Published | Parrésia - Ročenka pro východní křesťanství

Izák Syrský a jeho duchovní odkaz

Author: Ilarion Alfejev
Translated by Jaroslav Brož and Michal Řoutil from the original publication “Духовный мир преподобного Исаака Сирина”, Saint Petersburg 2002, and from Syriac sources.

Isaac the Syrian, one of the greatest Christian mystics of all time, lived in the seventh century as a monk-pilgrim in Mesopotamia (covering the territory of present-day Iraq and Iran).

The present volume seeks to analyze Isaac’s ascetic and mystical teachings – especially the state of being abandoned by God, temptation, humility and the tears of repentance, prayer and mystical initiation, spiritual wonder and “inebriation” with God. Space is also devoted to his understanding of the relation between faith and knowing, his narrative of the life of the age to come, eschatological hopes and, especially, to the key theme of his fascinating concept of God-Love, which is the “sole cause of the creation of the world”. This volume by the leading Orthodox theologian Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeyev, who holds doctorates from Oxford University and the Institut de Théologie Orthodoxe Saint-Serge in Paris, is the first modern scientific monograph on Isaac the Syrian, and has been translated into several European languages.