Conclusion of the Conference

One traditional with an infinite variety of faces

Spiritual fatherhood is a tradition with many faces. Let us name a few:

• The tradition of the desert fathers, who had one or more disciples.
• The tradition of St John Climacus, who in his Ladder presents the cenobium as the place of humble obedience (Step 4).
• The cenobitic tradition: St Benedict and St Theodore Studite, who are at the same time the fathers of their communities as such and of each monk individually.
• The tradition of the spiritual direction of laypeople, represented by St Nilus the Ascetic, St Isidore of Pelusium, St Benedict…
• The tradition of married priests as spiritual fathers: St John of Kronstadt, St Alexis Mechev…, in which one sees appearing the image of a “monastery in the world” (which doubtless could have inspired Father Paul Couturier and his idea of an “invisible monastery” in view of prayer for Christian unity).
• Should a person have one or more spiritual fathers? Providential meetings are often God’s visitations that put one on the road towards the Father, as is seen, for instance, in the apophtegmata (which present both the figure of spiritual children of one father or the practice of consulting several fathers).