Who where the parents of Mother of God? How many steps did she take when she first walked? What did Christ do when she spokw to Him at the wedding at Cana? How is her soul depicted in icons? Children learn about Mary’s life through looking ath the beautiful wall-paintings by Tzortzis from the main church of Dionysiou Monastery on Mount Athos. They also embark on a wonderful journey through the world of Byzantine art. An art that is close to children’s souls, for it does not use shadow, perspective, divisions of 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.