Book excerpt: 'Penthos is precisely the kind of book most of us need today-something utterly unfashionable that can cut through the trendiness of contemporary spiritual consumerism. It is a book for serious people, about a serious subject. Besides being a very nice piece of historical theology, it qualifies as a fine book for devotional reading'-Worship. 'This book (as difficult as it is) will be of interest to students of the spirituality of the Christian East, to those who have made the Jesus Prayer an integral part of their spiritual discipline, and to others who wish to deepen their understanding of how our Christian identity is formed'-The Living Church.