Writings
from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart
By Kadloubovsky, E.
1992/07 - Faber & Faber
0571163939 - Trade Paper
Our Price $19.95 
Related Books: Christianity
and Hesychasm, Scripture
and Sacred Texts, Prayer
Review by Vincent Rossi
The four volumes (soon to be five) of the Philokalia in English have
been justly hailed as a great publishing event, making widely available
the greatest and most profound compendium of spiritual writings in the
Orthodox Christian Tradition. This volume, Writings from the Philokalia
on Prayer of the Heart, was published early in the Fifties, and is
undoubtedly the spark that set off the whole Philokalia enterprise. Also
a translation from the Philokalia, only from the seven volume Russian
tranlation of the renowned starets, Theophan the Recluse, Writings from
the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart is a one-volume compilation from
the much larger collection, and this can be said to be its chief virtue:
the selections were clearly chosen with an eye to texts that are of the
most immediate and practical use by the reader. There is every
indication that the selection may have been made by a wise spiritual
elder for one of his disciples, creating a "portable"
Philokalia, as it were. Readers of the Philokalia are probably all
acquainted with the wonderful little book, The Way of the Pilgrim, which
tells an outwardly charming but deeply serious story of the search by an
unnamed Russian pilgrim for a method of prayer that will fulfill the
Scriptural command to pray without ceasing. A volume like this one,
possibly even the very same texts as contained herein, is said to be the
Philokalia that the Pilgrim himself carried on his travels through 19th
Century Russia. As such, for all those with an insatiable spiritual
hunger for communion with God, Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of
the Heart, will be a spiritual treasure to return to again and again.
