St. Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)

George Govorov, a priest’s son who became a scholar-monk, served in the Russian mission in Jerusalem and in Constantinople, and was a bishop at Tambov and Vladimir before he asked to retire in 1866. At the hermitage of Vysha he shut himself into two rooms for the last twenty-two years of his life, served the Liturgy alone, and wrote. He translated the Philokalia into Russian in five volumes and adapted it for readers in the world, wrote The Path to Salvation, commented on the Psalms and the letters of Paul, and answered letters: twenty or forty a day, to anyone who wrote, which is how most of his teaching on prayer of the heart reached ordinary people. Glorified in 1988. Feast: January 10.