"We, having our own understanding of the virtuous life and state of the Elder Joseph of Vatopedinos, through the last Patriarchal Letter from December of the saving year 1998, addressed to the then Archbishop of Cyprus, Mr. Chrysostomos, expressed ourselves as follows: "Knowing personal experience as contributing to the manning of the Holy Monastery of Vatopedi, in our capacity as the then Metropolitan of Philadelphia, through the brotherhood under Elder Joseph, the integrity of his character and morals, but also his spiritual radiance in his Holy Place Terms and wider Orthodoxy, we desire and by our present Letter to confess this... it is about a virtuous eighty-year-old old man, counted among the holy figures of Mount Athos, accomplished in solitary practice and in spiritual dolcho, trained elite fraternity, writing many books of spiritual content, from which his ethos and style can certainly be presumed".
"We can repeat these words even today, twenty years later, because the memory of the blessed Elder remains indelible in the hearts of the pilgrims of Mount Athos, the monks and the clergy, who had the blessing, even if only for a short time, of with that of inversion and communion".

Ecumenical Patriarch Mr. Bartholomew

"Love one another. If you are united in love, no one will ever be able to harm you. God has no love, but is love. Love is the completion of our personality, it is not a virtue. It is this face of Christ. There is no face without love. He who holds love cannot accuse, reproach, disobey, misunderstand. Love is a duty, it is an ontological element. We must love our enemies and we must sacrifice our soul for our neighbor. Christ Himself showed us this in His earthly life in practice, He did not tell us exhortatively."

Elder Iosif Vatopedinos

(From the presentation on the back cover of the book)