Pilgrim, Way of the
KONSTANTIN GAVRILKIN
An anonymous Russian book first published in 1881, containing an account of the narrator’s spiritual journey through life while studying the Philokalia and practicing the Jesus Prayer. The text in its current version is the result of the editorial work of Bishop Theophan (Feofan) the Recluse, who also gave it the Russian title Otkrovennye rasskazy strannika (1884). For the authorship of the original text, see Basin (1996). The book was designed to popularize the radical development of the interior life in the spiritual tradition of St. Paisy Velichovsky and the Optina Elders, by showing that it could be adopted even by simple laity (the protagonist is a wandering peasant). The English translation received a wider notice in the West after its appearance in Salinger’s novel Franny and Zoey.
Plate 50 The medieval pilgrim’s entrance gate to the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Sergiev Posad, near Moscow. Photo by John McGuckin.
SEE ALSO: Jesus Prayer; Optina; Philokalia; St. Paisy Velichovsky (1722–1794); St. Theophan (Govorov) the Recluse (1815–1894)
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Basin, I. V. (1996) “Avtorstvo ‘Otkrovennykh rasskazov strannika dukhovnomu ottsu svoemu,” in Arkhim. Mikhail Kozlov, Zapiski i pis’ma, ed. I. V. Basin. Moscow: Bogoroditse-Rozhdestvenskii Bobrenev monastyr’, pp. 123–56.
Pentkovsky A. (ed.) (1999). The Pilgrim’s Tale, trans. A. Smith. New York: Paulist Press.