Lessons from a Greek Island: From the "saint of Greek Letters," Alexandros Papadiamandis

Are you interested in discovering what traditional Orthodox life in a native Orthodox culture looks like? This book reveals the traditional spiritual and liturgical life of the Greek island of Skiathos, which the author shows to be an authentic expression of the Orthodox faith. The book is read in Greek both by laymen, entranced by the successful marriage of profound theology and the beautiful world Papadiamandis describes, and by students of theology at the University of Thessalonica, where it is used in the Pastoral Theology class. It includes a Foreword by Hieromonk Alexis (Trader), previously Lecturer in Patristics at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary, and now an Athonite monk. A translator's Introduction follows, which considers the Orthodox understanding of art outside of strictly liturgical bounds.The book also includes two of Papadiamandis's stories, a glossary, map, and more.Who was Alexandros Papadiamantis? He is known in Greece as the "Saint of Greek letters," and was the most important literary figure of nineteenth-century Greece.His stories offer lively, tender, and profound vignettes into the simple lives of the Orthodox faithful on his native island of Skiathos. They also reveal a world of organically lived Orthodoxy, largely lost in the disintegrating order of modern life. A Realist author, Papadiamantis does not portray a romantic, ideal world but rather a profoundly human world of struggle that always has the possibility of transfiguration through life in Christ and His Church.