The articles in this volume deal with the spiritual life, the monastic life and the life of the Church. All these three dimensions of the spiritual life have been and are subject to deforming tendencies, which in the spiritual vernacular is called “going astray”. In the spiritual life, the essence of waywardness consists in taking as the Spirit of God the work of unclean spirits. In the monastic life, to cast aside the old monastic ordinances and the practice consecrated by the divine Fathers can only lead to the degradation of monasticism and its transformation into a mere human society. As far as the life of the Church is concerned, the articles collected here touch on a neuralgic contemporary problem: ecumenism, which Fr. Gheorghios situates within its orthodox coordinates and at the same time exposes its tendencies harmful to the Church.
The general tone of the writings is pleasant, simple and direct, always touching the essence of the matter at hand. The affirmation of the Orthodox position is always accompanied by a clear demarcation from heterodox conceptions, which are often presented by some theologians as those of the Orthodox Church as a whole.
We thus offer this volume to the Romanian reader in order to edify himself in the burning issues of today’s ecclesial life, with the author, Abbot Gheorghios of Grigoriu Monastery, as an experienced and experienced teacher.