Saint Theophan the Recluse

On Complete Conversion to God

19th c. · Spiritual instruction · English translation, 2026

18,449 words · 1.5 hr read· Accessible

Source edition: Творения иже во святых отца нашего Феофана Затворника. — М.: Изд. Афонского Русского Пантелеимонова монастыря (дореволюционное издание, переизд.).

Cover art: The Return of the Prodigal Son (c. 1668) — Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669) (Wikimedia Commons (Google Art Project), Public domain)

Conversion, for Saint Theophan the Recluse, is not a threshold crossed once and left behind — it is a turning of the whole heart, and most turnings, he warns, are only half made. In eight discourses he traces the complete return to God: what grace works in the font of baptism, the zeal it kindles, the counterfeit calm of a partial surrender, the reign of God won within, and — closing with Saint Isaac the Syrian — what the "world" a Christian must renounce actually is.