Information about the author:

Abstract:

Saint Theophan the Recluse is one of the most prominent Russian spiritual writers. He was distinguished not only by his literary, but also by his artistic talent. The sermons of Saint Theophan respond to the deep spiritual and moral problems of the post- reform era. His spiritual heritage remains relevant today, distinguished by its strong individual characteristics and varied use of tradition. Saint Theophan masters all the wealth of techniques that go back to the ancient Russian literary tradition, where the spiritual content is inseparable from the aesthetic techniques themselves: figurative oratorical eloquence, various compositional techniques, aphoristic speech, allegories. His sermons also contain a symbolically meaningful landscape, traditions of the parable genre and Russian Baroque literature, etc. In Theophan’s sermons and letters, we see the saint’s responses to contemporary events and changes in social life in changed socio-economic and moral-psychological conditions. The saint sensitively grasped the nature of his times and the spiritual illnesses of society. In his sermons Saint Theophan appears as one of the brightest authors of his time, in many ways coinciding with the direction of thought of the leading writers of the era, primarily Dostoevsky.

Keywords: Theophan the Recluse, Sermons, Ancient Literary Tradition, Current Issues.