"This is the path of a wanderer along the endless roads, highways and country lanes of Holy Rus'; one of the representatives of that “wandering in Christ” Russia, which we knew so well then, long, long ago... - Russia, which now does not exist and which, probably, will never happen again. These are those who from St. Sergius went to Sarov and Valaam, to Optina and to the Kyiv saints; they visited Tikhon and Mitrophanium, and visited St. Innocent in Irkutsk. to Athos and to the Holy Land. They, “having no abiding city, were looking for the future.” They were those who were attracted by the distance and the carefree ease of homeless life. Having left their home, they found it in monastic monasteries. They preferred edifying conversation. elders and schemaniks. They contrasted the strong structure of centuries-old life with the rhythm of the monastic liturgical year with its holidays and church memories. They now seem to us much closer to the Poor Man of Assisi or even closer to those early Christians about whom the ancient author wrote: “Christians inhabit their fatherlands. , but like aliens; They participate in everything as citizens, but endure everything as strangers; every foreign land is their fatherland, and every fatherland is a foreign land... Being in the flesh, they do not live according to the flesh; they wander on earth, but live in heaven." Cyprian (Kern). Preface to the new edition

The notes give the main discrepancies from the first Kazan edition of 1881 and the Athonite Panteleimon manuscript No. 50/4/395. Work on the study of these discrepancies was carried out by Hieromonk Vasily (Grolimund)

The Appendices contain two articles concerning the “Wanderer”: “Afterword” by Grolimund and “The authorship of the “Frank stories of the wanderer to his spiritual father”” by I. V. Basin At the beginning. The book contains a foreword by Cyprian (Kern).