A panorama of Russian Christian spirituality, richly illustrated with passages from formative works. "The author of this unusual book has given it much too modest a title. It is in fact not only an introduction to the lives, the spirituality and the writings of the great mystics, many of whom are unknown in the West, but it is also at the same time a clear and practical outline of Russian monastic history. The journey which the reader now begins is not without excitement, for it takes him into new territory, the silence of the great Russian forests. . ." ~Thomas Meron, in the Preface