Beautiful selection of icons, exquisite!

Beautiful well made just love them

A welcoming resource for our visitors and new members at our church.

A great study for our women’s group at our church.

Beautiful

Love the icon descriptions.

Excellent service fast shipping.

Excellent

Superb book on prayer!

Stunning!

The write-ups are just the right length, and the illustrations are beautiful. We can’t wait to give these to our godchildren.

I was very eager to read this book as I have wondered about various accounts in the Old Testament that didn't feel quite right to me. This book really did a good job of explaining the culture of the time and placing these troubling accounts in their proper context. If you are someone who has wondered about or struggled with various accounts in the Old Testament I highly recommend this book. It was an easy read too which is always nice!

The Lightkeeper is the best novel that I have ever read.
It was so good that I did not want the book to end. Sherry Shenoda seamlessly ties history, wisdom, spirituality, love, tragedy, and Christianity into a beautifully written story. I highly recommend!

Easily the most beautifully-spoken novel I’ve read, The Lightkeeper is a fascinating concept of home and love in time and space. Every chapter had me more curious to understand what was to come. Character development was gradual and perfectly dynamic, and the development of the plot was beautifully crescendoed.

This is a story of romance in the scenario of time travel. It is about healing and sense of purpose; harnessing and refining choice through free will; considering the needs of others more highly than one’s own. The portrayal of the masculine and feminine is deeply balanced in this novel, a beautiful depiction of what bond and strength and necessity there are for both man and woman in timeless union.

The Lightkeeper is influenced by the understanding of meaning and free will as found in the Orthodox Faith. It is not explicitly Orthodox; you will not find Orthodox content within these pages. Shenoda does, however, honor the framework of the Orthodox life: ascetic living and hard work; the balance of male and female; the honor of boundaries and propriety preserved in traditional values. She combines elements with which the faithful would be familiar together with a true love and romance, and a universal heart’s desire for “home”.

Shenoda, also a poet, employs the most beautiful language to provide scenery and sensation to the reader. Her depictions are lifelike and heartfelt. In some places there is a lot of movement described, and this is my only constructive critique to the author. There were several places where I felt lost in the description of movements and placement of characters and had to refocus myself on the content of each scenario. This, of course, does not take away from the warm embrace of the story.

I highly recommend for personal read; but also for a group! The author has a *book club* group discussion PDF - the thought-provoking questions contain spoilers, so consider reading before discussing!

I personally took away from my reading the contemplation of free will and how to use my own, as well as the healing freely given for us to received through the timeless Wisdom of the Church. And to be honest: I cried often!! I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to read this novel and intend to return to it in the future! I’m so grateful for authors like Sherry who are expanding the Orthodox novel genre!

Amazing book for fasting time. My wife was really happy when I got it for her! Great gift for friends too!

Syria Crucified is a necessary book. It needed to have been written, and perhaps it was inevitable that such a book would be written since the human soul can only experience so much pain and suffering before it finds release in literature, music, and the arts. It is my hope that this book will inspire others who have lived and are living through the war in Syria to bear witness before the whole world of what happened there. As all wars are, Syria’s is as complex as they come: A one-party secular dictatorship, though sympathetic and protective of its religious minorities, responds with brutal repression when a grassroots revolution for democracy is co-opted and hijacked by internationally-backed Al Queda type Islamic militants. As many of the Syrians in Syria Crucified attest to, there were no good guys, but given the choice between a dictatorship that ensured their freedom to worship and live as they saw fit, and militant islamists that threatened to kill them and destroy their religious heritage, it is not hard to understand why most, if not all, Syrian Christians refused to take up arms against the Syrian government. The five stories presented to us here offer us a glimpse of what it must have been like to live with the tension of being a protected minority in a predominantly Muslim country. Throughout these stories it is evident that authors avoid the common pitfall of romanticizing one side or the other, but rather they show us in stark contrast the complex lives of Syrian Christians before, during, and “after” the war. I say “after”, because, although peace has returned to many parts of Syria, there are still large swaths of Syria where fighting continues. This book may even surprise some westerners, especially Americans, to hear that Christians have been an integral part of Syrian life for almost two millennia. These stories give us peak into the faith held by Syrian Christians which is, in my estimation, a living, fervent, and evangelical faith not at all diminished by the passing of 2,000 years since the time of Christ and his apostles. It was this faith that has given strength, determination, and resiliency to the people whose stories are told in Syria Crucified, and indeed to Syrian Christians. It is also apparent that this faith grounded them in a shared humanity and kept them anchored so as not to be swept up in the tide of war and engulfed in anger and hate. For example, two of the characters that also make an appearance in Syria Crucified are physicians who recount that their faith made it impossible for them not to provide aid for any that sought their aide, be they from Muslims, Christian, with the government, or against the government. They really had no alternative but to flee their country. Those who intentionally stayed never forgot their Lord’s commandment to “love your neighbor”. In Syria Crucified you will hear the stories of priests who sacrificed themselves for their flock, and who used the resources entrusted to them to help all people, be they Muslim, Christian, Syrian, or foreigners. These Syrians heroically refused to allow war to dehumanize them.

Nevertheless, what comes through in each and every story is the heart ache of seeing Syria dismantled, destroyed, and ripped apart. The reoccurring question throughout Syria Crucified is “Why?”. Why did the West support groups identical and in some cases more radical and violent than Al Queda? Why did the West not come to the aide of the clearly suffering and persecuted Syrian Christians? These question should cut straight to the heart of every American, but I’m afraid that entrenched political alliances will make it difficult to find honest answers. What are the liberal mainstream Christian denominations to do with the reality that President Obama, who was the first black American President, won a Nobel peace price, ushered in marriage equality and Obamacare, also provided military, political, and financial support to militants that were in league with Al Queda and were responsible for untold-of death and destruction in Syria? Can they reconcile those two contradictory positions? Conservative Evangelical Republicans must square up their religious faith and their faith in the basic goodness of the American military mission in the world with the fact that that same military and its various appendages, not to mention American tax dollars, were used to brutally kill fellow Christians in Syria and in some places, completely wipe out the the Christian presence, history, and heritage? Will Westerners, and Americans in particular, have the humility and courage to admit these glaring contradictions? My hope is that these stories, beautifully and painfully told by Syrian Christians who lived through the war, will soften the hearts of every reader and hopefully awaken within them a healthy level of skepticism so that the next time our political leaders sound the drums of war, they may pause and demand transparency and truth so that what happened to Syria doesn’t happen to any other country.

Irresponsible lack of sources; more propaganda pamphlet than theological work.

An excellent book for those who question some difficult passages.

Fr. Damick has for many years been presenting the timeless teaching of the Orthodox Church in a fresh and accessible manner. "Arise O God" is a succinct, highly engaging presentation of the plain, simple Good News of Jesus Christ. Clearly defining terms and utilizing an approach that is accessible to anyone, regardless of religious tradition, this book will serve as a valuable resource to give to new inquirers as well as to lifelong church members looking to rekindle their love of that "old, old story...of Jesus and His love." Fr. Damick's presentation of the Good News with an emphasis on the victorious nature of Christ's death and resurrection is an important contribution to this type of book, which too often neglect the full scope of Christ's redemptive work.

Excellent (and succinct!) proclamation of The Gospel. If you have wanted to listen to the Lord of Spirits podcast but didn’t know where to start, this is like the “cliff’s notes” version that you can read in one sitting.

I’m not even Orthodox but I think every church should have piles of this book up front to give to visitors. I’ve already given copies to most of my friends!