St. Theophan the Recluse
St. Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894) was born George Govorov in central Russia, near Orlov. His father was a parish priest, and his father sent him to seminary to be trained to be a priest as well. He attended the Kiev Theological Academy, receiving the best theological education available. He took monastic vows, and after the vows and tonsuring, he met the staretz (holy elder, spiritual guide) Parthenii at the Kiev Caves Lavra (monastery), and later wrote about this meeting:
The staretz said to us, “You learned monks, ... you are going to work and learn and write, but you must remember above all that the most necessary thing on earth is to pray to God, to pray unceasingly with your whole heart and your whole mind. This must be the goal you will search for without interruption.” A monk must start by speaking the prayer aloud, then without uttering any sound until it springs silently from him day and night.
When the holy staretz said this, I discovered that this was what I had always wanted since my early childhood, and that very day I prayed from the depth of my heart to the Lord that nobody would hinder me from remaining constantly with God.
After graduating, he was ordained a priest. He was inspired by the life and teachings of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, who labored to bring the great Patristic teachings to the common people. He spent many years abroad, in Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Mount Athos, the “holy mountain” of monasticism in Greece, and he studied, copied and collected treasures of Patristic writing that he would later translate into Russian, including extensively editing and revising the Russian Philokalia, more than doubling its original size. He became a professor and ultimately dean of the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg.
After returning to Russia, he later became Bishop, first of Tambov, then of Vladimir. But after only seven years as a Bishop, he resigned his position and retired to a monastery at Vysha where he lived simply, secluded in only two rooms, for 28 years, spending his life in prayer and silence.
THE PATH TO SALVATION
A Manual of Spiritual Transformation
St. Theophan the Recluse was a brilliant spiritual psychologist who taught profoundly about the interior life of the spirit and the action of Divine Grace. The Path to Salvation—A Manual of Spiritual Transformation is his crowning achievement in which he offers precise and detailed instructions on such matters as:
How to face and eradicate sin in one's heart
How to allow Christ to cleanse and heal the inner man
How to find the Kingdom of Heaven within and dwell in the Grace of Christ