Don't mind the noise. That's just the sound of my worldview shattering into a million pieces.

Wow....

I picked up this book because I'm a recent convert to Eastern Orthodoxy from an evangelical Protestant background. I went to a four-year evangelical Bible college and spent years in evangelical ministry. Upon my conversion, I started to get the sense that there were parts of my faith that I didn't understand as the Orthodox do, or terminology that meant something different to me than it did to them. I picked up this book to help educate myself on the differences between what I was taught and raised in and what the Orthodox Church believes.

I was not prepared for the absolute destruction of every single theological foundation I ever had, nor the abundance of evidence that what I used to believe was not taught or held to by any Christian before the 1500s and in many cases was considered blatant heresy by the earliest Christians.

OUCH.

This book is basically an Orthodox "introduction to Systematic Theology" as far as the Orthodox Church has a systematic theology (the very concept is a Western, not Eastern, one). It goes point by point through the very basics of the faith (what is the Church? what is salvation? what is grace?) and compares and contrasts the Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic viewpoints in a very respectful way. The author lays out the history and context behind each view, backs everything up with Scripture and quotes from the early Church Fathers, and creates a well-organized, researched, and effective discussion of Eastern Orthodox theology, but written for Western readers.

As a former evangelical Protestant, I found everything he wrote about Protestant beliefs to be totally on point. Generalized, yes (because let's be honest, there are thousand of Protestant perspectives and denominations. The author cannot possibly touch on all of them.), but everything he wrote reflected what I was taught in Bible college extremely accurately, which only made his refutations of it hurt even more. The chapter on "Tradition and Scripture" was especially eye-opening (I say "eye-opening"; it reduced me to literal sobbing at my own ignorance). I had no idea about the differences between 'kerygma' and 'dogma' or how both were used and viewed in the ancient Christian Church. That changes everything for me. Literally everything I've been taught is wrong.

But, as mentioned above, he is careful to be respectful of his audience, and makes many concessions for Protestant thought by demonstrating the historical contexts surrounding the Reformation and how certain beliefs came into vogue (usually as a reaction against abuses in the Roman Catholic world). I won't speak for his arguments surrounding Roman Catholicism because I'm not Catholic and know nothing about them. But if he is as thorough with his research on them as he was for Protestants, it's pretty powerful and jarring stuff.

I've known all along that you can't interpret any piece of literature outside of its historical or cultural context. The Bible is no exception. This book helps put Christianity and Scripture back into its proper context which, it seems, the Eastern Orthodox has not wavered from in over two-thousand years. That's an impressive resume. At the very least, it's worth considering.

If you're a Christian and you have questions about your faith, about the ancient church, about how certain beliefs came into practice, read this book. Even if you don't walk away Orthodox, you will have learned at least a little about the history of the faith and why Orthodox/Catholics/Protestants believe what they do. It's powerful. It's succinct. It's easy to read. It changed my life. Smashed it, really. I'm going to be chewing on this for a long, loooooong time. Glory to God!

Amazing, Thank you

Big in Heaven: A Collection of Short Stories about Life in an American Orthodox Parish

By Stephen Siniari

When’s the last time you picked up a book of Orthodox short stories? American, literary short stories? Fr. Stephen N. Siniari has done something miraculous, writing just such a book and (thank you, Ancient Faith Publishing!) making it available to readers who long to read stories set within an Orthodox framework. In Big in Heaven: A Collection of Short Stories about Life in an American Orthodox Parish, Fr. Stephen writes about Orthodoxy as it is lived out in a parish which, however fictional, is so realistically evoked in its grit and beauty that it may look surprisingly like your own.

The parish at the center of these stories is that of St. Alexander the Whirling Dervish Orthodox Church, set in the midst of a Philadelphia Fishtown neighborhood. To help you get your bearings, and indicating the importance of place of these stories, the “endpapers” of the book feature a hand-drawn map of the neighborhood that shows the locations of local landmarks like the putty factory, Shooky’s Taproom, and Donahue’s Funeral Home.

Father Naum is the common thread in all 24 stories, a son of the neighborhood who grew up to be the priest of St. Alexander’s. While he figures prominently, the book isn’t really about him. It’s about the community he serves, the inhabitants of a Philadelphia Fishtown neighborhood, ethnic and working class. People here have names like Two-Beer Eddie, Teddy the Horse, Nicky Zeo, and Little Harry, and the community is tight-knit, so “there’s just no hiding anything in the neighborhood” (19). In other words, it’s a neighborhood ripe for story-telling, and the stories we get are told by the community, which has a long memory and holds nothing back. Often the narrator of the story is the collective “we,” as the community relates the lives and struggles of its members, including Father Naum (who they just call Naum). The community often gets in the last word too, bringing a story to a close with lines like “We never saw him again,” or “’Proximity shows up pretenders.’ Always said it, old Naum, now didn’t he?” This collective voice and strong evocation of community might bring to mind Garrison Keillor’s tales of Lake Wobegon or, more darkly, William Faulkner’s small Southern town and its secrets in “A Rose for Emily.”

The stories of Big in Heaven are undergirded by the Church, and the lives of the characters are seen through their relation to the faith. The neighborhood sees people grow up and grow older, facing unexpected challenges and tragedies. Sometimes, these people are pulled back to the Church, or the Church reaches out to them, meeting them where they are. These people experience heartbreak; as Naum muses, “From the time of our expulsion from the paradise of bliss, there was no life without suffering” (123). The people persevere through the deaths of children, unhappy marriages, molestation, and alienation from family and friends. Their stories don’t promise happy endings, but they do show characters asking hard questions about God and faith. Throughout, there is the Church and its sacraments, the holy life played out through its flawed, even abrasive parishioners and their flawed priest.

Such an evocative portrayal of a community may make the reader wish to know more of Fr. Naum’s story, such as his relationships with his wife and son. A reader may also long for more repeat appearances by characters, rather than having an interesting character relegated to a single story. I hope that Fr. Stephen continues to write about this neighborhood, and that Ancient Faith continues to nourish Orthodox literary talent.

Great. Wish it was available for e-Readers.

The stories were a bit more over-simplified than what we were expecting.

Good selection of lives of lives of people from relatively recent times who became saints. Not just a book about monks and ancient martyrs. Inspiring.

This book can be used as a helpful resource

This book has been a great tool for learning more about the saints.

it's an okay book. I personally would not recommend it for children under 10. Bought it for my child who is 5, an avid reader. Story line could be written more for children. I found it too point formish and doctrinal, not a "story like" book.

What a handy little book! Fr Evan lays out the basics of Orthodox faith and life clearly and very accessibly. New-comers and old-timers can all benefit from this useful book.

I liked it very much. The illustrations were simple yet colorful. The words were simple and just as used in the
Divine Liturgy. I thought the book was well done. It is good that the Glossary was included for the older reader. I liked that explanations of what we believe; of what we see and hear during the Liturgy{the priest's robes]were included. Of how we are to live our lives during the week.Thsi is a good book for parents to read with their children
as well

Approximately ten years ago, I started listening to Fr. Evan's podcast Transforming our Lives in Christ and eventually Orthodoxy Live on Sunday evenings. There is a thread that weaves through Fr. Evan's message - if you carefully study the Holy Scriptures, the teachings and practices of the Orthodox faith are clear, cogent and life-giving. What I found when I read Father's first book is a compendium of the examples (and a few more) that he has been sharing with us on line for several years. Finally, a place to reference the Church's teachings on prayer, fasting and almsgiving with the real life examples that only Father Evan can so poignantly share. We have heard for years about how he failed as a new husband, how seeing his daughter injured caused his heart to wrench and how in the end love is the criterion for judgment. His real life examples make seemingly complex ideas palatable to those in and outside the Church. But, this book is not about him. This book is about us. It is about how we find ourselves in the Garden everyday disfigured, separated and ashamed. And how Fr. Evan's experience as a priest can show us practical ways to reunite ourselves with Christ through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. This book is one that we will all be reading again and again.

The Orthodox Study Bible is just about everything you'd want in a bible. It has commentary, cross-references, comparisons, guidance, a lectionary, a glossary, indices, prayers, and a whole bunch of other useful information to help you follow Jesus Christ. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in God's Word!

Incredible book... despondency... I didn't even know what that meant, but I struggle from it. The inability to be in the moment... always being stuck in future fantasies or worry, stuck in the past, but never in the moment. Lord have mercy! This book offered great insight into despondency, different ways it can present itself and how to approach it to defeat this ugly sin.

Excellent book. Rich in content. There is alot to learn from this book. I read it several times and I continue to reading it. Every time I read it it permeates deeper into my heart.

Big in heaven is a universe unto itself; following in the tradition of Bocaccio and Chaucer, Fr Stephen stitches together a world of suspended belief that is both entirely American and entirely Orthodox. Each character has some lesson to teach or some wisdom to impart. This is a wonderful example of the personal paths we take to salvation as individuals in part of a collective. Highly recommended for anyone that is curious about the soul of lived Orthodox faith, rather than conceptual theology.

Fr. Evan has written such a wonderful, timeless guide to practices that lead us to renewal in Christ. As a convert to Orthodoxy over 25 years ago, I have struggled to understand the tenets of prayer, charity (almsgiving), and fasting and how they relate to the Christian journey. This book truly is a toolkit to help one understand the who, what, when, where and why and points everything back to our Life in Christ -- and our life within the Church. As Fr. Evan states, "Christ's teaching on prayer, fasting and almsgiving forms the basis for our spiritual life as Christians." He then provides simplified, pragmatic approaches and examples to incorporate these three disciplines into our modern, busy lives. I have needed this book and feel like for the first time I truly understand Christ's teachings on prayer, fasting and almsgiving. I recommend this book for all Orthodox Christians and to any believer who wants to be "transformed and acquire the peace that comes from living a life in Christ, according to His teachings."

Taking up this book, was intrigued made both on the back cover and in the foreword by Bishop John of Worcester and New England about the deceptive small size and simplicity of it. But, just as everyone else rounding the corner of 2020, I am in need of a breath and wisdom. I found both in “All is Well” by Dr. Albert Rossi.

Dr. Rossi’s book is filled with chapters about finding peace through prayer, watchfulness, and dedication. He draws heavily from his many life experiences and relationships, especially those of his family, patients, and dear friend, Fr. Thomas Hopko of blessed memory. Dr. Rossi’s writing reads as grandfatherly wisdom gleaned from many years of adversities, struggles, and blessings being handed down to the reader. His encouragements and advice to find a way to see that “all is well” are indeed simple, but not at all simplistic. The tools he gives are powerful and practical and I found them simple to begin right away. I even taught one of them to my seven-year-old daughter to help her deal with anxious thoughts and experiences she was having, and I watched her work through them more quickly and peacefully than I ever have.

I found this book to be exceptionally easy to read and relate to, and I was grateful to read it in this current time of uncertainty, when we wonder when and if all will be well again. Dr. Rossi directs us towards the understanding and reassurance that through Christ, it is always well.

I was fortunate to be able to read Fr. Evan’s book, and I have to say that, after reading it through twice, I want to go back for a third round. The way that the book is divided- into sections of prayer, fasting and almsgiving- makes it unique in a group of Orthodox books about the fundamentals of Orthodox living. For prayer, Fr. Evan demonstrates how prayer, even set prayers without personal flourishes, can be very personal- something that is often confusing to people early on in their Orthodox experience. The combination of theological discussions with practical advice (“Keep a cross in your prayer corner”) was very easy for me to access, and the ways in which Fr. Evan presented the practical advice led me to think more deeply about how I could improve my prayer life. Prayer, according to Fr. Evan, is a pilgrimage, and that’s one of the most useful offerings from this text.

The chapter on almsgiving is an extremely useful one for those who are trying to figure out how to make an impact in the lives of other people. Fr. Evan’s emphasis on working directly with people in need, rather than simply donating money from afar, is refreshing; having read this book during a time of natural disaster in my own home city, I found it inspiring and a call to do something different. The same applies to the third chapter on fasting, which inspires the reader to challenge themselves in different ways through controlling what goes into our bodies and souls. Highlighting that fasting is “an easier exercise than the daunting task of immediately conquering something like anger,” Fr. Evan’s book succeeds in showing the reader that we have freedom, yet Christ didn’t necessarily do the toughest tasks from the very beginning. As someone who’s personally tried to go full-out for my early Orthodox fasts, this was helpful to read. Additionally, Fr. Evan’s descriptions of the smaller fasts, such as the Dormition Fast, were very useful, and reminds the reader that the rhythms of feasting, long-term fasting and short-term fasting are necessary to bring us into a stronger relationship with God and His Church.

Fr. Evan’s book is immensely useful, clear to understand, and thought-provoking. With the start of the Church New Year, I would encourage people to use this book as a way to think about how to live more intentionally and prayerfully with the start of the liturgical year. And then, next year, do it all over again. It is worth repeated readings.

This is an excellent book! We can get caught up in knowing about God or reading about God. We need to remember that the goal is to grow in intimacy with our God who loves us infinitely. This book reminds us to get back to basics, and it also gives practical ways to do that. This isn’t a book to just stay in your head with, but rather it is a book to take into your heart and live out through your body to start today with praying, charitable acts, and fasting. I expect this book will be of benefit for anyone that wishes to take more seriously their connection to God, but I imagine especially for those exploring or new to Orthodoxy, this book will prove an excellent resource. The practicality of this book will likely answer many questions for anyone seeking to grow spiritually.