"Prayer is a refuge of God’s great mercy to the human race." The refuge is a place of inner stillness and peace where the heart is fully opened to the embrace of God’s love. It is a return to the ancient paradise from which the human race, in Adam, had to depart because of disobedience to the command of God. The Refuge is an exposition of the concrete actions we should take if we truly desire to live with and in God. It weaves together meditations on scripture (from the Psalms in particular) and amplifies these with the wisdom of early Christian saints, in particular the ascetical writings of St. John of the Ladder, St. Macarius the Great, and St. Isaac the Syrian. It is an active exhortation for us to reacquire the original nobility with which God fashioned us in the beginning.
Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov (1807–1867) is a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church. He was born Demetrius Alexandrovich Brianchaninov, to a wealthy landowning family. He was educated at Pioneer Military School in St. Petersburg. Although successful in his studies he was deeply dissatisfied with the lay life and turned to a life of prayer. In 1827 he fell seriously ill and left the army on this ground. He began pursuing a monastic vocation and in 1831 took monastic vows and received the monastic name of Ignatius. Soon after he was ordained a priest. He rose rapidly to the rank of archimandrite and at the age of 26 was appointed superior of the Maritime Monastery of St. Sergius in St. Petersburg. In 1857, he was consecrated Bishop of the Caucasus and the Black Sea, but he retired only four years later to devote himself to spiritual writing. He wrote a large amount of material, mostly about the spiritual life and prayer. Only a small portion of his writing has been translated into English. Although his writing was intended primarily for monks, his works are highly recommended for lay Christians by leading Orthodox figures such as Father Thomas Hopko. He was glorified (canonized) as a saint by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of 1988. His relics are preserved at the Tolga Monastery, near Yaroslavl.