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Increasing Product Range
Our
mission at Orthodox Christian Books is to increase awareness of Orthodoxy
through literature, music, recorded teaching, icons and other resources. A
significant milestone for us was our appointment in 2002 as the European and
Commonwealth distributors for St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, New York and as
European distributors for the most popular mounted icon prints produced by
Orthodox Byzantine Icons.
In 2004
we added further to our product range by signing a contract with “Liturgica”
for the distribution of hard to find Orthodox liturgical music recordings.
Artists include “Capella Romana” and Fr. Apostolos Hill. In 2005 we have
increased our offering of liturgical music even further including recordings
of Byzantine Chant from the Theological Institute of St. John of Damascus in
Balamand, Lebanon.
At
the beginning of 2005 we were able to extend our supply of high quality
mounted icons prints from Orthodox Byzantine Icons to offer their full range
of over seven hundred different icons in varying sizes.
Publishing
At
the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2003, we were offered the possibility of
being the co-publisher of the English language edition of “A History of Icon
Painting.” This project came to fruition this spring and the book was
published at the end of April 2005. The text of the book is outstanding and
sumptuously illustrated with over 500 full colour prints. We are pleased to
report that the book has been selling extremely well both in the U.K. and
beyond.
Exhibitions and Conferences
In
December 2004 we were for the first time able to attend the annual book
exhibition held in conjunction with the Feast of St. John of Damascus at the
Theological School dedicated to this great saint, at Balamand in northern
Lebanon. The exhibition is visited not only by faculty and students of the
Theological School and adjacent university but also many other believers
from throughout Lebanon and Syria. It was a great joy to meet with them and
share our experiences of Church life.
At
the beginning of February 2005 we had a stand at the Belfast Christian
Resource Exhibition. Fr. Irenaeus Du Plessis and parishioners from the
Orthodox Church of St. Ignatius of
Antioch, Belfast, assisted us in running the stand. Northern Ireland is very much a world apart as regards Christianity. Strong
Catholic and Protestant identities still exist and regular church going is
still much more part of the culture than in mainland Britain. Orthodoxy is
still little known and of course straddles the existing divides. All of this
made for many interesting conversations!
Other exhibitions in 2005 to date have included tables at a Conference on
the “Arts of the Holy Mountain” at Madingley Hall, Cambridge in March and
the Byzantine Symposium, Queens University, Belfast in April.
In
May, as we have done for the past five years we had a stand at the
National Christian Resources
Exhibition, Esher, Surrey. This always provides an opportunity to renew
contacts with existing customers, meet new ones and to introduce Orthodoxy
to other Christians from a wide variety of backgrounds. For many this is
often their first opportunity to ask a question about something they made
have seen or experienced on a visit to Greece, Russia etc.
Orthodox Christian Books has also provided book tables at conferences this
year of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sourozh, The Friends of Mt. Athos
and the Orthodox Fellowship of St. John the Baptist.
Forthcoming Events
2005/2006
August 15-19, 2005
– Table at annual conference of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius
August 30-31, 2005
– Table at the Orthodox Theological Forum, Cuddesdon, Oxford
February 8 -10, 2006
– Midlands Christian Resource Exhibition, Stoneleigh Park, Coventry
(Attendance to be confirmed)
May 9 –12, 2006 –
Stand at National Christian Resources Exhibition, Esher, Surrey (Web link)
August 21-25, 2006
– International Conference of Byzantine Studies, London (Attendance to be
confirmed) |
