FOOLS IN CHRIST

FOOLS IN CHRIST. This phrase signifies at once a class of saints and a type of asceticism (q.v.). In Greek, these are the saloi and in Russian the yurodeviye. The first salos is generally taken to be Symeon of Emesa in the late 6th c. Although other examples followed in Byzantium (q.v.), e.g., Alexios, the “man of God,” Russia was perhaps the true home of the holy fool. That Church, indeed, recently canonized the 18th c. yurodeva, Xenia of Petersburg. As a type, the holy fool seeks humility by feigning madness, thus exposing him- or herself to ridicule and, often, physical abuse. Even before its advent as a discernible category of asceticism, such behavior was not unknown among the early practitioners of monasticism (q.v.). Just as other great ascetics, the holy fools have often been perceived as gifted with extraordinary charismata, e.g., clairvoyance, the spirit of prophecy, healing (q.v.), etc.

On the one hand, their deliberate rejection of social status-similar to other notable ascetics (e.g., the stylites)-often accorded them a paradoxical access to and influence on the leaders of Church and state. On the other hand, this category of saint has been a controversial one over the centuries. At times the Church has questioned whether or not to recognize it. The basis of the controversy regarding holy fools may be summarized to say (possibly, too simply) that the saints could not easily be distinguished from the retarded, the demented, and others. Thus, the term “holy fool” frequently had, and still has, a slightly pejorative connotation. One may find similar phenomena in Western Europe through the medieval period, for example Francis of Assisi, or even, in a wholly secular context, the character of the fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear.