Iuliu-Marius MORARIU The Spiritual Autobiography in the Eastern space in the second half of the XIXth and XXth century Autobiografia spirituală în spaţiul răsăritean în cea de-a doua jumătate a secolului XIX şi secolul XX Iuliu-Marius Morariu Abstract. In this study, the author highlights the main aspects of spiritual autobiography from the Orthodox Space in the second half of the XIXth Century and in the XXth one. After a brief incursion in the history of this gender as the theological literature, and a presentation of its evolution in this space, he analyses the most representative work of this genre in the past century, the Spiritual writings of Saint Silouane, monk at the Holy Mount of Athos, presenting the spiritual values of this book, the context of writing and its importance for the Oriental Theology (based on the literature of speciality from Romanian and foreign theological space and on the opinion of the theologians which analysed before the work his writings). At the end of the research, starting from the presentation of the main aspects of author's work, he defines the particularities of the genre in the presented space. Keywords: spiritual autobiography, Silouan the Athonite, Grace. The beginnings of spiritual autobiography as a genre of ecclesiastical literature are placed by specialists in the fourth century AD 1 , when Saint Augustine wrote his Confessions 2 . However, elements of this genre can be found in the pages of the Old Testament, when repeatedly, various prophets recounted episodes with a rich mystical content, experiences lived by them, as well as in the New Testament, in writings such 1 Nichifor Crainic, Ortodoxie și etnocrație (Orthodoxy and Etnocracy), Bucharest, "Cugetarea" Press, 1930. 2 Cf. Peter Dinzelbacher, ed., Dictionnaire de la Mystique (Dictionary of Mistique), Brepols, Alfred Kroner Press, 1993, pp. 82-85.