For many, the modern Pentecostal Movement can be a perplexing and mystifying world. In this masterful work, Fr. Alexis Trader provides one patristic answer to the questions that the Pentecostalism raises, an answer fully grounded in Holy Scripture, and accessible through the spiritual life of stillness. Fr. Alexis deftly shows how the Church that experienced and was established at Pentecost, the Orthodox Church, can illumine our understanding of the history, experience, and teaching of Pentecostalism, while simultaneously providing a pathway to the gifts of the Spirit where seemingly confusing Biblical passages are placed in a context that brings clarity. Without a doubt, this is the best and fullest work dealing with this topic in the English language.
"In the text that follows, Fr. Alexis provides us with a careful presentation of the Christian Tradition on 'speaking in tongues' properly understood as inner prayer. This teaching finds its expression in the experience and wisdom of the Saints, i.e., holy men and women 'who have fought the good fight and finished the race' (2 Timothy 4:7)... Fr. Alexis offers an important corrective to an often very confusing and misunderstood contemporary issue [and] invites the reader to drink from the fountain of Holy Tradition within the Church and to enter into a world that offers life and life abundantly (John 10:10)." -Archimandrite Dositheos, from the Preface
Fr. Alexis Trader is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College (BA), the University of Chicago (MA), St. Tikhon's Orthodox Seminary (MDiv), and the University of Thessalonica (PhD), and was formerly a lecturer in Patristics at St. Tikhon's. Since 1996, he has been a monk of Karakallou Monastery on Mount Athos, and since 2005 has served as priest of the Monastery of St. Demetrios in Nea Kerdyllia, in Greece. He has translated many books from Greek, as well as published his doctoral dissertation, Ancient Christian Wisdom and Aaron Beck's Cognitive Therapy: A Meeting of Minds (Peter Lang, 2011).
