With this present volume, we continue the publication of the counsels of the Blessed Elder Paisios with themes on the family and the ordeals people undergo caused by the crisis the institution of family faces in our times. The Elder used to say that the majority of the letters he received were from people who had family problems. He attributed these pronlems to people having withdrawn from God and to their self-centerness. "In the old days," he would say, "life was more peaceful and serene; people had patience. Nowadays, everyone has got a short fuse - people flare up right away, no one can tell them anything. And then, automatically, they go straight for divorce."

The Blessed Elder Paisios was born on 25th July 1924. From the time that he was a child, Elder Paisios lived an ascetic life, and was nourished by the lives of the Saints, whose feats he sought to imitate with great zeal and admirable precision. He practised unceasing prayer, cultivating all along the virtues of humility and love. He led an ascetic life on Mount Athos, in the Holy Monastery of Stomion in Konitsa, and on Mount Sinai in Egypt. He lived in obscurity, giving himself completely to God, and God in turn revealed him and gave him to the whole world. He guided, consoled, healed and granted peace to multitudes of people who sought him. His sanctified soul overflowed with divine love and his saintly face radiated the divine Grace. All day long, he tirelessly gathered the human pain and imparted divine consolation. He is the founder of the Holy Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Souroti of Thessalonik, Greece, which he also guided spiritually for twenty-eight years (1967-1994). After suffering excruciating pains, which, as he used to say, benefited him more than the ascetic struggles of his entire life, he fell asleep in the Lord on 12 July 1994.

Peter Chamberas, translator.