The Life of Prayer on Mount Athos

According to St Basil, the monk’s whole life should be a season of prayer, both public prayer and private prayer. That is what the monks of Mount Athos are there to do. That is the basis of their entire way of life. Athos is sometimes called ‘the mountain of silence’, but as one living Athonite has written, ‘here you can hear the hum of unceasing prayer.’ The book explores all dimensions of this mystery, beginning with the deceptively simple question ‘what is prayer?’ Subsequent papers consider