The Greatest of All Sciences: To Know One’s Self

There is a prayer that says, ＂Grant us, O Lord, the knowledge of ourselves without which we can neither rightly repent nor seek to amend our lives.＂ The purpose of this book is to help us find our authentic self in the Trinity through relationships (to God and man), self-examination, inner stillness, humility, repentance, and the renunciation of the passions, especially vainglory. The most painful part of being human is that we are strangers to ourselves. Man can know his true self but only with God and in God, in whom we discover our truest and best self.

Rev. Anthony M. Coniaris, was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1926, and attended Boston Latin School and subsequently graduated from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological Seminary in Brookline, Massachusetts. Coniaris received a Masters of Divinity from Northwestern Theological Seminary in Minneapolis, and continued studies in the fields of religion and psychiatry at the University of Minnesota and at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Coniaris served as pastor of St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church, from 1953 - 1992 - his only parish assignment. After his retirement in January 1993 he devoted most of his time to Light & Life Publishing Company which he founded in 1968. He authored more than 75 books, pamphlets and brochures. Light & Life became one of the largest distributors of Orthodox materials in the world. He also lectured at retreats and seminars at several Orthodox parishes in the US as well as in Canada. In addition, Coniaris was an Adjunct Professor of Homiletics at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary in Brookline, Massachusetts and taught there during his retirement.

He is past President of the Minneapolis Ministerial Association, the Twin Cities Metropolitan Church Commission, the Minneapolis Professional Men’s Club, the Minneapolis Kiwanis, and the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches. He was a member of the Board of the Children’s Heart Fund, and was listed in WHO’S WHO in RELIGION 1976-77. He received the WCCO Good Neighbor Award in 1973 and the Alumnus of the Year from Holy Cross Seminary. In 2018, he was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Divinity from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology.

He passed away at the age of 93 in 2020.