My first assignment was not a practice. It was homework.

Before anything else he set guidelines, clarifying concepts and principles and foundations, above all the ones lying inside me in confusion. And the first duty he imposed was to send me back to school: Theology, studied again from the beginning, despite my advanced age.

I understood later what that was for. He wanted everything he taught to stand under the shade of Orthodox Theology. And in every talk he gave, he came back to prayer, urging everyone toward the constant invocation of the Νοερά Προσευχή, the Inner Prayer, the prayer of the heart.

These are the words. You do not need to understand them yet.