Metropolitan Anthony (Packanich) tells how to learn to read the lives of saints correctly in order to benefit from them.

Reading the lives of the saints, we very often focus our attention on miracles and bright events. At the same time, important episodes from the life of ascetics pass by us, which many people do not notice or which do not get into the hagiographic literature at all.

The genre of "vita" is special. It’s a specific kind of literary icon that shows the most important things in the life of an ascetic, cutting off all temporal and superfluous. But sometimes exactly these «temporal» things are very important for a modern person.

Because as it often happens that people, having read the ancient paterics, fall into a thirst for miracles and, not meeting them in their everyday philistine life, are disappointed and begin to grumble at the Church, which "is no longer the same as in ancient times" and allegedly "lost the saints".

There is an another problem. A modern person, reading about the unattainable, in his opinion, sanctity, falls into despondency and begins to neglect his salvation. «How can you be saved?», another will say, if the saints have healed in one word, cast out demons, moved mountains, endured torments, and we can't do anything.

In fact, it's not like that, because saints are the same people as ourselves. With the same problems and doubts. This becomes especially clear when you read the diaries or letters of ascetics who lived not long time ago. And then, it may amaze them that the saints experienced in their lives all the things that we experience. And it's very inspiring.

In earthly life, the saints did not wear gilded halos and did not use majestic gestures. Many of them fell over sinful temptations. You needn’t go that far, just remember the Holy Scripture. Let us recall the holy king, the prophet David, who, for the sake of passion for a married woman, sent her husband into battle to certain death. But the lower the fall of David was, the stronger his repentance was, which was expressed in the 50th psalm, which we read daily in our home prayers.

That is why it’s so important to read the lives of the saints. To collect the smallest grains of their life: memories, diaries, letters. To find practical examples in them for yourself for fighting with your own passions and sins. It is very important that reading about saints does not become entertainment, a kind of analogue of adventure literature with an exciting plot and emptiness inside.

Only thoughtful serious reading can benefit us. And then, seeing an example, seeing a landmark, imitating the saints, calling for the prayerful help of those who have experienced the same things that we are experiencing, we will be able to achieve repentance and the Kingdom of Heaven.

Recorded by Natalia Goroshkova