Writings from the Philokalia

"The Philokalia" is an important collection of writings by Fathers of the Eastern Church dating from the fourth to the fourteenth century. It exists in three versions: the Greek, complied in the eighteenth century; the Slavonic; and the Russian. The Russian text, translated by Bishop Theophan the Recluse in the nineteenth century, and consisting of five volumes (with which a sixth is sometimes associated), is the most complete of all three versions. It is the Russian text that has been used in translating into English this selection, which presents a range of "Philokalia" writings concerning the Jesus Prayer.