“Prologues” Lives of Saints and Words of Teaching
The first issue of the “Prologues” ( Vieţile sfinţilor şi cuvinte de învăţătură – Lives of Saints and Words of Teaching) for January and February was printed with the blessing of His Eminence Irineu. The first edition appeared with the blessing of Metropolitan Bishop Nestor Vornicescu and was corrected and enriched by the Archimandrite Benedict Ghiuş. As His Eminence Irineu notes in this edition that was “corrected, improved, completed and reviewed by us after the edition published by the worthy to remember the Metropolitan Bishop Nestor, our predecessor, aims to present the spiritual beauty of words God revealed to His Saints, as well as the beauty of the old literary language, the language of old sermons, as the poet said”.
The “Prologues” are spiritual writings and literary, to the same extent, which have been used and honoured over time by the Orthodox believers in our country, along with “Psalter”, “Horologion” and “Lives of Saints”. Read out both in Church and schools, these writings have always been a good opportunity for believers to know the lives of the Saints and especially to follow their example of holiness. “Therefore, the “Prologues” bring before our eyes true models of holy life, of pastoral struggles of the hierarch saints, they tell us about the suffering of the martyrs, about hermits’ and holy women’s longing for God, about the state which the Christian should aspire to, in their spiritual effort. Thus, every day of the year is sanctified by celebrating some events or certain important people in the history of redemption” as it results from the “Foreword” signed by the Metropolitan Bishop of Oltenia.
Along with the festivals and lives of the Saints honoured in January and February, in this volume of the “Prologues”, there are also the words of teaching from the “Ladder” of Saint John Climacus, from the “Patericon”, from the “Limonariu” of Saint Ioan Moshu, as well as from the works of Saints John the Chrysostom, Ephraim the Syrian or Gregory the Great.
In an exceptional graphical presentation that highlights the beauty, the age and especially the spiritual teaching specific to these texts, the “Prologues” represent an urge to believers to read “these pages with the heart and mind” on their road to “resemblance with the saints liked by God, on their spiritual ascent”, as His Eminence Irineu notes.
