Dr. Veniamin offering book club on St. Silouan

(Patreon) - Join our Bookclub with Prof. Christopher Veniamin, a spiritual child of St. Sophrony the Athonite. Our first Bookclub meeting will take place on September 27th at 9:00pm Eastern Time.

The subject of our first Bookclub will be “Principles of the Christian Spiritual Life”, the first part of which will focus on Sts. Silouan and Sophrony the Athonites, and our main text will be Saint Silouan the Athonite. We shall read and discuss excerpts from Saint Silouan the Athonite, St. Sophrony’s seminal book on the life and teaching of his Elder, St. Silouan.

Our meetings will cover such themes as Discovering the Will of God, Repentance, Obedience, Prayer, the Role of Thoughts in the Spiritual Life, and the Spiritual Father and Child Relationship, and provide plenty of time for discussion.

“Saint Silouan the Athonite is a veritable treasury, a distillation of Patristic wisdom throughout the ages.” Prof. Christopher Veniamin, D.Phil. (Oxon.)

 

Meetings will be held via Zoom.

Bookclub meetings will take place once a month and last approximately one hour.

The first Bookclub meeting will take place on September 27th at 9:00pm Eastern Time.

Members will of course receive a Zoom invitation, in a timely fashion, containing the appropriate link for the session and any other necessary information.

Please note that I have my own method for and definition of the word, “Bookclub”.

First, participants are encouraged to read as much of the book in question as they wish before, during and after our meetings. 

Not only is Saint Silouan the Athonite a lengthy book, but it is also a dense one, replete in theological, ascetic and pastoral significance. 

Second, I shall choose passages from the book, read them out loud, and then begin to comment upon them.

I shall not proceed in any particular chronological order, nor shall I follow a particular order of themes (chapters or sections). I prefer this to be more a spiritual exercise than an academic course. 

Third, participants are encouraged to intervene at any point during the meeting with comments or questions. 

This, I believe, is a more mature pedagogical approach, because it presupposes awareness of the text, encourages discussion, and challenges the presenter and participants to speak extemporaneously in an inspired fashion.

We shall read Saint Silouan the Athonite for 12 months to begin with, and then decide, together with the group, whether to continue with the same text or move on to another.