On a warm September afternoon, we, the novice monks of the Cave Monastery of Pskov - in our early youth then - climbed from the passages and corridors of the monastery onto the ancient walls and settled somewhere high up. Before us spread the garden and the fields.

During our conversation, we began to reminisce about how each of us had come to the monastery. And the more we listened to one another, the more surprised we felt... And why then did we go there and yearn to stay forever? We knew the answer to this question well: a wonderful world had been revealed to each of us, incomparable to anything else.

And this world seemed incredibly more attractive than what we had experienced in our few happy years. It is this world I want to talk to you about in the book you are holding, about this wonderful world, where people live by completely different rules from those of ordinary life; the world of endless light, filled with love and joyful revelations, the world of hopes and happiness, of trials, victories, and the discovery of meaning in defeats.

And most importantly: about the powerful phenomena of God's strength and assistance - this is what I want to narrate to you in this book...

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]