Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits

Few religious orders have been admired and feared as much as the Society of Jesus. Its members founded schools and universities on several continents, carried Christianity to India, Japan and China, and stood at the centre of the Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation. In 2013 one of them, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, became Pope Francis.

For Orthodox Christians the Jesuits are part of a harder history. Jesuits worked to bring Orthodox Christians under the Pope, and the founder's Spiritual Exercises teach a way of praying that the Orthodox ascetic tradition warns against. This article tells the story from the sources, gives the Catholic case in its own words, and states plainly where Ignatius of Loyola and his order went wrong.

In brief

Iñigo (later Ignatius) of Loyola, a Basque nobleman and soldier, was wounded at Pamplona in 1521, turned to a life of penance, and at Manresa (1522-1523) drafted the core of his Spiritual Exercises. With companions from the University of Paris he founded the Society of Jesus, approved by Pope Paul III in 1540. Its professed members add a fourth vow of obedience to the Pope concerning missions. Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci led missions in Asia, and Ricci's methods provoked the Chinese Rites Controversy. In Poland-Lithuania, Jesuits including Piotr Skarga and Antonio Possevino actively promoted the Union of Brest (1596), though the plan for union was also driven by the Ruthenian bishops themselves. Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society in 1773; Pius VII restored it in 1814. Pope Francis (2013-2025) was the first Jesuit pope.

Thesis: Ignatius of Loyola was a sincere and gifted reformer of Catholic life, but the imaginative method at the heart of his Exercises and the papal obedience at the heart of his order depart from the Orthodox faith, and Orthodox Christians should say so with both charity and clarity.

From Pamplona to Manresa

Ignatius told his own story late in life to a fellow Jesuit, Luís Gonçalves da Câmara ("Father Gonzalez" in the 1900 English edition), and this dictated account (usually called his Autobiography) is the main source for his conversion. According to the Jesuit historian J. H. Pollen, a cannon ball struck Ignatius during the French siege of Pamplona on 20 May 1521, tearing his left calf and breaking his right shin.¹ Recovering at Loyola, he asked for romances; the house had none, so he read "The Life of Christ," by Rudolph, the Carthusian (Ludolph of Saxony), and the "Flowers of the Saints."²

In 1522 he made a general confession at the shrine of Montserrat, gave away his fine clothes for sackcloth, and lived for months near Manresa in prayer, fasting and severe penance. He suffered tormenting scruples, then reported strong consolations and visions. Pollen judges that the chief meditations of the Exercises "were probably reduced to their present shapes" during this period.³ After a pilgrimage to Jerusalem he studied at Barcelona, Alcalá, Salamanca and Paris. At Alcalá rumors about his small circle reached the Inquisition, and his own account says the inquisitors called his group "Illuminati."⁴ He was held for a time in prison at Alcalá and again at Salamanca; his methods looked new and suspect even to Catholics of his day.

On 15 August 1534 Ignatius and six companions, among them Francis Xavier and Peter Faber, took vows at Montmartre in Paris. {{very-strong: Pope Paul III approved the Society of Jesus by the bull Regimini militantis Ecclesiae on 27 September 1540, and Ignatius died in Rome on 31 July 1556.}} He was canonized by Gregory XV in 1622 and is venerated by Roman Catholics as a saint.⁵

What the Spiritual Exercises actually ask

The Exercises are a director's handbook for a retreat of about four "weeks," moving from sin and judgment to the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Paul III approved them in 1548.⁶ They open with a "Principle and Foundation" every Christian can recognise: "Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul."⁷

The method that sets the Exercises apart is the deliberate use of the imagination. Almost every meditation begins with a "composition, seeing the place." When one contemplates Christ "the composition will be to see with the sight of the imagination the corporeal place where the thing is found which I want to contemplate."⁸ In the meditation on hell the retreatant is told "to see with the sight of the imagination the great fires, and the souls as in bodies of fire," then to hear the cries and "to smell with the smell smoke, sulphur, dregs and putrid things."⁹ In the "Application of the Five Senses" he is to smell and taste "the infinite fragrance and sweetness of the Divinity" and "to embrace and kiss the places where such persons put their feet and sit."¹⁰

Modern Jesuits defend this as prayer that engages the whole person. Kevin O'Brien, SJ, writes that "Ignatius was convinced that God can speak to us as surely through our imagination as through our thoughts and memories." He encourages retreatants to picture the Gospel "as if you were making a movie" and adds: "don't worry if your imagination is running too wild." The safeguard he offers is discernment: does the imagining lead closer to God, and does it bring consolation or desolation?¹¹

His Autobiography says that at Manresa "He seemed to behold the Blessed Trinity in the form of a lyre or harp," and that he often saw "the humanity of Christ with the eyes of the soul" in the form of a white body. It also records, to his credit, that a beautiful apparition "with glittering eyes" which had long consoled him was finally recognised as "the work of the devil."¹²

The Orthodox verdict on the imaginative method

Here the Orthodox Church parts company with Ignatius. The ascetic tradition gathered in the Philokalia teaches the opposite discipline: in prayer the mind is to be gathered, attentive and free of self-made images. St Gregory of Sinai, the fourteenth-century teacher of hesychasm, warns that "the intellect itself naturally possesses an imaginative power" and, unless watched, "can easily produce, to its own hurt, whatever forms and images it wants to." If one sees "even an image of Christ or of an angel or of some saint," he says, "you should never entertain it"; "keep your intellect free from colors, forms and images."¹³ The Jesus Prayer of the hesychast tradition, defended by St Gregory Palamas, is prayer of attention and repentance, not of pictures (see Gregory Palamas and the Hesychast Controversy and the guide Why Christians Fast: Prayer, Fasting, and the Jesus Prayer).

St Ignatius Brianchaninov, the nineteenth-century Russian bishop and teacher of prayer, addressed this directly in his work On Prelest (spiritual delusion). In our translation from the Russian text: "The most dangerous wrong manner of prayer is when the one praying composes, by the power of his imagination, dreams or pictures, borrowing them seemingly from Holy Scripture, but in reality from his own state, from his fall, from his sinfulness, from his self-delusion." He then names Loyola: "His imagination was so heated and refined that, as he himself asserted, he had only to wish it and make some effort, and hell or paradise appeared before his eyes at his desire." Against this he sets the rule that to the true saints of God visions are given "solely by God's good will and by God's action, and not by the will of man and not by his own effort."¹⁴ Brianchaninov does not say where Ignatius made this claim. The nearest passage found in his reminiscences says that, late in life, whenever he wished to find God he found Him: a claim about prayer, not about summoning hell or paradise. But Brianchaninov's charge matches the method of the Exercises, which do ask the retreatant to see hell "with the sight of the imagination."

The Russian theologian Alexei Osipov, drawing on Brianchaninov, reaches the same verdict about the Exercises: "All this contradicts in principle the basics of spiritual ascetic labor as it has been given to us in the lives of the saints of the Universal Church."¹⁵

This is the Orthodox position, stated without hedging. Prayer that manufactures scenes, sensations and conversations in the imagination, and then reads the feelings they produce as the voice of God, is not the way of prayer the Church has handed down. It feeds the faculty through which pride and delusion enter, and Orthodox Christians should not practise it. This is not hostility to images: the Church honours holy icons, and her hymns set Christ's life vividly before the faithful. But icons and hymns are given by the Church and received with sobriety; they are not pictures each person composes in his own mind and then trusts as revelation.

Here there is common ground. The Exercises themselves warn that the evil angel "forms himself under the appearance of an angel of light" to lead a devout soul astray step by step.¹⁶ The Orthodox Fathers agree, and draw the stricter conclusion: the safest course is not to cultivate visions at all.

The Society and the fourth vow

The professed Jesuits, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, add to the usual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience "a fourth, of special obedience to the pope in the matter of missions, undertaking to go wherever they are sent."¹⁷ The same spirit marks the "Rules to have the True Sentiment in the Church" at the end of the Exercises. The thirteenth rule reads: "To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it." The sixth tells the retreatant to praise "Indulgences, pardons, Cruzadas."¹⁸

The Orthodox Church honours obedience, but these rules rest on the Roman doctrine of the papacy, and that doctrine is an error. Christ is the Head of the Church; the bishops of Rome held a primacy of honour among the ancient patriarchs, not universal jurisdiction or a gift of infallibility (see Papal Infallibility: Ancient Doctrine or Later Development?). Indulgences, tied to the doctrine of purgatory, are likewise a later Western development the Orthodox Church rejects.

Missions: Xavier, Ricci and the Chinese rites

Francis Xavier landed at Goa on 6 May 1542, reached Japan in 1549, and died on the island of Shangchuan (Sancian) off China in early December 1552, still hoping to enter the mainland. He was canonized with Ignatius in 1622.¹⁹ Matteo Ricci, summoned to Macao in 1582, learned Chinese, entered Beijing on 24 January 1601 and died there on 11 May 1610.²⁰

Ricci and his successors allowed Chinese converts to keep ceremonies honouring Confucius and their ancestors, judging them civil rather than religious. The New Catholic Encyclopedia explains that the dispute was over "whether these rites were purely civil in nature, or religious and therefore amounted to superstition." Dominicans, Franciscans and others objected. Clement XI forbade the rites in the bull Ex illa die (1715), Benedict XIV confirmed the ban in Ex quo singulari (1742), and only in 1939, under Pius XII, did Rome allow Catholics to take part in such ceremonies as civil acts.²¹

The Jesuits and the Orthodox East

The founding documents do not name opposition to Protestantism as the Society's aim, but the Jesuits quickly became central to the Catholic Reformation. In 1546 Laínez and Salmerón, two of the first companions, were named papal theologians at the Council of Trent, and Jesuit colleges spread across Catholic Europe.²² In Eastern Europe that energy turned toward the Orthodox.

In 1581 Antonio Possevino went to Russia as papal legate, mediating between Tsar Ivan IV and Poland and seeking the Russian Church's union with Rome. The Catholic Encyclopedia itself concludes that Ivan "had negotiated with the pope only to mislead both Rome and Poland."²³ In Poland-Lithuania the Jesuit Piotr Skarga taught at the Jesuit academy in Vilnius and in 1577 published On the Unity of God's Church under One Shepherd, which the Encyclopedia of Ukraine says "outlined the ideological basis for a church union."²⁴

The Union of Brest must be told honestly. The Encyclopedia of Ukraine lists the Jesuits Skarga, Benedykt Herbest, Possevino and others among those who "worked to bring about a union," and Skarga gave the closing speech at the uniate synod in October 1596. Yet the same article records that the Orthodox bishops "worked out a plan for establishing ties with Rome at their sobors in 1590-4," hoping for equality with Latin clergy and relief from Polonization, amid real decline in church discipline.²⁵ The historian Frank Sysyn likewise says that the arrival of the Jesuits in the 1560s "revived discussion of church union," while the bishops, led by Ipatii Potii and Kyrylo Terletsky, "conceived a plan" for union themselves.²⁶ {{strong: Jesuits were leading advocates, polemicists and organisers of the Union of Brest, but the union was not a Jesuit plot imposed on unwilling bishops; most of the Kyivan hierarchy sought it for their own reasons.}}

Many did not follow them. Prince Kostiantyn Ostrozky, the bishops of Lviv and Peremyshl, the urban brotherhoods, many monasteries and envoys of the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria rejected the union, and the two synods at Brest anathematized each other.²⁷ From an Orthodox standpoint they were right. Union on the terms of Florence meant accepting the Filioque, purgatory and papal primacy, doctrines the Orthodox Church cannot accept, while keeping the outward rite (see The Council of Florence and Uniatism: How Did Eastern Churches Enter Communion With Rome?).

Honesty requires two further points. Jesuit schools were good enough that, as the Encyclopedia of Ukraine notes, the Orthodox themselves "emulated" them. And the Orthodox side has its own wrongs to confess: when Russia annexed these lands, Ukrainian Catholicism was "forcibly liquidated" under Catherine II, under Nicholas I (1839) and in the Kholm region (1875), and in 1946-1950 the Soviet government, through orchestrated sobors at Lviv and elsewhere, abolished the Greek Catholic Church in Galicia and Transcarpathia.²⁸ Coercion is no more apostolic in Orthodox hands than in Latin ones. Eastern Catholics today are described further in Eastern Catholic Churches.

Suppression and restoration

The Jesuits' power and political influence made enemies among Catholic rulers. Portugal suppressed the order in 1759 under the minister later known as the Marquis of Pombal, France dissolved it in 1764 and Spain expelled the Jesuits in 1767; in 1773 Pope Clement XIV, under heavy pressure from the Bourbon courts, suppressed the Society.²⁹ Ironically, the order survived in the Russian Empire, where Catherine II forbade the bishops to promulgate the papal brief. Pius VII restored the Society worldwide on 7 August 1814; Russia expelled the Jesuits in 1820.³⁰

The first Jesuit pope

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, born in Buenos Aires in 1936, entered the Society in 1958 and was elected Bishop of Rome on 13 March 2013, taking the name Francis. The Vatican's biography calls him "the Argentine Jesuit"; he was the first Jesuit pope. He died on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025.³¹ Orthodox Christians can speak of him with courtesy, but the office he held claims a universal jurisdiction the Orthodox Church does not recognise, and the fourth vow of his order exists to serve that claim.

Myths and forgeries

Criticism of the Jesuits must be truthful. The Monita Secreta, "secret instructions" said to reveal a Jesuit plan to gain wealth and power, circulated in Kraków in 1612 and was printed there in 1614. It is attributed to Hieronim Zahorowski, a dismissed former Jesuit, and the publisher's description of Sabina Pavone's study says it "was quickly discovered to be a forgery, but it was still distributed by the Jesuits' foes."³² The so-called "Jesuit oath" that still circulates online belongs to the same polemical genre and appears in no authentic Jesuit document. In 1913 a committee of the US House of Representatives condemned as "spurious" a version of it relabelled as a Knights of Columbus oath and used against a Catholic candidate. Orthodox Christians have real disagreements with the Jesuits; they need no forgeries, and the commandment against false witness forbids them.

Objections and replies

"Imaginative prayer is only a way of taking the Gospel seriously."

The Gospel events are real, and the Church sets them before us in her feasts, Scriptures, icons and hymns, asking the one who prays to stand before God in attention and repentance. The Exercises ask the person to construct sensations, smells and dialogues and then to treat the resulting consolation as guidance. The Fathers of the Philokalia judged that path unsafe, and the Orthodox Church follows them.

"Brest was a free union of bishops, not Jesuit manipulation."

Partly true, as this article shows. But the bishops' freedom does not make the terms orthodox: they accepted doctrines the Church had rejected after Florence, against the will of much of their clergy and flock.

"Orthodox criticism of Loyola is anti-Western prejudice."

The Orthodox Church venerates many Western saints from before the schism. Her criticism concerns a method of prayer and a doctrine of the papacy, judged by the Fathers, not by geography.

What we can say confidently

• Ignatius was wounded at Pamplona in 1521, drafted the Exercises at Manresa, and founded the Society of Jesus (approved 1540).
• The Exercises rely on deliberate "composition of place" and the application of the senses in the imagination.
• Orthodox ascetic teaching, from the Philokalia to St Ignatius Brianchaninov, rejects such imaginative prayer; Brianchaninov named Loyola as an example of delusion.
• The professed Jesuits take a fourth vow of obedience to the Pope concerning missions.
• Jesuits actively promoted the Union of Brest (1596), which the bishops also pursued for their own reasons and which split the Ruthenian Church and its faithful.
• The Society was suppressed in 1773, survived in Russia, and was restored in 1814. Pope Francis (2013-2025) was the first Jesuit pope.

What remains disputed

• {{debated: How much weight the Jesuits carried in bringing about Brest compared with the bishops' own aims, the Polish crown and Rome.}}
• The source of the claim, reported by Brianchaninov, that Ignatius could summon visions of heaven or hell at will.
• Whether Ricci's accommodation in China went too far; Rome itself changed its judgment between 1715 and 1939.

Conclusion

Ignatius of Loyola gave himself wholly to what he believed was the service of Christ, and many Jesuits after him crossed oceans for the same aim. Orthodox Christians can respect that zeal, but the Church does not judge a spiritual path by zeal alone. She asks whether it agrees with the faith handed down from the apostles and the Fathers.

By that measure the imaginative method of the Exercises and the papal obedience of the fourth vow depart from the apostolic faith, and the Church was right to resist the Jesuit effort to bring the Orthodox under Rome. The Orthodox way of prayer is humbler and safer: to stand before God with the mind kept in the heart, saying "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," and to wait on His grace rather than to picture it.

Notes

1. J. H. Pollen, "St. Ignatius Loyola," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 7 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1910), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07639c.htm.
2. The Autobiography of St. Ignatius, ed. J. F. X. O'Conor (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1900), ch. 1, Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24534/24534.txt.
3. Pollen, "St. Ignatius Loyola" (see note 1).
4. Autobiography, ed. O'Conor (see note 2), chs. 5-6, on Alcalá and Salamanca.
5. Pollen, "St. Ignatius Loyola" (see note 1): Montmartre, the bull of 27 September 1540, death 31 July 1556, canonization 1622 (Pollen gives 22 May; the canonization ceremony was held on 12 March 1622: Cindy Wooden, "All-star lineup: Why a canonization in 1622 still draws attention," Catholic News Service, 27 February 2022, https://cruxnow.com/cns/2022/02/all-star-lineup-why-a-canonization-in-1622-still-draws-attention).
6. Pollen, "St. Ignatius Loyola" (see note 1): the brief Pastoralis Officii (1548).
7. Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises, trans. Elder Mullan, SJ (New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1914), Principle and Foundation, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, https://ccel.org/ccel/ignatius/exercises.
8. Spiritual Exercises, trans. Mullan (see note 7), First Week, First Exercise, First Prelude.
9. Spiritual Exercises, trans. Mullan (see note 7), First Week, Fifth Exercise (on hell).
10. Spiritual Exercises, trans. Mullan (see note 7), Second Week, First Day, Fifth Contemplation ("to bring the five senses" on the first and second contemplations).
11. Kevin O'Brien, SJ, "Ignatian Contemplation: Imaginative Prayer," excerpt from The Ignatian Adventure, IgnatianSpirituality.com (Loyola Press), https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-spiritual-exercises/ignatian-contemplation-imaginative-prayer/.
12. Autobiography, ed. O'Conor (see note 2), ch. 3.
13. St Gregory of Sinai, "On Prayer: Seven Texts," text 7 ("On Delusion and Other Subjects"), in The Philokalia, vol. 4, trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1995), as reproduced at https://orthodoxchurchfathers.com/fathers/philokalia/gregory-of-sinai-on-prayer-seven-texts.html.
14. St Ignatius (Brianchaninov), O prelesti (On Prelest), part 2, Russian text at Azbuka Very, https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Ignatij_Brjanchaninov/o-prelesti/2; English translation by this article. Brianchaninov's own reference at this point (his note 71) is to St Isaac the Syrian, Homily 36, not to a writing of Ignatius of Loyola. On finding God whenever he wished, see the Autobiography, sec. 99, as quoted by Brian O'Leary, SJ, "Introducing the pilgrim," CatholicIreland.net, https://www.catholicireland.net/?p=18127.
15. Alexei Ilyich Osipov, "Individual Revelation and Its Indications," trans. Nun Cornelia, OrthoChristian.com (26 October 2010), https://orthochristian.com/42352.html.
16. Spiritual Exercises, trans. Mullan (see note 7), Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, Second Week, Fourth Rule.
17. J. H. Pollen, "The Society of Jesus," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 14 (1912), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14081a.htm.
18. Spiritual Exercises, trans. Mullan (see note 7), "Rules to Have the True Sentiment in the Church," Sixth and Thirteenth Rules.
19. A. Astrain, "St. Francis Xavier," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6 (1909), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06233b.htm. Astrain gives 2 December 1552 for the death; many modern references give 3 December.
20. J. Brucker, "Matteo Ricci," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13 (1912), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13034a.htm.
21. "Chinese Rites Controversy," New Catholic Encyclopedia, via Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/chinese-rites-controversy.
22. Pollen, "The Society of Jesus" (see note 17); Pollen, "St. Ignatius Loyola" (see note 1), on Laínez and Salmerón at Trent.
23. U. Benigni, "Antonius Possevinus," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12 (1911), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12317a.htm.
24. Wasyl Lencyk, "Skarga, Piotr," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993), Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CS%5CK%5CSkargaPiotr.htm.
25. Atanasii Velyky, "Church Union of Berestia," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984), Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CC%5CH%5CChurchUnionofBerestia.htm.
26. Frank E. Sysyn, "Union of Brest (1596)," Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, via Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/union-brest-1596.
27. Velyky, "Church Union of Berestia" (see note 25); Sysyn, "Union of Brest" (see note 26).
28. Wasyl Lencyk, "Jesuits," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989), https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CJ%5CE%5CJesuits.htm; Velyky, "Church Union of Berestia" (see note 25).
29. J. H. Pollen, "The Suppression of the Jesuits (1750-1773)," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 14 (1912), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14096a.htm.
30. J. H. Pollen, "The Jesuits During the Interim (1773-1814)," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 14 (1912), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14099a.htm; Pollen, "The Society of Jesus" (see note 17), on Pius VII's bull of 7 August 1814; Lencyk, "Jesuits" (see note 28), on 1820.
31. "Biography of the Holy Father Francis (2013-2025)," Holy See, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/biography/documents/papa-francesco-biografia-bergoglio.html; M. Alex Johnson, "Pope Francis breaks another barrier as first Jesuit pontiff," NBC News (13 March 2013), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-francis-breaks-another-barrier-first-jesuit-pontiff-flna1C8854603.
32. Sabina Pavone, The Wily Jesuits and the Monita Secreta: The Forged Secret Instructions of the Jesuits; Myth and Reality, trans. John P. Murphy (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005), publisher's description, https://jesuitsources.bc.edu/the-wily-jesuits-and-the-monita-secreta-the-forged-secret-instructions-of-the-jesuits-myth-and-reality; J. Gerard, "Monita Secreta," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 10 (1911), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10487a.htm. On the oath: Report of the Committee on Elections No. 1, Bonniwell v. Butler, Congressional Record, vol. 49, pt. 4 (15 February 1913), pp. 3215-3216 (the text it condemns is addressed to "the superior general of the Society of Jesus"), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1913-pt4-v49/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1913-pt4-v49-3-2.pdf.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Trans. Elder Mullan, SJ. New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1914.
• The Autobiography of St. Ignatius. Ed. J. F. X. O'Conor, SJ. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1900.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• The Philokalia, vol. 4. Trans. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1995 (St Gregory of Sinai, "On Prayer: Seven Texts").
• St Ignatius (Brianchaninov). O prelesti (On Prelest). Russian text, Azbuka Very.
• Osipov, Alexei Ilyich. "Individual Revelation and Its Indications." Trans. Nun Cornelia. OrthoChristian.com, 2010.

Other scholarship and reference

• Encyclopedia of Ukraine (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies): "Church Union of Berestia" (A. Velyky); "Jesuits" and "Skarga, Piotr" (W. Lencyk).
• Sysyn, Frank E. "Union of Brest (1596)." In Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World.
• "Chinese Rites Controversy." New Catholic Encyclopedia.
• Pavone, Sabina. The Wily Jesuits and the Monita Secreta. Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005.
• Johnson, M. Alex. "Pope Francis breaks another barrier as first Jesuit pontiff." NBC News, 2013.

Sources from the Catholic and Jesuit tradition

• The Catholic Encyclopedia (1909-1912): "St. Ignatius Loyola," "The Society of Jesus," "The Suppression of the Jesuits (1750-1773)," "The Jesuits During the Interim (1773-1814)" (J. H. Pollen, SJ); "St. Francis Xavier" (A. Astrain); "Matteo Ricci" (J. Brucker); "Antonius Possevinus" (U. Benigni); "Monita Secreta" (J. Gerard).
• O'Brien, Kevin, SJ. The Ignatian Adventure, excerpt "Ignatian Contemplation: Imaginative Prayer." IgnatianSpirituality.com.
• Holy See. "Biography of the Holy Father Francis (2013-2025)."