In this follow-up volume to Big in Heaven, stories of life at St. Alexander the Whirling Dervish parish continue. Gather with the boys at Shooky's Taproom, or hang out in the church hall with the Teuta Ladies Baking Society, and catch up on all the gossip about Father Naum and his friends and parishioners, as their lives unfold in struggles, hope, temptations, faith, and love. You'll come away seeing your own life and those around you with new, more compassionate eyes.

Sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes convicting, these stories of life in an inner-city immigrant Orthodox parish are guaranteed to shake your assumptions and make you see your life and faith in a new way. They are not for the faint of heart, but they are very much for all who want to embrace the truth more fully!

Part history, part theology, part devotional, The Story of Jesus explores the complete life and teachings of our Lord from before his conception in the womb of Mary until his ascension. Revered 20th-century Egyptian elder and scholar Matthew the Poor wrote many volumes on the subject of Christ's significance, life, and teaching, which translator James Helmy has distilled into one book that will make an essential addition to every Christian's audiobook library.

Since the advent of the internet, it has become increasingly obvious that our society suffers from a pornography problem—and Orthodox Christians are no exception. While many practical resources are available to help those who struggle with pornography use, these fail to address the problem at its deeper, spiritual root.

It is often said that the Orthodox Church is a hospital and that our understanding of salvation is therapeutic. Here Met. Kallistos explores what this means in many different ways, and helps us to understand more deeply our relationship with Christ the physician of souls and bodies, who came to save and to heal both us and the world.

It is one of the great mysteries of life that in atmospheres of the harshest cruelty, a certain few not only survive, but emerge as beacons of light and life. Father Arseny, former scholar of church art, became Prisoner No. 18736 in the brutal "special sector" of the Soviet prison camp system.

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.

Are you an Orthodox Christian who wonders how to explain to your Baptist grandmother, your Buddhist neighbor, or the Jehovah’s Witness at your door how your faith differs from theirs? Or are you a member of another faith who is curious what Orthodoxy is all about? Look no further. In Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick covers the gamut of ancient heresies, modern Christian denominations, fringe groups, and major world religions, highlighting the main points of each faith.

Many Christians today divide ancient Jewish and Christian literature into two categories: what is in the Bible and what is not. The Christian East, however, has traditionally described a third category considered beneficial for Christians to listen to in the home: “apocrypha.” These texts, from the centuries before and after the Incarnation of Jesus Christ—beyond even the larger canons of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Old Testaments—reveal to us the religious world and theological framework of the apostles and early Church Fathers.

Though it’s often too subtle to see, much of modern Christianity has fallen prey to the ancient Gnostic heresy which taught that the material world has no lasting spiritual value. Rediscovering the Goodness of Creation diagnoses the problem, takes us through its history, and helps us discover “the purposefulness of the material world, the goodness of the human body, and the eschatological hope of a transformed universe.”

Too often, we as hierarchs, clergy, and lay leaders speak to our people about giving to meet the needs of the church or the needs of the poor, but we forget to teach that the true need for each and every one of us is simply to give.

St. Ignatius, first-century Bishop of Antioch, called the “God-bearer”, is one of the earliest witnesses to the truth of Christ and the nature of the Christian life. Tradition tells us that as a small child, Ignatius was singled out by Jesus himself as an example of the childlike faith all Christians must possess. In Bearing God, Father Andrew Damick recounts the life of this great pastor, martyr, and saint, and interprets for the modern listener five major themes in the pastoral letters he wrote.

All My Knotted-Up Life is a beautifully crafted portrait of resilience and survival, a poignant reminder of God’s enduring faithfulness, and proof positive that if we ever truly took the time to hear people’s full stories . . . we’d all walk around slack-jawed.

In modern parlance, the word "sacrifice" conjures images of suffering, loss, and even martyrdom. But sacrifice, as practiced in the Old Testament and throughout the ancient world, was most often the occasion of joyous celebration—a way of drawing near to God and to the other members of the community. Welcoming Gifts explores the history of sacrifice, the meaning of Christ's sacrifice, and what the concept should mean for Christians today—a way of expressing and cementing our relationship with God.

We call ourselves "sinners"; in much of our church life. Yet the sinner identity - when done right - brings peace of mind, a clear conscience, and love for others. Addressing topics like guilt, shame, and self-care, this compassionate guide will help you reflect on your life in surrender to God's mercy. Written by an internationally recognized professor of Orthodox theology, this audiobook will speak to you wherever you find yourself.

In Brooklyn's unforgiving urban jungle, Maggie Moore is torn between answering her own needs and catering to the desirous men who dominate her life. Confronted by her quarrelsome Irish immigrant father, the feckless lover who may become her husband, and others, Maggie must learn to navigate a cycle of loss, separation, and hope as she forges her own path toward happiness.

When Frankie’s mother died and her father left her and her siblings at an orphanage in Chicago, it was supposed to be only temporary - just long enough for him to get back on his feet and be able to provide for them once again. That’s why Frankie's not prepared for the day that he arrives for his weekend visit with a new woman on his arm and out-of-state train tickets in his pocket. Now, Frankie and her sister, Toni, are abandoned alongside so many other orphans - two young, unwanted women doing everything they can to survive.

Agatha has lived every day of the last seven years with her sisters: They work together, laugh together, pray together. Their world is contained within the little house they share. The four of them are devoted to Mother Roberta and to their quiet, purposeful life. But when the parish goes broke, the sisters are forced to move. They land in Woonsocket, a former mill town now dotted with wind turbines.

Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.

It is 1968 in rural Australia and lonely Tom Hope can't make heads or tails of Hannah Babel. Newly arrived from Hungary, Hannah is unlike anyone he's ever met - she's passionate, artistic, and fiercely determined to open sleepy Hometown's first bookshop. Despite the fact that Tom has only read only one book in his life, the two soon discover an astonishing spark. Recently abandoned by an unfaithful wife - and still missing her sweet son, Peter - Tom dares to believe that he might make Hannah happy.

Drought has settled on the town of Peaches, California. The area of the Central Valley where fourteen-year-old Lacey May and her alcoholic mother live was once an agricultural paradise. Now it's an environmental disaster, a place of cracked earth and barren raisin farms. In their desperation, residents have turned to a cult leader named Pastor Vern for guidance. He promises, through secret "assignments," to bring the rain everybody is praying for.

Tomorrow Will Be Better tells the story of Margy Shannon, a shy but joyfully optimistic young woman just out of school who lives with her parents and witnesses how a lifetime of hard work, poverty, and pain has worn them down. Her mother's resentment toward being a housewife and her father's inability to express his emotions result in a tense home life where Margy has no voice. Unable to speak up against her overbearing mother, Margy takes refuge in her dreams of a better life.

Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, full-time drunk, has hit bottom. Years ago he left Albany in a hurry after killing a scab during a trolley workers' strike; he ran away again after accidentally – and fatally – dropping his infant son. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and the present.

Meet the Godmothers: Filomena is a clever and resourceful war refugee with a childhood secret, who comes to America to wed Mario, the family's favored son. Amie, a beautiful and dreamy French girl from upstate New York, escapes an abusive husband after falling in love with Johnny, the oldest of the brothers. Lucy, a tough-as-nails Irish nurse, ran away from a strict girls' home and marries Frankie, the sensuous middle son. And the glamorous Petrina, the family's only daughter, graduates with honors from Barnard College despite a past trauma that nearly caused a family scandal.

Abrán González always knew he was different. Called a coyote because of his fair skin, the kid from Barelas found escape through boxing and became one of the youngest Golden Gloves champs. But the arrival of a letter from a dying woman turns his entire life into a lie. The revelation that he was adopted makes him feel like an orphan and sends him on a quest to find his birth father.

Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, is drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth. Soon Bibike and Ariyike's father wagers the family home on a sure bet that evaporates like smoke.

For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents - moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and her sister, Tina, must come of age side by side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them.

Three people find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of belonging in this deeply moving novel. Arthur, an old widower struggling to overcome his grief, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who avoids school by hiding out where Arthur goes every day for lunch. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation.

Inside a century-old row house in Brooklyn, renegade Sister Evelyn and her fellow nuns preside over a safe haven for the abused and abandoned. Gruff and indomitable on the surface, warm and wry underneath, little daunts Evelyn, until she receives word that Mercy House will be investigated by Bishop Hawkins, a man with whom she shares a dark history. In order to protect everything they’ve built, the nuns must conceal many of their methods, which are forbidden by the Catholic Church.

Sydney Henderson is a truly great man. As a young man, Sydney, believing he has accidentally killed a friend, makes a pact with God, promising never to harm another if the boy's life is spared. In the years that follow, the almost pathologically gentle Sydney holds true to his promise - at terrible cost to himself and his family. Stunningly beautiful and haunting, scenes from this magisterial novel will remain etched in the mind forever.