The path of spiritual ascent according to Evagrius of Pontus

This book is dedicated to one of the most brilliant and ambiguous figures in the history of the Christian Church. Evagrius of Pontus (c. 345-399) was both a great teacher in the mystical tradition of the Orthodox East and a heretic condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) for his closeness to Origenism. The influence of Evagrius is in no small measure related to the fact that his immediate mentors were the great saints of Orthodoxy, St. Basil the Great, Sts. Gregory the Theologian and Prelate St. Macarius of Egypt. The great Cappadocian Fathers, with whom he was close, and also Sts. Gregory of Nyssa, derive useful aspects in Origen's teaching and present them in an Orthodox interpretation. In this vein is also the influence of Evagrius. The intellectualistic elements in his mysticism and his anthropological teaching receive a new interpretation in the study of Yannis Kaminis, which reveals their dependence on the spiritual context and their subordination to Christian asceticism. The author therefore focuses on the first stage of spiritual ascent, the act (πρᾶξις), to which he devotes most attention and reveals its importance as the basis for the other two stages, knowledge (γνῶσις) and theology (θεολογία).

- Prof. Ivan Hristov