Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar by Dumitru Staniloae

Recently, I finished reading Empirical Dogmatics (2 vols.)

by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, in which His Eminence 

edits and presents the writings of Fr. Dr. John Romanides. 

Empirical Dogmatics is presented in this blog here and 

here.

In it Fr John highly recommends two books which he

considers to be very faithful to Patristic teaching. They

are, "Orthodox Spirituality" by Fr Dumitru Staniloae,

and "Orthodox Dogmatic Theology" by Fr. Michael
Pomazansky. I happen to own both books so I pulled
them off the shelf and discovered I had a hidden
treasure in my library. 

Please read below for all pertinent information concerning

both books;

Orthodox Spirituality by Dumitru Staniloae is available
from St Tikhon Seminary Press
ISBN: 1-878997-66-1

“Orthodox spirituality has as its goal the deification of man and his union with God, without being merged with Him. It has as a basic conviction the existence of a personal God, who is the supreme source of radiating love. He prizes man and doesn’t want to confuse him with Himself, but maintains and raises him to an eternal dialogue of love. Such a spirituality has no place where an evolutionary progress of man, connected to a divinity conceived as an impersonal essence, is affirmed. This progress can have no result other than man’s disappearance in the impersonal divinity. But the personal God, and thus the supreme source of love, can’t be conceived of as a single person, but as a community of persons in a perfect unity. You see then why the Christian teaching of a Trinity of Persons in a unity of essence is the only one which can constitute the basis of a perfect spirituality for man, understood as a full communion with God in love, without his being lost in it.”

Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality (from the back cover)

A quick look at the contents made me shudder
CONTENTS

Foreword
Introduction

1. The Goal of Orthodox Spirituality
2. The Meaning and Possibility of Union with God
3. Orthodox Spirituality and Our Neighbor
4. The Holy Trinity - the Basis of Christian Spirituality
5. The Christological, Pneumatological, and Ecclesiastical
     Character of Orthodox Spirituality
6. The Major Steps of the Spiritual Life

PART ONE: PURIFICATION
A. About the Passions
7. The Essence of the Passions
8. The Natural and Unnatural Passions
9. The Basic Causes of the Passions and their Effects
10. The Passions and the Faculties of the Soul
11. How the Passions are Aroused according to Traditional

      Orthodox Teaching
12. The Passionate State and Care

b. Purification of the Passions by the Virtues
13. The Order of Purification and Patristic Spiritual Methods

14. Faith, the Basic State for Purification
15. The Fear of God and the Thought of Judgment
16. Repentance
17. Self Control

18. The Guarding of the Mind or of Thoughts

19. Longsuffering, the Patient Endurance of Troubles

20. Hope
21. Meekness and Humility
22. Dispassion or Freedom from Passion

PART TWO: ILLUMINATION

23. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit

24. The Contemplation of God in Creation

25. The Spiritual Understanding of Scripture

26. The Negative and Apophatic Knowledge of God in General

27.The Steps of Apophaticism

28. Negative and Positive Theology: a Dynamic Relationship

29. Pure Prayer

30. Methods for the Facilitation of Pure Prayer31. To Jesus by what is Deep within Us                                                                    
32. Mental Rest: the First Step of Stillness

PART THREE: PERFECTION
33. Love and Dispassion: the Steps of Love
34. Love as a Factor of Perfect Union and as Ecstacy
35. Love, Knowledge and the Divine Light:
        1. The Role of the Mind in the Vision of the Divine Light
36.   2. The Vision of the Divine Light: a Knowledge beyond
            Knowledge
37. Deification: Deification in a Broad Sense
38. Deification: Deification in a Strict Sense

Bibliography
Index
Postscript

Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Fr Michael Pomazansky is

available from St Herman Press
ISBN: 0938635-69-7

“In the writings of Fr. Michael Pomazansky, one may see a characteristic of genuine Orthodox theology that is so often lost sight of in our cold, rationalistic age. Theology is not primarily a matter of arguments, criticisms, proofs and disproofs; it is first of all men’s word about God, in accordance with the Divinely revealed teaching of Orthodoxy. Therefore, its first purpose and intent is always to inspire, to warm the heart, to lift one above the petty preoccupations of earth in order to glimpse the Divine beginning and end of all things and so to give one the energy and encouragement to struggle towards God and our heavenly homeland.…
“Fr. Michael’s theology is in this warm-hearted and inspiring tone. He is not the only one to write Orthodox theology with this intent today, but he is one of the few, in an older generation that is fast vanishing, who can serve as a link between us and the genuine theology of the Holy Fathers.… Orthodox Dogmatic Theology is his masterpiece.”

—Hieromonk Seraphim Rose