Many people today know of the Philokalia, a compilation of mystical, ascetic texts from the ancient Christian tradition which contain teachings on unceasing prayer, interior silence, unseen warfare, and prayer of the heart. Few, however, know of the spiritual Elder who discovered these lost teachings after a painstaking search, and who devoted the rest of his life to disseminating them, putting them into practice, and helping other spiritual seekers to attain union with God through them. This man was Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky.

Having lived at the beginning of the modern age, Blessed Paisius has supplied us with a blueprint on how to live like the ancient holy ones even while in the midst of the contemporary atmosphere of confusion, despair, and abandonment of the truth. Today his legacy--brought to America by monks from the Russian monastery of Valaam, and preserved and cultivated through the eldership of Optina Monastery--is more timely and needed than ever before.