Orthodox Church keeps the memory of St. John Cassian. In his introduction on Orthodox Gaul, Fr. Seraphim Rose says concerning Orthodox Monasticism in 5th and 6th-century Gaul: “The most general picture of monasticism of these countries in the West is to be found in the writings of St. Gregory of Tours, particularly in the Life of the Fathers. … To understand the monastic movement which St. Gregory describes, we can begin in no better way than by a brief account of the teachings of St. [John] Cassian.” St. John Cassian was born around 350 in Marseilles in the region of Gaul in the Western Roman Empire – hence his epithet, “the Roman.” According to his birthplace and the language in which he wrote, he belonged to the West, but the spiritual home of the saint was always the Orthodox East. In Bethlehem, in a monastery near the place where the Savior was born, John was received into monasticism. After a two-year stay in the monastery in 390, Cassian and his spiritual brother Herman traveled for seven years through Thebaida, the Scythian desert, Asia Minor and Cappadocia, drawing from the spiritual experience of the numerous ascetics they encountered along the way. Having returned in 397 for a short time to Bethlehem, the brothers remained in complete solitude for three years, and then went to Constantinople, where they were able to hear St. John Chrysostom speak. In Constantinople, Monk Cassian assumed the rank of deacon. In 405, the Constantinople clergy sent him to Pope Innocent I in Rome at the head of an embassy to seek protection for the innocently suffering saint. Cassian was ordained to the rank of presbyter in his homeland. In Marseilles, for the first time in Gaul, he established both a monastery and a convent in the manner of the Eastern monasteries. He died peacefully in 435 and left behind a rich legacy of spiritual writings. |
