One of the features of Russian Orthodox Christianity has been theprominence of monasteries. Soon after the conversion of Russia there wasfounded the monastery of the Caves in Kiev; later on, there was establishedby St Sergei of Radonezh the famous monastery of the Trinity (now called theSergei-Trinity Lavra) outside Moscow. Monasticism had been a feature ofChristianity since the fourth century. At the heart of monasticism iscommitment to the life of prayer, and in the earliest texts onwards we find7discussions about how to maintain a life of continual prayer. In fourteenthcenturyByzantium there arose a controversy about the so-called hesychastmonks (‘hesychast’ being derived from the Greek hesychia, quietness) aboutclaims that, through continual prayer, there could be attained the vision of theuncreated light of the Godhead itself. Hesychast monks were important inthe bringing of Christianity to the region around Moscow in the fourteenthcentury (the circle of St Sergei). The notion of contemplating the uncreatedlight of the Godhead is manifest in iconography, especially of theTransfiguration of the Lord, about this time. The hesychast monks came to beassociated with a practice of inward prayer (‘prayer of the heart’) achieved bypractice of the Jesus Prayer (‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy onme, a sinner’): a prayer that became very popular in nineteenth-centuryRussia, as the famous book, The Way of the Pilgrim, bears witness.