St. Sophrony of Essex

A Russian painter who left Moscow for Paris, abandoned art because he judged it was taking him away from God, went to Athos, and there became the disciple and afterwards the witness of St Silouan. He published the elder’s writings with a long introduction that is a work of theology in its own right, and in 1959 founded a monastery of men and women together at Tolleshunt Knights in Essex. His own book, We Shall See Him as He Is, is an account of personhood and of the prayer for the whole Adam that he learned from Silouan. Glorified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2019. Feast: July 11.