What is Everyday Saints and Other Stories?
Everyday Saints and Other Stories is the English title of Nesvyatye svyatye i drugie rasskazy, whose Russian title means roughly “unholy saints”. It is a collection of short pieces by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), born in 1958, who came to the Pskov-Caves Monastery as a young man in 1982, the year of his baptism, and was tonsured a monk in 1991. From 1995 to 2018 he was abbot of the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow, and he has since served as a bishop and metropolitan. The Russian book appeared in 2011, and the English translation by Julian Henry Lowenfeld followed in 2012 from Pokrov Publications.
The pieces are short and conversational, in the manner of stories told in a monastery guesthouse. Their subjects are monks, priests, elders and ordinary people who crossed the author's path, and the setting runs from the Soviet years to the post-Soviet revival of the Church. The author presents them as true accounts, and many of the people were alive when it was written.
This page is a guide to the book and not a substitute for it. The site is a parish site, not the publisher; we do not reproduce or retell the book. If the themes below interest you, please buy or borrow a copy and read the stories in the author's own words.
Why did the book become so widely read?
By the publisher's account the book sold more than a million printed copies in its first year in Russia, and it has been translated into many languages; it received a Book of the Year award in Moscow in 2012. Those figures come from the publisher's own announcements, and are worth taking as indications of a large readership and not as audited numbers.
Part of the explanation is that it speaks about the faith in a voice most readers can trust. It is humorous and self-critical, and it does not preach. It shows Orthodox life from inside, in a country where for seventy years the Church had been silenced, and many readers met the Church through these stories for the first time. The book also arrived at a moment when many people were looking for a way to talk about God that was neither propaganda nor sentiment.
The same reasons should make us careful. A popular book can be loved for its charm and still be misread. The sections that follow set out how to read it well, and the articles linked below supply the background the stories take for granted.
How should we read stories of holiness without turning them into magic?
Stories of holy people are an old genre in the Church, and the Church has always asked that they be read with discernment. The apostle John says: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1 listen in the Audio Bible). A story of a wonder tells us what a person or community believes happened, not what the Church requires us to believe; the Church asks assent only to its dogmas, which are defined at the councils. See What are the ecumenical councils?
Two errors are common. One is to read every anecdote as proof, and to build a faith out of coincidences. The other is to dismiss all of them as pious fiction. A third path is to treat them as the Fathers treated stories of the desert: as occasions for repentance and for gratitude, to be read with a priest's guidance when they raise questions. The Orthodox view of how God acts in a life is explained in Divine providence and coincidence, and the unseen side of the story in The unseen world: angels and demons and The guardian angel in Orthodox teaching. For the opposite danger, an appetite for marvels, read Spiritual deception (prelest).
The safest rule is the one the Church applies to all spiritual experience: the fruit matters more than the wonder. A story that leaves the reader humbler, more patient and more merciful has done its work, whatever one decides about the details.
Monasteries and the monastic calling
Many of the stories take place in a monastery, and some background helps. The place itself has a long history, told in Pskov-Caves Monastery: five centuries of prayer never closed. The reasons people enter monasteries, and what the tradition actually teaches about them, are in Why do people become monks and nuns?, and the stages by which a person is received are in The stages of monastic tonsure.
The point that surprises most readers is the weight given to obedience: What is obedience in an Orthodox monastery? explains why novices are given tasks in the kitchen and the bakery and where the limits lie. Behind it stands the virtue the Fathers put first, described in Humility in Orthodox Christianity.
Elders, repentance and the way back
Another thread is the figure of the elder, the experienced monk to whom others turn for counsel. The tradition is described, with its cautions, in The spiritual father and the elders. The related practice of confession is the subject of Why confess your sins to a priest?
The Church also speaks plainly about those who have fallen badly and want to return. The Lord's own picture of the father who runs to meet his son (Luke 15:20 listen in the Audio Bible) is the standard against which the tradition measures every case, and the practical side is set out in Repentance after grave sin and the way of restoration. The apostle's counsel to “confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16 listen in the Audio Bible) belongs here too.
Prayer, candles, water and the services
The stories assume that the reader knows the daily life of prayer. If you do not, begin with How to pray as an Orthodox Christian: a guide for beginners, then read why a candle is lit in Why Orthodox Christians light candles and what the blessing of water means at the Epiphany in Theophany and holy water. Memorial services and the remembrance of the departed are explained in The Orthodox funeral and remembering the dead.
Two further articles deal with the structure behind these customs: The typikon: why the Church has rules explains why services follow a fixed order, and One Liturgy, one altar explains an old rule of the Church about the celebration of the Eucharist. To see how a service unfolds, visit the liturgy page or check the feasts in the church calendar. The Liturgy is the centre of all of it, as described in The Eucharist and the real presence.
What makes a saint, and the place of the fool for Christ
The title of the book plays on the word “saint”, and a reader may ask what the Church means by it. The answer is in What makes a saint in Orthodoxy?, with the wider picture in The communion of saints explained. The apostle writes: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7 listen in the Audio Bible). The saint is first of all an example to imitate, and only afterwards a person to ask for prayer.
The Church also honours those whose holiness is hidden or unusual, the fools for Christ and the quiet people who are never noticed; their place is discussed in Holy fools and simple holiness. Christ's words apply here: “let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16 listen in the Audio Bible). The glory is given to the Father, not to the saint.
The Church under the Soviets and the new martyrs
Much of the background of the stories is the Soviet period. The overview is in The Orthodox Church under Soviet rule, and the people who paid with their lives are remembered in The new martyrs and confessors of Russia. A figure who stands at the beginning of that period is St Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, whose life is the subject of Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow; he should not be confused with the author of the book, who is a different person.
Readers should note that the history of the Church in the twentieth century is complex and still debated, and no single memoir can stand for it. A reader will find it useful to compare several accounts.
Pilgrimage, the priest's family and the parish
The last group of articles is for readers who want to move from reading to practice. If a story makes you want to see such places for yourself, read Orthodox pilgrimage: what to expect. For the household of a parish priest, who appears in many stories, see The priest's wife: matushka and presbytera. For the ordinary life of a congregation, see Orthodox parish life: what to expect.
If the book has made you curious about the Church itself, the way in is described in How to become Orthodox: adult baptism and reception, with the background in What happens in Orthodox baptism. Nobody is asked to decide on the strength of a book. The Church invites people to come and see, to attend the services, to speak with a priest, and to read the Gospel for themselves in the Audio Bible.
How to use this guide
A sensible order is to read the book slowly, a few stories at a time, and to turn to the matching article when a custom or term is unfamiliar. Keep a short list of questions to take to a priest. Beware of the temptation to treat the book as a manual for imitating monastic feats in family life; the tradition itself warns against doing that.
The aim of the whole exercise is the one set by the Gospel, to become more merciful and more attentive to God and to others. The twenty-five articles linked above do not exhaust the topics of the book, but they cover most of the questions a first-time reader will ask.
