Unity and Mission

Let me begin with some words from a book which, next to the Holy Bible, has had the greatest influence upon my personal life: the Gerontikon or Sayings of the Desert Fathers. It was through reading this book, at the age of sixteen, that I was set on the path that led me, seven years later, to become Orthodox, and then, another eight years after that, to become priest and monk. In the Gerontikon the sayings of the different desert fathers and desert mothers -the abbas and ammas, as they are called -are arranged alphabetically, beginning with St. Antony the Great, who lived inEgypt in the fourth century. Under his name we read, almost at once: