The Saint - Archetype of Orthodoxy

By Vasileios Archimandrite

Written by the Abbot of Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos, Archimandrite Vasileios (1936-), The Saint is a small essay in the “Mount Athos” series and speaks to the origins, significance, and functioning of the Christian saint in the Orthodox Tradition. Archimandrite Vasileios’ contemplations are accessible, yet deeply theological in character.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alexander Press
• Release date: Jul 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9791220826389

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The_Saint,_Archetype_of_Orthodoxy_-_english_cover-epub.jpg

The Saint

Archetype of

Orthodoxy

by

Archimandrite Vasileios

Mount Athos Series No 6 : The Saint : Archetype of Orthodoxy

Cover and above : Saint Nicholas [mosaic], 13th century,

Stavronikita Monastery, Mount Athos

Archimandrite Vasileios

Translated from the Greek by

Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff

Fourth edition

ALEXANDER PRESS

Montréal, 2021 a.d.

Contents

A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

THE SAINT: ARCHETYPE OF ORTHODOXY

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Archimandrite Vasileios, The Saint :

Archetype of Orthodoxy

Second (eBook) edition

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Physical Book ISBN: 1-896800-10-6

A NOTE FROM THE

PUBLISHER

FIRST EDITION, 1997

AAs Publisher of Alexander Press , the warm reception for the first four volumes of our Mount Athos series has given me such a great joy that I’m pleased to announce a further five volumes of essays by Archimandrite Vasileios.

Fr. Vasileios (Gondikakis), born on Crete in 1936, studied theology in Athens and in Lyon, France. After visiting Mount Athos, he felt at home, and decided to remain there, initially staying in a hermitage close to the Elder Paisios. In 1968, he was asked to become the abbot of the Stavronikita Monastery. In his twenty-two years (1968–1990) as abbot, a life-giving breeze of renewal and a particular intensity of stillness and watchfulness (hesychia and nepsis), which characterize Athonite spirituality, has been treasured by thousands of visitors and pilgrims who through their personal experience in a very simple and humble way taste and see that the Lord is good.

In 1990 Fr. Vasileios assumed the leadership of the Iveron Monastery, becoming its abbot and reintroducing its cenobitic life.

Well-known in the English-speaking public through his Hymn of Entry (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), in which Fr. Vasileios is described by Bishop Kallistos (Ware), as the pioneer of the striking revival and renewal of monastic life on the Holy Mountain, whose message was a word of life not for Athos only but for the Christian world as a whole.

The present essay, was originally a talk delivered in Greek at the Sixth National Hellenic Conference of Theologians, Athens in 1986. (For the Greek text and subsequent discussion, see the proceedings of their conference (1988), pp. 351373.) This text was also been published with a parallel English translation in 1989 as a special edition for Australia.

The present translation, by Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff, is an attempt to bring the English-speaking public more of the fresh vision of theology, Church, and the world offered by the Holy Mountain through the original yet genuinely traditional voice of Fr. Vasileios..

–Dr John Hadjinicolaou

Dormition, 1997

SECOND eBOOK EDITION, 2021

In reponse to the demand for it, we are pleased to offer this