Influence and Translations

How St. Theophan the Recluse reached the English-speaking Orthodox world: through the Kadloubovsky and Palmer anthologies published by Faber & Faber from 1951, several of them translated not from the Greek but from Theophan’s own Russian Dobrotolyubie; through the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood editions of his works under Fr. Seraphim Rose; and through the standard and much-debated comparison with St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, with whom he was glorified at the same 1988 council.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (canonized 1988)

The Faber Line: Kadloubovsky and Palmer

For the Anglophone reader, the first great channel of Theophan was a series of anthologies produced in mid-twentieth-century England by Evgenia Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer for Faber & Faber — and, crucially, several of these volumes were rendered into English not from the Greek Philokalia but from Theophan’s Russian recension, the Dobrotolyubie.

The series opened with Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart (Kadloubovsky and Palmer, Faber & Faber, 1951), whose front matter states plainly that the Philokalia “was translated into Russian by Bishop Theophan the Recluse (d. 1894), from whose text this English translation has been made” (Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart, archive.org). It was followed by Early Fathers from the Philokalia (Kadloubovsky and Palmer, Faber & Faber, 1954), likewise selected from Theophan’s Russian Dobrotolubiye (publisher and catalogue listings, allbookstores; weiserantiquarian). To these the same translators added Unseen Warfare — the Catholic Spiritual Combat of Lorenzo Scupoli as edited by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and then revised by Theophan — translated by Kadloubovsky and Palmer with an introduction by H. A. Hodges (Faber & Faber, 1952; later reissued by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press), a work that exhibits in one binding the whole layered transmission of the text (see Unseen Warfare).

A fourth volume in the Faber line carried Theophan into the devotional life of English readers more intimately than the others. The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology, compiled by Igumen Chariton of Valamo, was translated by E. Kadloubovsky and E. M. Palmer — the latter, it should be noted, a different person from the G. E. H. Palmer of the other three volumes — with an introduction by Timothy (Kallistos) Ware (Faber & Faber, 1966). Its contents are “taken chiefly from the letters of Bishop Theophan the Recluse,” supplemented by passages from St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, so that the anthology that became for many the practical handbook of the Jesus Prayer in English is at its core a distillation of Theophan’s pastoral correspondence (The Art of Prayer, christianbook; store.ancientfaith; see The Prayer of the Heart).

The Russian Philokalia as the Anglophone Gateway

The historical weight of these volumes is easy to underestimate. For nearly three decades — until the complete Palmer, Sherrard, and Ware translation of the Greek Philokalia began to appear in 1979 — the Faber anthologies of 1951 and 1954 were the principal English gateway to the Philokalia, and that gateway opened through Theophan’s Russian Dobrotolyubie (Philokalia, en.wikipedia). The consequence is a quiet but considerable fact of reception history: the English-speaking Orthodox and non-Orthodox world first encountered the Philokalia not in its Greek shape but in Theophan’s recension — his selection, his arrangement, his sometimes paraphrasing Russian. The standard modern English Philokalia would later restore the Greek; but the spiritual imagination of a whole generation of English readers had already been formed by Theophan’s version (see Translating the Dobrotolyubie).

The St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood

The second great channel was American and monastic. The St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood at Platina, gathered around Fr. Seraphim Rose, undertook the English publication of Theophan’s own writings, drawing him out from the Philokalic anthologies and presenting his systematic and pastoral works in their own right. The list is substantial: The Path to Salvation (translated by Fr. Seraphim Rose, 1996/97); The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It (translated by Alexandra Dockham, 1995); Thoughts for Each Day of the Year; Kindling the Divine Spark (1994); together with Turning the Heart to God (Conciliar Press, 2001) and Raising Them Right (theophan.net; logismoitouaaron blog; Theophan the Recluse, en.wikipedia; see St. Seraphim Rose).

Behind this labor lay a deliberate judgment. Fr. Seraphim Rose named Theophan and Ignatius Brianchaninov as the two key modern Holy Fathers for the guidance of contemporary Orthodox Christians — not the ancient desert alone, but these two nineteenth-century Russian bishops, who had already done the work of translating the patristic ascetic inheritance into the idiom of the modern world (theophan.net; logismoitouaaron blog). The Platina brotherhood’s editions were the means by which that judgment was made effective in English; both Theophan and Ignatius reached the Anglophone Orthodox world largely through the St. Herman / Seraphim Rose effort.

The Comparison with St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

No account of Theophan’s legacy is complete without the standard pairing with St. Ignatius Brianchaninov (1807–1867) — the comparison that the tradition itself draws, and that was sealed when both were glorified at the same Local Council in 1988 (see Repose and Canonization).

The parallels are striking. Both were bishops who resigned their sees to retire to monasteries and write systematic ascetical theology for the modern age: Theophan left Tambov and then Vladimir for the Vysha hermitage in 1866, while Ignatius left his administration of the Caucasus and Black Sea diocese for the Nikolo-Babayevsky Monastery in 1861. Both were Philokalic teachers of the Jesus Prayer; and both are the twin sources from which The Art of Prayer was compiled (The Art of Prayer, store.ancientfaith).

The standard contrast lies in emphasis and temperament. Ignatius is generally the more austere, strictly patristic-citational, and cautionary: emphatic that the imagination must be wholly excluded from prayer, severe in his warning that the merely mechanical repetition of the Jesus Prayer “is not prayer at all… It is dead!”, and the great Orthodox authority on prelest (prelest’, spiritual delusion); he is more pessimistic about modern man’s capacity for the higher degrees of prayer and for visions. Theophan is generally the more pastoral, psychological, and — relatively — optimistic, and notably more willing to adapt Western devotional material: the prime case is his reworking of Scupoli’s Roman Catholic Spiritual Combat into the Orthodox Unseen Warfare (see Unseen Warfare). Kallistos Ware, in The Power of the Name, takes Ignatius as the type-case of the modern Russian de-emphasis of the physical breathing technique in the Jesus Prayer (orthochristian.com/53475.html; Ware, The Power of the Name; Prelest and Ignatius Brianchaninov, en.wikipedia). The two were also divided on the materiality of the soul and the angels — a dispute treated more fully elsewhere in this collection (see Grace, Freedom, and the Modern World).

A more pointed line of evaluation must be reported as one strand of reception, not as a settled verdict. Some — notably Prof. A. I. Osipov, reporting Abbot Nikon (Vorobiev) — have judged Ignatius the deeper of the two, Abbot Nikon bluntly likening Theophan’s writings to “a schoolboy’s works compared to those of a professor — the writings of Bishop Ignatius” (logismoitouaaron blog, citing Osipov and Nikon). [Disputed: this is a particular reception-judgment reflecting a specific school of opinion, not a consensus; many hold the two saints fully complementary rather than ranked.]

Finally, the two differ in the shape of their reception. Theophan’s English afterlife is the broader and more devotional — the Jesus Prayer, the Philokalia, The Art of Prayer, the day-by-day spiritual counsel of his letters — while Ignatius’s is tied more closely to his ascetic manuals, above all The Arena, and to his eschatology in The Word on Death. Both, however, came into the English-speaking Orthodox world through the same great twentieth-century labor of translation, and both stand together as the twin nineteenth-century fathers to whom modern Orthodoxy returns for the practical theology of prayer.

References

Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart. Trans. E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer. Faber & Faber, 1951. (archive.org.) (Front matter stating the translation was made from Bishop Theophan’s Russian text.)
Early Fathers from the Philokalia. Trans. E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer. Faber & Faber, 1954. (allbookstores; weiserantiquarian.) (Selected from Theophan’s Russian Dobrotolubiye.)
Unseen Warfare. Lorenzo Scupoli, ed. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, rev. Theophan the Recluse; trans. E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer; intro. H. A. Hodges. Faber & Faber, 1952; later St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology. Comp. Igumen Chariton of Valamo; trans. E. Kadloubovsky and E. M. Palmer; intro. Timothy (Kallistos) Ware. Faber & Faber, 1966. (christianbook; store.ancientfaith.) (Texts taken chiefly from the letters of Bishop Theophan, with St. Ignatius Brianchaninov.)
Philokalia. English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philokalia). (The Faber volumes as the principal English gateway to the Philokalia until the Palmer/Sherrard/Ware Greek translation began appearing in 1979, by way of Theophan’s Russian recension.)
Theophan the Recluse. English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophan_the_Recluse); theophan.net; logismoitouaaron blog. (The St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood editions: The Path to Salvation, The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It, Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, Kindling the Divine Spark, Turning the Heart to God, Raising Them Right; Fr. Seraphim Rose naming Theophan and Ignatius the two key modern Holy Fathers.)
Brianchaninov and Theophan: A Comparison. OrthoChristian.com/53475.html; Kallistos Ware, The Power of the Name; Prelest and Ignatius Brianchaninov, en.wikipedia. (The contrast in emphasis on imagination, mechanical repetition, prelest, and the breathing technique.)
logismoitouaaron blog, citing Prof. A. I. Osipov reporting Abbot Nikon (Vorobiev). (The “schoolboy’s works” evaluation, reported here as one contested strand of reception.)