Big in Heaven: A Collection of Short Stories - Christian Life - Book
by Stephen Siniari
Paperback: 256 pages
"[These] stories begin to paint a new kind of Icon, that of a truly American Orthodox Christian, of regular people simply trying to be or tragically rejecting being regular human beings, the kind of people perhaps never even imagined by most American readers. . . . The stories break the mold of what a religious or non-religious story ought to be. They are not moralistic, nor are they irreverent in their honest portrayal of the realities of life in the Church. Rather they are just good, honest stories, and in being this they are sacramental, conveying and holding together elements of life that are seemingly disparate." (from the Foreword)
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. (Fiction for adults.)
About the Author: Father Stephen N. Siniari is a priest of the OCA Diocese of the South. During almost forty years in ministry, Fr. Stephen served parishes in New England and the Philadelphia/South Jersey area while working full time for an international agency as a street outreach worker, serving homeless, at-risk, and trafficked teens. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Fr. Stephen currently lives on the Florida Gulf Coast with Margot, his wife of more than forty years.
Praise for Big in Heaven
"These stories combine the spiritual and existential depth of Dostoevsky with the sense for local color of an urban Faulkner and the wry humor of an Albanian Mark Twain. Fr Stephen is an American original!" -Prof. Bruce Foltz, Eckerd College
"Father Stephen's stories offer a unique Orthodox Christian vision of American life and a uniquely American view of Orthodox Christianity. Both are deeply needed in our culture today. They describe redemptive experiences mysteriously happening in the middle of a twentieth century American city for all who wish to read with an open mind and heart." -V. Rev. David R. Fox, Ph.D., Rector, Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, Randolph, NJ