Anthony Bloom
Personal Information
Description
Anthony was born as Andrei Bloom on 19 June 1914, in Lausanne, Switzerland. He spent his early childhood in Russia and Iran. During the Russian Revolution the family had to leave Iran, and by 1923 they were settled in Paris, where he was educated. He graduated in physics, chemistry and biology, and took his doctorate in medicine at the University of Paris. In 1939, before leaving for the front as a surgeon in the French Army, he secretly professed monastic vows in the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1943 he was tonsured and received the name of Anthony. During the occupation of France by Nazi Germany he worked as a doctor, and took part in the French Resistance. In 1957 he was consecrated as bishop, and as archbishop in 1962 in charge of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1963 he was appointed exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate in Western Europe, and in 1966 was assigned the rank of metropolitan bishop. Source
Books
Meditations
"Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the sixteenth emperor of Rome -- and by far the most powerful and wealthy man in the world. Yet he was also an intensely private person, with a rich interior life and deep reservoirs of personal insight. He collected his thoughts in notebooks, gems which have come to be called his Meditations. Never intended for publication, the work survived his death and has proved an inexhaustible source of wisdom and one of the most important Stoic texts of all time. In often passionate language, the entries range from essays to one-line aphorisms, and from profundity to bitterness. Marcus wrote to console himself in the face of the shortness of life, the shoddiness of the world, and the challenges of being human. He asks the very same questions that every thinking person must ask themselves today: Does the universe have a moral purpose, and what is my role in it? What exactly is it to be a good person, and how do I get there? Life is short: what does that mean for me? How can I get to know myself better? Anyone who is puzzled by such questions or searching for answers will profit from this timeless book, which is both an important historical document and a personal spiritual diary. This annotated edition will be the definitive translation of this classic and much-beloved text, with copious notes that will illuminate one of the greatest works of popular philosophy for new readers and enrich the understanding of even the most hardcore Stoic"--