Two years of grace
Thus began
the period which every Orthodox neophyte knows by the
name of calling grace – God calls the soul and gives her
His grace in advance, abundantly. Everything was easy:
praying, fasting, reading, getting up well before the
sunrise and going to far away monasteries before the
lectures at the Institute (every neophyte knows that the
Liturgy and the confessors are much better in the
monasteries). I also traveled to the small Russian
towns: churches and monasteries were opening, rising
from ruins. My mother traveled with me; she was very
concerned that I would suddenly become a nun. Inside the
bus station of old town Jaroslavl I noticed a table with
books: immediately one of them, with a laconic black and
white cover (very much of the stile of our Institute)
depicting St John the Forerunner caught my attention. It
was the book ‘The Joyous News’ and I bought it
immediately. I already have been readying Orthodox books
– the lives of saints, Philokalia, St John of the
Ladder, Abba Dorofei, St. Ignatiy Brjanchaninov, St.
Theophanous the Hermit, Fr Pavel Florensky, even St
Gregory Palamas with his discourses on hesychasm, but
this one was very different. It was like a real person
was sitting next to me, telling me (in excellent clear
modern language) about Jesus Christ, the apostles and
the prophets putting them in the context of my life or
perhaps my life in their context.
The author was Father Alexander Men. I did not know
anything about him. When I bought it, he was already
dead, murdered a few years ago on his way to the church.
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