Saint John of Kronstadt

A Sermon for the New Year 1899

19th c. · Asceticism & Spirituality · English translation, 2026

1,363 words · 7 min read· Moderate

Source edition: Слово на Новый 1899 год (azbyka.ru; from the pre-revolutionary Russian edition of St John of Kronstadt’s New Year sermon)

Cover art: March (1895) — Isaac Levitan (Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

A short New Year's homily in which Saint John of Kronstadt turns from the calendar to the conscience: does the new year find anything in us actually renewed? He weighs a year's small gains (a sharper watch against sin, a deepening taste for prayer) against sins that persist regardless, then presses his hearers with Paul's and the Gospel's own questions about mercy and burden-bearing, insisting that renewal is found only within the Church.