The Eastern Christian spiritual tradition is not composed of “schools” as in the West, where they are typically associated with a particular religious order (for example, Benedictine, Carmelite, or Franciscan). Yet there is more than one approach in the East. The one favored on Athos is known as hesychasm, from the Greek word hesychia, translated as “stillness.” It flourished especially in the fourteenth century on Athos, at a time when a controversy arose over the