Counsels from the Holy Mountain: Selected from the letters and homilies of Elder Ephraim

A disciple of Elder Joseph the Hesychast, Elder Ephraim has, over the past couple of decades, ventured out from Mt. Athos to plant monastic communities in North America. We offer many books by and about the Desert Fathers, and truly their voices are living voices. But we would go a step further and say that their lives are not distant examples, but are immediately incarnate in the lives and writings of such as Elder Ephraim, who walks among us today. His counsels have a similar pristine and primitive urgency, compelling in their simplicity the way that the Scriptures are. We can and must read the Fathers, and the Philokalia and its offspring, but always remember that the practice of their precepts is the crucial thing. We have a contemporary example here in the life and writings of Elder Ephraim, his mentors and disciples.