From the back cover: First a schoolteacher, then a bishop, then a hermit, Theophan the Recluse was one of the Russian holy men canonized in 1988 and one of the greatest of the "startzi" - teachers of spirituality and of Prayer of the Heart - who have played such an important role in keeping the spiritual doctrines of the early Fathers alive in the Russian Orthodox Church. From his hermit's cell, Theophan aided thousands in their spiritual quest...