The Seer by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos **New Book in English**

from Birth of the Theotokos Monastery Publications

Product DetailsAuthor: Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos
Language: English
Dimensions: 16.5X24
Pages: 336
weight: 750 gr.
Current Edition: 1η
Year of Publication: 2014
ISBN: 978-960-7070-83-8
Price 17 Euros

The Seer is available from Mount Thabor Publishing

"The Seer describes the life and work of the Prophet Samuel,
called ‘the Seer’ and ‘the man of God’ by his contemporaries,
who lived in the period of the Old Testament and is a saint of
our Church.

The author examines the fascinating life of the Prophet and
uses events from it to illustrate the relationships between
parents and children, spiritual fathers and their disciples, and
rulers and those they rule in a theological perspective.

Early chapters focus on Hannah and her prayer, and discuss
prayer in the heart. The Prophet was a son born by God’s good
pleasure and sanctified from his mother’s womb. The miraculous
nature of his birth demonstrates that the conception of a human
being is the action of God’s grace, and that children are God’s gifts.

There are practical comments about bringing up children in the
Church, prompted by the account of Samuel as a child in the
Temple.

Later in the book there is a specific chapter about Samuel’s sons
and the reasons why children from devout families sometimes
rebel and take the wrong path, as they did.

The Prophet Samuel received revelations from God and possessed
the spiritual gifts of clear sight and seeing into the future. There is
a detailed discussion of what exactly these charismas are and for
what purpose they are bestowed by God.

The Holy Spirit was at work in the Old Testament, and there is a
compelling account of how Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit when
anointed by Samuel, although he later lost this gift completely. The
chapters on Saul’s sins, which seem superficially not to be serious,
but were in fact so grave that they caused God to ‘change His mind’
about him, are thought-provoking. As a spiritual father, the author
is able to understand Samuel’s profound grief over Saul’s fall and to
describe it.


The book draws to a close with the anointing of David as king and
Samuel’s death. The final pages look at the Prophet Samuel and
the Church and include extracts from the service sung in his honor.

The author summarizes Samuel’s four great virtues as his purity,
his obedience to God’s will, his lack of resentment, and his love for
the people, which also found expression through his grief at their
mistakes. Samuel never grieved God at any point." Source