"The Philokalia" is an important collection of writings by Fathers of the Eastern Church dating from the fourth to the fourteenth century.It exists in three versions: the Greek, complied in the eighteenth century; the Slavonic; and the Russian.The Russian text, translated by Bishop Theophan the Recluse in the nineteenth century, and consisting of five volumes (with which a sixth is sometimes associated), is the most complete of all three versions.It is the Russian text that has been used in translating into English this selection, which presents a range of "Philokalia" writings concerning the Jesus Prayer.