A shrewd observer, a master psychologist, an accomplished raconteur, Dorotheos is also a learned man with a prodigious capacity for assimilating in an organized harmony the wisdom of his predecessors in the life of the Spirit. But he is far more interested in humbly serving his brethren than in discoursing about the more recondite aspects of the hescyhast experience.

His genial candor makes him the ideal spiritual master to introduce modern readers to the rich spiritual universe of the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria.  Most of us will be able to approach Evagrius Ponticus, Cassian, and the Old Men of the Apophthegmata with greater love and insight for having first made the genial acquaintance of Dorotheos of Gaza.