Remember Thy First Love is a graphic description of the three stages in the Christian life according to Elder Sophrony of Essex (1896-1993), disciple of St. Silouan the Athonite (1866-1938) and founder of the Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex, England. In Remember Thy First Love, which complements The Enlargement of the Heart (2006) and The Hidden Man of the Heart (2008), Elder Zacharias details the nature and purpose of the first grace given at the beginning of the Christian spiritual odyssey, the experience of the apparent withdrawal of grace, and then our final adoption as children, by which we become heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ (cf. Rom. 8:17).
The writings of Archimandrite Zacharias evince that inspiration which is born of the undistorted vision of Christ in glory. Remember Thy First Love is a companion volume to Fr. Zacharias' The Enlargement of the Heart and The Hidden Man of the Heart. --Dr. Christopher Veniamin, Professor of Patristics, St. Tikhon's Seminary, USA
