FROM THE PUBLISHERS

St. Theophan the Recluse, as a hieromonk, from 1847 to 1853 stayed in Jerusalem, as part of the first Russian Ecclesiastical Mission.

In the Lavra of St. Sava the Sanctified, which had a rich library, the young hieromonk became acquainted with the great and never-interrupted tradition of the ancient asceticism of the monasteries of the East: the habit of mental work and "reading alone and listening with attention and diligence to the word of God, the writings of the fathers and other spiritually beneficial books." Self-sacrificing service in Jerusalem full of spiritual labors played a huge role in the future fate of the future Bishop and in many ways determined the formation of the personality of an outstanding ascetic and theologian.

"When I was in Jerusalem, the Elder of Savva gave me a very large Patericon, imposing the obedience of translating it...," the saint wrote to Archimandrite Andrew in 1892. I worked on the translation. Why leave work useless?"

For unknown reasons, the translation of His Grace was never published. 116 years later, we fulfill the wish and blessing of the saint and publish all the surviving fragments of the translation of the Patericon, which were discovered in the cell of the Right Reverend after his death, considering it not superfluous to add to them also his early translations from the same Savvinsky Patericon, which were prepared by the saint while still in Jerusalem, published for the first time in 1858-1860, and republished in 1891. In the opinion of His Grace, "what is written in them (these translations) is the fruit of the writers' own experience and knowledge (of the Savvin elders), and not borrowing from previous ascetic writings."

The Testament of St. Theophan the Recluse

My beloved reader! Do you want me to show you a thing that is more honorable than gold and silver, precious beads and precious stones? Nothing can you gain and buy the Kingdom of Heaven, future joys and eternal peace, but with this thing. This is reading in private and listening with attention and diligence to the word of God, the writings of the fathers and other spiritually beneficial books. No one can be saved if he does not read or listen to the holy soul-saving writings. Just as a bird without wings cannot fly to heights, so the mind without holy books cannot think of how to be saved.

Reading in private and listening to the holy books with attention and diligence is the mother of all virtues and the teacher of every good work. Reading in private and listening with attention and diligence to the holy books, giving birth to every virtue and growing good dispositions of the heart, drives away from us every evil sinful passion and every lust, desire and action of demons. Reading in private and listening with attention and diligence to the holy books over all the occupations and labors that those zealous for salvation raise, the Holy Fathers appoint as if they were an elder and a king. It arouses and guides man to all virtues, and places him at the right hand of God.

But whoever does not read and listen with attention and diligence to the holy books, for this reason falls into all kinds of passions, into sinful misfortunes, into demonic snares and into all kinds of evil. He forgets his mortal end, and the coming of Christ, and the evil torments, and the joy of the Kingdom of Heaven and the most radiant paradise. Such a person is pleased with the vain and flattering short life of this world. He distances himself from God through negligence and inattention, and the demons, like a mist, cover the intellectual memory, darken the intellectual brightness, bring forgetfulness of virtues, and constantly remind the mind of evil and renew evil thoughts in it.