Daily Talks and
Other Writings 		About Herbert Schwartz Mamaleh-Larisa

 
staretz
kiss

 


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This pastel drawing was sketched by Herbert at a time when a well known psychiatrist was visiting us. He called it "The Suffering Psychiatrist", and I believe it will be evident from the following introduction that his view of a genuinely Christian psychiatrist corresponds to the traditional Orthodox image of the staretz. In the words of one of Herbert's disciples:

As he explained it to us, the face is the face of a psychiatrist and the surrealist profusion of forms around him represents the fantasies and obsessions and disordered emotions which he explores in and with the patient. His own posture and expression, however, which dominate the picture, reveal the wisdom and fortitude of the doctor but above all his suffering, as he takes on the whole burden of the sins and sufferings of the patient and makes that burden his own. (Filioque, Vol. II, no. 2, Feb. 1982, ed. Cecilia M. Mellet, cover page.)
This explanation of the picture describes very well Herbert's own role in the community that grew up around him, as well as the role of the staretz in Orthodox tradition. The angel hovering over the right shoulder of the spiritual doctor especially places the drawing squarely in the Orthodox ikonographical tradition. It is a true ikon of the staretz.

 

spirit