About the book: year / In connection with the current republication of an increasing number of works of the holy fathers, there is an urgent need to have the right guidelines in their understanding, especially in understanding the foundations of spiritual life, revealed by the universal patristic experience, without knowledge of which spiritual life, at best, may turn out to be fruitless, and for the most part leads a Christian, especially one who strives, to delusion and death. The proposed work concerns precisely this important issue. Its disclosure is given on the basis of the works of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov (1807-1867), who briefly and accurately outlined the patristic ascetic teaching of the Church, taking from it all that is most valuable and necessary for our time.