“Offered to the attention of pious readers, translated into modern Russian speech, prayerful reflections are borrowed from the book of the Athonite monk Fikara “Vertograd Soulful”. This book was translated into Church Slavonic by the famous zealot of Orthodoxy in western Russia, Archimandrite of the Holy Spiritual Monastery of Vilna, Leonty Karpovich, and published in Vilna in 1620. These reflections are mainly excerpts from the inspired works of St. Ephraim the Syrian, who has rightly acquired the preferred title of preacher of repentance; but these excerpts, very well chosen, are not always given literally; in places they are supplemented by the own reflections of the pious saint Fikara and, on the whole, produce that quiet, but at the same time deep, soul-touching impression that only the patristic works are distinguished by. This is truly the cry of a repentant soul, pouring out its sorrow before the infinite mercy of the Lord...”