‘The book by Father Hilarion (Alfeyev), devoted to Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, […] is an outstanding contribution not only to our theological knowledge of one of the greatest bishops of the Orthodox Church, but also to our understanding of the man’s personality.

Very often, treatises devoted to the great theologians neglect their spiritual development ‘from glory to glory’, and the reader is left with the false impression that the saint ascended to the heights of divine knowledge on powerful wings, without encountering any obstacles. In reality, the path was never easy for any Father of the Church. Entangled in the questions of their times, bound by their spiritual and intellectual idiosyncrasies, they were largely dependant on those encounters Divine Grace placed in their path, and sought the Truth in the obscurity of the philosophical thinking of their times. The answers were not immediately forthcoming to those questions, born of their own deep emotions, posed both within and outwith the Christian community. Father Hilarion’s book clearly sets out Saint Gregory’s inner journey and gradual acquiring of the vision of Truth.’ (Antoine Bloom, Metropolitan of Souroge).

Hilarion Alfeyev is inviting us not only to make the acquaintance of a saint, theologian and mystic, but to get to know a man who is still capable of touching our hearts. Gregory’s life - which was not easy but passionately devoted to the world, the Church and God – was itself the principle of his work, allowing concepts to take on all their meaning and bathing his historical acts, theology and great spirituality in a new light: that of fraternity.