Quietness & Emotional Life
Diakrisis Yearbook of Theology and Philosophy December 30, 2025 Daniela Dumbravã
This article explores what it means to question quietness (hēsychia), treating a state cultivated in long silence as something that can eventually be brought to speech after an unpredictable wait. The primary witness is the spiritual autobiography of Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov, read alongside transcripts of his Monday meetings with a monastic community and recorded conversations from April 2025. Working within the phenomenology of the emotions, particularly Natalie Depraz's account of surprise and affective foreground/background dynamics, the article distinguishes two registers in Sophrony's experience: a durative "mindfulness of death" that abides as a mood, and punctual surprises erupting against it, culminating in contemplation of...