Mount Athos is periodically renewed. During the 18th century, there was a re-creation of the Inner Tradition on Mount Athos, which then spread elsewhere. A key figure in this expansion was Paisious Velitchkovsky, who went on to renew the inner tradition in Russia. Velitchkovsky was what the Eastern church knows as an elder (Stressor Geronte), and it was he who introduced into Russia the current form of the practice of eldership or starchestvo, teaching that - whether lay or ordained - certain people of great experience, knowledge or consciousness could serve the Christian as spiritual guides.

" Starchestvo was the practice of laymen appealing for spiritual counsel to certain monks known for their piety and wisdom, called Startsi. The centre of the movement was at Optina Pustyn, a monastery near Tula in Central Russia. The tradition of Starchestvo was started there by Father Leonid ( d.1841), a disciple of the famous monk Paissy Velitchkovsky, who introduced it into Russian Church life at the end of the eighteenth Century" . ( Nicholas Zernov, Moscow, The Third Rome )

The elders are regarded as superb spiritual directors, genuinely capable of leading people on the way to Salvation, and sometimes are credited with miraculous powers. Even today many of them, after their death, are recognised as saints.