At War in Prayer
Congratulations to Rev Dr Anthony St Shenouda (Lecturer in Monasticism & Coptic Studies) on the release of his new monograph on the Jesus Prayer: At War in Prayer: The History of the Practice of the Arrow Prayer with Fortress Press!
Fr Anthony will also be teaching an online unit on Early Monasticism in semester 2.
Praise for At War in Prayer:
This monograph At War in Prayer: The History of the Practice of the Arrow Prayer traces the late antique roots of a key tradition of Eastern Christian piety—continuous prayer— and makes these roots accessible to both scholars and an interested general public, thus providing an important contribution to both Coptic Studies and the wider history of Christian worship. (Heike Behlmer, University of Göttingen)
Fr. Anthony St. Shenouda puts forward a convincing argument that the Coptic “Arrow Prayer” and the Athonite “Jesus Prayer” have a common source in the early Christian theme of ceaseless prayer. The two traditions developed differently, but without abandoning their common roots. This contribution, I am certain, will generate a renewed scholarly interest in mapping out the morphology of Christian devotion through the centuries. I also hope that the Shenouda’s findings will contribute to the rapprochement of the two estranged Orthodox families, Oriental and Eastern, which hold much more in common, at least regarding spirituality, than currently believed. (Doru Costache, St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College (Sydney College of Divinity))
At War in Prayer traces the practice of continuous prayer that was developed in the early church and was later formulated and regularly practiced by the desert monks in Egypt. Shenouda begins in the pre-Constantinian period, tracing the development well into the twentieth century.
Shenouda challenges many of the preconceived ideas about the practice of continuous prayer that have been mostly influenced by the Eastern Orthodox tradition of the Jesus Prayer. This book is a valuable contribution to the history of the practice of prayer in the monastic tradition. (Mark Sheridan, OSP, Pontificio Ateneo Sant’Anselmo, emeritus)
