A Review of "Everyday Saints and Other Stories"
by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)
Review written by Archpriest Andrew Phillips
Russian literature has a long history of dealing with Church themes. Pushkin, Leskov and Chekhov come to mind at once. However, these themes are also central in Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and more recently in Pasternak and Soloukhin, and in fact they are present in all Russian literature, as an underpinning and uniting background of spiritual and cultural values. What is original about this book is that the author is not just a very talented writer with a sensitive artist’s heart, but he is also a monk, priest and senior Archimandrite in Moscow, the Superior of Sretensky Monastery, Fr Tikhon Shevkunov. And, above all, what is original is that this book has been written now, as a monument to what has risen a generation after the death of three generations of forced – and failed – State atheism. In other words, this book breathes Resurrection.
Review written by Archpriest Andrew Phillips
Russian literature has a long history of dealing with Church themes. Pushkin, Leskov and Chekhov come to mind at once. However, these themes are also central in Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and more recently in Pasternak and Soloukhin, and in fact they are present in all Russian literature, as an underpinning and uniting background of spiritual and cultural values. What is original about this book is that the author is not just a very talented writer with a sensitive artist’s heart, but he is also a monk, priest and senior Archimandrite in Moscow, the Superior of Sretensky Monastery, Fr Tikhon Shevkunov. And, above all, what is original is that this book has been written now, as a monument to what has risen a generation after the death of three generations of forced – and failed – State atheism. In other words, this book breathes Resurrection.
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The book may be purchased here
From the author:
"So why had we come to the monastery? And why were we planning to stay here for the rest of our lives? We knew very well. It was because, for each of us, a new world had suddenly opened up, incomparable in its beauty. And that world had turned out to be boundlessly more attractive than the one in which we had previously lived our young and so-far very happy lives.
In this book I want to tell you about this beautiful new world of mine, where we live by laws completely different from those in “normal” worldly life—a world of light and love, full of wondrous discoveries, hope, happiness, trials and triumphs, where even our defeats acquire profound significance: a world in which, above all, we can always sense powerful manifestations of divine strength and comfort.»
Archimandrite Tikhon
The book may be purchased here
From the author:
"So why had we come to the monastery? And why were we planning to stay here for the rest of our lives? We knew very well. It was because, for each of us, a new world had suddenly opened up, incomparable in its beauty. And that world had turned out to be boundlessly more attractive than the one in which we had previously lived our young and so-far very happy lives.
In this book I want to tell you about this beautiful new world of mine, where we live by laws completely different from those in “normal” worldly life—a world of light and love, full of wondrous discoveries, hope, happiness, trials and triumphs, where even our defeats acquire profound significance: a world in which, above all, we can always sense powerful manifestations of divine strength and comfort.»
Archimandrite Tikhon
Archpriest Andrew PhillipsSermon on St. Dionysius the Areopagite