Towards the rediscovery of the meaning of asceticism

This article reports on the 19th congress of the Orthodox Youth of the South, held in Grans (near Marseille) over the three days of Western Pentecost, and attended by seventy people. In the form of an event report, it presents the talks given by Father Boris Bobrinskoy as well as the exchanges in groups and in plenary session. The central idea is that the contemporary lack of interest in asceticism, or the recourse to Far Eastern spiritualities, results from its reduction to an impoverished legalism, foreign to the living Tradition of the Church. Drawing on Pauline texts, the congress rediscovered asceticism as a permanent "training" in life in Christ: a paschal and liberating approach aimed at the transfiguration of the whole person, body and soul, by the Holy Spirit, with a view to the restoration of the divine image and likeness.