a hermit for Christ
living in silence
and solitude
praying | studying | helping others
With the permission of my spiritual director (a Roman Catholic priest) I’ve as of mid-2026 fully retreated into a solitary, silent, and watchful life, dedicated to praying, waiting, searching, and discovering God (+) both ‘in here’ and ‘out there’.
Based on traditionally well-described and verifiable mystical developments, and only after approximately ten years of intensive spiritual guidance and fact-checking by my spiritual director, I’ve been given - in accordance with canon law - permission to help others who ask me explicitly to do so.
If you’d like to know their experience with me, then you can find it on the comments & commentary page.
You might call me a hermit, a monk, or a fool. You might call me anything in between. I don’t really mind. Fact is that since I was fourteen years old - first unknowingly and later deliberately - I’ve lived my life in the mould of St. Anthony the Hermit: deliberately challenging myself, regularly retreating into uninviting circumstances and/or places, combined with an intensive prayer practice that is primarily focused on meditation, contemplation, and self-emptying.
If you are a Christian and you live - or would like to live - a similar kind of challenging life or at least embed a similar type of focus into your own daily life, then feel free to reach out to me. Either I can help you by email or by phone, or - if necessary - you can come to where I am for as long as is fruitful (anywhere between a minimum of three days and a maximum of six weeks). And if you want to live this life fulltime like I do, well… then let’s discern the possibilities to that step by careful step.
I will never oblige you to do anything, which also means I will never assume responsibility for your spiritual nor for your personal growth. God (+) gave you a free will, which means He (+) gave you a personal responsibility for yourself and for what you do with your life. What I can and will do for you is answer your questions, provide you with guidance, give you advice, examples, prayer techniques for fruitful meditation and contemplation, and share my own experiences with you whenever I think that might be of benefit to you. But ultimately, what you do with all that is up to you. In other words: I will not be your guru, and I will never ask you to obey. As already many older and more modern Desert Fathers have rightly foreseen: those days are over. And in case you are protestant or from any other Christian denomination, then rest assured that I will never demand from you that you must become a Roman Catholic like I am, provided you do believe in the one and only triune God (+) and in the Apostles’ Creed.
In keeping with God’s (+) command and in line with the tradition of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, all my religious help is given away for free. This means that I’d prefer not to receive any financial nor material donations (and certainly not in a quid pro quo fashion), lest this should later be cause for giving or taking offence. For instance people thinking, saying, or feeling: "We have supported bartholomew, and look now how he is spending our gratitude”.
Instead, you will help me most:
- by giving your prayerful thanks to God (+)
- by being kind to others too
- and by including me in your prayers (preferably asking our Heavenly Father (+) on my behalf whether I might finally start to listen and obey Him a little bit better than in the past)