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Hesychasm

Hesychasm (from Greek "stillness, rest, quiet, silence") is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church that flourished in the Balkans during the 14th century. A mystical movement, Hesychasm preached a technique of mental prayer that, when repeated with proper breathing, might enable one to see the divine light. Emperor Ivan Alexander (r. 1331–71) was impressed by the practice of Hesychasm; he became a patron of Hesychastic monks. In 1335, he gave refuge to Gregory of Sinai and provided funds for the construction of a monastery near Paroria in the Strandzha Mountains in the southeast of the country; it attracted clerics from Bulgaria, Byzantium, and Serbia. Hesychasm established itself as the dominant ideology of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church with the work of the disciple of Gregory of Sinai. Gregory's disciple Theodosius of Tarnovo translated his writing into Bulgarian and reached his peak during the tenure of the last medieval Bulgarian patriarch Euthymius of Tarnovo (1375–94). Theodosius founded the Kilifarevo Monastery near Tarnovo, which became the new Hesychastic and literary centre of the country. Hesychastic intellectuals maintained regular connections with each other regardless of their nationalities, which significantly affected the cultural and religious exchange in the Balkans.