“We must not deceive ourselves: the life of the desert-dwellers of the Northern Thebaid is far beyond us in our time of unparalleled spiritual emptiness. In any epoch the monastic life is limited by the kind of life which is being led in the world. At a time when daily Orthodox life in Russia was both extremely difficult and very sober, monasticism could flourish; but in our time when ordinary life has become abnormally comfortable and the world-view of even the best religious and intellectual leaders is shockingly frivolous, what more is to be expected than that luke-warm spirituality with comfort…”
(Fr. Seraphim Rose ‘Epilogue to the Northern Thebaid’)
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