Introduction

The Russian title of this book may be literally translated "Candid Narratives of a Pilgrim to His Spiritual Father." The title chosen for the English version explains itself and is meant to cover the twofold interest of the book. It is the story of some of the Pilgrim's experiences as he made his way from place to place in Russia and Siberia. No one can miss the charm of these travel notes in the simple directness with which they are told and the clear-cut sketches of people which they contain.

It is also the story of the Pilgrim's learning and practising, and on occasion teaching to others, a way of praying. Upon this, the hesychast method of prayer, much might be said, and not everyone will be in sympathy with it. But everyone will appreciate the sincerity of his conviction and few probably will doubt the reality of his experience. Strongly contrasted as the method may be with an ordinary religious Englishman’s habits of devotion, for another type of soul it may still be the expression of vivid realisation of the truth "for me to live is Christ."

Those who wish to read more of the hesychast method of prayer and its connection with the great7 Byzantine Mystic, St. Simeon the New Theologian, who lived from 949 to 1022, may be referred to Orientalia Christiana, Vol. IX, No. 36 (June and July, 1927).

The events described in the book appear to belong to a Russia prior to the Liberation of the Serfs, which took place in 1861. The reference to the Crimean War in the Fourth Narrative gives 1853 as the outer limit of time. Between those two dates the Pilgrim arrived at Irkutsk, where he found a Spiritual Father. He tells the latter how he came to learn the Prayer of Jesus, partly from the oral teaching of his starets, and after the loss of his starets, from his own study of the Philokalia. This is the substance of the first two Narratives, which are divided by the death of the starets.

The Third Narrative is very short, and tells, in response to his Spiritual Father's enquiries, the Pilgrim's earlier personal history and what led him to become a Pilgrim at all.

It was his intention to go on from Irkutsk to Jerusalem and indeed he had actually started. But a chance encounter led to a postponement of his departure for some days, and during that time he relates the further experiences of his pilgrim life which make up the Fourth Narrative.

Of the Pilgrim's identity nothing is known. In some way his manuscript, or a copy of it, came into the hands of a monk on Mount Athos, in whose8 possession it was found by the Abbot of St. Michael's Monastery at Kazan. The Abbot copied the manuscript, and from his copy the book was printed at Kazan in 1884.

In recent years copies of this (until April, 1930, the only) edition have become exceedingly difficult to get. There appear to be only three or four copies in existence outside Russia, and I am deeply indebted to friends in Denmark and Bulgaria for the loan of copies from which this translation was made. I am very grateful also to the Reverend N. Behr, Proto-priest of the Russian Church in London, for so kindly reading through the manuscript of my translation.

A very few notes have been added and placed at the end of the book. They are chiefly to explain one or two words which it seemed best not to attempt to turn into English.

R.M.F. 9