Love this calendar! It's wonderful to be able to fully conceptualize the passing of time in terms of church seasons, rather than arbitrary months.

My 11 year old son loved this book. He just wishes there were more!

It's beautiful! We are very pleased with it.

I really like this book. It has helped me tremendously with with my prayer life. My priest says say s it's 'Cliff's Notes' guide to prayer., but an excellent book.

My daughter loves this and takes it to church every time we go.

Looks beautiful and inspiring!

Beautiful artwork. One note: For the future please send as bound printed matter, not media mail. This will avoid confusion for the USPS.

The personal voice of the author gives life and space to the too-often unspoken, but deeply experienced, grief associated with infertility. I knew virtually nothing of the lives of Sts Joachim & Anna prior to reading this book. Now, I see a new kinship in their ancient struggle that

What an impressive book! If you are looking for a thought provoking, thorough book on Angels, then this is the book. I was so enthralled with everything Mother Alexandra had to say. It was well written, concise and easy to follow.

I have always been a firm believer in Angels, however, I often found myself struggling on how to pray and utilize the angels with my salvation. This book is laid out beautifully by Mother Alexandra. I was hooked from the very beginning. There was a part where Mother Alexandra was speaking with a theologian when she asked him his opinions of angels. They way he responded was exactly how I felt before reading this book, “I am grateful that they exist, but I am not comfortable saying very much about them. And I am not sure how to relate to them in my daily life” (The Holy Angels, pg 11). Simply put that before this book I had no knowledge on how to relate to them. How does one relate to an angel? After reading and then journaling after each reading section, I no longer feel a disconnect between myself and Angels.

Mother Alexandra begins her book with a beautiful introduction. Which then leads to Angels in the old testament. Her introduction about what are angels was the “oh yea” moment I was hoping to find in this book. She then discusses Angels in the New Testament. Lastly, she talks about Angels in the Christian Church. This will become my new handbook for everything Angels.

I personally have felt my prayer life has become more enriched and deeper just by reading this book and having a better understanding of Angels in my daily life. I highly recommend this book to everyone; converts, catechumens and those that want a deeper understanding of how to enrich your prayer life with the Holy Angels.

The book is beautiful! However, I bought 2 and was supposed to get a third one for free. I did not get the third one.

Absolutely beautiful!! My son is so excited to color it in! He wants me to find icon pics to copy the colors!!

The dolls arrived promptly and look just as pictured. I look forward to having these to display for future Christmases.

Bold beautiful colors and good quality for the price.

It was a gift for my granddaughter and she loves it very much. I get e-mails from her telling me to read various verses and how much she has learned about the bible. Thank you

This was a gift for my wife. She loved it.

If you’ve ever wanted to know more about angels, what they are like, what their purpose is, and how they should factor into our spiritual lives, then you will benefit from Mother Alexandra’s treatment of these questions in The Holy Angels. I had the privilege of reviewing this book for Ancient Faith Publishing. Begun before she became a monastic, and first published in 1981, this book is an extensive study of the subject of angels in the Bible and Church Tradition from an Orthodox perspective.

This study is the result of a keen intellect united with an indefatigable spirit. Having covered the breadth of angels in Old Testament times (Book I), and in the New Testament (Book II), Mother Alexandra does not consider bringing her work a close. Instead, she rolls up her sleeves and delves into a survey of angels in the Christian Church (Book III). At nearly 100 pages, this last section discusses the treatment of angels in the Early Christian Fathers, the Age of Orthodox Theology, the Holy Liturgies and Prayers, and Christian art.

Mother Alexandra begins her study with a primer on angels, appropriately called “What Are Angels?” Soon, she provides a concrete definition: “An angel has character, individuality, and a will of his own, much as we have; but in other ways angels do not resemble us. When, to make himself manifest to us, an angel takes on human semblance, he never is physically like a human being, but only a mental image of one.” Here the reader can see the theme she pursues throughout this work, that of the interplay between human and angel, similar in being created by God and endowed with free will, and yet fundamentally different creatures as well. The Old and New Testaments are studded with mystery-filled encounters between angels and humans, where angels serve as guardians and messengers: they deliver visions, they provide a way for Jacob to wrestle with his issues, they help promote God’s plan of deliverance and salvation. By weighing both the OT and NT accounts, Mother Alexandra is able to chart a shift in that relationship between man and angel: “The angels of the Old Testament ordained the law, but once the Lord had himself taken the redress of the world upon his own shoulders, the angels became the friends of man. By the new dispensation of grace and truth, the relationship of Christian and angel to each other becomes so close that at certain times . . . a singular resemblance becomes apparent between them” (162).

If the angels are our friends, then the flip side of that relationship must be considered: the presence of “our bitterest enemies, the angels of darkness” (27). It may come as a surprise for a book on the holy angels to include Satan and his followers, but Mother Alexandra does not let us forget the threat posed by these other creations of God. Our awareness of both is interconnected: our ability to perceive the holy angels through spiritual clarity increases our ability to withstand the attacks of Satan’s angels. By widening the scope of her study to include the devil, Mother Alexandra not only reminds us of the reality of evil and temptation but also is able to consider the role of Satan in the Old and New Testaments, in addition to questions raised by the Church Fathers regarding the nature of sin and the final damnation (or not) of Satan and his angels.

Throughout, her book is marked by deep faith as well as deep erudition. Her knowledge extends to the Holy Scriptures and beyond, to the pseudo-apocryphal Book of the Secrets of Enoch, and to the Church Fathers and theologians. She is easily conversant with Origen, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, and the Celestial Hierarchies of Dionysius the Areopagite. And along the way, although she never loses sight of her focus, Mother Alexandra takes the opportunity to instruct, encourage, exhort, and warn the reader. Do you approach the topic of the angels with doubt? She pithily acknowledges that “[t]oday we take the appearances of angels with a pinch of salt or in total unbelief” (157). She warns us that we “must not build up impenetrable walls of disbelief and earthbound preoccupations” that would prevent the angels from protecting and guiding us (116). Do you hesitate to pray? She reminds us that prayer unites us to the holy angels and is a weapon against Satan.

Only at the very end of the book, in an Epilogue, does Mother Alexandra reveal the possible catalyst for her study: a childhood encounter with angels, vivid and undeniable. By this point, of course, the reader is already convinced of her faith and sincerity. Her book The Holy Angels stands as a corrective to romantic visions of angels on clouds with harps; her very prose is muscular and direct, almost as if by sheer force of style she intends to dispel sentimentality and misconceptions about her topic. Even more impressive, though, is the testimony it provides for the existence of angels in our religious history, our theology, and our worship. As Mother Alexandra recounts her personal encounter with angels as a child, her book bears witness to the reality of angels, their uniqueness, and their significance to our daily spiritual lives.

I bought this for my 7 year old son for Christmas. He and my 10 year old daughter both read it together immediately and loved it. I took a turn and love it as well! Such an inspiring story and the graphic novel format was fun and beautiful as well.

These words come from the very heart of this incredible saint and are so filled with beauty and depth. The prayers are poetic, filled with visual language that communicates in a deeper way than basic prose.

Like a collection of Psalms, they each bring us to contemplate different thingss: some gaze in wonder at the awe of God, others ponder on the ugliness and the beauty that exist humanity.

I firmly believe that listening to the words of this saint who is so close to God will bring me closer, so having this collection to return to whenever I want is a great gift. I have the audiobook version, which is also awesome! The beauty of having them in audio form is they can be with me when I am walking, when I am driving, when I am folding laundry or painting. I would highly recommend this book in any form.

These words come from the very heart of this incredible saint and are so filled with beauty and depth. The prayers are poetic, filled with visual language that communicates in a deeper way than basic prose.

The beauty of having them in audio form is they can be with me when I am walking, when I am driving, when I am folding laundry or painting.

Like a collection of Psalms, they each bring us to contemplate different thingss: some gaze in wonder at the awe of God, others ponder on the ugliness and the beauty that exist humanity.

I firmly believe that listening to the words of this saint who is so close to God will bring me closer, so having this collection to return to whenever I want is a great gift. I would highly recommend this audiobook!

This has definitely improved my prayer life and devotion to the Theotokos as intercessor. It has helped me find the words I needed but didn't have and guided me towards repentance.