CAMELIA SURUIANU, Towards the ivory tower. The invisible war of Paisie the Great interpreted by
Paul Sterian
While Vasile Voiculescu and Alexandru Mironescu transposed in their poetry the mystical hesychast
experience, Paul Sterian, in The invisible war of Paisie the Great, , intended to achieve a
versifi cation of the Christian teaching which theorizes that kind of living. For the writing to enjoy
the attractiveness of such a text, the author uses the account of a popular saint’s life, in the form
of a tale. The poet is not limited to his biography, but the storyline also includes aspects from the
lives of the holy fathers, so as to get a sum of the most important spiritual experiences that we fi nd
in hagiographic writings. We could say that Paul Sterian is like a creator/narrator of fairytales who
takes different motifs and blends them together according to his own vision. But he groups epic
sequences by the three fundamental steps that orthodox mystique propose in order to achieve soul
union with God: purifi cation from passions, illumination and perfection.
KEYWORDS: anchorite, perfection, prayer, hesychasm, byzantine poetry

CAMELIA SURUIANU