Presented here for the first time in English as "Monastic Wisdom," this collection of Elder Joseph's letters makes the wealth of his wisdom and experience available to readers from all walks of life. As his struggles and lifestyle of stillness unfold, readers witness his difficult trials and battles with the demons, his profound visions and spiritual guidance, his martyric endurance in illnesses and finally his holy repose.

This treasury of personal counsels and homilies given by Elder Ephraim clearly delineates the Patristic path to sanctification. In "Counsels from the Holy Mountain" he gives advise on every aspect of the spiritual struggle with insight acquired from his experience as a monk for more than fifty years and as the spiritual father of thousands of clergy, monastics, and laymen.

I must confess that for Elder Arsenios, the Gospel words, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no guile!"are relevant. He was naturally straight-forward, simple, offenceless, meek, obedient; a rare struggler, who possessed nothing. For Elder Arsenios, his yes was always yes, and his no, no. He never harboured resentment, no matter how he was wronged. He never got angry; he never hurt anyone. He lived obedience with precision. That is why, through obedience and his unwavering faith in his Elder, he lived in a way that surpassed the laws of nature. During vigils, he began the night labouring excessively by kneeling thousands of times and then remained standing until morning. (Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi)

In the spring of A.D. 587, John Moschos and his pupil Sophronius the Sophist embarked on a remarkable expedition across the entire Byzantine world, traveling from the shores of Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. Using Moschos’s writings as his guide and inspiration, the acclaimed travel writer William Dalrymple retraces the footsteps of these two monks, providing along the way a moving elegy to the slowly dying civilization of Eastern Christianity and to the people who are struggling to keep its flame alive. The result is Dalrymple’s unsurpassed masterpiece: a beautifully written travelogue, at once rich and scholarly, moving and courageous, overflowing with vivid characters and hugely topical insights into the history, spirituality and the fractured politics of the Middle East.

The life of the Elder Joseph the Hesychast is a shining contemporary example of heroism and self-denial, struggle against the passions of the old man and the demons, and resurrection ‘of the new nature created after the likeness of God’. The Blessed Elder, having himself arrived at the longed for dispassion, which in the language of the Fathers is called ‘Love’, gave a new thrust to Athonite Monasticism towards the acquisition of the virtues, mental prayer and the retaining of the mind, the nous. With his persistence in the rigour of turning the mind inward and in the labour of the intellect the Elder revived the Palamite Theology and brought it back to the forefront. Six great monasteries of the Holy Mountain have been repopulated by his spiritual children, and a multitude of other monastics and laymen follow his spiritual teaching and his radiant example. His Life is simple; he did not finish even his primary studies; by his life, however, he has put to shame the ‘wise’ of the world. Through his life and prayers may we all arrive at least to some measure at this divine simplicity. (From the Prologue of the book)