This most useful book is the product of a lecture series titled 'sailing to Byzantium: The Sacred Core of a Great Civilization' sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. . . . Each scholar writes with a clarity sufficient for someone new to the subject while raising issues at a level of sophistication and with a range of bibliography (and a useful ... Read moreglossary) that provoke further study for the more engaged reader. Consistent use of primary sources provides a vivid context for the concepts surrounding the works discussed. . . . The particular virtue of this book is the singular priority given to the church and its art as an expression of the Orthodox liturgy conducted within the sanctuary space, the essence of what unifies a vast and important part of the world even after the political apogee of the empire itself. -Elizabeth C. Parker, Church History Show Less