E.N. One of your services is to write hagiographies, historical books. Could you tell me about this in more detail.

V.E. In my own time I have written a lot. Now, perhaps, I write less. I relate to this affair [the writings] with dutiful understanding. For me, there was joy that my books Life to the Glory of God (about the monk Varnava) and after that Gefsimanskii skit , writings which are connected with the coming canonization of Saint Varnava, and which the revered ascetic of piety Archimandrite Sofronii (Saharov) succeeded to read not long before his death. I considered him a serious teacher, that is a bearer of abundant and truthful Orthodox tradition, a witness in Christ. Efrem Sirin expressed this Church truth with the eternal words: “No one indulge before the end and do not despair before death.” So far as the earthly end has already passed him we have the right to say this.