“We live in difficult times,” says the author of this book, Archimandrite Raphael. And it’s hard to disagree with this. It is difficult because the world around us is experiencing rapid changes; we hear about the “new order” and the general prosperity that is about to reign in it, but we see blatant injustice, shedding blood and the suffering of innocent people.

It’s difficult because it has become very difficult in this world to live for an Orthodox Christian, and not only for a Christian, but also for any person who has certain moral values and wants to preserve them. The temptations around us have multiplied and are multiplying, turning into the general and, perhaps, predominant background of our lives. There are so many of them that sometimes it seems as if all modern reality consists of them alone. On the contrary, there are fewer and fewer examples of piety and righteousness; at least, they are so hidden from human eyes that in the world, in public life, they simply do not exist.

The conversations and articles of Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin), which compiled this book, are the fruit of attentive spiritual life, the result of reflection on the processes taking place in the modern world and the Church, their analysis, search and indication of the only path that in our days, as a thousand years ago, a Christian striving for salvation should follow.