The PhilokaliaBy: Anonymous The Philokalia is the most influential book in the recent history of the Orthodox Church, aside from the Bible. It is an anthology of thirty six spiritual texts written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by the masters of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, tracing a continuous tradition of the prayer of the heart, or hesychasm, in which the Jesus Prayer plays a growing role, from Evagrios of Pontos to Gregory Palamas. First published