The life of St Ignatius Brianchaninov of Stavropol
Freed there from the daily demands of governing a diocese, he gave himself over entirely to writing, and the body of work he left behind eventually filled five volumes. Two works in particular have carried his voice far beyond his own country and century: On the Prayer of Jesus, and The Arena, an offering to contemporary monasticism, both still read today as some of the more searching and practical guides to the inner discipline of prayer that Russian spiritual writing produced in his age.
He reposed at the monastery in 1867. More than a century passed before the Russian Church formally numbered him among the saints, in 1988, during that year's celebrations marking a thousand years since the baptism of Rus, a late recognition of a bishop who had spent his own final years mostly unseen, bent over a writing desk rather than a diocesan chair.
