The scene has repeated itself for decades. An Orthodox Christian, searching for spiritual depth, hears about the Philokalia. He buys it — in English, the Palmer-Sherrard-Ware edition in five volumes; in Romanian, the Stăniloae edition in twelve volumes; in Russian, Theophan’s Dobrotolubiye in five volumes. He opens volume one. He reads the first pages from Saint Anthony the Great. He moves on to Evagrius. Then John Cassian. After eighty pages, he realizes he understands almost nothing. The texts are obscure, the references foreign, the terms tell him nothing. He puts the book aside.
Versiunea românească aici: „Cum se citește Filocalia: traseul de inițiere pe care tradiția îl recomandă”.
This article is a continuation of „Why Not All Philokalias Are the Same”. For the history of the Philokalia’s transmission and the differences between its versions, start there.
He is not alone. Many readers share this experience, in every language into which the Philokalia has been translated. The problem is not with the reader. The problem is that the printed order of the Philokalia is not, as a rule, the most suitable gateway for someone first approaching these texts.
This point is so important it deserves repetition. The Greek Philokalia of Venice (1782) is organized chronologically — from the Fathers of the fourth century, through Macarius the Egyptian, Evagrius, John Cassian, on to the late Byzantine Fathers, Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory of Sinai, Gregory Palamas, Callistus and Ignatius. This chronological order remained the baseline of the Greek edition and strongly shaped later reception, but the editions and reading traditions are not uniform — each major edition introduced its own editorial choices (as we shall see, Stăniloae moves Hesychios from volume one to volume four, and the English translators excluded Saint Nicodemus’ original introduction). For a historian of theology, chronological order makes sense. For someone who wants to enter spiritual practice, the order is nearly the reverse of what it should be.
There is a tradition of gradual entry into the Philokalia, transmitted from elder to disciple, which offers practical markers about where to begin and what to leave for later. This tradition is attested in The Way of a Pilgrim, confirmed by contemporary fathers such as Maximos Constas, and found, with variations, in several spiritual lines — Paisian, Athonite, Russian. It is not a single obligatory order, but a set of initiation paths sharing a common logic. This article aims to sketch it.
Before entering the subject, however, a warning is necessary, without which nothing that follows can be rightly understood.
A caveat that cannot be omitted
The Philokalia is not a book of spiritual recipes. It is not a manual anyone can open and apply. It is not even religious reading material for the evening. It is a collection of ascetic and mystical texts written by monks, for monks, within the context of a concrete monastic life — with vigil, fasting, regular confession, Holy Communion, obedience to a spiritual father. To read it outside this framework, and especially to attempt to practice what it describes without a spiritual father to verify each step, is dangerous.
The Philokalic fathers are explicit on this point. Saint Gregory of Sinai, Saint Symeon the New Theologian, Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain — all warn that attempting the Prayer of the Heart without guidance leads to delusion, diabolical deception, or serious spiritual disturbances. This is not cautious rhetoric. It is an observation verified experientially, over fourteen centuries, by men who made prayer the work of their lives.
This article is not a substitute for a spiritual father. It is a practical guide for how to read the Philokalia — which texts, in what order, what to look for. Not how to practice the Jesus Prayer. For that you need to find a spiritual father who can give you a blessing and watch over you. If you don’t have one, go to a monastery and seek. Places where this tradition is still alive can be found in the Orthodox world. If, after reading this article, you feel the need to begin the Jesus Prayer — close the book, first go to confession, and ask for the spiritual father’s advice. The Philokalia can wait.
With this caveat made, let us see where the problem of reading order comes from and what its solution is.
Why the printed order of the Philokalia doesn’t work
Before entering the question of order, it’s worth pausing over a practical observation that any reader makes the moment he walks into the bookshop: the Philokalia is a large, multi-volume work. Not a book — a library.
The comparison across traditions is revealing. The original Greek edition of Venice (1782) was a single large folio tome, as Saints Macarius and Nicodemus had printed it. The Slavonic Dobrotolubiye of Saint Paisius Velichkovsky, printed in Moscow in 1793, had four volumes — and contained only 24 of the 36 writings of the Greek edition. The Russian Dobrotolubiye of Saint Theophan the Recluse, begun in 1877, has five volumes — somewhat richer than the Greek original through additions and paraphrases, but missing Saint Peter of Damascus. The English edition Palmer-Sherrard-Ware, completed in 2023, also has five volumes. The Romanian Stăniloae edition (1946-1991) has twelve volumes, approximately 5,358 pages — the most extensive Philokalic corpus in the modern world. The first volume appeared in Sibiu at Christmas 1946; the last saw the light of print at Pascha 1991.
This richness is an enormous theological blessing. But it is, at the same time, a real practical difficulty that the usual articles on the Philokalia do not acknowledge.
Four practical obstacles before any theological obstacle
The first is physical size. Think of the Russian peasant in The Way of a Pilgrim. He walks the endless steppes of Russia with Paisius’ Dobrotolubiye in his knapsack — four small volumes, compact enough that he could carry them on foot for years. The book was his travel companion, he rested by the roadside and read a page, he carried it from village to village. He had it always at hand, day and night. To attempt the same thing with the Stăniloae or Palmer-Sherrard-Ware editions is physically much harder. The modern reader’s Philokalia is not, and cannot be, a “travel book” in the way the pilgrim’s was.
The second is price. A complete set of the Philokalia — in any edition, in any language — represents a significant investment, comparable to the price of several reference works put together. For a reader of average income this is a considerable expense; for someone of modest means it is nearly prohibitive. The Russian pilgrim received his Dobrotolubiye, probably, from a monk or an elder — as a gift or a spiritual inheritance. The modern reader must pay a substantial sum for a book he may not open correctly from the first day.
The third is space. Multi-volume hardcover sets occupy significant shelf space. For someone living in a small apartment with limited shelving, this takes up room. The book doesn’t slip discreetly onto the nightstand — it sits as a permanent presence in the house, visible, demanding attention.
The fourth, perhaps most important, is the proportion of commentary to primary text. Modern Philokalia editions are not only translation. Translators have added:
- Extensive introductions to nearly every author and every work
- Thousands of footnotes that explain and develop difficult concepts
- In the Stăniloae edition specifically: a study On the History of Hesychasm in Romanian Orthodoxy (in volume VIII), plus four volumes (IX, X, XI, XII) with authors not found in the Greek edition of 1782 — John Climacus and Abba Dorotheos, Isaac the Syrian, Barsanuphius and John, Isaiah the Solitary (his principal work)
Estimably, somewhere between a quarter and a third of the pages of most modern editions are not patristic text proper, but commentary and critical apparatus. The commentaries are often brilliant, deep, sometimes theological works in themselves. But they thicken the book, interrupt the flow of the patristic text, and demand a double concentration from the reader.
With these four obstacles together — physical size, price, space, proportion of commentary — the modern reader finds himself in a unique situation in Orthodox history: he has the richest Philokalic texts ever made available, which are, at the same time, the most difficult to approach practically.
The solution is not to abandon the modern edition. It is one of the great achievements of twentieth-century Orthodox theology, with a critical apparatus unique in the world. The solution is to understand that our Philokalia requires a different reading strategy than the one with which the Russian pilgrim walked through his four Paisian volumes. Instead of trying to read it cover to cover, learn to enter it through the right paths. Instead of seeing it as an obligation to check off, treat it as a library to which you return all your life. Instead of trying to read the text and all the notes at once, distinguish between these two levels and pass through them separately.
That is precisely the strategy this article proposes.
The intellectual difficulty, on top of the practical
Moving from material obstacles to intellectual ones: the problem becomes even more subtle.
Saints Macarius of Corinth and Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain arranged the texts in their 1782 edition according to historical criteria. This is a perfectly justifiable editorial decision: for a scholar, this order shows the continuity of patristic thought, the evolution of terms, the dialogue between centuries. For an academic reference work, it is the right choice.
The problem is that the real reader of the Philokalia is not a scholar. He is a Christian seeking to nourish his spiritual life. And for him, this order creates an almost insurmountable difficulty.
The texts in the first volume — Anthony the Great, Evagrius of Pontus, John Cassian, Nilus the Ascetic, Mark the Ascetic — are foundational texts of Christian asceticism. But they presuppose an already-assumed framework. They speak of the defeat of the passions, the struggle with thoughts (logismoi), the virtues that flow from purity of heart. They do not say what the spiritual heart is. They do not say what the nous is. They do not say how to begin. These texts were written for monks who already had years of formation in the life of prayer, who had received from their spiritual father the conceptual and practical framework.
Father Maximos Constas, researcher at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline (Massachusetts) and one of the most authoritative contemporary patristics scholars on the Philokalia, has formulated the problem with clarity:
“Many of us have figured out at some point that the Philokalia is an important book, it’s supposed to be a definitive statement of Orthodox spiritual life, and we all want to cultivate our spiritual lives, so we buy it thinking we’re going to sit down and read it and we’re going to have this amazing experience. We read one page, and then another, and we finish one author and maybe a second and a third, and we have no idea what’s going on. We think: ‘This is supposed to be a spiritual classic?’ It seems so random. (…) If you finish volume one, congratulations — you’re in a minority. Most of us set it aside.”
The problem is not the reader’s weak theological preparation. The problem is that the chronological order makes us start from the end. The foundational texts on the practice of prayer, those that explain what to do in practice, are not in volume one. They are in the later volumes — volume four of the Greek edition, which contains the Byzantine authors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: Nikephoros the Solitary (known in the Romanian tradition as Nichifor din Singurătate), Gregory of Sinai, Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos. These are the ones who explain, step by step, what the Prayer of the Heart is, how to begin it, what to watch for, how to advance. Without them, the texts of volume one remain closed.
There is a second, subtler but equally important problem. Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain wrote an introduction to the Philokalia of 1782. This introduction explains why the anthology was compiled, what its purpose is, how it should be received by the reader. In the introduction, Saint Nicodemus speaks of the universality of the Jesus Prayer — not only for monks — and of the indissoluble link between the Prayer of the Heart and the sacramental life of the Church.
This introduction is missing from the standard English edition — the Palmer-Sherrard-Ware translation from Faber & Faber. The English translators chose to exclude it. Only in 2008 did Constantine Cavarnos publish a separate translation of it. Father Maximos comments:
“I don’t know why, but I think it was a terrible mistake that the English translators deliberately chose to leave out his introduction from the work. He was the editor and compiler; he knew what he was doing. But for whatever reason, the three British translators decided not to include it. So you start reading the book and there’s no framework, no introduction, no initiation the way it was intended to be.”
The result is that the modern reader meets the Philokalia without the apparatus of orientation that Saint Nicodemus himself had provided for him. It is as if he were handed an atlas without a table of contents or map legend.
A path of gradual initiation, transmitted from elder to disciple
But if the printed order is not the most suitable gateway for the beginning reader, which is? Here appears one of the most beautiful witnesses of the living spiritual tradition: there is a gradual path of initiation, transmitted orally, from spiritual father to disciple, which offers markers about where to begin, what to leave for later, and how to arrive step by step at an understanding of the whole anthology. It must be said from the outset that this is not a single fixed recipe — there are variations between traditions, between fathers, between centuries. What follows is a consolidated path, attested in solid sources, but not the only possible one.
The order of the Russian Pilgrim
The best-known witness of this tradition comes from The Way of a Pilgrim — the anonymous nineteenth-century book that popularized the Jesus Prayer throughout the world. The peasant pilgrim, who walks the steppes of Russia with Paisius’ Dobrotolubiye in his knapsack, relates how his elder showed him the proper reading order:
“The elder explained that the pilgrim, being a simple man, would benefit much more by NOT reading the Philokalia from beginning to end, but in the order: (1) Saint Nikephoros the Solitary, (2) Saint Gregory of Sinai, without the short chapters, (3) Saint Symeon the New Theologian, (4) Saint Callistus, (5) Saint Ignatius, and finally (6) the summary on the method of prayer by Saint Callistus.”
This reflects the actual practice of nineteenth-century Russian monasteries in the Paisian line. It is a shorter path, suited to a simple reader — a peasant, a zealous layperson — who does not have academic formation.
Father Maximos Constas’ path
Father Maximos Constas, professor at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and monk of Simonopetra Monastery (Mount Athos), offers a contemporary, more extensive scheme, inspired by the same reading tradition, but expanded with additional texts important for a fuller theological understanding. His scheme has been presented at clergy conferences (Los Angeles 2014) and is used for his students at Holy Cross.
In Father Maximos’ scheme, before opening the Philokalia, the reader should consult:
- St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain — “Guarding the Mind and the Heart”, from A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel (tr. P. Chamberas, 1989). A summary of the principal doctrines and practices the reader will encounter.
- St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain — Introduction to the 1782 Philokalia, translated separately by Constantine Cavarnos (2008) — the introduction omitted from the Palmer-Sherrard-Ware English edition.
Then, the path through the Philokalia itself, in order:
- St. Nikephoros the Hesychast — On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart
- Saints Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos — Directions to Hesychasts
- St. Hesychios the Priest — On Watchfulness and Holiness
- Evagrios of Pontus — On Prayer
- A Discourse on Abba Philemon
- St. Symeon the New Theologian — On Faith
- St. Symeon the New Theologian — The Three Methods of Prayer
- St. Gregory Palamas — In Defense of Those who Devoutly Practice a Life of Stillness (Triads I.2)
- St. Gregory of Sinai — On the Signs of Grace and Delusion
Note the differences from the Russian Pilgrim’s order: Father Maximos’ scheme is longer, includes authors not present in the pilgrim’s list (Hesychios, Evagrios, Abba Philemon, Gregory Palamas), and places Gregory of Sinai at the end (as synthesis on discerning grace) rather than at the beginning. These are not contradictions between the two paths — they are variants of the same initiatory logic, adapted to different audiences: the Russian peasant pilgrim versus the contemporary theology student.
What all these paths share
Beyond the variations, all the traditional paths share several common principles:
- They begin with Nikephoros the Hesychast as the gateway — he is the most direct, the most practical, the shortest.
- They shift emphasis from the very ancient texts (Anthony, Evagrios in the printed Philokalia) to the late Byzantine texts (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries), which are more explicit about the practice of prayer.
- They place Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos at the center as a systematic exposition of the Jesus Prayer together with its sacramental framework.
- They leave Symeon the New Theologian for after the reader has received the practical framework, because he speaks directly about the experience of the uncreated light.
- They integrate Gregory of Sinai somewhere in the path — at the Pilgrim, in second position; at Constas, at the end — as the authority on discerning delusions.
A practical synthesis
For the reader who opens the Philokalia for the first time, a practical synthesis, inspired by these traditional paths, might look like this:
Preliminary stage — before opening the Philokalia:
- Saint Nicodemus’ original introduction (Cavarnos text, available online)
- The chapter “Guarding the Mind and the Heart” from Nicodemus’ Handbook
First texts from the Philokalia:
- St. Nikephoros the Hesychast — On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart
- St. Gregory of Sinai (without the short chapters at first reading)
Then:
- Saints Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos — Directions to Hesychasts
Then:
- St. Symeon the New Theologian — The Three Methods of Prayer
Then:
- St. Hesychios the Priest — On Watchfulness and Holiness
This sequence follows the common logic of the tradition — Nikephoros as gateway, then progressively deeper texts — while remaining practical for the reader working with either the Palmer-Sherrard-Ware English edition or the Stăniloae Romanian edition.
After the reader has passed through this miniature curriculum, he is prepared to move freely through the rest of the Philokalia. Now he can open volume one and Saint Anthony will speak to him. Evagrios of Pontus will no longer seem obscure. John Cassian will make sense. Because he has received the key.
A confirmation from the eighteenth century: the prefaces of Saint Basil of Poiana Mărului
Before moving on to the next author of the Philokalia, it is worth pausing on a confirmation that comes from the original Paisian line itself. The problem we articulate in this article — that Philokalic texts cannot be understood without a framework to accompany them — is not a modern observation. Saint Basil of Poiana Mărului (1692–1767), the elder who formed Paisius Velichkovsky and who led the multinational brotherhood at Dălhăuți in the first half of the eighteenth century, put this problem in writing two and a half centuries earlier.
Seeing that the monks in his communities in the Buzău Mountains, upon receiving the Philokalic texts, failed to understand them correctly, Basil himself wrote introductions — called in the tradition prefaces (predoslovii) or “forewords” (înainte cuvântări) — to the most important writings: to Gregory of Sinai, Philotheos of Sinai, Hesychios the Priest, and Nilus of Sora. These texts circulated alongside the Philokalic writings in Paisian manuscript copies and were included by Paisius himself in the Slavonic Philokalia printed in 1793.
It is worth reading a few lines from the elder’s own pen. Speaking of monks who opened Saint Gregory of Sinai’s book without guidance, Basil writes directly:
“Many, reading the book of Saint Gregory of Sinai and not having experience of the inner work, err in their right understanding of it, thinking that this work was given only to holy men free from passion.”
This observation runs through our article like a red thread: without framework, the text is misunderstood. The reader interprets it as being for others — for saints, for “passionless” men — and not for himself. So he closes it, and remains with external, lip prayer only. Basil calls this path childish, in the technical sense of the first step, given “for the weakness and infancy of our mind.”
Basil analyzes further three principal reasons why Christians avoid the inner work. They are worth mentioning, because they appear today identically:
“The first is that they leave this work only to the saintly men free from passion, thinking that it is suited only to them and not to those troubled by passions. The second is the near-total scarcity of teachers in this way of life. The third is the deception that arises in this very work.”
Each of these reasons Basil answers directly. The first — that the Prayer of the Heart is only for saints — is contradicted: “the first step of monastic beginners is bound to lessen the passions through watchfulness of the mind and guarding of the heart, which is the prayer of the mind proper to practitioners.” That is, exactly the reverse: it is precisely those troubled by passions who most need it, because it is they who wage war with the passions.
The second reason — the lack of teachers — receives an important answer for today’s reader. Basil acknowledges that spiritual fathers who know this work are rare even in the eighteenth century, and offers a partial solution:
“In place of a teacher, we have the writings as teacher, when no teacher is to be found.”
This sentence must be read with all its subtlety. Basil does not say “manage on your own with the books” — he immediately adds, citing Saint Peter of Damascus, that it is essential to have at least a good counselling brother, or if possible an elder, and that “in reading the writings” we must “keep this measure and this order and not neglect the teaching and the guidance.” The writings are secondary teacher, for lack of the living one — not a definitive substitute for him.
And the third reason — fear of deception — receives the clearest answer. Basil identifies, citing Saint Gregory of Sinai, the two real causes of deception:
“Two causes of deception: acting according to one’s own will, and exaltation of thought.”
In other words: those who fall into error do not fall because they read the Philokalia, but because they read it according to their own head and with pride. One who seeks with humility, with questioning, with submission to the order of the Fathers, is protected. Basil says explicitly:
“He who seeks God with submission, with questioning, and with humble thought will never be harmed, by the grace of Christ.”
This formulation shifts the balance of the whole discussion. The problem is not the Philokalia itself. The problem is not even the absolute lack of a spiritual father. The problem is the reader’s attitude: if he comes to the book as a disciple, with humility and sincere intention to follow the tradition, he is protected. If he comes as a master, ready to experiment on his own, he is in real danger.
Basil’s entire preface is, in essence, a defense against two extremes: on one hand, those who say “the Philokalia is not for us” (and remain with external prayer all their lives); on the other, those who say “I’ll take it alone and do what I want” (and fall into delusion). His way is the middle: read with humility, seek guidance wherever you find it, receive the tradition as sons, not as innovators.
This is, for a reader today, both a comfort and a counsel. Comfort, because it shows that lack of a spiritual father is not grounds for despair. Counsel, because it demands an exact interior disposition in receiving the texts — humility, questioning, the desire to follow, not to lead.
This is also why, in the reading order outlined above, we have so insisted on Saint Nicodemus’ original introduction to the 1782 Philokalia and on Saint Nicodemus’ chapter on guarding the mind and the heart. Nicodemus and Basil did, in their languages and their spaces, the same thing: they prepared the reader for what he was about to receive. They did not give the Philokalia bare — they gave it accompanied.
Hesychios the Priest: after what, why, and when
There is one Philokalic author who deserves a separate mention, because he is often invoked by spiritual fathers: Saint Hesychios the Priest with his “Discourse on Watchfulness and Virtue.” Father Maximos says clearly: this text comes after Nikephoros and Callistus-Ignatius, not before them.
Why? Because Hesychios speaks of the assaulting thoughts (logismoi) that arise during prayer. Someone who has not yet begun prayer does not have these thoughts as a practical problem. But someone who has followed the advice of Nikephoros and of Callistus-Ignatius — who has actually begun to say the Prayer, even with a blessing — will discover, within days, that he cannot utter a Lord Jesus Christ without all kinds of thoughts invading his mind. Here Hesychios becomes indispensable. He explains what these thoughts are, how they are distinguished, how they are fought, how not to be discouraged.
It is a perfect example of why order matters. Hesychios is not “an optional author.” He is a necessary tool, which only comes into function at the right moment. Given too early, he seems abstract. Given in time, he is a rescue.
Three principles that support the whole guide
Beyond the specific order of the texts, there are three principles that support the entire traditional approach to the Philokalia, and which deserve explicit mention.
The first is the principle of framework. The Prayer of the Heart is not a technique extracted from context. It is a practice that presupposes the Mysteries, vigil, fasting, confession, obedience. Saint Nicodemus insisted on this in the introduction that the English translators excluded. Callistus and Ignatius underscore it on every page. Whoever attempts the Jesus Prayer as a Christian meditation method, detached from the Liturgy and the Eucharist, does not receive its fruits — he receives, at best, a psychological calming that resembles prayer but is not prayer.
The second is the principle of guidance. In all patristic tradition there is no more constantly repeated counsel than this: find a spiritual father and obey him. A spiritual father who sees you, knows you, verifies you. The written text cannot replace this living human contact. The Philokalia itself witnesses to this: every author presupposes a reader who has an elder, who goes to confession, who receives his rule from another. If this link is missing, the Philokalia becomes a literary monologue without a real addressee.
The third is the principle of degrees. Spiritual life is one of gradual growth. You cannot skip stages. Saint Gregory of Sinai warns dozens of times: “high” experiences sought prematurely are either illusions or falls. The Philokalic fathers are unanimous: first virtue, then pure prayer; first humility, then contemplation; first obedience, then freedom. The reading order of the Philokalia reflects exactly this logic — you begin with the practical texts, with the framework, with the explanations. Then you move to the higher texts. Never the reverse.
A concrete map of the minimum path
For the reader who wants a practical reference tool, here is the path in its simplest form. Volume references below cite both the English Palmer-Sherrard-Ware edition (EPh = The Philokalia, Faber & Faber) and the Romanian Stăniloae edition (where they differ).
Preliminary stage — before opening the Philokalia
1. Saint Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain’s original introduction to the 1782 Philokalia Omitted from the Palmer-Sherrard-Ware edition. Available in Constantine Cavarnos’ separate translation (Belmont, 2008). → Purpose: understand why the anthology was compiled and what to expect when opening it.
2. “Guarding the Mind and the Heart” from Saint Nicodemus’ Handbook of Spiritual Counsel Peter Chamberas translation (New York, 1989). Not part of the Philokalia proper. → Purpose: receive the conceptual framework about the mind, the spiritual heart, and how they work together.
The minimum path through the Philokalia
3. St. Nikephoros the Hesychast — On Watchfulness and the Guarding of the Heart EPh volume 4 / Stăniloae volume VII. → The gateway. Short (a few dozen pages), direct, practical. Answers the question: what is the Prayer of the Heart?
4. Saints Callistus and Ignatius Xanthopoulos — Directions to Hesychasts In the English tradition available primarily in Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart (Kadloubovsky-Palmer, 1951) / Stăniloae volume VIII. → The systematic exposition of the Jesus Prayer, bound to sacramental life. Long and dense — can be read in segments.
5. St. Gregory of Sinai — Writings on prayer, stillness, and the signs of grace and delusion EPh volume 4 / Stăniloae volume VII. → On first reading, without the short chapters (the advice of the elder in The Way of a Pilgrim). Deepens discernment — how to distinguish true grace from delusion.
6. St. Symeon the New Theologian — The Three Methods of Prayer EPh volume 4 / Stăniloae volume VI. → The mystical dimension. Approached after the practical framework has been internalized, to prevent the rise of an “unformed thirst.”
7. St. Hesychios the Priest — On Watchfulness and Holiness EPh volume 1 / Stăniloae volume IV (not volume I as someone following chronological order might expect). → Becomes indispensable once the reader has actually begun praying. Explains the assaulting thoughts (logismoi) and how to combat them.
Only then — volume one
8. Volume one of the printed Philokalia (St. Anthony the Great, Evagrios of Pontus, St. John Cassian, Nilus the Ascetic, Mark the Ascetic, Diadochos of Photiki, Isaiah the Solitary) → Now the reader has the key. The ancient texts, which seemed obscure at first attempt, make sense. From here one can move freely through the rest of the anthology — volumes II-III (St. Maximus the Confessor), volume V (St. Peter of Damascus, St. Symeon Metaphrastes).
Volumes IX-XII: Father Stăniloae’s philokalic extension
Volumes IX, X, XI, and XII of the Stăniloae edition add authors who are not found in the Philokalia of Venice 1782, but who belong fully to the neptic tradition: St. John Climacus and Abba Dorotheos (vol. IX), St. Isaac the Syrian (vol. X), Saints Barsanuphius and John of Gaza (vol. XI), and the principal work of the Venerable Isaiah the Solitary — an author already present in vol. I through his 27 Chapters, now completed with the Twenty-Nine Discourses (vol. XII).
The exclusion of these authors from the original edition does not reflect a doctrinal distance — for many of them, St. Nicodemus himself expressed deep esteem. He calls Isaac the Syrian “our God-bearing philosopher,” and the Letters of Saints Barsanuphius and John he himself published separately, at Venice, in 1816 — explicitly recognizing their belonging to the neptic tradition.
Rather, in 1782 Macarius and Nicodemus preferred to gather less accessible texts, leaving outside the anthology authors who already had well-distributed editions. St. John Climacus’s Ladder circulated in over 750 Greek manuscripts and was traditionally read during Great Lent in all monasteries. St. Isaac the Syrian’s Ascetical Discourses had been printed by Nikephoros Theotokis at Leipzig in 1770, only twelve years before the Philokalia. Abba Dorotheos’s Instructions was a standard book for novices in many monasteries. The compilers gathered texts that were hard to find, scattered through Athonite manuscripts — not those already available.
Father Stăniloae, working for a twentieth-century Romanian readership with different access to patristic texts, decided to complete the philokalic corpus with these essential authors. The result is that the Romanian edition of the Philokalia is, by far, the most extensive in all of Orthodox tradition — twelve volumes compared to the five of the Greek or English editions. Yet it is not an arbitrary expansion, but a faithful completion of the original neptic vision, recovering authors whom Nicodemus himself esteemed, but could not include in the initial anthological format.
Notes on pace
This path is not a checklist to complete in a few weeks. Each text should be read, re-read, meditated upon. A common counsel from contemporary spiritual fathers: a chapter a week, with time to return. The minimum path (stages 1-7) may easily take two to three years of rhythmic reading — especially if the reader combines study with a living sacramental life (services, confession, daily prayer). This is not wasted time — it is the correct rhythm. The Russian pilgrim lived with his four Paisian volumes for years, returning to them again and again.
Without a spiritual father, this path remains at the level of historical and cultural reading. With one, it becomes what Saints Macarius and Nicodemus intended it to be: an introduction to real spiritual life.
What not to do
A few frequent pitfalls that contemporary fathers have observed in those who begin to read the Philokalia alone:
Do not attempt to practice the physical techniques of prayer — control of breathing, bodily posture, descent of the mind into the heart — without direct, continuous guidance from a spiritual father who knows them himself from experience. These techniques are not useless (Nikephoros and Gregory of Sinai describe them explicitly), but applied alone, outside context, they produce dangerous psychological effects.
Do not mix the Philokalia with non-Orthodox meditation traditions — yoga, Buddhist mindfulness, New Age relaxation techniques. They are not “compatible” because all “work with the mind.” The work is completely different — one separates you from the passions through the calling of Christ, the other produces states of consciousness that may be pleasant but have nothing to do with sanctity.
Do not seek spectacular experiences. If you set out on the path of the Prayer of the Heart expecting visions, uncreated lights, strong emotions, you are already in a major error. The Fathers say unanimously: seek humility, not experiences. If God wants to give you something, He will; if you seek, you will find delusion.
Do not rush the pace. The Philokalia is not read like a novel. One chapter a week, re-read, meditated on, sometimes only a few sentences a day, is more profitable than a rapid reading of the whole book. The multiple volumes of the modern editions are not an agenda to tick off — they are a library to which you return for a lifetime. Whoever has worked for ten years with only Nikephoros, Callistus and Ignatius, Gregory of Sinai, and Hesychios has used the Philokalia far more correctly than one who has gone through all the volumes in a year.
Do not ever read it alone — in other words, without a channel of verification. A regular spiritual father, a community where you go constantly to services, at least a father with whom you speak monthly. If you have none of these, limit yourself to historical and cultural reading of the Philokalia, as a classic of Orthodox spirituality, until you find the proper spiritual framework. It is far better to delay practice than to attempt it wrongly.
Conclusion: a book that is received, not bought
The Philokalia is not merely a book you “buy,” but one that is truly received only within a living tradition — from your spiritual father, from a community, from concrete rootedness in the life of the Church. The fact that today you can find it in Orthodox bookshops and online is a blessing, but also a temptation. Blessing, because the most precious texts of Orthodoxy are within everyone’s reach. Temptation, because this ease creates the illusion that you can approach them any way you wish.
The practical synthesis outlined here — starting with Saint Nicodemus’ preliminary texts, then moving to Nikephoros the Hesychast, to Callistus and Ignatius, to Symeon the New Theologian, and to Hesychios the Priest — is not the invention of this article. It is the fruit of traditional paths consolidated over centuries, attested in The Way of a Pilgrim, recovered with variations in Father Maximos Constas’ scheme, and rooted more deeply in the Paisian line — in the communities of Saint Basil of Poiana Mărului and in the discipleship of Saint Paisius of Neamț. The variations among these paths do not contradict the existence of the tradition — on the contrary, they confirm it, for a living tradition is precisely one that adapts to different readers, different epochs, different languages, while preserving a common logic.
For today’s reader, the practical counsel is simple. Do not begin with volume one. Begin with Saint Nicodemus’ original introduction — find it, read it, set it as foundation. Then go directly to Nikephoros the Solitary. Then to Callistus and Ignatius. Leave the first volumes of the Philokalia for after you have received the framework.
And, before anything: find a spiritual father. Without him, the Philokalia remains what it already is — a work of culture. With him, it becomes what Saints Macarius and Nicodemus intended it to be: a gateway to real spiritual life.
This article is a continuation of “Why Not All Philokalias Are the Same”, in which we sketched the history of the translations and transmission of the Philokalia. If history interests you, begin there. If you wish to enter directly into the practice of reading, this article is the starting point.
Article published on OrtodoxWay.com. The text may be redistributed with citation of the source and link to the original article.
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