Monasticism has many definitions.
One of them is martyrdom. Monasticism is considered to be a new type of
martyrdom. Reading Metropolitan Kallistos’ book The Orthodox Church, I came across an interesting Celtic text – an Irish
homily from the 7th century which relates the two, i.e. the ascetic
way of life and martyrdom:
“Now there are three kinds of
martyrdom which are accounted as a Cross to a man, white martyrdom, green
martyrdom, and red martyrdom. White martyrdom consists in a man’s abandoning
everything he loves for God’s sake…Green martyrdom consists in this, that by
means of fasting and labour he frees himself from his evil desires, or suffers
toil in penance ad repentance. Red martyrdom consists in the endurance of a
Cross or death for Christ’s sake”[1].
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