“In general, it’s hard to get used to life. You can get used to order and disorder, to happiness and suffering, to monasticism and marriage, to many things and to their absence—to bad and good people, to luxury and simplicity, to righteousness and wickedness, to prayer and idle talk, to good and evil. In short, people are such creatures that you can get used to everything—except to life itself.”
In an easy, non-preachy manner—without any syrupy tone or lessons—Sergey Senkin, who knows first-hand what monks and ascetics live by, tells about “his” Athos. About this unique “monastic republic”—a community of saints and the righteous, negligent monks, pilgrims, workers, idle busybodies and seekers of truth, voluntary paupers and even thieves and criminals—revealed from an unexpected angle and leaving, after reading, a warm feeling of belonging to an ancient and profound monastic tradition.
Filled with love and an intimate knowledge of the daily life of the mountaineers of Holy Athos, the book will be interesting both to a churchgoing reader and to a beginner—someone just starting to take an interest in Orthodox Christianity. Book performed by Nikolai Morozov.