Happy Feast Day, dear friends! Today we celebrate St Ninian, the wonderful protector of our Church and the spiritual founder of our Monastery. I think this is the perfect day to let you know about two very recent and extremely … Read More

The Solovetsky Archipelago is less than 200 miles from the North Circle. To the North-East of the main Solovetsky island, silent and beaten by rabid winds, is Anzer – the isle of the Solovets hermits. Here, on a small peninsula, … Read More

Happy Feast Day, everyone! This is a brief note, to wish all of you the strength and the faith to open up to God’s presence in our lives, so we may be transformed into the holy beings He has called … Read More

Well, that’s the way life is. After a day filled with puffins, cormorants and seals (plus a gorgeous sea-eagle watching over its vast territory from high up in the skies), there comes a day of cleaning, washing and scrubbing! It … Read More

I have not posted here since before Christmas. To answer the obvious question: no, I have not decided to stay on Athos – although, to tell you the entire truth, the real question in MY mind is not why I … Read More

In a few hours, I’m flying to Thessaloniki, from where I’ll get the bus to Ouranopolis, the port to Mount Athos. I’ll be away until January 4th, so have a blessed Feast of the Nativity and a happy New Year. … Read More

Over the last few years, I have received a great number of emails and messages from people who feel a closeness to the Celtic Saints and who would like to own a hand-painted icon for their private life of prayer. … Read More

First, I’m grateful for the ride. Grateful for the journey. Grateful for everything that made me who I am. Good and bad, virtuous and sinful, it all hardly matters before the extraordinary, unbelievable, totally-beyond-logic fact that I exist. I am … Read More

‘Silence is the mystery of the Life to come’, St Seraphim used to say. Silence is a mystery, a sacrament of the Life to come (in the sense in which Confession and Baptism are sacraments of this life) for many of … Read More

Like the icon of Sophia, which we’ve discussed in a previous post, this impressive work of art also works as a deep and challenging theological thesis about one of the central beliefs of Christianity: Christ’s Resurrection. It is worth pointing out … Read More