About the book: 2009 / The Glinsk hermitage was in the shadow of Optina. But they have many similarities with each other. Hegumen Philaret, the renovator of the Glinsk hermitage (rector since 1817) is a direct parallel with St. Moses and at the same time with St. Lev Optinsky. Philaret died in 1841, Rev. Leo the same year. In both monasteries an eldership was established, in both the line of saints stretched in a chain of one hundred years. And the end is the same - Glinskaya was closed in 1922, Optina in 1923. But there are also differences. In Optina, all the saints are appointed elders, and several governors; in Glinskaya - governors, a couple of spiritual elders, but in addition to this, a significant number of simple schema-monks (the UOC glorified them as locally revered). The Glinskys seem to be greater devotees than the Optina ones. They have terrible fasts, desert life, extreme non-covetousness, poverty and roughness of life. In Optina there were more educated monks, and the audience came more refined - the Kirievskys, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Leontiev. The Glinskys have no figure equal to St. Ambrose of Optina, and in Optina there are no ascetics comparable to the monk Theodotus or Martyrius. Optina is a rich, kind merchant selling valuable beads; Glinskaya Pustyn is a half-poor, pious peasant who gives his last shirt to a wretched wanderer. Both are precious in the sight of God. Both are leaving Rus'. Or rather, irretrievably gone... The book is rare, but if anyone is interested, then in other sources one should first of all pay attention to the biographies of: Schema-Archimandrite John (Maslov) - the author of the patericon; Abbot Philaret, monks Theodotus, Martyrius, hieroschemamonk Macarius, schema-archimandrites Ioannikios and Iliodor, schemamonks Arkhippus and Luke. From the twentieth century - on the lives of Schema-Archimandrites Andronik and Lukash, as well as Metropolitan Zinovy ​​(Seraphim) Mazhuga. Patericons are collections of biographies and sayings of holy ascetics. These books convey the spiritual experience of the saints of God and represent the spiritual heritage that we must reverently study and carefully preserve. Thanks to the prayers and labors of the great Glinsky elder Schema-Archimandrite John, Russian hagiographic literature was enriched with a collection of biographies of the ascetics of the Glinsk hermitage - the Glinsky Patericon. For centuries, the Glinsk monastery was for our compatriots the personification of the highest Christian asceticism and moral courage. Along with the Kiev-Pechersk and Trinity-Sergius Lavras, the Glinsk Hermitage served the nation's spiritual and educational cause and was a kind of university for the care of senile people in Rus'. And interest in this center of spiritual improvement is constantly growing both in our country and abroad. For the first time, a comprehensive study of the history of the monastery, its spiritual and educational activities over the entire period of the monastery’s existence was carried out by the great lamp of faith and piety of the late 20th century, Master of Theology Schema-Archimandrite John (Maslov). Schema-Archimandrite John not only carefully analyzed all the material published about the monastery, but, most importantly, restored the archive of the Glinsk Hermitage, lost after the 1917 revolution, collecting documents about the life of the monastery scattered across various repositories. In the meeting Fr. John, in originals and copies, there are about two thousand documents of the monastery, and the bulk of them have never even been mentioned in published materials before. Exploring the history of the Glinsk Hermitage, Fr. John established its spiritual connection with other Orthodox monasteries. The Patericon includes the biographies of all the Glinsky ascetics, published to this day. These biographies, together with bibliographies and links to archival documents that relate to each of the persons described, add up to a vast, impressive picture that tells the history of the desert from the time of its origin until its closure in 1961. The author has done a tremendous job of collecting, systematizing, writing and bringing together into a single work a colossal amount.