Fathers using them as a guide in the spiritual life. His teachings attracted a number of disciples desiring guidance in the practice of unceasing prayer. Paisius wrote theological epistles to his disciples and translated into Church Slavonic a large number of Greek theological writings, including the Philokalia. St Paisius remained on Mt Athos for a total of seventeen years, copying Greek patristic books and translating them into Slavonic. In 1764, when Paisius was forty-two, Prince Grigore III Ghica of Moldavia asked him to come in his country, to preside over the revival of monastic life. Thereupon, he and 64 of his disciples moved to Moldavia, at the Dragomirna monastery, in Bucovina. Here Paisius continued his activity on transcribing and translating patristic sources. One of his disciples, the monk Raphael also translated a selection of texts from the Philokalia in Romanian. The community at Dragomirna grew quickly, gathering around 350 monks. However, after Bucovina was annexed by the Austrian Empire, Paisius and his community eventually relocated at the Neamț Monastery, in 1779, during the vigil of the Dormition Feast. The new community grew to 700 monks, and it soon became a centre of pilgrimage, but also of refugee movement. Here he completed the Slavonic translation of the Philokalia, which in 1793 was printed in Russia. In 1790, St. Paisius received the Great Schema, and was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite, by Bishop Ambrose of Poltava (who visited his monastery). He was now also acting as vicar to the Metropolitan of Moldavia. His efforts contributed to a dynamic renewal of hesychastic monastic life in 18th century Orthodoxy, and on into the present era. Many of his own disciples (several of whom became spiritual masters in their own right), took his teachings and mission to Russia, where they founded new monasteries dedicated to Hesychast traditions. He exerted immense influence on the startsy of the Optina Monastery both through his translations and through his personal disciples, such as Feodor Ushakov. Paisius's translation of Philokalia was one of the favourite books of Seraphim of Sarov, who received blessing to go to Sarov for spiritual devotion from the Paisius' disciple Dosifei of Kiev. St Paisius died on November 15, 1794 at the age of seventy-two. The Jesus Prayer One of the most famous books on the Jesus Prayer is the Way of the Pilgrim. This book is the story of the spiritual experiences of an