Editor’s Introduction

This volume gathers 85 readings by St. John of Kronstadt (1829-1908), rector of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Kronstadt and, since 1990, glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church. It follows the plan on the title page of the 1902 St. Petersburg edition: plain gospel words for the Russian people, arranged for reading on the Sundays and feast days of the whole year. The sequence begins with a homily for the New Year, passes through the preaching of the Forerunner, the Baptism of the Lord and the Meeting of the Lord, keeps the Sundays of Great Lent and the days of Holy Week, and then follows the long run of Sundays after Pentecost.

Each reading takes a Gospel or Epistle passage as its text and lets it speak to an ordinary hearer. The titles show the range: Eternity, Blindness of the Soul, The Penitent Zacchaeus, Pride and Humility, The Last Judgment, Mutual Love. Father John writes the way he preached, in short sentences, direct address and frequent questions, and he quotes Scripture constantly; the 453 endnotes give the chapter and verse of these citations. The closing readings turn to the life of the parish and the nation, with pieces on autocracy, on the houses of industry that served the poor of Kronstadt, and on the question of why life is given to a person at all.

The English here is a modern rendering of the Russian text of the 1902 edition as it appears on azbyka.ru. Scripture references use the standard English book abbreviations and Arabic numerals for chapter and verse. The readings can be taken in the order of the church year, one per Sunday or feast, or dipped into by subject; each stands complete on its own.