Book one. My life with Elder Joseph
Days passed. The old man was getting worse. We no longer left him alone; one of us was always nearby. One day I was sitting with the Elder in his cell. He was in his chair, and I supported him from behind. Suddenly the door of the church opened, and then the door of the cell where the Elder and I were opened. I saw a huge monk without a beard, in a kukul, with a cross on him, in the Great Schema vestment with a red pattern - as was the case when the angel appeared to Saint Pachomius. His appearance was pleasant and stern at the same time. He was all shining with white light. He evoked fear and love in the soul, two of these feelings at the same time - fear and love. As soon as the door opened, he looked me straight in the eyes and then at the Elder. Then he closed the door and left. When he left, I had a clear feeling that he told us: “Until the time comes.” I was a thousand percent sure that it was Archangel Michael. Then the Elder told me:
- Boy, have you seen him?
- Saw.
– It was Archangel Michael. He told us: “Until the time comes.”
He did not open his mouth, but angels and saints speak with inner speech. And I realized: “until the time” means that after some time he will come again. Indeed, not even a month had passed before he came and took the Elder.
* * *
One day I fulfilled my obedience: I cooked for the brethren and looked after the Elder. When I was cooking in the yard, I said the Jesus Prayer with my lips: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me! Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!” According to the commandment and advice of the Elder, during obedience I read the Jesus Prayer out loud. Holding a rosary in his hands, the Elder watched me. Hearing that I was constantly saying a prayer, he was very happy. For if he saw that someone was not saying the Jesus Prayer, he thought: “Is the brother praying to himself? Is his mind wandering? And as a spiritual father, he was worried. But when the Elder heard us, he was sure that we were really praying. And while I was preparing with prayer, the Elder said to me, rejoicing at my prayer and knowing about his imminent departure:
- My child, say the Jesus Prayer - it will be a consolation in your life. Hold it - and everything will go like clockwork. Keep the Jesus Prayer and you will succeed in everything. Don't be afraid. After my departure, this prayer will be everything for you, it will support you on your spiritual and monastic path. Don't leave her, my child.
He found where the pulse beats. And the power of his words was not the same as that of those who reason in theory.
“With your prayers, Starce, I will hold her.”
And I continued cooking. And the Elder sat next to me and listened to me pray.
* * *
Shortly before his death, I thought: “When the Elder passes away, what will I do? I will go to a quiet place where no one will find me. I will not serve, I will make crosses, take a little food and crackers for them once every couple of months and go home again. And as the Elder taught me to pray, so I will do. We know what rosaries and bows are. So I will disappear. I won’t communicate with people.”
However, the Elder understood what I was thinking and said:
“Look, you’re all shriveled up and good for nothing, so when I leave, you’ll stay here.” I will leave you the Church of the Annunciation and the novice Father Timothy.73
- Bless you.
I didn't mind. Usually, when the Elder dies, you are freed. But we maintained obedience even after the death of our Elder.
* * *
Although the Elder was very sick and weak, a few days before his death he told me for guidance and spiritual help: “My child, I feel a whole paradise within me. Very great grace. The Jesus Prayer goes on like clockwork. Not a single passion stirs. God's blessing! I don’t feel war, I have no thoughts, there are no uprisings. All this is not a today’s achievement, all this has happened since my youth. This is the fruit of youthful labors. Then all this was born, and now the well-deserved reward comes.
Do you see what benefit the labors of youth brought? Do you see that nothing was wasted? God counted every detail. And for one glass of water a Christian is rewarded. Moreover, monastic labors are rewarded before God: here with grace and blessing, but in another world they are “put into an account” in the bank of God. And when the monk leaves this world, when he finds himself above, in another world, then he will “take off” this entire amount of work. That is, the savings collected by his labors await him. And the greater the amount that he puts there while staying here, the richer he will become in heaven.
Therefore, if you do not strive, do not work, do not work now, in your youth, then in your old age you will not have any income. You will not receive a spiritual pension. So try, my child, to work hard so that when the years pass and you grow old, you will gain all this. As our grandfathers said: work in youth to gain in old age.
So Father Arseny and I worked a lot, and now God comes and rewards us for our work. Now that we are in old age and are already leaving earthly life, we feel all this in our soul. I'm telling you this so you remember. After all, you are still small, and my words will be useful to you tomorrow.”
* * *
What were the works of the Elder? First of all, there was silence. A very important virtue in order to succeed in mental prayer. The silence is not only of the bodily lips, but mainly of the spiritual lips, the lips of the mind. The mind should not be scattered and wander aimlessly here and there. Such distraction of the mind is a serious obstacle to mental prayer.
The elder was the last teacher of mental prayer. He had not only prayer, but also sobriety. He learned the mystery of heartfelt prayer in its entirety. He cognized, perceived and carried within himself the uncreated light. Such was the beauty, such was the fruit of the Elder’s labors, hard and long-term labors.
He himself admitted a few days before his blessed death: “My child, God has deigned me to know the full depth, height and breadth of mental prayer. I was very bold and penetrated into all types of prayer. I've experienced everything. For when grace approaches a person, then the mind - this shameless bird, as Abba Isaac calls it - wants to penetrate everywhere, to experience everything. He begins from the creation of Adam and ends with such depths and heights that, unless God puts obstacles in his way, he will not return back.”
* * *
I cannot forget another incident that occurred shortly before the death of the Elder. I was in the yard of his kaliva plant. The elder went out into the courtyard, looked at the sky and said:
- Oh my God! You have such a treasure, but there are no people who would acquire it and accept it. We have such enormous wealth, but we have no one to pass it on to and leave it as an inheritance.
I, a baby in spiritual life, could not then comprehend the entire deepest meaning of this grief of the Elder. Now I understand him.
Where are such giants now? There is none of them. There are spiritual fathers, but not to this extent.
* * *
At the very beginning of my novitiate, the Elder gave me a patristic saying: “If you please your Elder, you please God.” Pleasing the Elder became for me the goal of life: “If I do not succeed in this, then I will find myself good for nothing.” And I have always strived for this goal. I prayed: “Grant me, O God, to inherit the blessing of the Elder.” I served the Elder until the last moment and did everything to best fulfill my duty to him. But in the last moments of his life, I wanted to know whether I had pleased him or not, regardless of what my conscience told me. I wanted to hear this from the Elder. Of course, I didn’t want to ask about this willfully and get ahead of the Elder with my question. But I was very worried whether I had achieved my goal, and so I asked him:
- Elder, I have lived all these years, worrying day and night about pleasing you. Therefore, everything I did, I did for you. Have I succeeded in this by the grace of God?
“As you consoled me, my child, may God console you,” he answered me.
Phew, I've calmed down. These words meant everything to me.
Shortly before the Elder’s death, I told him:
- Elder, can you pray for me now?
- Come, my child, I’ll give you the “blessing of oil.”
He hugged me, pressed my head to his chest and with his hand he baptized me, baptized me, baptized me, saying prayers. This was reward for all my work. I didn't want anything else. But besides this, to my great consolation, he told me something else:
“If I gain courage before God, then before you leave this world, I will come to notify you of your departure and will come to pick you up when you die.”
Will he come? Will you help me when my gloomy and black soul comes out? Great was his boldness before God!
* * *
Some time before his death I asked:
- Elder, will you serve us forty-year-old? One is me, and one is Father Charalampius?
This great and wise man of God answered me:
“If I hoped to be saved only by this, then let my mother weep for me!” Then I would be the most unhappy person. But so that your conscience is calm, serve half of it for you, and half for Father Charalampius.
His whole concern was to be prepared in advance and not wait for help from others in order to find salvation. He was ready because every night at his vigil he reflected on how he had lived the day, what passion was bothering him, and again began to fight it in order to destroy it. Such work, preparing him for the exodus, took place in the prayer of the Elder every night. And she prepared him to meet death, I would say, perfectly. The elder did everything that is possible for a person to do. That's why he told me one day when the end was approaching:
- My child, how will I get across the bridge? That's the whole difficulty. After this, by the grace of God, the account with God is settled, as far as it depends on the person. Just how to cross the bridge?
His conscience was so clear and calm. The fact that he was very well prepared was shown by his last minutes: he cried out of great love for Christ and the Most Holy Theotokos. His conscience did not accuse him of anything. He expected death as a holiday, as a happy day, as the highest deliverance from the shackles of this world. He eagerly desired to see the Face of God and to enjoy and be satisfied with His beauty, to enter the rank of angels, to which he constantly strived to belong all his life.
* * *
The Elder’s love for the Most Holy Theotokos cannot be described. Until now, I have not yet met a person who would love so much, who would venerate, after God, the Most Holy Theotokos, like the Elder. Tears flowed from his eyes just because he uttered Her name, or saw Her icon, or heard someone sing some hymn in Her honor. One day he had insomnia, and he explained to me the reason for it: “Only because I remembered the Mother of God, I could not sleep.” That's how he loved her.
In his letters we see how he loved the Most Holy Theotokos: “I cannot kiss the icon of the Mother of God once and walk away. But when I come close to her, she attracts me to her like a magnet. And I need to be alone. Because I want to kiss her for hours. And some kind of living breath fills my soul from within, and I am filled with grace, and it does not allow me to leave. Love, the zeal of God, a blazing fire, which, as soon as you enter the church, precedes you - if the icon is miraculous - and spreads such a fragrant breath that you remain for hours in admiration, being not in yourself, but in a fragrant paradise. Our Mother of God gives such grace to those who keep their bodies pure... All the saints have created many praises of our Mother of God, but I, poor one, have not found a more beautiful and sweeter praise and name than to call on Her like this at every moment: “My Mother.” ! My sweet Mother!“ And as soon as we call on Her, She immediately rushes to the rescue. You don’t have time to say: “Most Holy Theotokos, help me!” - and immediately, as if lightning illuminates the mind and fills the heart with light. And it draws the mind to prayer and the heart to love. And often a whole night passes in sobs and sweet-sounding voices praising Her, and above all, the One Carried by Her.”74
He had been asking Her to take him away for a long time to rest. It happened that he held the icon of the Mother of God in his arms and said with tears: “When will you come for me? When will you accept my soul? Therefore, the good God and the Most Holy Theotokos honored the Elder with great honor: on the day of Her Dormition they granted him dormition, clearly showing how the Mother of God responded to his desire to meet Her, how clearly she met and rewarded him.
* * *
The old man suffered greatly. Therefore, at the beginning of July, he decided to call the priest from the monastery of St. Anna, Father Ananias, to perform unction. The elder wanted us to ask God to take his soul. However, God did not take him away immediately, but informed him that he would leave on the day of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then the Elder told me:
– On what day of the week, my child, does my Mother’s holiday fall?
I looked at the calendar and told him the day.
– On this day I will leave the world. Bring here, my child, the clothes you will dress me in, otherwise you may not find them that day. Then you will be upset that you cannot find it. Therefore, we will prepare it now, so that you can be calm and not think about it anymore. There is my cassock, there is my cassock, there is a belt, there is a schema. Bring it all here, my child, put it in a bag and hang it up there. And when the time comes, you will have everything ready.
Everything is like a good owner.
Days passed, it was very difficult, my heart was bad all the time. There were still many days left before his death when he told me:
- Look, buy a watermelon the day before, take some cheese, knead the dough so that there is fresh bread. May you have enough candles and rosaries so that you can distribute them to the fathers and they will pull the rosary for me. And bury me over there.
I prepared everything, found everything. The elder was so concerned about his outcome that it could seem as if we were talking about a journey and he was simply waiting for a carriage.
We, on the contrary, did everything possible to keep him alive, or at least to keep him from suffering from his illness and not suffocating. The elder, however, told us:
- Don't bother, children. No matter what you do, I will still leave. You just pray for me, so that I don’t encounter any unexpected obstacles.
I served the liturgy and gave communion to the Elder every day. He didn't eat anything, just some crackers and watermelon to take the pills.
* * *
The eve of the Feast of the Assumption has arrived, August 14, old style. Father Arseny and I were in the kitchen when the Elder told me:
“Soak the fish, my child, and let the salt come out to prepare a meal for the fathers for the Dormition.”
And when I finished, he told me:
- Be careful not to keep it in water so that it doesn’t spoil.
This man was preparing to leave, but even at that moment he cared what he would treat us with!
That day early in the morning I told him:
- Old man, should I wash your feet?
He had never allowed me to do this before. But that day he agreed.
- Should I cut your nails?
- Trim it.
He never allowed me to trim them. And they grew up... Mother of God! He never cut them. This was an incomparable man! I could barely cut them with a knife. There was no way to grab them even with wire cutters!
- Elder Arseny, should I wash your feet too?
He didn’t want to, but the Elder said:
- Let him, let the little one have a memory.
So, I washed my feet with it, trimmed my nails. Then he began to choke heavily. I started fanning him and he felt better. Then, out of great contrition, the Elder began to cry. He had been expecting death all his life. After all, his stay here was a feat, and labor, and pain. His soul longed for peace, and so did his body. And although from the very beginning he instilled in us a distinct memory of death, we were very impressed by how close he became to the terrible mystery of death. It seemed that he was preparing for the holiday. So much did his conscience inform him of God's mercy. However, in recent days he has been crying more than usual.
Father Arseny came up and, as best he could, began to console the Elder:
- Elder, you have done so much work, so many prayers throughout your life, shed so many tears! And you cry again! Don't cry anymore, otherwise you'll start suffocating again.
The elder looked at him and sighed:
“Arseny, Arseny...” as if he was telling him: “You don’t understand anything, Arseny.”
The elder did not cry about his sins. He shed tears, for he felt that he was leaving and heading towards his beloved God and his beloved Most Holy Theotokos. Therefore, only he knew what he felt. For us it was shrouded in darkness.
* * *
After tears, his face brightened. It wasn't even obvious that he was sick. At this time, Mr. Sotiris Schinas, publisher of the Holy Mountain Church Bulletin, arrived. Mr. Schinas Sotirakis – as we affectionately called him – was our good friend. He came to subscribe. The elder said:
– Welcome, dear Mr. Sotirakis.
- How are you, Starce, how do you feel? – he asked and kissed his hand.
- I am sick.
“You can’t tell that you’re sick.” You look great.
– Tomorrow you will hear about it.
- Yah! Don't be afraid, Starce. I will be at the festive vigil in the monastery, next to you.
“Then you will hear the funeral bell.”
- Oh, Starche, don’t believe it!
- Fine.
Then the Elder told me:
– Vavulis, give the money to Mr. Schinas and treat him.
I gave him one piece of Turkish delight, cold water, money, and he left. He did not attach any importance to the Elder’s words, because he saw how cheerfully the Elder spoke. The old man was shining, but Mr. Schinas did not know why he was shining.
Before leaving, Mr. Schinas said:
- Great, Starce!
And then he asked him:
– Are all these monks yours?
The Elder thought for a minute. Then he smiled and answered:
– Do you see these nuns? They will conquer the Holy Mountain!
And so it happened. The community of Father Joseph the Younger restored the Vatopedi monastery, Father Haralampiy became abbot in the monastery of St. Dionysius, I became the monastery of Philotheus, and my spiritual children revived the monasteries of Xiropotamus, Karakall and Konstamonit. And Father Ephraim of Katunaksky especially fell in love with the Simonopetra monastery and helped this monastery a lot. The elder foresaw our future. Therefore, on the eve of his death he said:
- There is no blessing for you to live together after my death. Everyone will live separately.
* * *
Evening came, and I had to serve in my Annunciation Church, and then in the Elder’s house, because we had several churches and we served the liturgy in them in turn. This was the only day when the Elder was unable to pray in church, both because of the heat and because he was out of breath. He sat on the balcony next to the temple window and helped sing. With difficulty he sang the Trisagion with us. I served at the altar, he came up and took communion. When he took communion, he said: “To the path of the eternal belly.”
I got ready to go to my cell. The Elder also went to his cell, saying to me:
“Now go and rest and come quickly as soon as it’s dawn: maybe I’ll need you.”
I bowed down, went home, slept a little, woke up, came to the Elder and found him with Father Arseny in the yard, under the grapes. His entire lower body was swollen. It was heart failure. The swelling has reached the heart.
The elder stood up, went out into the open for a while and looked up, looking around at everything from one end to the other. It was as if he had seen it all for the last time, as if he was saying goodbye to the world. Then he sat down again and said to me:
“Father, make sure your fish doesn’t go rotten.” You will give the fathers a watermelon, bread, cheese and a rosary for everyone. Give me my pill.
“Okay,” I said.
I brought some water and he drank it.
- My child, take me to my cell, there is one little matter.
I hugged him to pick him up. But since it was very swollen, and I was completely weak, he told me:
“You can’t raise me alone, call Branko.”
He was a powerfully built and very reverent Serbian novice who loved the Elder very much.75 At that moment Branko was doing something in the garden opposite. I called him and he came. We lifted the Elder and, supporting him, slowly took him inside. They waited outside and then sat him down again on the bench under the grapes in the yard. There he told me:
– My child, I can’t see well today.
- Elder, even if someone were made of iron, even then he would not have endured what you are enduring. What you don’t see now is nothing. All this will count to you as martyrdom.
“Yes,” he answered, “that’s right.”
* * *
After a little time the Elder told me:
“The sun is rising, my child.” Why didn't God take me? It was God’s decision, why does He hesitate to take me? The sun is getting higher, I should have left already.
This was the last visit of the evil one. As soon as he saw that the Elder’s patience had wavered a little, he immediately clung to him, as if he had been watching him all the time. The devil told him: “Since the sun has already risen, it means that the announcement was incorrect. If you hold out yet, you won’t die.” Just think about it! Although the Elder was a giant and a seer of God, at the last moment he, too, was in danger. As soon as the Elder complained, the enemy grabbed him at that very moment; even one minute was enough for him. As soon as a crack appeared in the wall of the house of his soul, the devil immediately tried to place dynamite there to blow up his soul. That’s why I gave him the thought: “You won’t leave, you will continue to suffer.” So he wanted to undermine his faith.
The elder had to go through this moment of weakness so that he would not rely on himself, would not rely on his own strength, and would walk the mortal path with humility. After all, at that moment the devil could have told him: “Well, you saw through me, I set a trap for you, but you defeated me with your experience and your ingenuity!” And God, in order to keep the Elder in humility, seemed to say to him: “Look, if at the last moment I leave you, then you, great and wise in the eyes of people, will be hooked by the devil with just one false thought. You are so worthless, a man of clay. What you taught, I saw in practice: you are clay.”
The earth was disappearing from under the Elder’s feet. He wanted to leave because he suffered and because this desire was from God. But he did not leave at the hour he expected. He thought of leaving at dawn, but God wanted it to happen two hours after sunrise. The elder was not mistaken in foreseeing that he would leave; he correctly understood the message from God that he would leave on the day of the Assumption. But God gave him the last lesson of knowledge of human weakness, a lesson of not relying on oneself. “Did you believe in yourself? Did you believe that you were capable of something? Then you will be powerless without My grace. You will not be able to do anything, no matter how many years you live, no matter how much experience you gain. My power is made perfect in weakness.” That is why the saints of God were unshakable because they realized: “Without the grace of God I am powerless to accomplish even the slightest feat.”
“Old man,” I told him, “God wants it that way.” He does not change His decision.
I saw how sad he was. Suddenly - I don’t know how God enlightened me - I, in an involuntary impulse, boldly said to him:
- Elder, don’t be upset. We will now say a prayer and you will leave.
This is what the Elder was waiting for. He was very smart, spiritual, and quickly grasped even small things. That is, he was waiting for God to show him that the green light had turned on. God warned him, but before that moment he had not yet turned on the green light. And I told him:
– Don’t be upset, in the last moments the devil has many intrigues and he turns everything upside down.
What did I tell him! Student to teacher! I, the boy next to this giant, at that moment turned out to be his benefactor. The elder must have thought: “This little one has received a message from God.” He realized this, and his tears stopped. He asked me:
- Dry my tears.
I wiped them, and the Elder said:
“Take me and sit me near the door, call the fathers, let them bow and take my blessing.”
- Fathers! Go take the Elder's blessing!
They bowed and he said to them:
- Go to your cells and pray the rosary so that I die quickly: I am in a hurry to go to the Savior Christ.
“I,” said Father Arseny, “will not go anywhere!”
“And you go,” the Elder told him.
- Bless you.
We all went away: Father Arseny went to his cell next to him, the Serb went to his cell opposite, Father Haralampy and Father Timofey went to his kaliva below, and I went to my kaliva even lower. There I knelt down and began to ask:
- Archangel, come and take the Elder, because he can’t do it anymore. Since God has decided that he will leave, let it be an hour earlier. We cannot delay any longer, for Satan wants and can do many things to us. Why should the Elder suffer so much, suffocate like that?
As soon as we all left, Father Afanasy came from somewhere and said to the Elder, who was sitting on a bench:
- Elder, the monastery instructed me to collect donations for the patronal feast, for expenses. Give me a blessing so that I can go to the monasteries.
- Father Afanasy, sit here. You'll go later.
- But, Starche, I can’t! I have to go, otherwise I won’t have time.
- Father Afanasy, sit down, otherwise you will repent.
– But I can’t, Starche! Give me your blessing and I will go. I can't, I have to go, I don't have time.
The Elder saw that he was not listening, and then suddenly said:
- Oh, air! I'm suffocating!
- What's happened?
– Take the cardboard and wave to me!
Of course, it was difficult for him to breathe, but at that moment he was not suffocating, he said this in order to keep Father Athanasius, because then he would be tormented by the thought that he was not next to the Elder in his last moments, and he would be overcome by despair. Only the Elder managed to keep him within limits. The elder apparently thought: “Now that I’m gone, if despair takes hold of him, who will stop him?” And so that he would not suffer, the Elder, condescending to his condition, said that he did not have enough air. Poor Father Afanasy took the cardboard and began to fan the Elder - and thus the Elder restrained him. It's a matter of one minute. Despite the fact that the Elder was preparing to die, his mind worked perfectly.
Father Arseny, having heard Father Afanasy, left his cell nearby, since he usually bothered the Elder a lot. He went out to protect the Elder and began to scold Father Afanasy:
– Don’t talk to the Elder like that! Don't you dare treat him like that!
But as soon as Father Arseny saw that the Elder seemed to be suffocating again, he pulled the rope tied to the bell in Father Haralampy’s kaliva below. This served as a signal in cases when he and Father Timothy needed to get up. When Father Arseny was scolding Father Afanasy, the Elder, seizing the moment, said:
- Father Arseny, take off my socks and rub my feet a little, this will make me feel better, otherwise they are swollen.
Did he want to feel better? The man was leaving! The Elder had never done this before in his life. And now he did this so that Father Arseny would not see that he was leaving, for he was very simple. As soon as Father Arseny bent down, the end came.
The elder looked intently up at the sky for two or three minutes; he seemed to see that someone was coming. It must have been the Archangel Michael who promised to come to him, saying: “Until the time comes.” The elder tried to speak to the fathers, to tell them what he saw: he always remained a teacher. He wanted to speak, but stopped, as if speechless. He was not allowed to speak at that hour.
Then he turned around and, filled with clarity and inexpressible spiritual delight, said:
“It’s all over, I’m leaving, bless me.”
With these words, he took the hand of Father Arseny, his inseparable companion, to greet him for the last time. Then he raised his head to the right, calmly opened his lips and eyes two or three times, sighed three times - and that was all. In his right mind and clear memory, he betrayed his soul into the hands of the One whom he desired and for whom he worked from his youth.
But the fathers did not believe that the Elder would die. And they did not immediately understand that he had left, since he left very calmly and in complete sanity. Therefore, Father Afanasy still continued to fan him, and Father Arseny held his head, when Father Charalampius and Father Timofey arrived.
As soon as Father Timothy approached, he immediately told them:
- Stop, elders. Leave his head. He died! Why are you holding it? It's over! Died!
Then they understood and sent Father Timothy to tell me and others. When Father Timofey came to me, I just closed my eyes to pray. Less than a quarter of an hour had passed when the Elder told us to disperse.
This was the death of a true saint. She spread the feeling of Easter to us. A dead man lay before us, and grief was appropriate, but in our souls we experienced the Resurrection. And this feeling has not dried up to this day. They are always accompanied by the memory of the ever-memorable Saint Elder Joseph.
From the translator
We present to your attention a translation from Greek of fragments of the new book “My Elder Joseph the Hesychast and the Cave Maker” by Fr. Ephraim of Philotheia. Why did we select only part of the book? The purpose of this publication is to avoid repetition. In the book about. Ephraim contains a lot of things that repeat the already known Life or the teachings of Elder Joseph. We are interested in little-known episodes of life and new, unknown teachings of the Elder.
Therefore, selected parts are devoted to the calling of disciples and the theme of obedience. Here we talk about Fr. Joannikia, Ephraim and Joseph, more precisely - about the time of their calling and training (a dark place in the first life), and the teachings of the Elder are given, revealing the theme of obedience. What remains beyond our attention is the teaching of Joseph the Hesychast on prayer, the uncreated light, the transition to a new style, etc. These issues are more systematically addressed in other books by Fr. Ephraim.
