Miracle on the Monastery Mountain springs from Professor Lyttle's twenty extended visits to the historic Byzantine Orthodox Monastic Republic of Mount Athos between 1972 and 1998. It is a chronicle, in facinating words and stunning photographs, of monastic life - from details of everyday life to the incomparable beauty and meaning of worship services in frescoed churches and chapels. In Miracle the reader meets monks as real people, not sterotypes, and experiences the monastic life as reasonable and deeply rewarding spiritually. He gives a detailed look in words and pictures at both historic and contemporary life in the Athonite monasteries, sketes and hermitages. Moreover, Professor Lyttle introduces the reader to the Fathers primarily responsible for the remarkable spiritual reawakening, many of whom he came to know personally.

A translation of the biography written by Pope Gregory the Great, this official biography is also known as the Second Book of Dialogues. It is the earliest and thus the most valuable biography of St. Benedict.

Investigates the political and spiritual agenda behind monumental paintings of Christ's miracles in late Byzantine churches.

Origins of Christian monasticism East of the Euphrates from the 4th to 6th centuries from Aramaic hagiogrpahical sources.

This volume contains a critical edition and translation of the Coptic texts on Abraham of Farshut, the last Coptic orthodox archimandrite of the Pachomian federation in Upper Egypt. While past studies have focused on the origins and early years of this, the first communal monastic movement, James E. Goehring turns to its final days and ultimate demise in the sixth century reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. He examines the literary nature of the texts, their role in the making of a saint, and the historical events that they reveal. Miracle stories and tendentious accounts give way to the reconstruction of internal debates over the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, political intrigue, and the eventual reordering of the communal monastic movement in Upper Egypt.

Alex, a first-generation Greek American struggles with conflicts between his Greek heritage and the secular world. He meets Pan, a Greek American comfortable with his heritage. Despite differences, they bond and travel to Mt. Athos. Alex vainly seeks material gain. Pan secretly seeks a miracle for his terminal illness. On the way, chance encounters, such as meeting fortune-teller Despina of astounding powers, open Alex to realities unknowable in his intellectuality. In a monastery, both men experience unfathomable mystery in the liturgy and ask a priest, a physicist, and a psychiatrist on their own spiritual quests to help reconcile their clash of ordinary experience against religious experience, the meaning of religious ritual, and the apparent clash of Holy Scripture with common sense. Both men return home wiser. Pan has a brief episode of new health only to lose it and eventually die. Alex contemplates the death of his friend in the light of their experience on Mt. Athos, and resolves his conflicts in healing faith. The story challenges secular emptiness and the barriers to faith among the unchurched. The action is experienced existentially, making the content, though philosophical at times, accessible.

This study is based on a manuscript which was carried by a Chinese monk through the monasteries of the Hexi corridor, as part of his pilgrimage from Wutaishan to India. The manuscript has been created as a composite object from three separate documents, with Chinese and Tibetan texts on them. Included is a series of Tibetan letters of introduction addressed to the heads of monasteries along the route, functioning as a passport when passing through the region. The manuscript dates to the late 960s, coinciding with the large pilgrimage movement during the reign of Emperor Taizu of the Northern Song recorded in transmitted sources. Therefore, it is very likely that this is a unique contemporary testimony of the movement, of which our pilgrim was also part. Complementing extant historical sources, the manuscript provides evidence for the high degree of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity in Western China during this period.

Despite its rich history in the Latin tradition, Christian monasticism began in the east; the wellsprings of monastic culture and spirituality can be directly sourced from the third-century Egyptian wilderness. In this volume, John Binns creates a vivid, authoritative account that traces the four main branches of eastern Christianity, up to and beyond the Great Schism of 1054 and the break between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Binns begins by exploring asceticism in the early church and the establishment of monastic life in Egypt, led by St Anthony and Pachomius. He chronicles the expansion, influence and later separation of the various Orthodox branches, examining monastic traditions and histories ranging from Syria to Russia and Ethiopia to Asia Minor. Culminating with both the persecution and the revival of monastic life, Binns concludes with an argument for both the diversity and the shared set of practices and ideals between the Orthodox churches, creating a resource for both cross-disciplinary specialist and students of religion, history, and spirituality.