No writer of the Orthodox Christian West was more devoted to the saints of the Church of Christ, did not praise them more diligently than the saints. Gregory of Tours. He called this book Vita Patrum or Lives of the Fathers, as if the numerous saints whose lives were included in it led one life before God. A classic work of hagiographic literature, Vita Patrum ranks with Lawsaik and other great lives of ascetics as one of the main sources of Orthodox Christian spirituality. This edition of Vita Patrum contains the complete lives of the saints. Gregory, large introductory materials by Father Seraphim (Rose) and evidence of the posthumous miracles of Father Seraphim himself, as well as over a hundred illustrations. Never before has the rich spiritual heritage of the Orthodox West been presented in such detail in one volume in Russian.