This collection of scholarly essays on Eastern Orthodox ascetic life derived from an international conference on the theme held in 2013. The book reviews Orthodox monastic praxis and theoria from a variety of ancient and modern standpoints. It brings together cutting-edge studies of history and patristic interpretation, with psychological and spiritual reflection from engaged experts writing out of years of lived experience. This is a study which is surely destined to become a classic in its field.

The Christians, from the very outset, committed their theology and prayer to the form of the song. The hymnal elements in the New Testament are among the earliest of all strands, some of them composed within a decade of the death of Jesus. From the third century onwards it was their custom to light the lamps of the house when dusk fell, and sing a hymn, for the onset of evening marked the new liturgical day in the earliest centuries. This collection of some of the most charming of the hymns of the Early Church presents the original Greek and Latin verse with a facing translation and a...