Mass media

On Pascha We Receive an Invitation to Eternal LifeThe living feeling of the pulse of eternity, which responds in every Christian, is especially felt on the feast of Pascha, the Resurrection. Little children are aware until they grow up that death is something completely foreign, incomprehensible, and unnatural to man. We adults remember well this perception of the realty of eternity in our childhood as one of the constants of existence of a person only recently come into the world.

Everyday Saints and Other StoriesThe book is all the rage among American Orthodox Christians, but deserves a far wider audience... Archimandrite Tikhon has written a classic work of commitment and perseverance that powerfully and entertainingly illuminates the glories and foibles of striving to live a life of faith and truth.

Suffering Leading to Forgiveness by Father Michael GillisI'm only 46 pages into this 500 page collection of stories about holy "everyday" people in Russia, but based on what I have read so far, I think I can fully recommend it. The translation is excellent, revealing Archimandrite Tikhon's skill as a story teller.

Author of Everyday Saints Featured in the Financial TimesA publishing sensation in Russia last year - the top-selling book of 2012... Even Gleb Yakunin admits that he and his wife liked the book.

"I could see that the Russia I had been reading about was still alive." "You get a lot of publication in the media and everywhere about everyday criminals and everyday scandals, but you don't hear much about everyday saints."

Twelve Vital Questions, Part I. Archimandrite Tikhon at the Moscow Theological Academy Archimandrite Tikhon, abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, met with students of the Moscow seminaries at the Moscow Theological Academy in order to speak with them about contemporary monasticism and parish life and to reply to their vital questions.

Contemporary Monasticism, God's Will, and Everyday Life: A Conversation with Archimandrite TikhonArchimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), abbot of Sretensky Monastery in central Moscow and author of the best-selling "Everyday Saints and Other Stories", spoke with Anna Danilova, editor-in-chief of Pravmir.ru.

[Orthodox Christianity] Everyday Saints voted most popular bookThe original Russian version of Everyday Saints and Other Stories by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) has won the most votes in Russia's highly prestigious "Big Book" literary award for poll for the most popular book.

Sophia KishkovskyNew York Times interview with Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov)"His book ... has sold over 1.1 million copies in Russian. The country's biggest best seller since the Soviet era. The profits are going back into the Sretensky Monastery, Father Tikhon said, to build a cathedral honoring those killed there for their religious faith in Soviet times."

Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov): Non-reading Readers and Other Phenomena of LifeI had told these stories many times before to my students, friends, and brothers of the monastery. Some of those who heard them asked me to write them down, and since I have written many things before and am used to writing, at a certain moment the structure of the book took shape, and it looked interesting to me. You know, I think that every writer is really writing to specific people. The second no less important - although somewhat egotistical - element is that what you write must be interesting to you. Well, I felt that both of these elements were present.

[RIANovosti] Maria Tabak Everyday Saints at the Library of Congress"First and foremost, this is a book about the life of Christians in Russia, about the way people live with God in a real and pressing reality." "The Christian life is versatile and amazingly interesting."

[Russia Beyond the Headlines] Alisa Orlova Revealing secret lives of saints in Russia's Orthodox literatureOne of the most popular books among Russian readers right now could be considered a modern version of The Lives of the Saints, Everyday Saints, a book about the lives of monks and priests written by a monk is sitting on the Russian bestseller lists and selling out its print runs.

Harold M. Leich, the Library of Congress"An amazing book..." The abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Tikhon, has recently written an amazing book, Everyday Saints, now fortunately available in an excellent English translation by Julian Henry Lowenfeld (the original Russian edition has already been through several printings comprising millions of copies sold).

[Orthodox Christianity] Archpriest Andrew Phillips"You will not be able to put it down"This is a bestseller in Russia, having sold the unprecedented number of 1,100,000 paper copies and millions of electronic copies since it appeared one year ago. It has been read by all, believer and atheist alike, has changed lives, and really is unputdownable, as I know myself when I read it in one more or less continuous eighteen-hour sitting in September 2011. Little wonder that in Moscow it has been awarded the "Book of the Year" prize for 2012.

Everyday Saints receives Russian "Book of the Year Award"On September 5, 2012 the annual "Book of the Year Award" was given to Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), abbot of the Moscow Sretensky Monastery and author of the number one Russian bestseller, 'Nesvyatie syatie i drugie raskazy'.

What the Russian press is saying about the book by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov):

Mikhail Seslavinsky, “Noah’s ark of the book market” (University Books): When it comes to modern prose I am not the biggest fan, although I must say that not so long ago, after taking up Archimandrite Tikhon’s book with a certain amount of skepticism, I then devoured it because this work has an aura. When a person is really into something in his life, when he tells about it in a simple and extraordinarily interesting language, bringing in living examples, his book becomes a super bestseller.

Natalia Narochnitskaya (Arguments and Facts): What a wonder these stories are! What style! What images! Anyone who opens this book will not be able to put it down until morning! It is amazing how in exquisite, small sketches and notes filled with respect and good natured irony, in characters that might seem like ridiculous oddballs or even petty tyrants, a magical and real, simple and wonderful world opens before us!

Valery Konovalov (Trud): We haven’t had anything like this for a long time. In a subway car I saw three people reading copies of this book at the same time. Now you can recognize it from a distance. I have seen people reading it in cafes, clinics, and parks. As for my friends and acquaintances, there are many more of them who have read it than those who haven’t yet. It is a forgotten feeling: for a fresh book to be the topic of general discussions by all different kinds of people.

Vera Krasnova (Expert Online): In Everday Saints you see the wide screen of an inner conflict—between duty and personal interest, freedom and passion, humility and pride, and other forms of piety and sin. Sometimes the “camera” also catches the external consequences of a spiritual battle—that is, the choice a person makes—and we see a real drama, or a tragedy.

Vladimir Voropaev, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of Moscow State University: Of what genre is this book? Perhaps this is a modern patericon, or a collection of the biographies of ascetics of piety, or simply a collection of personal memoirs? In fact, this book could be called an encyclopedia of Church life in our times; not the official life, but the internal, the spiritual.

Sergei Shargunov (Pravoslavie.ru): I read this book by Father Tikhon all day, without interruption. It is a large book that keeps your attention like a movie.

These are stories about elders, ascetics, monks, holy fools, the demonically possessed, atheists, and about how both ordinary and famous people were touched… These stories are unforgettable; you go back to them, you retell them.

Svetlana Shepel (Our Contemporary): The release of Archimandrite Tikhon’s (Shevkunov’s) Everday Saints is undoubtedly a great event—not only for our religious life, but for Russian literature as a whole. Its enduring vitality despite all the confusing and troubled waves of mass culture testifies to this fact.

Natalia Egorova (Moscow Journal): What a hitherto unknown, unfathomed, blindingly bright, joyful world appears to us from the pages of the new book by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), Everyday Saints and Other Stories! How many ascetics of piety, spiritual feats, and prayers there are in this world! So much love, forgotten and lost in our vain, earthly, everyday life!

The author is undoubtedly gifted with literary talent. This is true prose, sustained in the spirit of the loftiest tradition of Russian literature.

Vladimir Krupin (Russian House): The book Everyday Saints is a lesson for everyone: for writers—this is how you should write about spiritual traditions; for critics—this is what you should hold up for attention; for publishers—this is what you should publish; for booksellers—this is what you should be selling to people. This is what you should buy, what you should read, where you should be learning how to cultivate the soul.

I can really understand the emotional ecstasy of those who read this book, their nighttime phone calls to their friends and relatives, saying, “Did you read the book Everyday Saints? I can’t tear myself away!”

I think that this book is a stage in our collective consciousness. It is hard to believe that anyone could doubt that Russia is worthy of just such literature.

Alexander Shchipkov: From the pages of Everday Saints an authentic Christian life literally breaks forth upon the reader, without histrionics and a segregation of the faithful into “us” and “them”. Orthodox authors of books—the faith of monasticism, grannies, intelligentsia, young people; this is all our Russian life in which the Spirit bloweth where it listeth.

Archpriest Maxim Kozlov: This book is unprecedented in modern religious literature! I congratulate my senior friend with his undoubted success, and assure him that many readers are already waiting for a sequel!

Liudmila Iliunina (Pravoslavie.ru): No other book with an Orthodox theme has had such an unbelievably wide reader demand in recent times as has the book by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), Everyday Saints. In fact, both secular and religious people are equally interested in the book.

Deacon George Malkov (Russian People’s Line): This book is not only spiritually instructive, not only filled with human—Christian!—inner nobility and the sincerest love for all its characters, it is just plain entertaining and interesting.

I strongly recommend that you read it, and you will partake of a true joy—the joy of Our Lord and His faithful children, the “everyday saints” of Russia during the last half century.

Valery Konovalov (Komsomolskaya Pravda): “To join a monastery.” For many these words hide disappointment, boredom, a dark, colorless picture. With Father Tikhon it’s just the opposite… What is this world and why is it so attractive? Who are these people who inhabit it and how are they different from us? After the archimandrite’s book, much is revealed in these complex questions, even to a person who is very far from the Church.

It is like the end of childhood, when you suddenly begin to understand that the world is set up is such a way that the brightest, happiest things in life exist only in fairy tales. But in Everday Saints, the beautiful and magical unfolds in real life. You just need to reach out your hand and take a step toward it, and you will find yourself in that world.

Valery Nikitin (Orthodoxy and Modernity): Everday Saints is a superlative example not only of bestsellerism and homiletics, but also of essay writing; and that is the most difficult genre, which presumes the ability to think paradoxically, operate in imagery and associations, and speak in aphorisms. How many right-on-spot, on-the-fly words and expressions! The author sprinkles them throughout in generous handfuls. In a word, it’s a “delicious book”.

Father Tikhon’s stories are addressed to a broad audience, and they leave no one indifferent. The book has already gone through four reprintings, its print run over nine months is reaching a million copies—a fact that is absolutely unthinkable in the realm of modern spiritual, even secular domestic literature.