It is no exaggeration to say that he was among the most influential Orthodox writers of the last two centuries. His writings on apologetics, hagiography, ascetical and pastoral theology, ethics, patristics and liturgies comprise over two hundred works. His most famous work is the Philokalia, which is a compilation of patristic writings on the spiritual life.
Included in this volume, in a new translation, is A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, which was composed during a self-imposed exile on the island of Skyropoula. That work, written during the time of the Age of Enlightenment in western Europe, shares an exalted vision of human nature, but a vision that proceeds from the truths of revelation as interpreted by the Greek Fathers, and not from Descartes. This exceeds in optimism any enlightened vision of man who, by the powers of reason, perceives the principles by which the universe is ordered.
