From publishers

One elder said: "There are many good and pious priests, but one out of a thousand can properly guide a person's spiritual life – this is a special gift of God."

The author of the advice and instructions collected in our publication, Father Valentin (Mordasov) (1998), was just such a spiritual father. He devoted all his free time from Divine services to his flock. As to an inexhaustible source, suffering people were drawn to him, seeking spiritual enlightenment or simply life advice.

Along with complex purely personal questions, parishioners and pilgrims often had questions that could be conditionally titled: "How to live in a Christian way?", "How to be saved" or "What is good for a believer to know", etc. There were a great many such questions, and Fr. Valentin gave his blessing to write down the answers to some of the most interesting and necessary of them. Father rarely said anything on his own, all his advice was based on the teaching of the Holy Fathers. Only those questions that were not explained in church books, he solved with the greatest caution, relying on his vast spiritual experience and prayer.

Distinguished by great philanthropy, Father Valentine, however, did not strive to please anyone except God. He believed that pleasing a person often makes him sin against the Truth. Therefore, do not be embarrassed if some of his advice seems difficult or wrong. Our pride leads us to question, that is, to answer a very clear answer with a new question. If you follow this path, then even the most useful advice will become useless.

It is better to remember that the truth of God is often inconvenient for human weakness and that one must be able to take bitter medicine, see one's sinfulness and move one's depraved being to repentance and humility. Ignorance of sin does not exempt one from responsibility for it, knowledge encourages one to fight against it.

Father Valentine's many years of pastoral experience, his awareness of his great responsibility for his advice before God, and his constant prayerful lifting up to God for spiritual discernment give us the opportunity to hope that his advice, which is most fully presented in this book, will be very useful for many believers.

A collection is a small spool, but expensive —

can replace the entire "Philokalia"

1. Does our salvation depend on external circumstances?