Elder Porphyrios, Testimonies and experiences

Which angel visited the Mother of God? Which animals kept the little baby Jesus warm? What do the gifts that the Wise Men brought symbolize? Children learn about the birth of Christ through the world of Byzantine art. An art that is close to children’s souls, for it does not use shadow, peerspective, divisions or time. Dionysiou Monastery kindly gave permission for these wonderful frescoes to be reproduced in the present edition. It is their hope that these icons will speak to the souls of our children.

The Cross, persecution, sorrow, temptation are the legacy of the Church and of a true Christian. There is not an Orthodox Church that has not experienced her own persecution; neither has a saint lived that has not gone through his own furnace of afflictions, persecutions and temptations. A moving witness to the Cross is also the figure of Saint Luke, Archbishop of Simpheropol and Crimea, physician, professor of topographic anatomy and surgery; a man with rare talents and spiritual gifts, with a stunning scientific training, who ministered to human beings as pastor and doctor, with an admirable self-denial and love. This book has attempted to delineate his stormy life, the incredible torments and adventures, as well as his multifaceted work, in the hope that the suffering and his valuable testimony will offer a plenitude of gifts to God’s people and especially to doctors, those of the souls as well as those of the bodies.