The Anglo-Russian Theological Conference in Moscow in July 1956 was a meeting between delegations from the Russian Orthodox Church and the Church of England to discuss theological topics.1 At that period, the height of Cold War, the world was holding its breath at tensions between the Soviet Union and the West. And in Russia an atmosphere of terror and tragedy hung over the relationship between the Soviet government and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Our icon is, painted around the time of the conference, is a remarkable testimony to the survival of tradition in those terrible times. The patriarch’s choice of St Sergius is also eloquent.

Venerable Sergius the Wonderworker, Abbot of Radonezh (1314-1392) is regarded as the foremost saint of Russia. He was the founder, together with his close disciples, of forty monasteries, many in the remote North. During his lifetime his fame as a man of spiritual power drew many followers, reaching as far as Philotheos Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople under whose charter he founded the Holy Trinity Monastery (Sergeyev Posad) where he later served as abbot. A famous event in his life, taught to Russian schoolchildren in Soviet times, was the blessing he gave to Dimitri Donskoi, Prince of Moscow, on the eve of the battle of Kullikovo in 1380. This was a watershed in Russian history where the Mongols were defeated for the first time and whose hitherto all-powerful grip on Russia henceforth began to decline. However, Saint Sergius’ true significance lies not in politics but in his role in the establishment and spread in Russia of Hesychasm, the inward awakened state of mystical prayer. Hesychasm had been central to Christianity from the beginning. It was developed by the Desert Fathers in Egypt from the 4th century and in Mount Athos in the 10th. Its revival by Sergius’ near contemporary, Saint Gregory Palamas (†1357), Abbot of Vatopedi on Mount Athos is of great importance, even if not always visibly so, to the Christian mystical tradition.