Ignatius Brianchaninov – författare

"Prayer is a refuge of God’s great mercy to the human race." The refuge is a place of inner stillness and peace where the heart is fully opened to the embrace of God’s love. It is a return to the ancient paradise from which the human race, in Adam, had to depart because of disobedience to the command of God. "The Refuge" is an exposition of the concrete actions we should take if we truly desire to live with and in God. It weaves together meditations on scripture (from the Psalms in particular) and amplifies these with the wisdom of early Christian saints, in particular the ascetical writings of St John of the Ladder, St Macarius the Great and St Isaac the Syrian. It is an active exhortation for us to reacquire the original nobility with which God fashioned us.

Attentive prayer ? can be compared to the beneficial rain that irrigates a sown field, gives nourishment to the plants and ensures a rich harvest.

God?s rich blessings on ?the crown of the year? can be experienced in their fullness throughout the annual cycle of Church services. This penultimate volume of the Collected Works of St Ignatius (Brianchaninov) contains fifty-two sermons given on Sundays, during Great Lent and Paschatide, and other occasions, including the foundation of a new monastery, and a presentation on the teaching of the Orthodox Church on the Mother of God.

An eclectic translator and compiler of the writings of the ancient desert fathers, St Ignatius not only freely weaves their words into his own preaching, but exhorts his readers to follow their example, so that they too may reap a rich spiritual harvest in this life and in the age to come. Particularly inspired by the writings of St Isaac the Syrian, St Macarius the Great, and St John of the Ladder, he also applies Holy Scripture and liturgical hymnography in his preaching to monastics and laypeople alike.

A towering figure of 19th century monasticism, St Ignatius's influence has spread far beyond Imperial Russia, inspiring Orthodox Christians around the world in our own times. The Harvest is the last volume of his collected works to be translated into English, representing the completion of a fifty-four year project to bring his timeless works to a new audience.