Alexandra Kalinovskaya
St. James prays for us in the hustle and bustle of the modern world.
Hieromonk Athanasius (Deriugin)
We hear about the most important icon veneration in the prayer that a priest reads when he blesses icons, which says that icons are created so that, looking upon them, people would glorify the Lord God and try to emulate the life of the holy God-pleasers depicted on these holy icons.
Bishop Joseph (Korolev)
Our elders could combine unceasing prayer and work. True, it’s not total stillness—we won’t see it at the Optina Monastery. But there was the path of cenobitic monasticism, there was monastic life in the skete and there was eremitic life.
The elders of Optina were skilled spiritual physicians who penetrated into the very depths of the human soul.
Sergei Vityazev
St. Philotheos, a disciple of St. Gregory Palamas and an apologist for hesychasm, took a direct part in the Church life of the State of Muscovy and influenced the destiny of Russian Orthodoxy.
