Lent Book Discussion: The Arena: Guidelines for Spiritual and Monastic Life at the Family Life Center

Orthodox Book Discussion

Lent Discussion Book

The Arena: Guidelines for Spiritual and Monastic Life

by Ignatius Brianchaninov, with a Foreword by Kallistos Ware

Each Wednesday during Lent the church community will meet after the Liturgy of Presantified gifts for a Lenten pot-luck dinner at the Family Life Center. Following dinner, Father Christos will lead a discussion of a few chapters of The Arena.

Regarding The Arena from the bookseller: One of the most important texts of Eastern Orthodox Christian teaching on the spiritual life, this book draws upon the ascetic and mystical doctrine of the Greek Fathers and greats of the Orthodox Christian Church. In an age alienated from spiritual culture and rooted in materialism, these teachings pose both a challenge and an invitation to those seeking heightened spirituality.

From the Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s foreword: But for the Orthodox, the Bible does not stand in isolation. There are also the Fathers—The Arena Contains many stories of the Desert Fathers.  St. Ignatius writes, “Here I have indicated how we should use the writings of the ancients and adapt them to modern conditions.”

St. Ignatius Brianchaninov was a 19th-century monk and the abbot of the St. Sergius Monastery in St. Petersburg, Russia. Kallistos Timothy Ware is an Orthodox Bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the retired Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. He is best-known as the author of the classic text The Orthodox Church.

Deep your experience of Lent by attending the Liturgies of the Presantified Gifts and Lenten Book Discussion. Join us:  March 4, March 11, March 18, March 25, and April 1. The Liturgy of the Presantified Gifts is scheduled for 6:00 P.M. and the Lenten Potluck and discussion at 7:00 P.M. The book is available in the church bookstore and library.

Please note:  It is strongly encouraged that spiritual material be discussed with your spiritual father, father confessor or spiritual mother.